4/11/14

This one is way late, it couldn't be helped. 

The ladies and I had a couple of sets at the Carousel Lounge. I haven't played this place in years. I've always liked it, but it's a little hard to get a crowd in there. The location could be partially to blame, or the lack of liquor but most likely it's the lack of a given bands draw. 

Anyway we had a really nice crowd of folks and their sole purpose of the night was to see us and have fun. That's pretty much guarantees a good show. 

Draya and I set up on the side where the women have to walk by when they go to the bathroom (!) that's by design. Occasionally it's fun to stop them on the way in or out. You have that power when you play guitar and have a microphone. At least for a couple of seconds. 

We finished up and the crowd took off. There were three other bands on the bill after us. I felt kinda bad cause suddenly there were eight people in the place and the bartender was telling them they were too loud. That was us not too long ago. 

4/5/14

I made the drive to the Triple Crown and got there right before we were gonna play. There was some lineup juggling going on and at one point we were third, but in reality we were second (and I sadly can't remember who was first...) We got up and Hickoided the hell out of it for about forty five minutes. Nice set. There weren't as many people there as last month, but they were drunk and happy and therefore they loved us.

Gringos were next. The set was a whole lot better getting to hear everything and I think they played better than the night before because of it. Also there were no "surprise instrumentals", a huge plus.

The Beaumonts were last. I wasn't gonna stick around for the set, but I did anyway. That's the second time in a row I was gonna ditch their set and I didn't, I'm hardcore. Well, in reality there was too much love in the room to go. I'm really happy I stayed, they played three new songs!!! It was a beautiful, baby Jesus kinda miracle. I don't think they've changed the set much in the last two or three years so this was a really cool surprise. I think they did it all for me...

Fortunately there were no asshole-egomaniacs on the bill. Everyone was happy to be there and ready to play. You know, like they are supposed too. It also looks like the Crown might have a small reprieve on the building. Apparently there is a lot of opposition to condos being built that close to the river. Let's hope that fight goes to regular people and the condo building folks lose their asses.

I can dream.

4/4/14

Hickoids played at Giddy Ups last night. There is a classic car festival in town this weekend (there is crap going on EVERY weekend in Austin) so the field behind the club was packed with really cool looking cars... and the cars from the bands... Bands don't have really cool looking cars. They are either vans or hand-me-downs with over a hundred thousand miles on them. I have the latter.

We are playing two shows with the Loco Gringos this weekend. They were gonna play right before us on this one, but the opener was stuck in traffic so the Gringos went first. The sound was terrible. The wind was blowing more than 20 miles an hour and that alone was making the mics howl. Early on the soundguy had overheads on the drums... Howl. All the amps had mics on them and were way too loud, the bass rig was direct and it was too loud, the toms on the drum kit were louder than the kick or snare and the PA speakers were designed for an indoor space that was about 20% the size of the area they needed to cover...

The worst part is that since everything was turned up so loud the vocals were completely buried. I heard a couple of Gringos tunes that were suddenly "instrumentals", sad.

They finish up and the next act was the worst carbon copy of a hillbilly rocker I've ever seen. I'm not even gonna mention his name, but what a bunch of shit. He was going for that Hank III, Wayne Hancock vibe that is still popular amongst the folks that like to play dress up, but he had none of those guys skills. His band was lame. He made his lead guitar player set up his guitar before he set up his own (what a dick) and he spent most of the set bitching about how awful the sound was...

He wouldn't let up about the soundman. Even after he was finished he was trying to bitch to us about how bad it sounded. I get it, the sound sucked. But bitching about it the entire set (and after) ain't gonna fix it. Move on and play.

He was trying to be our best pal in between the sets, saying things like "That's how it is on the road" and "Just another night of rock and roll". DEAR JESUS LORD THAT I DON'T BELIEVE IN, WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a fake little ego maniac of a hack. Pitiful, just pitiful. (I could go on for an hour about this jackass, but I've already wasted too much of my energy on him.)

Anyway, we went up and did our thing. The sound sucked but we knew that going in. We had a pretty good set and the crowd was really in to it. It was cold as hell out (well, for a thin blooded Austinite, it was windy and in the low 60's) so I kept the jacket and tie on the whole set. That's a first. Smitty tried to get some women up in the front to take off their tops and the only person that got to do it was a guy in a wheelchair.

That's what you get when your a Hickoid.

Dale Watson finished things up. Incredible as always. His band it tight as hell and all of them are solid bad asses. And they didn't bitch about the sound once.

