Austin TX funk rock

Gameday in Eugene with a funk jam twist!

It’s gameday in Eugene, OR and we are pulling into town from California on a Thursday afternoon. We are set to play at a sports bar, The Maize Lounge, following the game and it looks to be a fun show. Phil a friend of ours from Couchsurfing has set up the show for us. Phil plays with a funk/jam/awesome band in Eugene and he has been booking for the club for a few weeks now. The Maize Lounge is pretty much a standard sports bar. A few TV’s, decent bar food, and of course beers. On another couchsurfing front… Todd a good friend of ours we met through couchsurfing who was living in Austin for a bit ends up meeting us in Eugene to hang out. Anytime Todd is around you know it’s going to be a good time! After waiting around for Oregon to beat Cal we get to start the show. We have a small crowd of dancers that makes the show fun and we make a great impression on everyone at the bar. Following the show we hear that there is a funk jam at another bar downtown. We pack up our stuff and head to the funk jam. The funk jam was a blast! Jordan ended up jumping on guitar for a bit. I ended up getting on the microphone for a long song. Every once in a while I have to get the “front man” out of my system and jump on the microphone to do some singing. It was such a great time and such a great release to just go crazy on the microphone for a while. After the jam we headed back to Phil’s place to hang out. It seems like everyone that lives with Phil plays music and that makes us all kindred souls at least to some extent. So needless to say we had a great night of hanging out and playing music. Couldn’t have asked for a better day on tour!

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!

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

Stubbs

We pull up to Stubbs running late…. I’m not going to say as usual… But well… It’s pretty usual. But anyway I’m a little bit stressed about being late and then I see the line of people out the door and down the side of Stubbs. It’s such an exciting feeling to see a line outside of a venue that you are getting ready to play! So after a moment to take it all in I have to start the pre-show agenda. Get the merchandise together for the merchandise person… Get all of my equipment together to go on stage. Run back to the van to get more CD’s, go pee, tune my bass, etc…. After all of this then we get to step on stage and that is the best part of the night (and week for that matter). Looking out to see our friends, family, fans, and soon to be new fans in front of us. It’s funny because I normally don’t have any nerves before a show. I’ve played well over a thousand shows. But when I play in Austin for the hometown crowd the butterflies are there. It’s a welcome feeling that reminds me why I do this. Why I sleep on floors and spend half of my year in a van. I love playing music. I especially love playing with Achachay! ‘my own band of brothers. So needless to say the show was awesome. The crowd was full of energy and fantastic. Full Service rocked our faces and The Rafiki Project was tasty as always. It’s only a few days before we hit the road again for a few weeks and I have to say that this was one of the best feeling shows yet. Thank you to all of our friends, family, and fans for making what we do worth it! Hooch out! (There are a few pics below and check out FB for more pics!)

Wichita and ‘The Manly Dancer’

We are getting caught up on our blogs from the short Oklahoma tour…. This blog is about Wichita, Kansas. Since I grew up in Northern Oklahoma I have been to Wichita a few times. I’ve been to the Zoo and the Race Track but that’s pretty much it. It turns out that Wichita has at least one pretty sweet bar called ‘The Pumphouse’. ‘The Pumphouse’ has a VERY large outdoor stage for shows and plenty of room inside if you don’t want to hear live music. The funny thing about the big stage is there is no house sound system or lights. The sound is no problem we bring our sound system everywhere we go but we don’t have any lights… So we had to improvise a little and use some lights the bar had used for maintenance inside the building. It worked just fine other than looking a little bit strange….

The show was a lot of fun. There was an interesting occurrence while we were playing… You know sometimes we will have women do let’s say… ‘seductive’ dancing while we play and I think people can deal with that even though it’s a bit embarrassing for the women… In Wichita it was a little different…. During the last hour of our set we had a grown man dancing ‘seductively’ to our set…. There were points where he was actually giving girls (seemingly against their will) lap dances. He would thrust and dance on the front of the stage. Facing the audience thankfully… It was pretty out of control. At one point ‘the manly dancer’ crossed the line and almost got his butt kicked by one of the women. So if I learned anything from this incident… It is that a guy should never go to a bar alone. Had this guy had a friend at the bar this little ‘tease’ would have never occurred.

Even with our ‘sideshow’ the show was a blast in Wichita. It was entertaining for us to watch the crowd respond to ‘the manly dancer’ and the crowd enjoyed watching us play so it was a super fun night. We really couldn’t have asked for more our first time in Wichita. This ends my after tour blog about the tour. Hooch out!

The Q Spot: Right on cue…

Ahh the Q Spot. I grew up playing pool at the Q spot and now we get to play shows there. Pretty awesome. David is always great to us. From the Apple Pie shots to the great crowd that he has come out on Tuesday nights. It’s just great to come back to the Q. Another surprise at the Q spot is who I will see from my childhood. It’s always crazy to see people I haven’t seen in well… 15 years…. Every time there will be a couple of people I would never expect to see. It has always been that way in Enid but lately more and more people seem to come out and really dig the funk we are growing.

That pretty much sums up the evening. A great crowd and venue. Catching up with old friends and just having a great time. So far this little tour has been a blast! Gotta keep the good times rolling! Hooch out!

(PS: Most of these pics are from the after party at The Ramada)

Grand Junction

We’re back! Back in Grand Junction again! (Aerosmith melody here). After a beautiful drive from Tulluride we headed straight to the radio station KAFM in Grand Junction. There was a short interview and we played a couple songs on the air. Other than a little mishap with a cowbell it went very smoothly. After the radio interview we had some time to hang out around town. It was a beautiful day so I decided to relax in the park for a bit. Apparently I looked a bit too comfortable in the park because I was offered some food by a good samaritan. Musicians can often times look like homeless people and sometimes are homeless people. We fortunately are not homeless… although it does feel close when we are on the road. After the fun in the
park I headed to a coffee shop to meet up with the other guys and head to the venue. The show was awesome. Quincy’s is a sweet bar. The staff there really takes care of us and we had a great crowd. No complaints from me about Grand Junction. Even if I was mistaken for a homeless person at least the people were friendly! Gotta love Colorado…. Hooch out!

Ashland, Oregon at the Caldera Tap House

After spending the afternoon watching some great bands play at Apple Jam we head into Ashland to play at the Caldera Tap House. We have played the Caldera two other times and they always treat us right. With 18 of their own brews on tap it really makes it easy to have a great time! My personal favorite is the Oatmeal Stout. It totally hits the spot. We had an awesome crowd that was totally into the funk and really made for a bad ass night. After the show it was back to Apple Jam to have a little more fun! Those Karrgo Bossahova guys know how to throw a party! That pretty much does it for the night.  Hooch over and out!

Weed, CA It Was Dope (by Dayna)

Dayna

Shasta Lake from the window of the van

Bridge where Ryan encountered a train

Hooch at the Falls

Ryan Greenblatt on a rock

Dayna at the falls