live music

Silliness in Flagstaff

The Flagstaff Brewery has two stages – one indoor and one outdoor. Yet for some reason they wanted us to play in this small corner: (pic on twitter, i’ll link to it eventually. just imagine a very small space).

Right next to the bathroom.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Their reasoning made sense – the indoor stage is too far away and no one would watch us, and the staff wasn’t prepared for an outdoor show. But still, that corner is small. Last time we played a killer outdoor set where people heard the music walking by and came in to jam.

We rocked a great set anyway.

The guys that run the place are really nice, and the beer is great. Another funny thing is that last time they accidentally paid us with a counterfeit $20 bill. Ryan was pissed, because they refused to reimburse us with real money. He wrote a pretty negative review on indieonthemove, a booking site we use. Fortunately, this has been a bee in their bonnet, so this time they gave us an extra $20 to make it right! Praise the power of the internet. And props to them to rectifying the situation.

Another really great thing about Flagstaff is Dan, our couchsurfing host. We stayed with him last time, and had a great time jamming afterwards. He plays some mad harmonica so we got him on stage and jammed out for a while on “Fever.” It was a great time. He’s an amazing host and really takes care of his guests. Even though we only get to spend a small amount of time with him whenever we’re there, we’re kindred spirits and I know we’ll be hanging again in the future. If you get a chance, check out his musical project “2 BUKU”

All in all Flagstaff was a good time. We plan on coming back.

Park City 3 Days and 3 Ways!

So after leaving Colorado we headed to Park City to play 3 shows in a row. This is the most shows we have ever played in that close proximity ever (unless you include this forthcoming SXSW). The main reason for this mini-tour was to come back to Park City because we had such a good time the last time we played there, and because the friends we made told us ski-season is killer there as far as people in the bars goes. Well, they were right! Overall the time spent in Park City was great.

The First night we played a bar called Flanagan’s. The lay out of the bar is similar to a basement (I think it is a basement), so close quarters, but we still rocked it, and one of our favorite bar-tenders (the man responsible for bringing Achachay! to Park City) Andy, works there. It was a great first night. We met our couchsurfer-host, Ira, and we made more friends with some other locals. An entire family showed up, friends of Andy’s, and they came to party! Shane and Teagan, two of the awesome family, hung around for the entire show and Shane even gave me a hand-made rainbow head band at the end of the show. (SIDE NOTE: I recently wore the headband at a party and received many compliments).

Our Couchsurfer Ira was amazing. He opened his home to us for 3 days! He also did his best to come out and see us play all the while studying for the GRE (I hope you nailed it dude!). The next 2 nights were at our home away from home in Park City: Lindzee O’Michael’s. Both of these shows were great. Thursday’s show was exceptional though, and we had a packed-out crowd going nuts for over 2 hours. Nights like these are always fun and rewarding. On our last night in town we dawned the Gorilla Costumes from the Gorilla Run to do something special for our last night. I want to give a shout out to our other favorite bartender in PC, Brian from Lindzee’s: it was him and Andy that, the first time we were in town, made us feel welcome and encouraged us to come back. Brian worked both nights we played at Lindzee’s and we had a great time playing for him.

SO we already have Park City on the books for a return in May and I am thoroughly looking forward to it! No snow this time around, but I’m sure it will be a blast and hopefully this time we can do a radio interview! Look out Park City for May 24th!

BLATT!

