achachay

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!

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:

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.

Alma Rock City

My college-roommate rockin' out! Can you believe we shared a dorm room?!

The town of Alma is residence for about 200 people. It is located approximately 90 miles southwest of Denver, tucked in the mountains, and it is also the highest (at 10,578 feet) incorporated municipality in the US. Alma is one of those town you have to pass through to get to other destinations in CO, but last Friday we found out there is much more to Alma than that. Alma has 2 bars (and 2 dispensaries  awarding the town with the distinction of most dispensaries per capita in CO (and possibly the US?)) and we played Alma’s Only Bar (the OG of bars for Alma). Whoa that’s a lot of parentheses! Anyways, because of a booking snafu we opened up the night at AOB for the local group Spider Murphy and the Pushovers. It was early, too, like 9:00 pm start time and we had low expectations of a crowd, but sure enough the place had a good crowd about 5 minutes into our set. We played for just over an hour and totally won the place over, old and young, rocker and hippie alike. It was nice that even though this show was starting on a weird note because of the booking debacle, it turned out to be great.

The rest of the night was great as well. Spider Murphy and the Pushovers were great: think low-key, laid-back, groovy music with bass, guitar/banjo/4-string guitar, harmonica, and drums. They were great and we hung out with the locals and got to know the town for the rest of the night.

We also had a very gracious host that everyone called Hector. Hector has a great house in town where he hosts bands that come through to play, as well as travelers and others who need a place for a while. All in all, our night in Alma was great and I think we will have a great time next time we roll through to play the entire night.

Back in Telluride

Snow!!!!!

“It’s a college town..without a college. That’s all you need to know,” – Scottie, bouncer/doorman at the Bubble Lounge and local Telluridian (?). This was our 4th time playing in Telluride and our 3rd time at the Bubble Lounge. Some of our old friends, namely Gregg and a different Scott, were not around for our show this time, but we made some great new friends and fans. For a Monday, our show was pretty good: a decent crowd and a good time.

Telluride is just sort of a magical place in general with its absurd beauty and very chill vibes. It also snowed for the first time this tour almost the entire time we were in town. I enjoy the snow until we need to get out of town and we can’t because conditions are too bad. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case this time and we were able to just enjoy the 2-3 inches and still get out of town. I’m excited for our next show in Telluride because it seemed like everyone there is going to promote the show a ton now that they know we rock. I also want to give a shout out to our gracious hosts and friends Kate and Wiley! They’re the best!

Outy 5000
Blattttttttttttttttttttttttt

Pagosa Springs

Pagosa Springs is a beautiful town in the mountains of Colorado. Because we have been to Pagosa and played at The Bear Creek Saloon several times I totally feel at home there. It’s pretty awesome in that we really didn’t know anyone in Pagosa Springs before we played a few shows and now we have a solid fans and friends that come out to our shows. There is a stange dynamic in Pagosa because it is a small tourist town. You will have a mix of people that are in town for the hot springs or the rafting as well as native ‘Pagosans’. That being said every time we play the crowd is responsive and just a ton of fun regardless of whether it’s tourists or ‘Pagosans’. This time around we met some new friends through couchsurfing. Our new friend Jarrett and his family welcomed us into their home and we had yet another great couchsurfing experience. We had great food and spent time sharing our stories about traveling and playing music. Really great times in Pagosa Springs. This is yet another one of those places that is very hard to leave… That being said we have to keep moving on to the rest of Colorado! Hooch over and out!

Overcoming with Optimism on the road to Winter Park

The booking game is a crazy world… we finally confirmed the show that was supposed to happen on December 10th exactly ten days before it was to occur. On December 9th, I got a call from the booking agent saying that their email account had gotten hacked and he never confirmed the show, so we were SOL.

Luckily, we have been through this before and applied the Achachay! spirit. Focus on the solution, see the opportunity and make the most of whatever is in front of your face. After a few phone calls, it became apparent that nothing would happen that night. I’d have to wait until the morning.

We woke up at the usual time and I started calling all the bars in Winter Park. At first I got the usual run-around, but when I mentioned “We’re an awesome Austin TX funk rock band that got our show cancelled, do you want us to bring you an awesome show TONIGHT?” or something similar, they get things moving.

The Winter Park Pub came through in the 9th inning and opened their arms… not just a place to play, but a decent last minute guarantee, free food, free drinks. The show ended up being packed and well received. The staff was cool, and we’ll definitely be back! Even though Hooch and I both felt a little sniffly and hoarse, we played a top notch performance and had a great time busting out some covers we haven’t done in a long time. We closed off a three day weekend of 4-hour-a-night performances with gusto and energy.

We’ve been shown time and time again to keep the faith. In spite of whatever circumstances life throws your way, maintain an optimistic outlook while working hard to achieve whatever your objective is. Almost every time we’ve done this, the result is better than what we expected from the original plan. Even if it isn’t better, the experience is beautiful.

To top it off, we all three got to sleep in individual beds at the family place of a buddy I studied in Ghana with. We got to meet some of his family and catch up on six years of traveling, craziness, and life. All in all, a phenomenal day.

Stubb’s New Year’s Eve Eve, Disco Party

Come dance at the Third Annual New Years Eve Eve Party with Achachay! and Bob Floyd Band (tix)

Get your tickets online at Frontgate tickets right now. $8. All Ages. Tons of fun. The perfect holiday gift.

We’ve made this a freaking sweet tradition and can’t wait to play for you all again. The full lineup is TBA; Achachay! is scheduled to close the night starting at midnight.

This year we’re making it Disco themed so get your frizzy ‘fro ready, bust out white pants, extra wide ties, and leisure suits. Whether you’re wearing go-go dancer outfits, hippy clothes, or just about anything brown and orange the important thing is that you’re ready to boogie.

Invite your friends to the Facebook Event, and see you there on December 30th!

Media mentions:
This is Life in Austin

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