Colorado

Pagosa Springs a great success

The drive from Steamboat Springs to Pagosa Springs takes a band 8 hours. For the same band to return to Boulder for a show the following night requires another 6 hour drive. Naturally this places high expectations on a venue and a city to make such a trip worthwhile.

Luckily, we already knew we were getting a great monetary guarantee. For me, a show is worth playing if it gives us one of three things (the more the better); 1. A chance to play in front of a lot of people, 2. A lot of money, or 3. A good opportunity for a future relationship. (Note that I didn’t include the givens, such as the chance to inspire people, make a positive impact on someone’s life, get practice, and share our message. These happen no matter where we play.) So we had the money part taken care of. That’s why I booked the show. The rest, was in the cards.

We drove with the delightful vision of this beautiful valley. It also clued us into the surprising size of Pagosa Springs; 1500 people. Less than my high school. How could the bar afford to pay us what they were? Does 10 percent or more of the population go to this one bar every Friday night?

We kicked off the show playing for about 20 people. This is not too good for Friday night; it certainly doesn’t meet my first requirement. We still rocked the hell out the first few songs because we always give it our all. A group of Apaches in the front loved what we brought, and bought merch during our first set break. Cool.

Then, the show really took off. A crowd that had been watching some sort of boxing match made it to the show around 10 and we had just the right grooves to get them shaking. The bar staff later told us they hadn’t seen such dancing at the Bear Creek Saloon in at least six months! People loved our originals, and they loved our selection of covers.

It hit 1 AM and we mentioned that we only had a song left on the set list. Everyone went so crazy, so we kept playing until last call. We played our Deadmau5 song on a whim, and the crowd absolutely loved it. We got tips, we got show offers, and places to stay seemingly just from that song. Pretty cool because Hooch had just been practicing it that day to perfect it.

In the end the show was a huge success. Its very exciting because we’re going to play there again in just a month. The friends we made guaranteed us that the place would be packed now that they know who we are.

The view when driving to pagosa springs

Sidenote:
Another cool thing is that one girl saw our flyer, checked us out, and watched all of our video updates. This is cool because (1) Flyers work! and (2) She had a feel for our personalities.

Ft. Collins Round 2 “The Vault”

We had a day to relax between our Ft. Collins shows. So we hung out at Blatt’s family friends’ place. I’ve gotta give a big thanks to Debbie and Adrian for their hospitality. Especially Debbie for cooking for us and letting us raid her kitchen!  We also spent quite a bit of time watching music DVDs in Adrian’s man cave.  Good times.  After our day off, Blatt and I spent the day touring and hanging out at a couple of the local breweries. First we took a tour of the New Belgium brewery. You might know New Belgium for their Fat Tire and Ranger IPA beers. New Belgium is a really cool self sustaining company and if you haven’t tried their brews you should! I recommend the Ranger IPA. So tasty! There are a few pics from New Belgium at the bottom.  After New Belgium we headed up the road to Odell brewery. We were there too late for a brew tour so we just tasted a few of their brews and made some new friends. After a day of tasting the local beers we headed to The Vault for the show. The Vault is named appropriately because it’s an old bank and you can actually hang out in the vault. The Vault has a great room with high ceilings and wood floors that makes sound really come to life even without amplification. The only down side is we have to play a much quieter in this type of room. We still made the most of it and had people movin’ and groovin’. We had several familiar faces from our Monday night at Hodi’s. It’s very cool to see fans coming out again and again. Makes it feel like we are starting to achieve our goals of establishing fan bases through out the US. It’s been an awesome 3 days in Ft. Collins and it gets harder and harder to leave every time we come back. Unfortunately (for Ft. Collins) we have 4 more weeks of shows! Hooch over and out.

Denver

After fugly’s Friday we immediately left for Denver. The ride up was boring in geographic feature but a tad interesting because of some “tainted” pizza. We eventually made it to Denver by around noon Saturday and all of us went to bed directly.

The show Saturday was at the Lions Lair: a small dive bar located in the heart of Colfax Ave. We feel right at home here (and in most dive bars). I, personally, love a good dive bar. The show was good and we played well for a small but rowdy crowd including one random cross-dressing flame-haired guy who wandered in for our set, rocked out and left. It was a sight when I looked up and saw this guy freaking out on the dance floor.

