austin

Apple Jam

A picture I don't really remember taking...

OHHHH MAN, Apple Jam was awesome! For those who don’t know, Apple Jam is a 3 day music festival outside of Ashland, Oregon and put on by our friends in the band Karrgo Bossajova. We had the pleasure and honor of opening up this year’s festivities with a killer 2 hour set. After getting everyone amped for the weekend, we proceeded to get wild and crazy dancing around the festival bonfire and mingling with the other musicians and festival-goers.

We left the fest to play a show (see later post) and came back to enjoy another night of partying. On Sunday there was a scheduled “free jam” but the sound engineer for the festival had to go, so we came to the rescue and set up our PA to project the sounds for the day. Unfortunately rain ended the jamming early, but by then I was pretty much cashed anyways after seeing the sun rise only a few hours before. The weekend overall was super fun, and I can’t wait to come back next year!

PS We have recordings from this show…if you want to get a copy write a comment or email us at booking@achachay.com and tell us a good (creative) reason why we should send you a copy for free!

Tempe !

Our friends Darkness Dear Boy rockin'

Tempe

I am a big fan of Phoenix and Tempe. This time of year the dry heat isn’t yet stifling, and with a nice breeze and the mountains in the foreground the vibe is just about perfect. Phoenix is also great for us because we have a great place to stay with my family friends Gary and Angie who are just awesomle and have an amazing house.

The show itself was in Tempe at a place called Long Wong’s. It’s a cool venue and we got the show through our friends Darkness Dear Boy who also played a helluva set before us. There was also another cool local band that played with us called What’s Left who had a cool sound with a guitar and violin dynamic. Our set was killer and we definitely won over some new fans. Our bartender was f’n awesome too. His name was Tony and he’s actually the manager for a pretty kick-ass band named Stuff Laura Says. Tony took really good care of us.

Overall I enjoyed playing Tempe a ton and I can’t wait to come back and rock it next time!

Blatt

The Q Spot

(Thanks to Cassie Himes for the pics!)

On Tuesday we played a show in Enid at the Q Spot, a bar/billiard hall. The place is really big and has a great stage that gave us plenty of space. Space on stage becomes a luxury on the road when many places have really small stages that cramp even a band as small as ours. Before the show we hung out at our favorite local coffee shop Da Vinci’s and they even bought us a coffee! When we arrived at the venue it was starting to fill up, and I already had low expectations since it was Tuesday, so this was a very pleasant surprise. By the time we started playing, I’d say there was at least 80 people or so watching us and we later found out that just under 100 people came out.

What a great show! We ripped through 18 songs without a break and played for two hours straight. The energy was high, and we were all playing very well. The performance was caught on video as well, so hopefully we will be able to release to our fans in the future. The response was extremely positive after the show and we also sold a ton of CDs and shirts. Our new merchandise, namely the flame-spitting-weiner-dog shirts are going fast! Right now I vote this the best show of the tour so far and I can’t wait to come back and play the Q spot again!

BLATT

Cleveland Rocks!

They were a great mix of polka and punk rock that made for quite a ruckus. They sang songs about cider and were spitting on stage as expected from a crazy polka/punk band. Off stage they were great guys and we had fun sharing road stories. Our second night in Cleveland we had off so we just relaxed and did absolutely nothing and it was glorious! Our second show in Cleveland was at a bar called Wilbert’s. A cool little hole in the wall on the back of a building downtown. We had some great free grub and played with a great young band called Noize From the Basement. They may be young but they still know how to rock! We stayed with Fred (Ryan’s cousin) and Allison downtown Cleveland. Fred was actually in NY on business but Allison made us feel totally at home. We couldn’t have asked for anything more from a host! Thanks so much Allison! Overall it was a great stay in Cleveland. We got some rest and played some shows and we even got to celebrate Halloween at our first show! Unfortunately my Pac Man costume was a little too large to play in as you can see by the pics… So there you have Cleveland in a nutshell. Where did I get this giant nutshell? Hooch over and out….

Madison Two Times

So we had the pleasure of playing Madison twice over a few days time. Madison is a cool, little town and home to the University of Wisconsin. The first night we played at a place called The Frequency. It was a good show with several other local and touring bands. Unfortunately there were gale-force winds blowing outside, so it was hard to get people out, but my cousin and his friends hung out with us all night. The wind was incredible and while driving up to Madison we felt their full effect in the van: it was insane on the highway; you really had to grip the steering wheel. The next night in Madison, two days later, we played at a bar called The Inferno. We played really well and the crowd definitely dug our sound. We also met up with our friend Kat- a couchsurfer friend we had made in Durango on our last tour. Talk about random, she just happened to be in Madison at the same time as us as she travels across the US by bike. It was great seeing her and it was great playing in Madison. I also want to give a shout out to our Couchsurfer host Ben who was tremendous and hilarious all at once.

