Colorado

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!

Puebloooooooooooo!!!!!

Us and the famous Slopper!

After a few days of R&R spent in Colorado Springs, we headed south to Pueblo. Pueblo is a cool, little town that is famous for a food  dish called the Slopper. A slopper, for all you N00bs, is 2 hamburgers (meat (cheese if you like it) and buns) smothered in green chili sauce and topped with fries. For those of you not familiar with the Souther CO and New Mexico ‘green chili’, this is more of a sauce than a soup and is quite tasty. Sloppers can have as many as 6 hamburger patties and can also have red chili (beans/meat typical chili) on them as well. Our new couchsurfing friend Jenny took us to the Coors Bar, known for the best sloppers in town, and we were not disappointed. I should also mention one  can order a slopper “Christmas style” which is a combo of red and green chili on top (yum!). I think, personally, I need to create a sort of Texas-slopper. Maybe chopped beef or brisket sandwiches, covered in red chili (with more tasty TX BBQ meat), and then with some bacon (because bacon is FUCKING AWESOME) and yeah, I guess, if you want, you can add cheese (I’d be down for queso!).

Anyways, enough food talk (can you tell what my favorite part of Pueblo was?), our concert was also fun. Wednesday nights aren’t typically the best, but this show wasn’t bad at all. we played a place called the Downtown Bar, and we had a good crowd including our Couchsurfer and her friends, some friends from CO Springs that came down, and other locals. We went over well and had a great night which ended with a late night trip to Denny’s, the second in three days (no joke).

Friends and fans with our new T-shirts on!

I’m stoked to come back to Pueblo and play again for our new friends!

BLATTTTTTTT!!!!!!

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!

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.

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.

December in Colorado

A fun little 8 shows in 10 days jaunt to one of our favorite states!

Thursday, December 8th: The Summit in Durango, CO 10P
Friday December 9th: Bear Creek Saloon in Pagosa Springs, CO, 9P
Saturday December 10th: Winter Park Pub in Winter Park, CO 9p
Monday December 12th: Bubble Lounge in Telluride, CO, 9:30 P
Wednesday December 14th: Shug’s at the Shack in Boulder, CO w/ Smack Thompson, 10P
Thursday December 15th: Quixote’s in Denver, CO w/ In Due Time, 9P
Friday December 16th: Alma’s Only Bistro in Alma, CO
Saturday December 17th: Motherloaded in Breckenridge, CO, 10P

Blog catch up: Pagosa Springs

We’re almost done chronicling our last tour… Just about to get into the last week. This is a stream of consciousness post…

On Friday October 14th we woke and drove 7 hours from Denver to Pagosa Springs. We’ve done this drive twice before and its pretty sweet, but this time was more ridiculous since we had already driven 12 hours from Reno to Moab, and eight hours from Moab to Denver the previous two days. Both of those shows were four hour shows too. We’re putting in our 10,000 hours I suppose, although we’ll be better drivers than players at the end of it

The show was fun. The Bear Creek Saloon always has a new crowd of people and we never know what to expect. The funny thing about this time was that we didn’t have a place to stay. Normally, we just drive home to Austin because Pagosa is often our last stop, but this time we were playing Creede the next night, and its only 1.5 hours away.

We only took one break so sourcing a sleeping spot proved fairly troublesome. Luckily Liza saved the day. What would we do without her? She befriended a traveling troupe of friendly dudes traipsing across the US and they offered the floor of their hotel.

The great stories happened at the afterparty, as they are often wont to do.

Ryan and Liza were tired, so they headed back to the hotel. Hooch and I were pumped to check out this crazy after hours secret club run by a peaceful biker gang… that our friend Justine told us about.

The place was really chill. It was kind of what you’d expect: a warehouse with a pool table, music, dancing, and “free” drinks (you are expected to tip). I got invited to play a game of poker, so I got immediately sucked in. It was sweet. I played it really cool and knocked everyone out over the course of the next three hours until I was heads up with the host. At that point it was 6:30 AM so we decided to split the pot and call it a … morning.

Hooch and I managed to find a ride back to the new acquaintances’ hotel. We stumbled around the complex toting a bottle of whiskey, searching for the right room. Upon entering, we were surprised to find that sleeping bodies covered almost every single surface in the room. I managed to curl up in the corner between the wall and the bed, but Hooch would have had to sleep halfway in the bathroom. Pretty funny situation. Last thing I remember before passing out was that he was eating a leftover Subway sandwich, both in the bathroom and in bed since they were one and the same.

Of course it never ends on the road. The party goes on. Our gracious and generous hosts had to check out early the next morning since they were hitting the slopes and moving on, so they awoke us just two hours later. Where was Hooch? We hopped over to the van and found him comfortably clutch the whiskey and a spare pillow to his breast. I suppose the bathroom floor just didn’t do it for him.

Liza and Ryan fared ok, but Hooch and I had stayed up until about 7AM partying. I passed out in the van next to Hooch and we both slept for the next couple hours. I’m not sure what the others did – I think they checked out a hot springs and got some breakfast. I think I ate some oatmeal at a gas station later that day.

Yep. That’s the deal with Pagosa Springs. We’ve never really gotten to enjoy the daytime offerings of the beautiful town. Hooch befriended the friendly biker gang (They are called something ridiculous like the “He-Devils of Grace”) and they offered us a place to stay, so hopefully the next time will be a little more restful. Either way I won’t be surprised if we end

This was not our show at Pagosa Spings, but it captures the essence of the night's energy

up with a good story to tell.

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!

Two Days in Telluride

The view driving up main street

We had the privilege of spending two nights in Telluride this time around. Unfortunately our gig in Gunnison was canceled due to what I will refer to as “bar drama” and so we drove straight to Telluride from Park City. Telluride is a magical little mountain town on the Western Slope in Colorado. It has all the fine scenery of the Alps and close to no pretension (which can be found in some places around CO…).

My friends Kate and Wily live in Telluride and were awesome hosts once again. We took it easy the first night, stopping by the Bubble Lounge (our venue for the next night) and it just happened to be ‘open mic’ night. So we got on stage and ripped through some jams to build some excitement for the show the next night.

The next day was great: we hung out around town and basked in the sunlight and clean, crisp mountain air. The show was good, too. We once again played the Bubble Lounge, a local oxygen bar and watering-hole, and they took good care of us. We played for a small, but energetic crowd and ended up having a fun time hanging out after hours. Telluride is one of those places I hope we can continue to come back and play for a long time to come.