2/4/22

 

Hicks were out at the Gray Horse in San Marcos last Friday night. It’s a pretty cool joint in a strip mall just outside of town on the way to Wimberly. I would have missed it if the lady in my phone hadn’t told be to turn in the parking lot. 

We went up after the Bulemics who i hadn’t seen in… forever? They were so fucking good!!  When they went up I was getting crabby because they started late. But once they were going I was all “Holy Shit!! They are rocking this shit!”   THEN they ended after thirty minutes (oh, they didn’t start late at all…). 

I’m easy to get crabby but hard to impress musically. This was a definite win here. 

Then we went up and had a decent one. Harvey wasn’t  with us and we were missing some of our sound but we kept it going and played until 80% of the crowd left…

It’s what we do. 

1/21/21

 

Catching up here with the second lost show…

Went on with Harvey at Low country down in SA. We were missing Andrea on this cold as hell Friday night. But we ended up having a real nice low key set with just  the four of us. 

It was pretty sweet. I was playing right by the door so I “greeted” everyone as they came in. The room packed out at 10 folks watching us play. And gear, not a huge space, but its the perfect size to really feel the love. 

This was a semi release party for the new ep. Three tunes we recorded with the Austin version of the band about a year ago. It’s pretty good sounding little record. And Harvey got someone to make an animated loop to go along with the instrumental “Man Eating Chicken”. 

Pretty cool shit!

12/31/21

 The Hickoids were at the Sagebrush for New Year’s Eve. We went on after the Beaumonts and another band…. I got there when the Beaumonts have three left so I missed most of the night. 

I am not a fan of New Years or any “party” holiday, I tried to avoid as much as I could. Also we lost our  our buddy Klaus the day before so I was in an absolute funk before I got there. 

By the time we got up I was feeling better and happy for the distraction. I ended up getting pretty drunk and that helped even if it was temporary. 

Klaus!

11/13/21

This was month and a half ago… sad sad.  

Oh yeah! The day after that Hicks show I drove down to SA again to play with Harvey. It was at a bike shop that’s a few blocks away from the Brick. 

This crazy ass town… most of this area has been built around the “Brick complex”. Loads of new and boring mixed use developments and their parking garages. But over by this bike shop it’s a bunch of empty industrial buildings. And this crazy bike shop. 

Apparently they do this every month, a show up on the roof with a half dozen bands carrying gear up some rickety ass stairs. DANGER!!

The roof was all covered in gravel and they had a couple of carpets down for us to stand on. I took full advantage of my longest cord and walked around a bunch while we were on. It was awesome. 

The walk down those rickety ass stairs with both of my cabinets was a little rough but I got all my shit in to my car without breaking anything including myself. Solid. 

11/12/21

 Just got home from a pretty great night at the Lighthouse in San Antonio. Hicks finally got to play here, thanks to the pandemic we’d been postponed a number of times. FINALLY!!

We went on after Shandon Sahm! Hell yeah! It had been a few years since I’d seen him. He moved to Amsterdam a while back and he isn’t really coming this way that often. AND WHO COULD FUCKING BLAME HIM!!!  HE LIVES IN AMSTERDAM!!!!

Anyway, his combo had been playing for about a month and they were nearing the end of their run with two shows left, so they were tight as hell. He even had a couple of Beaumont’s up there with him!! Happy happy. 

Our set was solid. It took a little while to get going but we got to full on out of control locomotive in no time. I’d never seen that many folks in the Lighthouse before. They got right up on us and got wild! Damn that feels good

11/6/21

 Harvey band at the 502 bar in San Antonio last Saturday night. This is a place in a strip mall in way north SA. Sort of a sea of strip malls loaded with bars and clubs all over the place. Such a weird and cool city. 

We went on after Sweet Charbonneau and the Fir Trappers. Hell of a name there. I dug them! Bunch of solid players with some pretty amazing gear! I was drooling over both of the guitar amps. Boutique tube amp with two knobs? A dream for a kid like me.  The front guy had this really fun presence while they were on. One I’ve the tunes was about SA vs Austin. Pretty funny shit. AND he lent me his bass rig!! I was not angry. 

Our set was decent. Big ass stage with lights and a pa that fits the room.  But there was something weird with the sound. Everything was tinty sounding. Like all mid and high end, very little bass. Even from the bass rig. I thought I’d made a mistake by bumming the rig until I noticed the guitar amps sounded the same. 

What the hell causes that? Bad power? Is it the sound of strip mall sadness? We may never know. 

10/31/21

 Harvey band on the day before Halloween at the Lighthouse!

We did it up good for all the costumed folks. There were some sexy devils and a dude with an awesome Ghost Rider outfit but one dude was Dr Mantis Toboggan and it was the funniest fucking thing I’ve seen in a long time. He even had the look in his face. Amazing. 

We dressed up, I did my regular dumb yachting dick costume. Chad had these messed up contacts in, every time I looked at him I was thrown. Awesome. Joseph was a squid game dude and had his face was covered the whole time. Harvey kinda looked like the hamburglar, I don’t know what he was trying for…   Andrea was the hands down winner. She went as Harvey and she nailed it. The wig, the fake mustache, perfection. 

The gig was pretty good. They had Joseph’s keys way wayyyy loud  in the pa it really threw me at first. Sound guy even came over and yelled “turn it down!” at me    I did and there was no change in the bass volume…. Ahem. 

Anyway we got it sorted and had a really fun night. All that counts!