The Austin Chronicle Music Awards poll results are out!

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Awards/MusicAwards

Eric Tessmer Band did pretty damn good. #5 Blues Band, #5 Guitar Player, #18 album and #13 song. Sweet! Was hoping to make the bass player list, but alas skunked again. Even tho it's more a measure of popularity than merit, still feels pretty good that we placed.

Have received the contract from the upstart indie label, still looking over and may have an entertainment lawyer check it out to help clear up some lingo. Seems pretty standard, but I guess if contracts weren't written in gobbledygook there would be no need for entertainment lawyers, heh! Very excited about the whole thing, that is for sure. Contacted Scott Reeder about mastering the re-release of 'Ocean of Stars,' a little name recognition attached to it never hurts.

Thought I was going to have Thur/Fri off, but ETB got called into The Speakeasy and Friends, respectively. No problemo there, still recovering from Jan/Feb which are always a slow time of year to be playing music.

Shows have been good all week as well. The taping at Venue 222 on Tuesday was awesome, can't wait to see the video. Went up and blew out 4 songs, playing our guts out and at top volume! Hope they got my awesome bass toss end of set, heh. During the noise finale my bass Minnie Pearl took a spill. No damage upon visual inspection. Rest of the night was fun as well, good bands playing and fashion shows between sets. I like playing events.

Looks like we will be doing a Wednesday residency at the Speakeasy now. Which has several benefits: better payout than our old Maggie Mae's slot, nice big venue with great stage, don't have to deal with 6th Street, and Russell (ETB sound tech) also runs sound there several nights a week so he's quite familiar with the ins/outs of the sound system. During soundcheck realized very quickly that something was amiss with Minnie. Action all weird and even open strings fretting out. Well shit, guess the spill she took knocked her neck outta whack. Loosened the strings, tightened down the neck screws, reset the action and she was good to go. I love knowing how to work on my own gear. Decent show to the best of my recollection.

Speakeasy called us in for Thursday as well. Sure, why not! Had a decent crowd this time. Our other shows there have suffered a bit from lack of 6th Street foot traffic, and people walking by aren't the kind that would listen to us, or if they did come in it was to go upstairs to the loft bar. But as we started (and we started light) a bunch of people came downstairs, stopped, then all took tables where they stood. Which was funny, cause they partially obscured the path to the stairs, so people coming in would walk past the stage, turn right, then have to double back thru the tables. And this happened all night. But great response from the people there, and the staff all seem pretty cool. Def a venue I hope we can build on, tho less foot traffic we could probably still attract more regulars who don't want to deal with 6th Street.

Then yesterday we found out that we are indeed playing at Friends, which we probably agreed to then canceled as we had same night booked at Maggie's. But then Maggie's gave us the boot and the night was free, and still penciled in apparently. So sure, we'll work some more! And Friday means early set so we could theoretically be done, loaded and leave before they even put the barricades up on 6th Street. Which is exactly what happened. Nice to watch the crowd build. Empty for start. Few people there after 1st song, then increased exponentially as night went on. Great set. Walking the crowd with Eric, some drunk girl got up onstage and started rocking out. Nice that we had that affect on her, but had to watch her out of corner of my eye to make sure she didn't knock anything over... heh. Feels great playing with Rob, and we're really kicking ass as a 3-piece. We also bumped into Michael McDaniel on the way in, was really good to see him, and no hard feelings in the least. He recently split to do his own thing, which worked out for all involved as stylistically he didn't fit as well once we had Rob in the picture. He is also one of the most all-around brilliant musicians I've ever met, so yeah. He will be fine.

In general life news, went to DPS yesterday and got my drivers' license renewed. FINALLY got my hard copy of my Occupational license earlier this week, and was quite confused about it expiring on Friday. So I waited how many months and paid $140 in fees for it to just go BAD right away?!? DPS explained that my period of license suspension ends on 3/25. But calling in it was a 50/50 split if I could go in on Friday to renew, or would have to wait til Monday and not be able to drive AT ALL all weekend. But finally got someone on the horn and went in yesterday. $10 and 90 minutes later and I have a paper copy! ANd the experience wasn't too bad. A good mix of normal people, folks who looked like they just arrived off a Greyhound bus from the pen in Huntsville, and a lovely lady primping for her DL photo with part of a succulent ass cheek peeking from beneath her miniskirt. Worth the price of admission.

SO yea! No more drive log, and no more limited hours I can drive. Have a pretrial court date on Tuesday, which I keep thinking is tomorrow for some reason. That's what happens when you only have one day off after SXSW and then play 6 nights in a row. ETB tonight at BD Riley's, speaking of which.