Busy, Some big changes, And some of the usual shit

A month since my last post. Shit. Just haven't felt like writing, tho there has been much going on.

Would like to formally announce that I am now playing bass for the Bleu Edmondson Band. Very stoked. The kind of situation I have been looking for since leaving Eric Tessmer Band back in May 2013.

My first gig was at the Redneck Country Club in Houston, and I had one rehearsal and 2 days before that to learn the music. But I nailed it enough to be hired officially \m/, Few more gigs rest of the month, then his schedule will pick up in January.

Rig that night:

The venue was pretty bad ass, big room, big sound, big stage, and this on the patio:

Even the doggie mascot for Redneck Country Club was happy with my performance hahaha! With Clint Litton and Hec Rivera

Got word about the possibility of the Bleu gig via guitarist Hec Rivera, whom I'd been playing with in Hundred Miles Gone.

I was in Fredericksburg TX to play a Halloween show with Thunderosa. He asked about my availability for a Friday date the following week. I was booked with Adrian and the Sickness in San Angelo. Hec said that he is really pulling for me to get the Bleu gig, as they had another candidate who could do the date (and if he did OK he'd be hired full time). SHIT.

SO in a rush of text messages from Heather and I's hotel room in F-berg shortly before heading to the gig, I had to let Adrian know that I'd have to back out of the San Angelo date with her. For which I felt terrible. I don't like canceling on my good friends, especially when they don't have a full contact list of worthy subs. I didn't want her to have to cancel her gig, but if I missed the Bleu gig I would probably miss the entire opportunity... SHIT shit SHIT

Luckily she was able to lock in Lehra, who has played bass with her in the time between Heather Webb leaving and myself entering the picture. So her gig was still on. But I still felt bad, she was out of town doing Hell's Belles gigs and now she had to find a sub...

But it all worked out. The Thunderosa set was a blast, at a small metal bar called Der Daiwel. They'd been open a year, and this was the first night they had bands. It was tiny and cramped, and fucking awesome. Now I know where I will be hanging out in F-berg. I was dressed as Jesus, AJ was The Cosmic Commander, Drew was a vato. Good times! Looking for pics on FB and can't find them. Shit. They exist, I swear.

OK, found one:

Got back to Austin next day and played a double with Eric Tessmer Band, back to back three hour (or more, the time change was that weekend) set, Friends then BD Riley's. Good times to the best of my recollection. The last hour+ of those BD's sets are always a blur. And usually amazing from what I hear hahaha oof.

This is kinda how I remember the BD's set:

And the whole week leading up to Halloween weekend was a blur of activity and good times. Multiple rehearsals, went to good friend Roberto Balderrama's birthday at Hanover's and jammed with him, Mark Dufour, Danny Fastfingers, and some other cats I didn't even know haha.

Here's Roberto taking Ulrich Ellison & Tribe into the outer reaches of the galaxy:

And the night before my inaugural Bleu gig I did a last-minute acoustic duo gig with Rick Hornyak at NXNW. Always fun.

And after the Bleu gig I stayed in Houston to play a biker wedding with Hundred Miles Gone somewhere in the middle of nowhere NW of Houston.

We played on a flatbed trailer. The ceremony was in the field in front of the house on a large swath of land. The bearded/top hatted best man was stoking the firepits with a leaf blower before the ceremony began. Awesome! But once the sun went down it got real cold real quick.

Beautiful area:

We played well and it was fun. And turns out this was my last gig with them.

I was (to my knowledge) set to play another three day residency with them in Angleton TX at Kick's. I had made arrangements with Joe Devadaman (drummer) to stay at his place in Houston rather than drive back to Katy every night to stay with other band members.

Since I would be driving in from Austin, I sent band leader an email seeing if I could get a little extra comp for gas. Turns out the other bassist was going those shows. Oh shit. I had cancelled one gig and turned down a few others to secure this weekend. And there just went my rent for November.

I was able to salvage my weekend tho and do the Eric Tessmer Band gigs I had originally declined (Danelectro's in Houston, and a car show in Manor TX). So that worked out well, and both gigs were a lot of fun. Turns out I played Danelectro's in the middle 00's with Velvet Brick, and Adrian and the Sickness were on the bill. Ha! Small world \m/,

So yeah. I'm just glad I didn't drive all the way to Houston to find out I wasn't playing. That would not have been good. But regardless, I did turn in my official resignation with HMG as I knew I would be very busy with Bleu very soon, and most of the HMG gigs are Houston-area, and that worked ok when two other band members lived in Austin as well.

Onwards and upwards.

On the bright side, having Thursday off allowed me to attend the last Whiskey Sisters Happy Hour at the Continental Club. Josh and Teal are moving back to NorCal in a few weeks and WS are disbanding. Damn. Still trying to talk them into a Mother Truckers mini-reunion during the final WS show on Thanksgiving. But so far it's a hard sell..

I made sure to take lots of vids from this one, end of an era really...

BUT.....

Wouldn't you fucking know it... en route to the Houston show with ETB on Friday, my van started misfiring again. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. We were able to make it to Houston and back (pulling a trailer no less) tho burned through a tank and a half of gas.

I hoped it was just a spark plug wire popping loose again. I am damn near tapped out, and just made $300 less that I thought I was going to make for the weekend.