Memphis: Coffeeshops and BBQ

After a short drive from Little rock we pulled into Memphis and headed to The Java Cabana.   The Java Cabana is a cozy coffee shop.  A very inviting atmosphere and friendly staff gave us a great start to the evening.  We had a mocha then we set up and played a low key show for a nice size group of our friends. Later that night we went to a bar where we had to become “members” of the bar to hang out. This is how bars can allow smoking by making the clubs exclusive…. So we are now officially members of the ASIS Hooka Lounge and Cafe… Pretty funny stuff. We spent a few hours playing Apples to Apples with a group of friends and then called it a pretty early night. The next day we didn’t have a show so we started off by having lunch at a local barbeque joint Central BBQ. Talk about some awesome food. I had the brisket and it was amazing. The spicy sauce was perfect… After lunch we spent some time doing band work at another coffee shop ‘The Otherlands.’ ‘The Otherlands’ is becoming our home away from home in Memphis or so it seems. The last time we were in Memphis we hung out and did a few hours of band work at the same coffee shop. Speaking of home away from home… I’d like to thank my buddy Mike for letting us flop at his apartment for a couple days. We really appreciate the hospitality bro! So overall it was a great trip to Memphis. Spent some time with friends, played a great show, and got some bad ass BBQ! Yaya!

Salt Lake City!

We pulled into Salt Lake City late Monday night and after a good nights sleep we headed out to the great Salt Lake to see what it was all about. From what I can tell it’s a big lake with salt water. It wasn’t the prettiest thing I’ve seen or smelled…. Later that afternoon we headed back into SLC and made a stop by Sam’s Club to get a cheap slice of pizza. We then had a few hours to kill before we headed to the venue. So some more site seeing was in order. We ended up ata hidden park called Gilgal Sculpture Garden. It’s a little known park in the middle of a neighborhood. The only way we found about it was by doing a Yelp search for the area… Thanks Yelp! There were 12 rock sculptures and over 70 rocks that were engraved with scriptures. The rocks were carved using an acetylene torch . Pretty crazy stuff as you can see from the pictures. The artist Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. went to the trouble of moving up to 62 ton boulders for the garden and it’s pretty incredible really. There’s a funny quote from him that goes “You may think I am a nut, but I hope I have aroused your thinking and curiosity.” I have to say that he did make me think about spirituality and well moving rocks… so he was right! After the Garden we headed to The Bar Deluxe to get ready for our show. We played with a rock band called Little Black Pill. They brought out a good crowd and we made a bunch of new fans and had a blast. I’d like to thank the guys from Little Black Pill for letting us flop on their couches and making us feel at home. So many great people in so many cities! Awesome times!  Check out more pics at our facebook pics page for the west coast tour. http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=208452&id=45765158606&ref=mf

Mt. Shasta… It’s not just a landform….

After a late night at the Weed Brewery we woke up at a reasonable hour so we could attempt to find a pick-up gig. The show we had booked got cancelled because the bar had been sold and was being renovated. So we went to The Vet Club downtown Mt. Shasta just to try our luck. Turns out it was our lucky day. We picked up a show for the night. With that out of the way we had some time to do some hiking and rock climbing.

When you go hiking around Mt. Shasta it’s pretty funny because people don’t really use maps. We got a sheet of paper with directions to a particular trail and climbing wall that basically said find a random parking lot and a random trail and follow it…. Pretty funny. It’s even funnier that we only took one trail that was wrong and ended up actually finding the climbing wall without too much trouble. After the climbing and hiking it was time to head back to town to play our show. The Vet Club was a blast. There was a great crowd that was up to get down and well we couldn’t have asked for a better pick up gig.   We ended up making friends with a percussionist and he sat in on a few songs toward the end of the night.  Nothing like

some auxiliary percussion to aid in the funk.   Between beautiful scenery and the awesome people it couldn’t have been a better day in Mt. Shasta.

Nada Rasta Rocksa! (also San Miguel)

We flopped at their pad and they hooked us up with all sorts of fruit and veggies they had grown as well as some bad ass eggplant lasagna (Thanks Rudy!). After being overfed all day… the show in San Miguel was at a great venue called the Ranch.

The Ranch is such a great surprise in a small town like San Miguel. The venue has a capacity of over 500 people, a large stage and soundsystem as well as great food. The Nada Rasta guys helped us out by bringing out a great group of people on a weeknight to dance and just get all sorts of funky. We had a little jam with some of the Nada Rasta guys before we brought the funk. The show went off without hitch and we had a blast. I can’t say thanks enough to the Nada Rasta guys and we can’t wait to play and chill with these guys again. This is Hooch over and out.

