9/23/12

Bigfoot Chester at Million Dollar Sound.

I don't know who came up with the idea, but when I was asked about it I said "Hell YEA!" immediately. This was Bigfoot Chester with Ted Roddy singing and playing Harp. We did two of the Howlin Wolf tunes we've played before at the Wolf birthday party (we did those songs with Ted then) and we hit one that was a harmonica "duel". Two harps and a twelve bar in E, GO!

The first song Walter didn't even play on it. He just let Ted do his thing (so cool). I almost screwed up one of the endings in a big way when Ted was blowing some bad assed harp. I'll admit I'm easily excitable, but that solo on the way out of "You'll Be Mine" was pretty amazing. Walter came in to the tracking room to blow some sax on the second number and, of course, harmonica on the duel at the end. I can't wait to hear it.

This is the fourth or fifth location of Million Dollar Sound I've recorded in. As usual Kurtis has his shit together and his gear dialed in. Things were sounding really good and he is SO easy to work with. He got everything set up and three songs (five takes) with minimal overdubs done in under three hours. Thanks Kurtis!

A very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The happiest place in the world

For a deaf cat...

It's official, we are opening ACL!*‏

It's just been announced, Rice Moorehead and his Ladies will be the opening act at this years ACL!

We kick things off at Hotel Vegas, 1500 East 6th st, Thursday, October 11, 9PM. **

Mark your calendars now, we will rip this one up!***



* Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta, don't confuse it with the other ACL that happens at the same time.

** All times/dates/venues subject to change. Refer to Smitty corp public relations manual page 114, section two paragraph 1 for more information.

*** This will be a figurative "rip up". We would like to play Hotel Vegas some other time in the future and if we literally rip things they may not have us back.

8/31/12

And another one bites the dust...

Last night the Hickoids were the final band to play at the Scoot Inn. Today they are closed, sad. I liked the place and played there often. This is the current state of Austins "progress".

There was some band playing outside when I got there and the place was packed. Loads of good looking women, way more than your average Hickoids show so I knew something was fishy. They came for the outside band and most of them left when they stopped. El Pathos ran out the remaining stragglers so by the time we started so it was just a room of Hickoid fans. Let the party begin!

Our set was pretty wild. Roger was there and he showed great restraint by only getting up to sing on two songs and at no point did he fuck with Davy (which is actually a shame). It was Davy's birthday and there were a million old man jokes flung around. There was enough sweet cruelty to bring a tear to your eye. Jonnie Hell is back from the dead. He showed up and sat in on the Fruit Fly. It was a pleasure to play with him again. It was a mini time machine. The way I play my parts with Lance is a little different than the way I played them with Jonnie, so when I started the song it began in "Lance" style but quickly shifted to "Jonnie" style. A strange music geek thing and I'm sure I was the only one that noticed...

Breakdown

I got a ton of drink tickets at the beginning of the night AND I had several drinks handed to me by various, kind people. !
Most of my beers that made it to the stage were spilled by Hickoid stupidity and/or Rodger... oh rodger... It's OK, I really didn't need any more at that point.

The Scoot is gone. It's going to be replaced by a bar with no music.

And another one gone and another one gone...

My new gig

I'm on a little holiday in Las Vegas and I was called up on stage at the Penn & Teller show to assist with a trick.

According to Penn I did a great job, so I guess I'm adding "magicians assistant" to the resume.

8/18/12

I'm late with this one...

Hickoids at Rudyard's in Houston with the Poor Dumb Bastards and El Pathos. All the gear goes up and then back down the stairs. I counted 21 of them. Thankfully I was using the Bastards bass rig! I guess it's better than playing out in San Fransisco where it would be gear up and down stairs every day of the week.

Saturday wasn't quite as wild with drunken stupidity as Friday, but it was a hell of a good time. Hickoids played the middle slot and we really got the crowd worked up. Davy did NOT try to kill anyone with his guitar this time. There was no need...

At some point Smitty asked it he was using the same microphone as Byron, then he stuck it down the front AND the back of his pants and rubbed in the Smitty stank real good. Byron, you are welcome.

Breakdown

You only get one free beer, lame, but folks were kind to me. I ended up sleeping most of the way home.

8/18/12

Hickoids at the White Horse. This is the second time I've played here and I like it even more than the first. It's the kind of place where they want everyone to have a good time so they can have a good time. You know, like it's a really good bar.

The Poor Dumb Bastards opened up for us and we are gonna open for them tomorrow at Rudyard's in Houston. I haven't see that bunch of fools since last years ACL. It was good to hear classics like "cum drunk" again. Byron didn't do a duct tape mask this time, I'm guessing it's ruining his looks or something...

The Hickoids set was something else. Loads of drunken stupidity. Early on David Nobody got up and sang part of a chorus on the mic. Then three other Hickoid fan/idiots wanted in on the action and they kept jumping up on stage again and again. It was like some lady told a bunch of fifth graders they could touch her boobs. These boys couldn't stop or help themselves.

So the set goes on and the crowd is getting tighter and drunker and we are playing really good and sounding powerful. Smitty is whipping the crowd up in to a frenzy. These four boys start turning my mic around to sing a chorus on one song and I grab it and swing it back, it's my part boys, I can do it. I sing my little part and I guess they thought they shouldn't use my mic or something, so they turned their attention to Davy. Rodger in particular.

Rodger is standing right on the stage about a foot away from Davy when he is singing. He is so drunk he keeps leaning in (he really couldn't help himself, you could see it in his eyes he NEEDED to sing). Davy is getting pissed. Near the end of the tune Davy starts swinging his guitar at Rodger and "stabbing" him with the headstock. Rodger is not getting it. The song ends and Jones starts berating him over the PA! "You don't even play guitar, motherfucker!" and so on for a couple of minutes. It was beautiful.

The best part was after that settled down there was this strangely awkward and anticipatory feeling in the room. Everyone was standing around waiting to see what else would happen. So the next tune comes and Rodger and some other dude (I have no idea what his name is, but he wasn't the guy who took off his shirt after the second song and walked around for a half hour after the show looking for it!) fall on the stage in some kind of bear hug and knock down all but two of the twenty beers sitting around. Smitty jumps on top of them and starts riding them to the end of the song. It was fucking hilarious. We played three or four more and called it a night, ending a pretty amazing set.

Breakdown

We got free beer/booze and we got paid. Hey White Horse, can we play again next week?