More with the Gringos tomorrow.

Studio and Euro updates

I went back to Million Dollar Sound to knock out the vocals with Kurtis last night. Almost got everything done in one take which is a very good feeling. Kurtis said I must have been ready to nail it for a while, I don't know if I'm that impressive, but he is that kind.

We still need to proof it all before we get in to mixing it, but it's sounding really good at this point and I can't wait to hear what happens with it next. The ladies whip ass.

In other news I am not joining my fellow Hickoids for the European tour this summer. I know I said I was going for part of it, but when you compare the price of flights with the current state of the Hickoid band fund, it isn't worth it to fly someone out half way to replace me. That could literally be the difference between losing and making money. My ego isn't so big it's going to put the band in to bankruptcy. So I will "take the hit" and stay home for one tour.

I'm gonna miss not going. I understand they are headed to Italy and France, two places I haven't been yet and apparently a couple of the Italian clubs are primo. I'll miss the hell out of that (and all the pretty Italian chicks...). They are playing the Sonic Ballroom in Klon. I played there once on a South Filthy tour and what a craphole! The folks that work there are very kind, they feed you and there is a dorm upstairs so everything is taken care of, but it was the only place on the tour I didn't shower after the show. It felt better being dirty than hopping in that nasty shower.

I'm not gonna miss that at all.

3/28/14

It was the thirtieth anniversary of the Hickoids first show so we played a little set at the Lost Well. After all the SXSW, HOF crap we decided to not go over the top with hype, it was a simple night for some good, old fashioned cow punk. No more getting our backs slapped and no more public handjobs from people who only like us because, for the moment, we have a little bit of traction. This show was for rock and roll!

The place was loaded in more ways than one. There were four bands on the bill and I showed up when the second one was finishing. The Bulemics went on to rock the house and by the time we got up the stage was a beery mess. It was expected...

Somewhere during the second song it smelled like an amp was on fire. There was that "electronics gone bad" smell in the air and it stayed for most of the set, but there was no visible fire and the amps worked for the rest of the night. It gave the set this underlying feeling that everything was about to go wrong in about sixty seconds. Granted most Hickoid shows have that feel, but there was this extra element of mayhem/danger in the air with the possibility of fire or an exploding amp.

Speaking of mayhem there was this girl who kept getting up on stage and she was either standing there and staring at Smitty or Tom or she was rolling around on the floor (in all the beer) with a couple of other people. At some point there was a five person pile up on the stage and I jumped in and rubbed my ass all over everyone and I never lost the beat! It felt really good and made a bunch of folks laugh and that's pretty much why I do anything.

3/21/14

Hickoids got added to a last minute bill at Stubbs. We were playing inside on the small stage right after Flogging Molly finished outside on the big stage. They had a sold out show and a couple thousand people going nuts, jumping around and fist pumping all over the place. We played to about fifty folks and Smitty told them that fist pumping was not allowed. They complied so we rocked them.

Our set was very short. "Molly" went a little long and the sound guy cut our set after about a half hour so the next band could get up. Black Irish Texas was next, but they were missing a fiddle player and they wouldn't go on without him. So there it was 12:45 AM, the big show is long over, the recently inducted hall of fame band is done... and there is about forty minutes of dead air... the week after sxsw... and nobody wants to wait to see another band...

ouch

SXSW Wrap Up

Here it is, the big wrap up. As always it was a clusterfuck of a weekend. I had a lot of fun running myself in to the ground and I saw some pretty cool bands, but the festival is just too big for Austin. It's been that way for the past ten(ish) years and it's just continued to multiply. If you've read any of the post-festival fallout (examples here and here) you've probably noticed a trend towards the negative, there are some very good reasons for that. Austin and SXSW are changing and it may not be for the better.

It's not easy to see the changes when your living here, they can be too small and/or subtle. It's like plastic surgery. At the beginning you may notice one or two small changes here or there then suddenly one day you look up and you can't recognize Joan Rivers anymore and it scares the hell out of you. She may have the same personality but something isn't right... That's what Austin is like right now. I still love her and I don't want to move, but the grievances are stacking up. I know I'm gonna sound like a pissed off old man by writing the next few paragraphs, but they are accurate and my grievances need to be aired.