OF FUCKING COURSE it was a worse-case scenario. Something about ignition coils or some shit, $400 to fix. $400 that I don't have. I could max out my damn-near-maxxed-out credit cards but that would leave me wide open for some other financial disaster. I will be uber late on rent, again, as I have been all year. My parents offered to help, but they are on fixed income and I don't want to accept their help unless it's in direst emergency.

So I'll see what I can scrape together in the next few days. Story of my fucking life. Happy to have my health, family and friends, and a reasonably warm and dry place to shelter myself and my dog.

But a financial break would be really nice right now...

Anyway. Coming up this week, ETB at The Roost on Wednesday, and shows with Bleu in Ft. Worth and Canadian (?!) TX on Friday and Saturday.

An interview, An accident, An album session, A general update

I recently (2 months ago?) sat down with local Austin personality Arcie Cola to shoot an episode of 'Day Drinkin with Arcie Cola' where she takes various people out for a few rounds and asks them questions once they're a bit piffed.

Pretty genius. I thought I bombed mine, as I was a chatterbox up until the recorder came out. But she was holding off on releasing it until there was something with which to cross-promote. That event was a rare Adrian and the Sickness show at Hole in the Wall last week Thursday.

But holy cow, I don't remember saying 75% of the stuff I said hahaha! Came out pretty damn good, if you'll excuse my Kermit the Frog voice haha... :/

Here's the clip, courtesy Austin.com

The Adrian and the Sickness show went pretty well tho it was a Thursday night. Great to play with Adrian and Armando again! The Surleys, who I haven't seen yet, were fun and I dug them. FEA from San Antonio was also a blast. Fun night all around!

Friday was a rare night off from gigging, tho I did have offers I couldn't accept and a residency gig I walked away from for my own reasons, which I'll get to. Instead went to Amber Saxon (Hell's Belle's/BugGirl) and Heather Webb's (BugGirl, ex-Adrian and the Sickness) place in South Austin for Amber's going away party. She is moving to San Diego, and will be missed.

The party was a blast tho my allergies flared up something fierce shortly before heading over there. Lots of friends and musical family. She will be back to visit in a few months, so that's good.

Saturday night Adrian and the Sickness took Vincent Van Go to San Antonio for a gig.

Turns out my "allergies" were really a cold. Shit. We were playing all night, two long sets. I'd get through them, but would be clearing my schedule Sunday to recover...

So Adrian is piloting her 22' Sprinter van on I-35 at speed just coming into San Antonio.

There is a loud BAM!!! and an impact. Did we just lose a tire?!?

No, a 4-door sedan comes barreling past us, skidding, with obvious damage now to the driver's side. We watch in muted shock as he continues forward at high speed, muscling between two cars each in respective lanes. We were to busy watching out for the inevitable accident he was going to cause (which surprisingly and thankfully didn't happen) to get a make or license #. And it was night as well.

So we pull over to survey the damage, not really sure what to do. This was the sight that greeted us:

Fuck.

Tail lights and housing are toast, door hinge damaged. Most of what is pictured fell off when I touched it with my finger. Fuckin people.

We get back on the road and head to venue where Adrian would call the cops to at least file a report for insurance people. We also expected to see either a wreck or flashing cop lights where the guy was pulled over, so we could pull in and say THIS IS THE FUCKER THAT HIT US. But there was nothing.

Hopefully wherever he had to go was so important that he had to risk the lives of who knows how many. Fuckin people.

The cop was nice tho, and not much he could do. He gave Adrian his card in case we got pulled over for the busted tail light, as an indicator that yes this just happened and no there is currently anything we can do about it. But we managed to get the top light working, just had to put the bulb back in as it had popped out. Made it home without incident.

Gig was fun, even tho I was battling the aforementioned cold. Adrenaline kept me going, with the inevitable crash as soon as we went on break or were done. The venue was great and the people there really dug it!

Anyway.

My schedule this next two weeks is rather light, which will allow me to fully recover from the cold (already turned the hump last night) and get caught up on Ocean of Stars booking and business, and various other business related things.

OoS is convening on Thursday to rehearse and start bringing two new songs to the set, which would give us an hour of material and more to offer for gigs.

Lately my schedule has been so hectic we've been on another unintended hiatus.

One last minute thing that came to pass was an album session with Chet Himes at The Ranch.

Awesome place, good to be back. Jason Patten has another albums worth of music we have been working up with drummer Derek Hensley. Chet was able to squeeze us in for a day to track, before Derek moved back to New York state.

Went quickly and smoothly. With as intentionally sparse as the music was, there was much more space for me to fill out as a bass player. So I spared no expense in uncorking, going really OUT THERE quite a bit. That was fun! Can't wait to hear it!

Chet, Landis, Jason, Derek, myself (and a Jimi Hendrix photobomb):

In other news, I will no longer be doing the Sean Evan and Very Handsome Band Wednesday and Friday residencies at a bar downtown which will go un-named. I finally hit the wall with that place 2 Fridays ago.

My reasons are my own, but involve the noise ordinance, the fact that we are still told to set up right next to the goddamn front door, and the antagonistic attitude of the person in charge. The money was decent at best, and it was in no way a career-making opportunity. Sean, Johnny and Bruce were all VERY understanding and very supportive of my decision. And I will continue to play with them, just not at this particular locale.

I'm 40 now, and am having a lower and lower tolerance for bullshit. There will be other opportunities.