Tour 7: Fall 2011, West (4)

San Francisco embraces the traveler w/ Strictly Hardly Bluegrass

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
San Francisco always welcomes us with open arms and crazy fun free activities features thousands of people. Last tour we got to the Bay Area just in time for Bay to Breakers (see Hooch’s blog post); this time we got there just in time for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. This is a MASSIVE (ie 600,000 people), three day long music festival held in Golden Gate Park. The best part – its FREE! It’s like Austin City Limits but four times as many hippies (remember, its free), spread out over a much larger park.

Occupy Wallstreet
Liza and I got there pretty late Sunday afternoon but still got to catch some classic acts like the Dark Star Orchestra, Gomez, and Emmy Lou Harris (she’s closed the festival every year since it began 11 years ago). I also saw my first “Occupy Wallstreet” sign there. Not knowing anything about the movement yet (this was a few weeks ago after all) I thought it pretty ironic- The festival is free because its funded by a guy who made a ton of money investing in stocks. Actually, I had a great conversation about the whole thing with a buddy of mine from SF. I’ll include some of that email exchange HERE, for those of you interested in my thoughts about the whole thing.

We had a free day in the area, which gave us a lot of time to relax at Ryan’s long time family friends’ the Burger’s (who have now hosted us three times, always very welcoming!) and catch up with friends from the usual: Rice, Ghana, high school, Austin, etc.

The SHOW
Our show at Kimo’s was cool for the following reasons:

• Great surprises of people who came to see us (thank you Facebook for connecting us all)
• Delicious Indian food before hand. My buddy Chek ate lamb brain. I tasted it. Very strong flavor.
• The Official Story was funky, talented, and super fun to dance to!
• Void 808 Band- cool guys whom we played with again the next night in Sacramento
• We freakin’ rocked

That about covers it. We’ll strive to play Strictly Hardly … next year? Either way I’m sure San Fran won’t disappoint as even if there aren’t absurdly fun large and free events to attend, there will be awesome people to hang out with.

Paso Robles: It’s my birthday!

The day started off with a free birthday burger at Sylvester’s in Atascadero on our way to Paso Robles. Sylvester’s has awesome huge burgers so it was totally awesome to get a huge mushroom burger for free… After stopping by the club to set up we head over to our buddy Ruben’s place to chill before the show. After a short nap at Ruben’s place we head back to the venue for the show. This time we played at the 463 Club in Paso Robles. The 463 Club is a sports bar/music venue. We ended up having a pretty small crowd but the few that were there were our good friends and we had a blast playing for them. After the show we let Ruben show us downtown to do some birthday partying. The first bar we stop into has one of my favorite pastimes going on…. Karaoke… To say that I have a good time singing Karaoke would be a bit of an understatement. So Ryan and I sang a few songs and Liza even ended up singing a couple of songs. It was a ton of fun. After the karaoke we headed back to Ruben’s place and finished the night with a few drinks and a lot of laughs. Great food, great friends, a fun show, and Karaoke. All and all it was a great birthday!

Los Angeles / Tarzana

When i think about our time in Los Angeles a few Wednesdays ago I think mostly of the great people we spent time with.

• Our gracious host James Leffler was hilarious as usual (check these vids for examples of his humor)
•  Ben Carson threw a pre-party and is now the only person to make it to all of our LA appearances.
• Surprise Rice friends I did not realize live in the area including Lila and Will
• I saw Marty who I studied in Ghana with for the first time in a couple of years
• Joe – one of our Ashland buddies we met through Karrgo Bossa Jova -was an absolute hoot to hang out with. We had some lively and engaging discussions about the purpose and character of higher education, with many references to Harry Potter. Nothing more can be said that is fit for print.

We played an awesome show, as usual. Los Angeles really reminds me that when it comes to my life, it often comes down to this: I love people. I used to hate the city because of the traffic, the pollution, and the superficiality. But the fact that there are so many people I love there – cousins with babies in the belly, old camp friends, comedian advisors – I can’t help but enjoy myself.