Read this first http://i.imgur.com/KRWNNiR.jpg

Imagine that in the "land of the free". The city is forcing a business owner to dedicate one of it's parking spaces (on private land) to another businesses vehicle. It isn't even an Austin (or US) based company, they are from Germany. I like the Germans a lot, but they should not be able to force another business to store their cars and prevent an actual customer from using a parking space and the city shouldn't be writing policies for it to happen in the first place.  The Car 2 Go folks have also taken a number of the regular downtown street parking spaces and converted them into Car 2 Go only spaces (as in if I park my truck in one I will get towed.) If you drive a Car 2 Go you can park in any of the regular spaces and not have to pay for it... So one Car 2 Go can prevent two regular cars from parking. Are you pulling your hair out yet?

Last year I pad $20 to park, all night,  downtown a week and a half before the music fest. It was a total ripoff, but I justified it because it was very close to where I was playing and I was getting paid. This year I saw signs that were offering $35 parking for three hours. When did this become Manhattan? I parked on the street in San Fransisco for three hours for less than five bucks just a couple of years ago. The last time I checked there are a lot more people in a lot less space in SF and NYC then there are in Austin, why are we paying this much for parking?

We have the metro rail. It was screwed up as a concept when I moved to town twenty two years ago, now it's a screwed up reality. This is a two parter.

#1

They never bought the proper sensors for the trains. They are loaded with the gear that is meant for freight trains. The sensor is different because a freight train travels long distance at a fast speed, so people at an intersection a half mile away will be stopped from crossing the track when a freight is barreling down. This makes sense. Metro Rail trains don't travel at freight train speeds. They also stop at multiple stations along the track, so they need a different kind of sensor. Currently when a metro rail train is stopped at a station you are not allowed to cross the tracks anywhere near it.

On my daily (bike) commute to work I cross Guadalupe at Airport four times a day. This intersection has two stations about a quarter of a mile on either side of it (this is also pretty stupid, it's miles in between the stations on either side of those.) If there is a train at either station I am not allowed to cross the tracks. There have been days where I have literately spent a total of twenty extra minutes out in the sun waiting on the metro rail to leave it's station and go past. It sucks in February, it is misery in August.

#2

But part of me was ok with it. Since I live near two stations I would head downtown on Mondays and get my mail from the PO box and get a little lunch and head home. It was nice and it was $2 a person to do the round trip. That's all changed. Now it's $5.50. There is no longer any "local" service. If you come in from the Lakeline Mall stop (the northern, end of the line) it's $5.50 for the round trip. If your headed all the way downtown, you will save a lot of money on the 30-40 mile round trip and you won't have to pay for parking or screw around with traffic, it's a great deal when you factor in everything. But when you get on in my neighborhood and your charged $5.50 for the ten mile round trip that was $2 a month and a half ago it can piss you off.

The train is no longer meant for local use. It's only purpose is to move people who don't live in Travis County, or pay taxes in Travis County to and from their Travis County jobs. Sure there is a little less congestion on the roads and that's a good thing, but it does very little for the people who actually live AND work in Travis County. It just makes it harder for the "locals" to get around.  Why are we making it easier for people to use the services of Austin when they don't pay the taxes that fund them?

I am not even gonna get in to the toll road fiasco... it is awful and depressing on a whole different level.

So how do I feel about this year's SXSW? I liked getting to see a few new bands, but I didn't really take advantage of anything. If I wasn't playing I wasn't gonna be in the middle of it. Especially since there was no easy way in or out of downtown (or parking when you got there.) It was too easy to say fuck it and just stay home. So that's what I did.

Hickoids getting in to the Hall Of Fame was pretty cool, but it wasn't that special and we had to pay for booze and food. Sure they had us stand for pictures in front of a banner covered with booze and food manufactures names and now my picture can be used for advertising, but we couldn't get any of those products for free... I would have had more fun if I stayed back at the White Horse watched some music.

One of the stupidest things I saw had to be the SX Subway thing that was set up right next to the convention center. It was a little, fenced in "village" with banners all over the place.  I'm guessing that since there was all the bad press over having rubber in their bread they spent some cash trying to make Subway "hip" and "friendly" again... Pitiful. Don't forget that SXSW let Subway coop part of the name so they got paid and allowed to allow it to happen. Pitiful times two.

So all of this bitching is coming from someone who still loves Austin. I have no desire to move and I have no idea where I'd move to if I did. I am also an optimist (believe it or not). No matter how many times my nose is rubbed in to the figurative shit that is humanity, I still want to believe things will turn around for the better. I'm hoping my grievances are just Austin's (and SXSW's) growing pains and that things WILL improve in the future. Let's just hope that we as a city can grow up enough to fix some of this before our souls are gone.