Library, 12:34pm

Will be in Mother Truckers mode all week for the show at Antone's on Saturday. Our first weekend headlining slot, it's gonna be awesome! Got an email about practice times and with a new song to learn. Will hit it hard when I get home and have it ready for practice on Wed/Thurs, whichever day we choose.

The weekend of shows with Tessmer went pretty well. Already wrote about the Antone's show. Friday at Friends went pretty well as well, did an earlier 8pm-11pm thing. Tessmer did the audience walk and went behind the bar to pour drinks, whole nine yards. Even got into the action myelf for the bass solo for that Meters song we do. Used a pick for 2 songs, "Goin Down" and "Killing Floor", and gave my R wrist a nice case of guitar rash. I always wear a sweat band on guitar to prevent that. Playing bass it's optional. Can get by fine w/o but for some reason using a pick did it. No big deal. Had a pretty good crowd and had the place really hopping for a brief period of time, that was cool.

Good to have an earlier night. Was able to stow all gear in a closet at the venue (playing BD Riley's next door next night), get paid, and still make it to the Dirty Dog and hang out for the rest of the night. I missed Velvet Brick and Butcherwhite's CD release set but still got to catch up with lots of old friends. I used to play bass for Velvet Brick from 05-06 and have kept in good contact with them, and have known the Butcherwhite guys from that same period and see them a lot too. All good people. Cool evening all in all.

Spent Saturday re-wiring 2 of my guitars, mainly for cosmetic reasons. When my Les Paul Studio broke the headstock again beyond repair (according to guy who first fixed it) I stripped it for parts and put the pickups (Gibson '57 Classic and Rio Grand BBQ) into my Paul Stanley Iceman. Lo and behold, those pickups brought the PS Iceman back to life! Been sitting unused in my closet for like 3 years. But then was able to get the LP Studio repaired. Threw some spare pickups into it (a Gibson 490R and vintage DiMarzio Super Distortion). But the problem is that as amazing as the new pups in the PS Iceman sounded, the neck pickup has a gold cover which really clashed with the silver hardware. And the LP Studio now has a silver-covered neck pup but gold hardware. So yeah, I swapped out the neck pups in both guitars cause it would look cooler if everything matched. *shrugs*

That night (Saturday) w/Tessmer at BD Rileys was also pretty good. Lotta people that stayed after watching the football game and never left, then a lot of people off the street as well. Not a super packed house, but plenty of people digging it. Felt like we played really well too. My pick hand/wrist started feeling the three shows after awhile. Should have warmed up. "Blues Bullets" still felt sloppy need to work on it. Michael McDaniel has been a really good addition, not only his over musical proficiency, but him and Richard are always interacting with each other and having so much fun. It distracted Richard a little a few times, heh, but that overall increase in our positive energy onstage is really translating well with the audience. Not always a conscious thing on their part, but if we are having a blast then they want to have a blast too and get into it. That and doing my bass solo walking through the crowd and climbing onto the sub helps as well, heh. Good show overall.

Was able to leave my gear in Tessmer's newly-fixed old Dodge 15-passenger van. Has several home-made gear security features, and the crew cab is all upholstered with vintage 70's green shag carpet. AWESOME. Can't wait to take a road trip in that fucking thing. Made tentative plans to pick everything up on Sunday, I don't live too far from him.

All day Sunday was at the Dell Diamond with Triniti Young, there was an ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) Walk and we were the official photographers. Working for free, but we didn't mind one bit. Good cause. Met up at her place to drive together and save gas. Driving up I35 past Rundberg something on the R shoulder caught my eye. It was a lady pushing a big black leather EZ chair up the shoulder. And there was no vehicle that we saw anywhere up on the shoulder. She was just pushing a big chair. Wow. That was good for a laugh.

The event itself was pretty cool. Will post some pics when I can. Teams of walkers with matching shirts and signs, Triniti and I were the official team photographers. And we made a good team. Situated on 1st bass side under a kind of gazebo. Light was good and had teams line up against the bleachers with the field in the background. They set the balloon arch for the walk starting line near us, was so windy that we pushed it back behind us to get it out of the way rather than use it in the shots. That and children are fascinated by it and would be looking at it rather than the camera. Better to have it behind us, heh. Triniti did an amazing job as a people arranger/cat herder. And it was like herding cats in a lot of ways but she did great. Only problem was sometimes we'd shoot a big team, then instead of moving on they'd all walk about 5 feet then STOP. Ah well. Had to ask some people to move but were cool about it.

But then we had one team posed and were shooting, when suddenly a shadow gets into the frame. A lady from a team waiting for their shot was moving the goddamn balloon arch for their shot and it was ruining ours. T politely told her to put it back, you are ruining our shot. Lady started to argue a little so T came up to me for final decision. No balloons I said. That was that. We took their pic and the lady went and complained about us. HA! She just walked into our deal and started taking charge of a situation she had no business being in charge of, and not even asking us first if they could have the balloons in their damn shot! One of the directors later went up to T and asked if everything was alright. She replied that everything is great and we have it all under control. Director later gave a knowing smile and said good. Awesome.

We also shot the opening ceremonies on the field and the ribbon cutting back with all the ALS victims presents. The aforementioned balloon arch was now in place as the starting gate. Stayed nearby with T for several laps, getting the teams as they triumphantly began the next lap. Had a great idea then, since all the teams had their various signs, I grabbed our TEAM PHOTOGRAPHY sign and walked a lap with T as Team Photography! That was awesome. Hopefully they raised a lot of money, and being there was informative and inspiring. People getting together to help other people is always a good thing.

Was there from 12:30pm til about 5pm. And we were both exhausted. Dealing with people can be pretty exhausting, heh. Thought about hitting the Friends Sunday Blues Jam but gave myself the night off instead. Tonight I am going by Trent and Amber's for dinner and then take some Amber Lucille Band promo shots, the later going to Emo's for Shrinebuilder (Wino, Al Cisneros, Dale Crover, and the guy from Neurosis... yeah, DAMN). That will be awesome. Tomorrow night Velvet Brick opens an early show for the Bullet Boys, remember them?

Busy busy busy.