I want to shout out to my friend Aaron Segel and his crew that he brought out, as well as my friend Jen Wolchanski who also came and brought some people–y’all made the show for us!

Blatt

Yes, this is actually a picture from Fugly's. We didn't take any Denver pics

Gearing up for the road

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we’re getting super excited to be on the road again. We just played a great show tonight at Quoffer’s in Elgin TX and tried out a couple new covers that went over swimmingly. We also got to play some at DonJon’s masquerade, a private party we played last Friday, and people seemed to love what we’re sharing. There is a lot of new original material as well, but we’re waiting to unveil that…

I guess I didn’t even get to share how badass our “Dia de la Throwdown” party was… I’ll put another post up about that soon. In the meantime, check out what’s been going on in the tour planning.

We added some new shows, including this coming Friday April 15th in Dallas at the Trophy Room, a show at Willie’s in Stillwater OK on Wednesday Apr 20, another day in Ft. Collins CO (we’ll guest host the funk jam on Monday April 25th at Hodi’s and play across the street at The Vault on Wednesday – thanks to our buddies the Nu Classics for the spot!), and Friday Apr 29th at the Bear Creek Saloon in Pagosa Springs CO. We’ve still got a few possible shows in the works for other cities in Oklahoma, Oregon, and California, so stay tuned if you’re in those areas. As a note to our friends (such as Rachel), we tried to get a gig in Colorado Springs and for some reason it just hasn’t panned out yet… although i still have hope for that Tuesday or Sunday.

Here’s the official schedule, thus far:
Apr 15: Dallas, TX The Trophy Room, 10P
Apr 16: Perkins, OK, Perkins VFW
Apr 18: Stillwater, America, The College Bar, 9P
Apr 19: Enid OK, The Q Spot
Apr 22: Enid, OK, Fugly’s
Apr 23: Denver CO, Lion’s Lair, 10P
Apr 25: Ft. Collins CO, Hodi’s Half Note
Apr 27: Ft. Collins CO, The Vault
Apr 28: Steamboat Springs CO, Ghost Ranch Saloon
Apr 29: Pagosa Springs CO, Bear Creek Saloon
Apr 30: Boulder CO, Dark Horse Tavern, 10P
May 4: Phoenix AZ, Long Wong’s at the Fire House
May 5: Flagstaff AZ, Flagstaff Brewing Company
May 6: Grover Beach w/ Nada Rasta @ Mongo’s Saloon
May 7: Los Osos w/ Nada Rasta @ Sweet Spring Saloon
May 9: San Luis Obispo CA, Frog And Peach
May 11: Long Beach CA, Dipiazza’s
May 13: Santa Monica CA, Trip
May 14: Sacramento CA, Marilyn’s On K
May 17: San Francisco, Grant and Green
May 20: Applejam, Ashland OR
May 24: Park City, UT, Lindzee O’ Michaels, 9P
* On Air performance KPCW, 6:15 P (91.9 in Park City, 88.1 in Oakley, kpcw.org streaming on the net)
May 25: Gunnison, CO, Gunnison Brewery, 9P
May 26: Bubble Lounge, Telluride, CO, 9P
May 27: Grand Junction, CO, Quincy Bar, 10P
May 28: Durango CO, The Summit, 9P
May 29: Pagosa Springs CO, Bear Creek Saloon

See you all soon! Austin and Houston people, we’ll be announcing shows soon…

Apple Jam, the festival we're playing on May 20th

Grand Junction, then narrowly avoiding the wrath of the Elements

Our last show of the Colorado / UT mini tour was in Grand Junction, at Quincy’s. We’d played there once before and really enjoyed the staff. This show had about twice as many people as last time, and we impressed another booking agent who will help us in the future. We also made some new friends who were really cool, loved the show, and even invited us to stay with them when we come back. Next show in GJ will be at Quincy’s on Friday May 27th! We’re excited to be back. Rumor has it that it might turn into a Toga Party…

After the show, we decided to just jump on the 20 hour drive back to Austin. That’s right, we left at 3AM for a 20 hour drive. Well actually because of snow we had to take a longer, safer route of about 22 hours.

