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Achachay! UPDATE JULY 2012

A MESSAGE FROM RYAN GREENBLATT, DRUMMER ON BEHALF OF ACHACHAY!

Hello to all of my Achachillians! I hope each and every one of you is having an amazing summer and loving life!

Over the past few months Achachay! has unfortunately decided to disband. It is with a very heavy heart that I relay this information to you, and I can only say that I am extremely grateful for all of the support we received over the years from you guys. We are NOTHING without our fans and I felt like we had some of the best fans in the world.

We all appreciated the countless shout-outs, the attendance of concerts, feeding us on the road, giving us shelter and places to sleep on the road, the super-fun party times, the excellent and enlightening conversations, and all of the just general good-vibes that we got from you guys over the years. I humbly and earnestly submit this message in the hopes that you can feel my deep appreciation and gratitude.

A few short things to accompany this:

1. Look forward to getting similar posts from Hooch and Jordan, so they can share what they want to say to all of you.

2. Would anyone like free Achachay! swag? We have extra t-shirts, cds, koozies, sunglasses etc that I am happy to give away if anyone wants anything just contact me on FB or on twitter (@theBlattAbides) and we can arrange a way for you to get it no matter where you are in the world.

3. I am now currently playing in another band and I would appreciate you showing us the same love you showed Achachay!, or at least giving us a chance! We are called Southbound Drive and you can check out all of our tunes here for free: http://soundcloud.com/southbounddrive, at our facebook page www.facebook.com/southbounddrive, or you can go here to download a FREE copy of our EP Agnes: southbounddrive.com/Agnes.zip. I also want to make clear that I did NOT leave Achachay! for this band, and this had no bearing on the disbanding whatsoever.

So thanks again, from the bottom of my heart, and with all of my love, body and soul.

Sincerely,

Ryan Greenblatt

I’m Going Going, Back Back to Teullride…

After our amazing impromptu show in Salida, we made our way back to Telluride. Telluride is a small ski town in the mountains that has an incredible view from main st and is home to some really cool people, including our friends and perennial hosts, Kate and Wily.

The show this time around was at Fly me to the Moon. Originally we had a show scheduled at the Bubble Lounge, but between December and February (we had just played the Bubble in December) something changed and the venue shut down (apparently without warning the staff or patrons). BUT luckily for us, the booker and our friend Roxy, didn’t make us cancel the show and worked out a deal with Fly Me to the Moon so that we could still play in town.

The first time we ever played in Telluride it was at FMTTM in March of 2010 and it was cool/funny to see our tags in the green room from back then. Our show went well, but we had to compete with a few other shows that night and the weird situation explained earlier causing the venue change.

Telluride is still one of my favorite places to go and to play, so I am looking forward to coming back. Hopefully next time it will be smoother!

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!

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

Q Spot Good Times Rock n’ Rooooooooollllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rockin' "Choice" at the Q Spot

In our last week on the past tour we played our favorite bar in Enid AMERICA, the Q Spot. We love the Q Spot because David, the owner, and his family take great care of us every time we play there. He also has a really nice, large stage for us to tear up, and we always have an excited and attentive crowd.

The show itself was great and well attended. We played a good long set and rocked out as usual. The night progressed to our new favorite hangout: the Lounge located in the Ramada Inn in Enid. The Lounge also has these sweet koozies (not sweeter than ours though!) that feature a “lounge lizard” in a martini glass….with a martini in hand. I really enjoy those koozies, and for those of you who know me, koozies in general. On this night, though, we found out that the bar only intends for you to use their koozies in the bar, and not actually take them with you when they give you a beer with one on. This is stupefying to me as they are the perfect way to promote a MOTHER-F’ING BAR, but as they say: to each his own.

We will be back and rockin’ the Q Spot again in the near future!

Denver is the BOMB!

After our midnight drive to Colorado we slept all day and then proceeded to have one of my favorite shows of the tour. We have played in Denver several times: once at a strip club, and a few other times at a really divey bar that is great in it’s own way, but never had a real draw. This time we played a really cool bar/venue called Quixote’s. The place is huge and had multiple rooms with great sound systems, and is decorated with really cool paintings and old and new concert posters.

Naturally, the local-support that the venue had booked to play with us crapped out the day of the show, so we were left to play the entire night. We don’t mind playing long shows, but we always appreciate the draw of a local band to help us fill the venue. Part of the reason this show was so great, was because all of that didn’t matter: between our awesome friends and fans in Denver we brought out a raucous 35-40 person crowd, hungry for a night of funky-tunes! It was awesome and amazing to have so many people come out on a Thursday.

We already booked another show for December 15th at Quixote’s and I can’t wait to come back!

Babylon in Fresno

Unfortunately sometimes a show will get double-booked and one of the bands ,or even an entire group of bands, will be dropped from the show. A week before we left on tour this happened to us for a Saturday night gig we had in Sacramento. I thought to myself that we were pretty much SOL, but I wasn’t going to take it lying down. So I got on the ol’ interweb and emailed 20 or so places in the region just north of Paso Robles all the way to the Sacramento area. I was sure to lay it on a little thick with the “we got dropped from our show” bit to see if we couldn’t get a last-minute show, and sure enough we lucked out big time! Within days I heard back from the booker of a cool club in Fresno called the Babylon Club. They were happy to let us jump on the bill and they even offered me a guarantee. Needless to say I was ecstatic.

The show went really well too. We played last to a smaller, but very energetic crowd that hung around after the local bands played. Also all of the other bands who played were great, and actually brought out people (believe it or not this is rarely the case). So from having a show canceled we ended up making a new contact with a booker and promoter who, I feel, really appreciate good music and aren’t afraid to do some work to promote a show. Can’t wait to come back!

Lompoc ‘N’ Around, What? What?!

Lompoc, pronounced Lom-poke, is a midsized town of California’s central coast, and scattered throughout are dive bars and sports bar-n-grill sort of places. One such bar was our venue for the night; the name was The Wicked Shamrock.
As the name implies, the Shamrock is a hybrid between an Irish Pub and a club that caters mostly to the punk/goth/darker-side-of-rock genres. Needless to say, Achachay! funked ‘n’ rolled all night and made the place their own. Like they do.
There was dancing and drinking, as much on our part as on the part of the audience. I guess that’s not exactly true, the crowd was definitely boozing a bit more. A particularly drunk group of boys comes to mind. They were pretty on fire about the show- bought merch, chatted about the band- and really brought the house down. By which I mean, one of them fell victim to gravity, and toppled himself, a table, and three of the four chairs around said table onto the floor. On the other hand, other folks were more suave, like the New Yorker named Boston who broke into various swing routines with her friend.
All in all, the show was a blast and the bar was good to us- buying us a round of Patron when the clock struck twelve and Hooch began the festivities of yet another birthday.
The Lompoc post would not be complete without mention of our hospitable host Brian. He was generous with his his time, energy, and home. We went out for dinner before the show (delicious!), he hung out for most of the show, and then invited us to breakfast in his kitchen the next day. We found out that he was a fellow Texan and preparing to move back home. He shared stories about his experience in the air force, which had an almost uncanny semblance to passages from Catch-22, so conversation was never lacking.
Good show, good company, and we hope to see Brian back in Texas!

-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!)