The intensity of travel and the nonstop social interaction of our tours challenges the psyche. Yet, I get so much energy from the good people surrounding us, that even a week of sleeping on the floor can’t suppress my almost constant giddiness. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to stay connected to these people distributed across the world.

Introductions: Liza

Let’s start with the basics: My name is Liza Mitrofanova and I’m accompanying your favorite Achachay! boys on their 2011 West Coast Tour. Why, you ask, do I have the supreme honor of making this pilgrimage? Well, it’s all quite simple, really. The only cosmic alignment that had to take place was their need to promote and sell merch on the road, my availability and pre-existing plans to forage into the West, and a tiny amount of social network intervention.

This is why there has been a random girl you probably don’t recognize popping up in the later posts by Jordan and the Ryan’s. So let’s get cozy – here are a few factoids about Yours Truly.

I was born in the wintery month of February in Siberia…. As a point of reference, pull up a map of Russia, now point with your index finger to the exact middle of that glorious country, and Voila! You have now, more or less, identified my birth place: Novosibirsk.

Three of the people I consider my parents are either biochemists or moleculuar biologists. Nevertheless, neither my sister or I have (or intend to) follow these career paths.

As is made obvious by my decision to embark on a six week tour in a van with three strangers, I like journeys, people, music, and all kinds of new experiences… preferably the ones you can’t predict. The elements just mentioned have brought me to an appreciation of Peruvian box drums and sharing yerba mate.

I don’t get homesick really ever (though I do love my family very, very much), but I do miss my 120 pound pooch. Home is where your dog is, I say.

All in all, I’m a pretty simple being, and all I want right now is to see the West the way Thomas Moran did… and despite all the domestication of the Wild that’s taken place, I’d say I’m feeling it.

Nice to meet.

-Liza-

O’Sullivan’s: Down with the Sickness….

I should preface this post by saying that I was suffering from food poisoning for the 2 days leading up to this show and a day or so after… so the things I remember from the show are minimal. We played an Irish Pub.  What you wouldn’t expect from an Irish pub is for the majority of the staff to actually be Irish. But O’Sullivans is different in that way. The bar staff was awesome and like I said mostly Irish. Everyone was friendly and there was good food (even though it was really hard to eat being sick and all). We had a great crowd that danced and kept the energy high to help me through a rough night. We also ran into an artist by the name of Sid who meshes together hip-hop and several other genres to create some awesome music. I haven’t been able to track him down online but once I do I will post some links to his music. After this show we had a couple days off for some much needed rest. I have recovered nicely from my little bout with food poisoning and all is well! That’s pretty much what I’ve got from that show. Hooch over and out!

Chilin in San Diego

Pic of the Pub

Random pic of Liza

Yucca Tap in Tempe

We started this tour off differently than most tours. Normally we swing up through Oklahoma and maybe make a stop in Dallas along the way to play a show. This time we started off with a brutal 15 hour drive to Tempe, AZ. After arriving in Tempe at the hour of 11 am… We do our best to sleep during the day and wake up to play the show that night at The Yucca Tap Room. I personally slept like a baby all day thankfully…. But onto the show…

The Yucca Tap Room is a cool bar with a nice room and stage. There is plenty of room for people to dance or sit down and enjoy music. They also have a nice selection of beers on tap (hence the name Yucco Tap Room). We played first then the headlining band ‘Flamingo’, and last ‘Tele Speaks’ played. It was a great night of music. ‘Flamingo’ was a cool funky jam band and Tele Speaks was a good band along the same lines of ‘The Kings of Leon’. It’s not often we enjoy all the band we play with but this was one of those rare occasions. We impressed a few people and really had a great first night on tour. Tempe hasn’t always been a strong point on tour but that seems to be changing. This show felt good and we made a lot of new friends and fans. Achachay’s Fall West Coast Tour 2011 has begun! Woo Hoo! Hooch out!

Ryan and Liza acting silly

Rockin' the stage

More Rockin'

Mandy hooked us up with the show!

Tour #7: The West

Excitement. Long drives. Merch person Liza. New songs.
This tour will be another crazy fun adventure as we strive to improve lives through funky thoughtful dance and laugh inducing music. Follow along as we blog the whole trip, come see us, and help spread the word.