Earth: Ryan started out driving through a blizzard on I-70

Wind: I (Jordan) had to drive through the craziest wind in West Texas – I thought a tornado was about to form a few miles to our left. I could almost see nothing because of the dust.

Fire: Hooch took over and the air filled with smoke for miles, reducing visibility to less than the windy dirty precedent set whilst I drove. Radio and internet warnings alerted us that we drove through the very county where wild fires closed down multiple highways.

Water: Finally, Ryan got back in the driver’s seat for the last leg home and drove through crazy thunderstorms. A fitting end. On an unrelated side note, I watched Cyrus in Spanish, and then meditated.

Good ol’ Gunnie!

Pic of the Last Chance in Gunni

Today we are headed from Crested Butte to Gunnison, Colorado. It’s an easy 45 minute drive and it turns out the blizzard didn’t hit Gunnison so we were out of the bad driving conditions in no time. On our way we picked up a couple of skiers hitching their way back to Gunnison. They both attend the university in Gunnison and told us about the “Rail-Jam” going on that night on campus. The campus had set up a couple of big rails and a snow ‘quarter pipe’ so skiers and snowboarders could show off their skills in the middle of campus. Pretty awesome. There were some killer skiers and boarders and they were giving away red bull so we had a high energy good time! Check out the pics I tried to take with my phone to get an idea of what I’m talking about…. I’m no photographer but you get the idea… lol

We also got to meet up with a good friend of ours from couchsurfing Ty who lives in Gunnison. After a few hours of catching up with him and hanging out at the “Rail-Jam” we headed to the venue the Last Chance Saloon to set-up for the show. The Last Chance has a biker/cowboy bar feel but we brought out more of a hippie crowd. Thursday nights are typically not the best night but we brought the funk and people came to eat it up! It ended up being a fun night. I met a musician that went to school at the University of Oklahoma  at the show. We got to reminisce about our times playing music in Norman and talking about our mutual friends. It’s a small world…. So overall our time in Gunnison was a blast as always. Tomorrow we are headed to Golden baby! Keepin’ the funk on the highway!  Hooch over and out!

Pic of Rail Jam unfortunately with my thumb in the way....

Pic of Rail Jam

Crested Butte: friendly people, promo, good times

Yesterday we arrived in Crested Butte around 5P and were greeted cheerily by the staff of Lobar, where we played. The owner Ben quickly came down and made us feel totally at home. He regaled us with stories and bought us appetizers and beers as we sampled the #1 sushi in North American ski towns. It really is incredibly tasty sushi, and a rare treat for a band on the road.

Ben told us that in the small town (population 2500) of Crested Butte, word of mouth advertising is king. So we hit the streets. We went to every bar in Crested Butte, plus a couple of dinner spots, and talked up our show. We handed out fliers, and gave some people special free passes. We made friends. Tessa, Josh, and Jordan from Kochevar’s (where Ryan and I owned two groups of people at foosball), Joel at Talk of the Town. David, a friend we met on Couchsurfing, guided us and became our official CB promoter. It worked. By the time we hit up the last couple of establishments, most of the people had already heard about the funk band from Austin playing at Lobar.

Right at 10 Hooch and I headed back towards Lobar and saw a large group of people waiting to get in. It was awesome. Our hours of face-to-face promotion paid off with a crowd. Ben had helped too – All day he bribed people with drinks to text their friends and come down to our show.

We kicked it off right and everyone started dancing. They didn’t stop until the end. The night was a solid success. We’ll definitely be back to Crested Butte, and the Lobar, cause we love ‘em.

The end of the West Coast tour recap

Hey everyone we got caught up with the end of the tour and coming back to austin and getting Kickstarter out there and getting our next tour up and running and . . . so on . . . and so on . . . so for now I’ll sum up the last few shows in a few sentences. They deserve more attention, of course, but alas ce’est la vie.

Sept 14, Carbondale, CO:
Awesome to play for my sis, garrett, and friends.

Sept 15, Gunnison, CO:
Love this venue (The Gunnison Brewery), because everyone dances and gets into the show immediately. It’s always packed. Lori and crew take care of us with delicious micro-brews, and Ty hosted us again couchsurfing style. He then took Amanda and I out to go bouldering, despite all of our slight hung-over-ness, and we nailed a cool overhanging climb.

