tour

Weed, CA It Was Dope (by Dayna)

Dayna

Shasta Lake from the window of the van

Bridge where Ryan encountered a train

Hooch at the Falls

Ryan Greenblatt on a rock

Dayna at the falls

leapin’ at the frog and peach

monday we played in san luis obispo (forgive the failure of the shift key on this computer, there will be no capitals) at a place call the frog and peach. san luis obispo (heretofore known as slo) is a college town – cal poly –  and a perfect crowd for our style of music, so we were excited to get our foot in the door, impress some people, and get a better night for the next time we are in town. we did just that.  we had a lot of fun even with a small crowd, and we’ll definitely be back in late september – playing a weekend or possibly frog and peach’s 1 dollar pint night on tuesdays.

after the first set we took a break and most of the crowd left. i suppose college kids do have to study sometime… thats good i want the world full of educated interesting people. we like that kind of crowd. anyway we started the second set and quickly played “sad sad city” by ghostland observatory. a couple guys that are show promoters heard the sweet phase shifted notes from down the block and were instantly drawn to our show like starving men to a free buffet. they stayed and danced for the entire rest of the night, even running out into the street and convincing people to come and see a song.

comically, every fifteen minutes or a so a huge group of 20 people would come in for some girl’s (always a girl, i dont know why) 21st birthday, take a shot, and leave. we would pick a good danc-y tune and get them to groove for a song or two, but they had their list of bars to take the lady on her first legal day, so they went off on their journey. it kinda felt like we were back at the dizzy rooster, thirsty nickel or chuggin monkey in austin. fun times.

another good aspect of slo is that we got to be the first time couchsurfers for our buddy nelson111 (pretend those 1s are exclamation points). he is a great guy and a great host. in his initial message he said something really funny about us being the first at his house. it was something along these lines, ‘my roommates are all cool with it, except one who is worried that you’ll be really messy, but even if you are i dont mind.’ needless to say we were immaculate. nelson came to dinner with us and then stayed up a bit to chill after the show, so we got a chance to know each other a little better. couchsurfing is so wonderful. it always makes me happy about the state of the world we live in. i dont think something like it could have existed that long ago, because people just didnt have as much trust for strangers, or openness about their lives. even now most people think that the idea of couchsurfing is crazy, and they cant believe that it works, that there arent more horror stories. there is an evolution of culture over the course of history, and this couchsurfing is one positive manifestation of a more inclusive, egalitarian sense of self and other. pretty sweet.

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.

Perkins America

Last night we played our second show of the tour at a VFW in Perkins, Oklahoma, or as the Oklahomans call it: “Perkins, America”. The show was not exactly incredible, but still very enjoyable. For instance, I didn’t know you can line-dance to every one of our songs, but apparently, you can! (and what a relief to know that, too) The show wasn’t as bad as that scene in Spinal Tap when they play the Air Force Base and there is air-traffic controllers coming through the speakers, but it had that feel because there was only a small (but enthusiastic) crowd, and we were at a VFW. Anyways, we sold some merch and got to play a few new songs at the request of our patrons (average age 60+) including “Proud Mary” and “Sangria Wine” which both came off surprisingly well. It’s another 5 days in OK for the Achachay! boys and I’m lovin’ every minute of it.

BLATT

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

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!

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.

Madison Two Times

So we had the pleasure of playing Madison twice over a few days time. Madison is a cool, little town and home to the University of Wisconsin. The first night we played at a place called The Frequency. It was a good show with several other local and touring bands. Unfortunately there were gale-force winds blowing outside, so it was hard to get people out, but my cousin and his friends hung out with us all night. The wind was incredible and while driving up to Madison we felt their full effect in the van: it was insane on the highway; you really had to grip the steering wheel. The next night in Madison, two days later, we played at a bar called The Inferno. We played really well and the crowd definitely dug our sound. We also met up with our friend Kat- a couchsurfer friend we had made in Durango on our last tour. Talk about random, she just happened to be in Madison at the same time as us as she travels across the US by bike. It was great seeing her and it was great playing in Madison. I also want to give a shout out to our Couchsurfer host Ben who was tremendous and hilarious all at once.

Late night in St. Louie

We spent the day shooting our video update http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlOpLw-ir0 then it was about 7 pm so we headed to club. Turns out The Way Out Club is a pretty sweet venue.  At 7 we arrived at the club and were way too early…So, we headed to a vegan restaurant and waited way too long on some food that didn’t have to be cooked…  After our trip back to the club Stinkfoot had taken the stage and was rocking. There was a decent crowd and people just kept packing in. We were on after Stinkfoot and by that time a big crowd had formed in the bar. Our show was awesome. There was a great vibe in the club from all the people. It’s really a great feeling when you can make people who might not necessarily like your flavor of music dig it. That was definitely the case on this particular night. Such a great show. We made a ton of new fans and then The 7 Shot Screamers went on. They are a cool mix of punk rock and rockabilly and their bassist Chris rocks an upright which gives them big points in my book. They totally rocked the faces off of the crowd. It was really a great performance. After the show we headed to an after-party with the Screamers and mingled with their friends and fans. It was a good party. We got to the door and the door guy (yeah there was a door man at the party too) says it’s $3 to get in.   He explains that the $3 is for cleaning supplies to clean up after the party. Friggin’ hilarious… I’m talking to Chris outside and he’s like “oh Clownvis is about to start.” You may ask what is Clownvis like I did… Chris’s answer was “you’ll see.” He was right. Clownvis is a guy dressed up like Elvis with clown face paint…. It was the best performance I have ever seen through a lo-fi karaoke machine in a kitchen as you can see from the pics.  If you want to see a clip of Clownvis at his best check out this clip of him on America’s Got Talent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwIJ6InjuiU What a crazy fun night. This was my first time to St. Louis and I wasn’t disappointed.. I’ve gotta thank the 7 Shot Screamers for making our night. The crowd and the after party were both amazing. Hooch over and out.

Video Update # 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlOpLw-ir0