Denver from Blatt

Driving at sunrise

We arrived in Denver around 10:00 AM after driving from Park City the night before. The drive took about 8 hours and we were pretty fried by the time we got in. Hooch and I decided we needed food more than sleep, and so we set out for IHOP almost immediately. IHOP is IHOP is IHOP, but I have to say NEVER ORDER ORANGE JUICE from IHOP! Seriously for a 12-14 oz glass of OJ it’s $4. Four fucking dollars! That’s like a gallon at the grocery store and then some–but I digress. After stuffing our faces, we passed out for most of the day. After all we needed to be rested for the show.

The show itself was great. We played at the Lion’s Lair which is a great little dive-bar on the famous Colfax Avenue. We played with 2 awesome local bands, The Riot and In Due Time. Both bands brought out a ton of fans and packed out the bar. The Riot were a funky band featuring a few horn players and In Due Time were almost a musical-theater-like rock/ska band. Both bands were great and it was a very fun night. I was also really happy to hang out with my friend from Tulane, Aaron, who lives in Denver these days. Onward and upward!

BLAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT

Portland!

Portland is one of my favorite cities.  This is mostly because it has a very “Austin” feel to it.  There’s a very laid back vibe and people are friendly and well maybe just a little bit crazy.  People often move from Austin to Portland and visa versa for just this reason.  We had some time to kill in Portland so we visited the Hawthorne area.  The Hawthorne district is where I would hang out if lived in Portland. There’s about a mile stretch of small independently owned restaurants, shops, and pubs.  There’s a very free spirited vibe and it’s always a breathe of fresh air when I come across places like this.  We stayed with our friends Brad and Lois again and as always they were great hosts.  They kept us fed and just really make us feel like we have a home away from home.  Our show at the Ash Street Saloon was fun and well we couldn’t have asked for a better time in Portland!

Burgers and funk… Just another Saturday night

So we were looking at a Saturday night with no show. Not good for a band that’s trying to promote themselves on tour…. But at the last minute our buddy Scott in Long Beach comes through for us. Last time we were in Long Beach Scott helped us pick up a show for a theater party and we had a blast(Thanks Scott…). So it’s Friday night and we get a call from our friend Scott and says we have a private party to play. Scott wasn’t going to be able to make it because of work so we think we are going to play for a bunch of random strangers as usual…. So we show up and we are met by Thomas (the birthday boy and a musician) and well his party didn’t disappoint. Burgers and funk was the theme of the evening. We ended up knowing most of the peeps at the party from the theater group we played for last time. So we got to talk about theater and well just laugh our asses off. Needless to say we had a great time and Long Beach once again is awesome!

Stubb’s was awesome, thanks.

The Stubb’s show on Wednesday was really awesome, thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a great time. Everyone was dancing, singing, clapping along, and generally enjoying themselves. Auroravore and Bob Floyd Band rocked as well.

Some highlights:
- We planted 23 trees!
- Booden got a free T-shirt for being the most raucous. It was hilarious because these three girls were dancing and getting into the show as well and claimed that they deserved the free shirt. So I asked the crowd to cheer for who they thought deserved it. I pointed to the girls and said “cheer if these girls deserve the shirt,” whereupon very few people made noise. Man, i thought to myself, no one cares and no one is listening to me. But I must continue. “Cheer if you think Booden deserves the shirt,” I continued, whereupon everyone went wild. People cared, they were just waiting to support who they thought was the best fan! I might add that this was a particular success for Booden since the girls were pretty cute.
- Free sunglasses were distributed, and people seem to like them (although many were confused and tried to give them back to us after the show).

If you were at the show, want a free recording of it, and you didn’t get a chance to sign up on the list, you still have a chance! Email booking[at]achachay.com and tell us what free Achachay! item we distributed, to verify that you were actually there.

Set list:
(1) Rock People
(2) Let Go (new song)
(3) Still Learning
(4) Lickin’ Sauce
(5) Without Love
(6) The Player
(7) Dreams
(8) Fever
(9) Existential Funk
(10) Get Funky

More photos:http://achachay.com/photos/
(thanks to my dad Frank Allen for always taking pics!)

Stubb’s Flyers

I hope you enjoy these flyers, and they encourage you to come to our show tomorrow night (Wednesday May 19th at Stubbs. Show starts at 9, we start at 11P). There are somewhere in the vicinity of 300 of these floating around the streets, coffeeshops and hangouts of Austin. We put them up last week and have been getting a lot of great feedback about them.

We’re going to continue on this theme for a little while because they really seem to work. Comment on this post to let us know your suggestions for other “quotes” to change things up a bit, and we’ll see if we can’t find a pic of one of us to match up with it. Since we’ll be hitting up the West and East Coasts again sometime in the next few months, you very well might see your contribution plastered all over your stomping grounds, no matter what town you call home!

If you feel so inclined, download this image (which should be 8.5 x 11 in full format) print it out, and hand out these hand fliers to friends to make sure this show is a massive success. If your worried about saving trees, use scrap paper, or plant a tree with us.