Sept 16, Telluride, CO:
Bubble Lounge gave us free oxygen which is cool. Never done that before. At the show a decent sized crowd loved our originals and old funk and soul covers. Crazy thing- we took a 5 minute break and the whole, drunken, fun loving, sing-a-longin’ crowd ghosted by the time we got a beer and bathroom break. Telluride is a beautiful town, and a bonus is that our friends/multi-show/multi-state acquaintances run a SWEET coffee shop in town, the Steaming Bean. Downside: didn’t get to hang with our hosts.

Sept 17, Grand Junction, CO:
Great support from the bar and staff. Crazy how most of the time no one danced or came close to the stage, but people would walk by and tell us how awesome we were playing. Very friendly CS host. Hear that GJ is the meth capital of the world, which augmented Hooch’s methhead paranoias.

Sept 18, Durango, CO:
Jack, Jess, the Leggetts in general, and Kat were awesome hosts. Bar was fun and show rocked. People danced. We made a possibly very useful connection for future musical possibilities. Bonuses galore:
- Kenny was in town for a mountain biking race and we got to catch up
- Experienced Mesa Verde Nat’l Park
- Saw a deer gutted for the first time (nuts!)
- I helped tan the hide a TINY bit
- Rode a two -story bike
- Food not bombs is cool
- the Ground Up Art Collective our friends hang out at is badass, and very welcoming
Played Settlers of Catan for the first time and loved it.

Sept 21, Amarillo, TX:
Show got moved from the historic Nat Ballroom to the 806 – a coffee shop across the street. This turned out to be AWESOME because we met and listened to the amazing, powerful, emotional, stunning music of Jenny Wood. Check her out if you get the chance to see her live. You will be happy you did.

Sept 22, Lubbock, TX:
Played with my old bandmate and good friend Nathan Glenn. That alone made it just lovely. Recorded the show and will put a track or two on the bonus live CD for Kickstarter. CP brought a crowd.

Sept 24, Austin TX EP release:
Technically not part of the tour, but being only two days later, should be included. How sweet to play at home! So many familiar faces, so many lovely people. Knowing the words, singing and dancing along, telling us how we’ve improved so much, glueing googly eyes on their hands.

Check out the pics on facebook by clicking here, and forgive all my run on sentences and lack of proper punctuation, like semi-colons.

Flashing lights in Carbondale! (last West Coast show)

Our time in Carbondale started with flashing lights and the local authorities. Apparently bands aren’t supposed to park in the street to unload. Ryan said in passing “This is just where most bars tell us to park to unload.” The officer then asks sarcastically “And where are these bars?” I proceeded to name off the 29 cities we had played and parked at in the past 6 weeks. Then I walked off to keep from getting thrown in jail for running my mouth…. The officer fortunately ended up giving us a warning and after our little brush with the law Carbondale was awesome. There was a birthday party at the bar so spirits were high and the booze had been flowing. We had people singing, dancing and just having a great time. We met a fellow Texan that particularly enjoyed the show. “Big Will” is the self-proclaimed “only black man” in Carbondale. He loved the funk and had the quote of the night. “White people can’t dance but they sure do look good when they got tits.” For the record; I think we dance just fine but the girls were… let’s say… finer than the dancing? Anyway…. Carbondale was a blast and I can’t wait to go back. Colorado I think I love you!

P.S. This relates the story of March 13th, 2010

Tulluride baby!

Today we played in Tulluride, CO. Tulluride is set right in the middle of the mountains and from all sides there is a beautiful view. We arrived just in time to get a view of the mountains on the way into town before sunset. Our show at “Fly Me To The Moon” went really well. We had a small crowd that danced and ate up the funk.  We heard from a new friend of ours that the Seinfeld’s hang out in Tulluride regularly.  Unfortunately we didn’t run into the Sein’s.   I think Jerry Seinfeld would be one of the few people that would get me star struck.  What can I say I’m a sucker for the Sein….  After the show we got the “How can a bunch of white boys be so funky.”  Never get tired of hearing that!  So you can chalk up one more mountain town as funked by Achachay!