Commentary on a Fun trip to Junc Town
Grand Junction feels like a small town, yet there are 50,000 people in it. Our show was at a legendary venue called the Mesa Theater, where this month alone Los Lonely Boys and Rebelution are playing. David, owner and self described “one of the last mom and pop venues of this size” is a good guy who really likes to party.
We played a great two set show with lots of jamming and improv. Something about the space made us feel more open and we did some of our classics like “Tour Song” in entirely new styles. A decent crowd came out, partly due to our on air performance either that day on KAFM.
The station is really cool – community / volunteer run and totally solar powered. The DJs are always nice and everyone there liked our music. They all seemed very supportive of independent music in general.
It’s funny how people like to project whatever they like onto us. As soon as we got in the KAFM building, one of the guys started bashing Republicans and Conservatives, assuming we agreed with him- I guess because we’re from Austin and are in a band.
Yet a couple days later, another guy made a few incredibly racist comments as jokes, assuming we’d laugh. I guess he thought, “They’re from Texas, they must be racist too.”
Well, they were all wrong. I don’t think of us identify as Republican or Democrat, and we certainly don’t judge people’s character based on physical characteristics they are born with.
Anyway, we also had a really great couchsurfing host Jodie. All in all it was one of our most fun trips to the crazy city of Grand Junction.
Ft. Collins at Hodi’s
Ahh we are back in Ft. Collins. We have had so many good times taking brewery tours, hosting jams, and playing jams. This is our first real showcase type show in Ft. Collins at a great venue Hodi’s Halfnote. Hodi’s is a great place to hang out as far as just having a good vibe but then on top of that there is a great room with a big stage and excellent sound. We played with another band from Colorado called Able Minds. They are a cool mix of electronic and traditional (guitar, drum, etc.) type music. It made for a great night of upbeat danceable music. We had fun catching up with a friend of ours Liza as well. You may remember her as our merchandise representative for our last west coast tour. It was great to catch up and it was just a great night in Ft. Collins. Hooch over and out!
Back in Boulder!
After our 16 hour drive from Austin to Boulder we had about two and a half hours before our show in Boulder. We took our time, set up, ate some dinner and drank some coffee. We were playing back at the Darkhorse, at least our 4th time. But this show would be different.
Us and the In Due Time Guys
I felt surprisingly well, even though I was running on only a few hours of sleep. I didn’t even get energy-drink’ed out. Boulder is always a fun show, but tonight we were bringing a surprise with us: a horn section. Two of our friends from the band In Due Time, Kyle and Tony, brought their Sax and Trombone and ripped through about 15 tunes with us. It was fucking AWESOME! I really can’t stress enough how well it went. Sometimes we manage to get all of our Boulder and Denver friends to bring out their friends and come party with us in Boulder, but this time only a handful of our friends were able to make it. The horns took care of the rest: we had people dancing, moving, grooving, and LOVING the music. It was fun, and re-energizing just when we needed it.
So if you haven’t checked out In Due Time yet, please go to their website here: https://www.facebook.com/induetimefunk and give them a listen…you will not be disappointed! Til next time Dark Horse!
On air 2/16: KAFM in Grand Junction and Streaming online
Thursday February 16th KAFM radio (88.1 in Grand Junction Colorado) will host a live interview of Achachay! at 3:30 MST. We’ll also play a couple of songs paired down. If you don’t live in the area, you can stream the show here. We’ve had to pleasure of
playing on KAFM once before and they’re a really cool station with great people who work there, so we’re looking forward to it.
After that we’re playing in Grand Junction at the Mesa Theater, starting at 9p. The show is FREE and drinks are only $2 so it should be a ton of fun. Hope to see you and your friends there.
photos from Friday at Stubb’s
What a crazy awesome weekend! Friday night we played a killer set after Rebelution’s sold out show on the Stubb’s outdoor stage. Check out these great photos from Evan Gilmore. We were thrilled to play for our amazing Austin regulars, always dancing full one in the front row, plus we won over a ton of new fans from Rebelution’s show.
photos courtesy of Evan Gilmore
Video from Houston show
Our show last weekend in Houston was a great success. The whole night was a funky party with awesome performances by Brandon West, the Journey Agents, us, and Electric Attitude. We packed Rudyard’s and look forward to coming back. Fortunately our buddy Hunter caught some songs on video with is iPhone! Check em out:
Still Learning:
Vote for Achachay! Best New Band in Austin
Help us win “Best New Band” in Austin on the Austin Chronicle Music Poll, there are still six days left! You don’t have to be from this city to help us win, Just click here and fill out the info. If you want, just vote for that one category. If you want to fill out the whole thing, look below for our full recommendations. In both you’ll find all the categories we think we could be eligible for. The rest are some of our favorite local acts and shows. They deserve it too!
AUSTIN BAND OF THE YEAR:Achachay!
AUSTIN MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR:
Ryan “Hooch” Stallings
AUSTIN SONG OF THE YEAR:
???
AUSTIN ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Auroravore’s EP
BEST NEW AUSTIN BAND:
Achachay!
BEST PERFORMING BANDS
ROCK: Achachay!
PUNK:
METAL:
ELECTRONICA/CLUB DJ: DJ A Stein
HIP-HOP/DJ:
INDIE: Achachay!
