ryan greenblatt

Video Update 9: Fan Questions + Voodoo Recap

Achachay! Answers fan questions, talks about opening Voodoo Music Experience, and encourages fans to spread the word in this 9th video update. Watch the vid! We love interacting with you guys so make sure to comment – on the video, on our conference call next Tuesday (see related post for info), here on the site, twitter, facebook, or in person!

Voodoo Video!

The Voodoo Music Experience was incredible. Please enjoy these videos!
We’ll be back soon with a recap of the weekend.

Achachay! – Tour Song – Voodoo Experience 2011 from Voodoo Experience on Vimeo.

Achachay! – Let Go – Voodoo Experience 2011 from Voodoo Experience on Vimeo.

Weed Loves Boobies

After our show in Eugene we trekked back down to Weed, CA to play a breast-cancer benefit concert for some of our friends. The Weed/Mt. Shasta area has been very welcoming to us in the past, and we were happy to perform at their benefit. Breast-cancer research and awareness is important to us, as well, so all around this was a good concert for us to play.

The show was fun and everyone was in good spirits. There was a photo-booth and some where out there in the nether-regions of Middle-Earth there are some fairly incriminating photos of us playing in ours and other people’s underwear…I’ll leave it at that. In the end we helped raise money and we had a great time doing it.

I also want to give a shout out to my dear family friend Nikki Boscia Durlester who’s inspirational book Beyond the Pink Moon continues to give hope for those fighting breast cancer. You can buy her book here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=beyond+the+pink+moon&x=0&y=0

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

SLO Times

First let me say that the tour is going splendidly! We haven’t had too much time on the internet, though, and we apologize for not being better about our blog-posting. If you’d like to file a complaint, please contact your local funk-rock-band-complaint center. Thank you.

After we left the San Diego area we played a show in San Luis Obispo, or SLO. SLO is an awesome town in my opinion: it’s picturesque, the people there have been very nice and very cool to us, and it’s home to what some say is the best tri-tip in the Central Coast. A little aside here: WTF is up with Californians and tri-tip? They can’t get enough of it, and it seems like if it’s not on the menu, then the restaurant is shit! As a Texan and meat-connoisseur, I found my tri-tip experience to be very enjoyable, but nothing too special (sorry guys).

Any who, we once again played the Frog and Peach in SLO, but this time it was pint night. Pint night is where patrons can bring in their own Frog and Peach pint glasses and get beer for super-cheap. We had a great crowd for most

Playing at the Peach

of the night, and over all the show was really fun. We also stayed with Myles and his friends again and it was great to finally get to play for them.

I look forward to my next time in SLO!

Good times

Flagstaff Round 3

Ryan before the show

We have played the Flagstaff Brewery now 3 times and we have a had a great show each time! This was our second show on the this tour and we were ready to rock Flagstaff again. It was a cool, and starry night and we had an energetic crowd for a good part of the show. We also got our friend Daniel aka Danimal to come up and play a few songs with us. He is a badass harmonica player and his band 2BUKU is great!

Highlights from the show: 1. We made some new fans 2. Jordan got his jacket stolen by a drunk/cold fan 3. We recorded some amazing off-the-cuff jams with Daniel on harmonica.

All in all it was a great night, and I can’t wait to come back to Flagstaff! Oh and don’t worry about Jordan’s jacket situation: he ended up scoring a really sweet fleece coat from Daniel later that night!

OKC and the Wonderous Belle Isle Brewery

The Friday after Norman we played a really awesome show in Oklahoma City. The show took place at a brew-pub called the Belle Isle Brewery, which had a kick-ass stage and great sound, as well as some really amazing beer. We shared the night with a local band called the Aguilar Brothers and they were also great.

It was our first time in OKC and we couldn’t of asked for a better show. The place was packed, and we had a good crowd of friends show up too. I thought we killed the show, and I can’t wait to go back.

The night finished in true style. After partying some with a few members of the bar staff, we headed back to our friend’s place just outside the city. We were staying with our friend Autumn and her family, and it was her son’s girlfriend’s birthday the next day, so we stealthily drove to her house and decorated her yard with paper hearts and the like to surprise her. From what I hear, it was a hit! The gesture definitely took me back a few years. OKC was fun…off to Wichita!

Ye Old College Bar: A Love Story

On Monday we played the College Bar on the legendary strip in Stillwater.

Us switching it up for "Fight for Your Right"

Friends at the College Bar

I can’t stress enough how awesome it is to have a good gig on a Monday, and this one was great.

Though we left the venue a little after 2 am, the night continued for six more hours (at least for a few of us). We all went to hang out with some friends at a small gathering which was fun. Hooch and Jordan got rocked in beer-pong, but in their defense, the cups were huge Joe’s cups (of Eskimo Joe’s etc) and had I not been the DD, I think I would have wrecked. The night ended back at Jared and Megan’s with us sitting on the front porch, waxing on the topics of the day. I decided to head to bed with day break, but Hooch and Jared chatted until around 8:30!

That’s Oklahoma for yah! Next stop, Enid. Round II

Denton for the first time

Yesterday was the first day of our late summer mid-western tour.  Over the next 10 days we will be playing shows in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. Last night we were in Denton, TX at Andy’s Bar.  Andy’s is a pretty sweet music venue. There is a nice sized stage with good sound. There is also a basement where you can get away from the loud music if you just want to chill out. The show went really well. There was a group of 20 or so really enthusiastic people hanging out and dancing during our set.  They reallllly liked screaming Achachay!

While we were loading out of the venue we saw an episode of cops first hand. A woman that had come into the bar for a drink and was turned away because she was too drunk. After walking out of the bar she got in her car, backed out of the parking spot, and then proceeded to pass out at the wheel. Fortunately the car just idled up against the curb. It took about 5 minutes for the police to show up to arrest the woman. It is pretty scary that people will get behind the wheel of a car in a state like that.

Overall it as a great night. We played a solid show, made some new fans, and got to see an episode of cops in person. Gotta love life on the road! That concludes the fist installment of our Midwestern Summer Tour. Hooch over and out!