Official Nada Rasta Myspace

El Paso and the “poop” in the spring….

So after a night of sleeping in tents in a non campsite (and for me basically no sleep…) We take off and head further west in search of a destination we like to call El Paso, Texas. On the way we stopped by the natural springs at Balmorhea State Park. This is was a nice break from the van on our 6 hour drive. When we went to jump into the water we looked down and well there was something in the water and it didn’t look like a baby ruth (well there weren’t any peanuts). So we were all a little freaked out by the “poop” looking stuff we figured if everyone else was swimming with it…. why shouldn’t we! So we went with it and had a great time swimming and watching people do stupid things off the high dive… It actually turns out that the “poop” was a type of algae that just looks like poop… Good to know because I was really having trouble eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich knowing I had just swam with poop. So on down I-10 we head to El Paso, TX. We played a show at a small music venue ‘The Hideaway Lounge’. We had a crowd that was small but very receptive. The show started with a local band ‘Descent into the Maelstrom’. They put on a great show and have a very cool ‘Perfect Circle’ type sound. We proceeded to push the funk into everyone’s earbones and they loved it. After the show we flopped with Matt from the ‘Descent into the Maelstrom’. We’d like to thank Matt and his family for their hospitality, they were such great hosts. So we learned a couple of things today. First of all don’t judge a piece of poop by it’s cover it might be algae and second…. El Paso rocks! ~Hooch

Fitzgerald’s recap: Iron Man + Tons of friends

On May 1st we played Fitzgerald’s in Houston for the first time. I personally have a history at Fitzgerald’s because it was the club my band in high school played at the most often. It’s been around forever and they cater to all ages, so it was our home back when I couldn’t even dream of getting into a 21+ club. It was definitely interesting jumping back on the same stage I had played on as a senior in high school, but also much different now that I have so much more experience playing in public. Jordan also has a history at Fitz’s, as his band in college played there.

I thought the show went very well over all. As part of our “Living Vicariously Through a Rockstar” segment, Jordan dressed as Iron Man for the show. It was awesome– Hooch and I started the beginning of the Black Sabbath song “Iron Man” and from the second story of the club Jordan jumped down in full-on Iron Man garb! It was fucking hilarious. Everyone was super pumped for the show after that (video coming soon, or check out the beginning of Jordan’s bio). We also debuted a new song that we have been working on for a while called “Let it Go”. Its a raucous funky song that has all of us singing and soloing, so look out for that one! Overall a great weekend in Houston, playing for friends and fans and just having an awesome time rockin’ out Achachay! Style.

April- Video Update 4!

We update the world about our latest and upcoming adventures. This includes upcoming shows, the first drawing in their “live the rock star life vicariously through us” series, and some personal interview segments with Hooch, Jordan, and Ryan. Plus, video of  ”The Player” live in Ramona CA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coQdsCisOFY

Seattle… A fish catchin’ good time!

Hooch getting ready to catch a fish, in his hands

Who got to catch a fish at the market in Seattle? I did!  We were strolling through the market and the guys working behind the fish counter were totally cool and tossed me a fish!  Check out the video!

Hooch catches a fish at the Seattle Pike Place Market

Besides catching fish at the market we checked out the shops and got some of the famous Seattle coffee.  We had to check out the Seattle public library because it’s really an amazing building.  It’s a strange looking diamondish shaped glass building downtown Seattle.  Let’s just say it’s hard to explain, but the design is awesome and you have to check it out if you’re ever in Seattle.  Later that night we played a show at the Central Saloon.  We had an awesome show thanks to all of our friends and family that came out to see us!  It’s great when we can bring a crowd even when we are 2200 miles from home.  Gotta’ give a shout out to my cousin Sam who I hadn’t seen in years.  Thanks for coming out and bringing friends!  It was great catching up with all our friends and well it was just a great day overall.