JAZZ: Silvie Rider
BLUES/SOUL/FUNK: Achachay!
INSTRUMENTAL: Balmorrhea
AVANT-GARDE/EXPERIMENTAL:
COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS: Marla Martin
ROOTS ROCK: Bob Floyd Band
FOLK: Marmalakes
LATIN TRADITIONAL:
LATIN ROCK: Brownout
WORLD MUSIC: Ocote Soul Sounds
COVER BAND:
U-18 (MAJORITY OF THE MEMBERS UNDER 18):
NONE OF THE ABOVE:
BEST AUSTIN MUSICIANS
FEMALE VOCALS:
Celeste Griffin (Monarchs)
MALE VOCALS: Jordan Myska Allen
ELECTRIC GUITAR: Jordan Myska Allen
ACOUSTIC GUITAR: Marla Martin
BASS: Ryan “Hooch” Stallings
DRUMS/PERCUSSION: Ryan Greenblatt
KEYBOARDS:
STRING PLAYER(S): Laura Liem
HORN PLAYER(S): Brent Baker
MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUMENT:
SONGWRITER: Jordan Myska Allen
RELATED CATEGORIES
NEW CLUB: Kingdom
LIVE MUSIC VENUE: Stubb’s
ACOUSTIC VENUE:
ALL-AGES VENUE: Stubb’s
RECORD STORE: Waterloo Records
RADIO STATION: KUT
RADIO MUSIC PROGRAM
Show: Local Licks
Deejay: Loris Lowe
Station: KLBJ
RADIO PERSONALITY
Show: Music with Jay Trachtenberg
Deejay: Jay Trachtenberg
Station: KUT
LOCAL LABEL:
Playing in Traffic
PRODUCER
Producer Name: Ken Tondre
Album Title:
Gorilla Run packed and awesome
The Gorilla Run was a huge success. Over 1000 people dressed up in gorilla suits and raised over $50,000 for the second year in a row last Saturday. I’m so proud of everyone who helped make this happen. I love all the participants, fans, and the spirit of Austin. I’m so happy to call this city home.
Our show was super fun. Playing to a crowd of a thousand people dressed in gorilla suits is an unforgettable experience. Hopefully we’ll get some pictures posted soon. In the meantime you can check out photos of the gorilla run at the official site. I never would have predicted this, but what with the Gorilla Run and Voodoo Fest, some of our biggest and most energetic shows recently have started in the early morning – at 10AM!
Big props to Hooch, as we got many compliments on the sound. He’s run festival sized sound before (Applejam’s Sunday jam last year, for example), but this year was a whole different beast.
It will happen again in 2013. We’ll see you there!
Let’s get Motherloaded
The Motherloaded Tavern in Breckenridge was our last gig on the most recent Colorado tour. We had so much fun there that we’ll be playing it again on February 18th, around 10p.
To kick it off, our buddy Ty from Gunnison drove up to party with us. Sweet. Then right before the show started three friends from Austin surprised us at the bar! My buddies Harrison, Andrew, and Bryant, whom I’ve known since elementary school, just happened to be in town that weekend for a ski trip. They wandered into the Motherloaded Tavern earlier that day and were told an Austin TX band was playing that night, so they came back to check it out. At the time they didn’t have a clue it would be us.
This weekend happened to be the “Dew Tour” weekend, which means that Mountain Dew and a bunch of other companies build a halfpipe in the middle of town and bring in a bunch of snowboarders to do crazy cool stuff in front of audiences in town and on the mountain. It also means that Motherloaded was packed. People danced on the tables from the first song, and didn’t stop until the end of the night.
Apparently Breckenridge can be a fickle town, so the bar encouraged us to only take one small break during our three hour set. Forget that, we said, we’re playing straight through. So we did. No breaks, three hours. People going crazy dancing on the tables the whole time. Ty and his friend flipping each other around like crazy swing dancers.
We stopped playing and people cheered and cheered. “Keep going!” People, we just played for three hours straight. “Ok, if you’re still yelling for us by the time we get back from the bathroom, we’ll do one more song.” I tell them. In the toilet two rooms over, I can still hear them yelling. They kept at it. So we decided to keep playing.
One more song. “Keep going!” A guy hands some money. “At least one more!” OK, we’ll keep going. The crowd had started to thin out at the end, but now people are filling up the place again. The place packed out, so we kept playing. 45 more minutes, until the bar had to legally kick people out!
What a crazy fun night. We had lots of offers for places to stay, but at that point it was two days til Christmas and we did what we always do at the end of a tour, no matter how far we are from Austin, no matter how late in the night it is. We hopped in the van and drove all the way home.
Breckenridge – come out and party with us on February 18th! It gets better every time.
Gorilla Run on January 21st!
The Austin Gorilla Run, an event where everyone wears a gorilla suit and runs a 5k, happens Saturday January 21st. It’s the second ever, and we think we can beat the world record for number of people dressed in a gorilla suit.
Check out our video which contains footage from the race and us playing at the race:
As you can see, the race is incredibly fun. People dress up in costumes over the gorilla suits and get really creative. Achachay! plays at the end, and this year we’ve blocked off an entire street. Registration costs $100 for first timers (includes the suit), and $50 if you’ve already got your suit from last year (you get to keep it!).
We’re very excited about it. Our friends in the band SPEAK will join us on stage this year. 
See you there!
