A short recording session

We went in to the studio to knock out a quick track for an upcoming compilation of protest songs. We chose "Kill For Peace" from the Fugs. It's a real simple song with a boneheaded easy chorus that repeats over and over.  We dumbed it down a little more by making the intro and middle section the same. Even idiots like us couldn't screw it up at this point.

Curtis from Million Dollar Sound was the engineer, but we did it in this rehearsal place down south called Space. We got our levels and ran through a pretty good version and went in to the control room and decided it needed a little more of the "Louie Louie" feel. So we dumb it down one more time and it's dead on.

We knock out the "village style" backing vocals and some guitar solos and we are finished with it all in forty five minutes. That's how the pros do it.

Working with Kurtis again got me thinking I need to get the Ladies in at his studio. Soon!

11/8/13

Hickoids at the Triple Crown. I made the drive in 32 minutes! And I wasn't really speeding (much)... I load in and Pure Luck is setting up. They have a Drum Kit, Bass rig with 4 10"s , Orange amp with two 12"s, two Peavy's with 2 12"s each and Cody sets up a Fender pro Junior with 15 screaming watts of power through a 10" speaker. Luckily the sound guy (an out of costume Steve Vegas) knows what he is doing and everything sounded great. Rockin set!!

At some point someone popped a string and Smitty got his out to loan. The dude was playing a solo on it and it came to me that he was touching virgin territory on that guitar. A joke I beat to death by the end of the night...

We went on and had a good set. Not great, but we were fine. I only used one cabinet and it felt a little lean to me. "Steve Vegas" had it sounding good, but I've gotten use to having both cabs.

Mr Lewis and his Funeral Five were last. Good stuff. To over simplify them I'd say they sound like Tom Waits with a clean voice. For a few of the tunes they had a guy playing percussion with the drummer, getting closer to the double thing I love so much. 

The world needs more drums.

10/31/13

Let's talk about a bill payin show.

Bigfoot got asked to play at a Karate school on Halloween. No one had anything else going on so we were all happy to make a little money.

When I got there there a Jazz combo was playing. They were top level musicians who were obviously bored out of their minds playing uninspired standards by request. It would seem like a waste of talent, but I bet everyone of them liked getting paid for a show that was over early enough to play again later.

We were next and played fine. Nothing too exciting. We were fairly quiet and everything seemed to be a little fast. Kinda off for a Bigfoot show.

After us was this really sexy songwriter who was falling out of her extremely low cut dress. DAMN! We all noticed her when she came in to the room. Turns out T-Bone Burnett produced a recoded for her... And now she is playing after Bigfoot Chester at a Karate school on Halloween.. Bill Payin Show!

 When we finished Walter gave me some cash and told me about this. In many ways it was a very successful night!

Shows for a year

Walter just told me about a South Filthy show in October 2014.

That's right I'm currently booked out a year in advance!!

10/19/13

HIcks and the Beaumonts at Riley's. When you make the drive down to Hunter TX you turn right by the "Zone de Erotic" on I-35 to get there. It's about the mid point between Austin and SA. Nice and easy.

We loaded up and played our "country" set. It's not a big arty city's rock and roll club. It's a roadhouse out in the sticks. Leave the punk rock for the next show. We played ok and had a few high points and then we started "Truck".

Smitty picked up five $2 cowboy hats and five pairs of $1 sunglasses at a Halloween store and in the breakdown we put them on and became the Beaumonts! It was glorious. Smitty was waving his hands around and singing just like Troy Wayne. He had all of the Beaumonts were laughing their asses off. Probably the funniest thing I've ever seen on stage.

It's pretty hard to top that so we wrapped it up and the Lads from central Lubbock took over. They'd whipped about half way through their set when I decided to head for home.

Smitty told me they played "Drinkin" and Troy Wayne took his shirt off on the last song like they were Hickoids. I'm not sure If I believe him, but I figured I'd better put it in this post anyway. If it happened I missed some serious gold. If not I hope it happens soon!

10/12/13

ACL Week Two Day Two

It was the last night of ACL, the corn will be scarce until next year. We all played at the White Horse under the threat of the sky opening up and dumping buckets on us. It had been trying to do it all day, but there was nothing other than light rain so far.

First up was Rosie Flores. HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love her. I'd never seen her before, but I knew I'd be in to it, I just didn't realize how much! She is a total bad ass with her Bigsby whammy bar on her old as dirt Telecaster. She can play all of that surf stuff that looks (and sounds) really easy, until you actually try to play it. She can sing her ass off and I think she wrote at least 80% of her set. She was backed by an upright and a drummer who were tight as shit and complemented her style perfectly. They even started the set with an instrumental!

This was my favorite show of the whole festival.

Some point near the end she popped the high E string. She made a couple of jokes about sticking with the five string while she re-tuned and then she did a few more! Talk about rolling with the punches, I'd be 70% fucked without all six on my guitar.

Churchwood were up. They really whipped things in to a frenzy (as usual/expected).

We were next and had a good but short set and the Beaumonts were after.

They started in on their first tune and I decided to run my gear out to the car... right when it started raining... HARD! It's dumping rain and my phone is screaming at me that there is a flash flood warning for... NOW! But I'm already outside and not that far from the truck so I go for it.

I'm about to take a left down the sidewalk when I see it's a pothole with two feet of water in it. Since I'm trying to think fast and attempting to stay as dry as possible I head straight across the street. Comal is a river and I step in past my ankle... and then my other foot goes in... It's too late, my shoes are filled with water and my socks are completely drenched.

By the time I made it to the truck all of my gear was wet and I was soaked to the skin. I was finished for the night. ACL was officially over for me and the Beaumonts were probably on their second song...

10/11/13

ACL Week Two Day One

Big night at the Hole in the Wall. I showed up right when Two Hoots and a Holler were going on (I missed the first band) and the place was already crowded. They have a fiddle! I'd never seen them with anything other than the classic two guitar, bass and drums (sometimes one guitar). Nice set, Ricky can still whip it.

Purple Stickpin were next. Dan is not playing guitar with them anymore, sad but they replaced him with TWO other guitars! (Jones is one of them) They were HUGE! Loads of sweet guitary goodness swirling around over Tex's growling.

At this point the Hole was one in, one out. They were at total capacity. The AC was doing nothing in the back and you could barely feel it up front. Too may bodies for a thirty year old AC to keep up with. Most everyone was there for the Old 97's. They were in Austin recording this week and jumped on the bill as the big act. The crowd was PACKED in the back room. It was actually a little on the spacious side up front while they were playing, but completely impossible to stand in the back. Unless you like sardine life or the Japanese subway.

They finish their big rock and roll set and the Hickoids were up. About a third of the crowd took off and the people who were left were primed and ready to party. Lots of drunk and happy all over the place. We punched through Hickoid hits old and new. As usual I took my jacket and tie off after the first song and before I even got a chance to get sweaty on my own someone threw a beer at me. I was soaked and by the end of the set I smelled like warm, flat beer and sweat. I couldn't keep the chicks off me...

In and Outlaws finished things off. What a great band. I'm liking them more and more every time we play with them. The upright and the accordion blend together in an amazing way. Some really interesting and cool sounds played by some serious bad asses. Yeah.

They finished up and it was 2 so the lights came on and we all headed home.

White Horse tomorrow.