What's new?

Nov 7, 2014 hello everyone and happy Fall! After a short break we're back with new music and new shows, starting with Nov 22 at Cherrywood Coffee during the East Austin Studio Tour. For those that don't know, the East Austin Studio Tour is an event on Austin's East side in various locations featuring the original artwork of a variety of Austin artists. As part of the studio tour we will be featuring the art of our very own Gabriel during our show at Cherrywood. We play 5-7. Come on out, it's a cool coffee shop, just East of I35 on 38th Street, and one of our favorite places to play. Hope you can make it!

Fall 2013

Oct 13 - Hello everyone! It's been a long summer, we're back, haven't left actually. Working on dates for November and on into 2014. We'll be playing our debut show at Opa! on S. Lamar on Oct. 19. That will be a quiet acoustic duo show. We also want to extend a thanks to the recent clubs and venues that we've been playing, including the Gnarly Gar in Point Venture, TX, Moon River in Spicewood, a couple fun TB Open Stage nights at Poodle Dog, and Jim and Tinker's annual Virgo Gathering on Pitter Pat Lane. We had a great time doing that show and were happy to share the stage with other Austin notables David Grissom and Deane Rene. Thanks also to Robert Carter for joining us on bass this last year, we hope he'll be rejoining us soon. Also to our longtime drummer Jason Toll, let's keep on rockin'!! See ya at the gigs!!

Mar 2013

Hello everyone, again! Happy Easter and welcome SXSW. We'll be doing an alternative showcase at Shakespeare and Kelli's on Mar 16th, 10:00PM. On Mar 10 TB will be playing Ethan Ford's True Audio Outland in New Braunfels, TX for a second time. This time we'll be doing as a duo, just us. In other news TB have taken on our newest addition to the band, a frolicking keyboard played by Phil Witikn. The keys debut was on Feb 22 at Cherrywood, which was witnessed by a cool bunch of folks, thanks for coming out! More soon..

2013

Hey Everyone and Happy Chinese New Year, Feb. 10th!! Also Happy Black History Month and Happy Valentine's Day on Feb. 14th.

Lots going on. The holidays have passed and so has the flu that seems to have hit everyone (including us) right as the holidays were winding down. So between sniffles and coughs we've set up some more shows to entertain the masses. On Friday Feb. 8th we'll be doing a monthly show at War Horse ATX followed by a show on Feb. 13 at the Scoot Inn (bring your valentine),10-10:45. On Feb. 17th we're doing our yearly participation with the Austin Marathon, we'll be at the corner of S. Congress and Cumberland in front of the Short Stop store at mile 4.2 from 7:20-8:35. Then on Feb. 22 we play Cherrywood Coffee House just East of I35 on 38 1/2 St. We play 8:30-10 following Rare Birds in Flight. And more stuff coming up in March including another War Horse show on March 29th and we'll be doing an acoustic duo show at Freddie's Place on S. 1st in S. Austin. In April we'll be at Freddie's and War Horse again. Hope to see you out!!

This week's shows

Hi Y'allins,

Saturday July 28th Tombstone Bullies are playing Cherrywood Coffee House, located just East of I35 on 38.5 Street..

Cherrywood Coffee House
1400 East 38th 1/2 Street  Austin, TX 78722

(512) 538-1991

..show starts at 7:PM with our friends Rare Birds in Flight and TB go on at 8:30..



Coming up this Monday July 30 we play the Sahara Lounge located at 1413 Webberville Rd., East Austin..

..and on August 2nd we're doing an acoustic duo performance at Juniors in Round Rock, TX..

Looking for a rhythm section

..ok so our drummer has informed us that he's moving on to do other things, which came as a bit of a shock, but that's just the way it is when you play music, as any musicians know.. so now we're looking for a new drummer or drummers who can fill in the gap.. we're also auditioning any bassists who are interested in playing with us.. we generally play several times a month, for pay and for no pay (although we prefer the pay), we do shows, benefits, events, etc.. plus t.v. and radio things pretty regularly, whenever they come up.. sooo, for any readers of this rather obscure blog who are players or know players who might be interested, our web addresses are - www.reverbnation.com/tombstonebullies - www.facebook.com/tombstonebullies - www.twitter.com/austinbullies - www.tombstonebullies.com - or please let us know at - info@tombstonebullies.com - thanks..

yesterday

..hola.. so last night we did the 2nd anniversary open mic at Down Under Deli in Spicewood, TX hosted by our friend Bob Sarnataro ..the stage was also graced with plenty of other very talented musicians, including Chella Kay and Danny Fast Fingers ...this past week we also went to the last open mic at what will soon be the former Skinnys Ballroom, unfortunately, coolish kinda place we thought, hosted by Amelia Card, it was good while it lasted..

yes

..so yesterday we did an impromptu show at Full English in South Austin, was really more or less a practice which we decided to do over there instead of the boring apartment, plus they have a really good crêpe there.. anyway the show was good, some folks came out and we had a good time.. then today we went and did some recording at our friend Dave Patterson's Buda Treehouse Recording Studios ..we were also joined by Jim Spector and A.J. Montrose, both of which have spent time on stage with us in the past, and whom we thoroughly enjoyed playing with again today ..the Poodies show last Friday night was fun, quite a few folks came out and made it more fun.. and the Juniors show the night before that was pretty darn good.. and speaking of Poodies and Juniors, I'm not exactly sure which has the better burger but I can tell you they're both fantastic.. Poodies, I believe, has a reputation for having a great burger, I'm not sure if such is the case with Juniors, but I believe it may rival the Poodies burger ..

yes

A very grainy picture of Gabriel on stage at Poodies Hilltop this past Friday opening for Bobby Mack. Thursday night we played Junior's in Round Rock as the duo. Both fun shows. This Friday we'll be gracing the stage again at Full English in South Austin, followed by upcoming shows at Cherrywood Coffee House with Rare Birds in Flight, Sahara Lounge, Junior's again, 290 West, and the Corner Oak birthday party on August 4th.

yes

..ok, so it's only been a coupla days.. phew (as they say) .. so let's see what's been going on (note to self stop analyzing the purpose of this blog) um Thurs we're playing 7-10 at Junior's, duoish kinda thing, and Friday we're full banding Poodies, 8:30.. had practice last night at Music Lab on St. Elmo, G and I, Jason and Jack, good practice, also ran into Fond Kiser who was practicing directly below us and between songs we heard "LOLITA"!!! ..

yes

so... ok so last night we put up some posters at Poodies and on the way back stopped at The Dude ..tonight we practiced with Jack at the Full English Cafe .. nice of the owners there to let us use their space, really cool place and really good food and drinks ..oh and we're scheduled to play there on July 13th!

yes

..what does one do to maintain a blog!! well I guess he/she maintains it (duh).. easier said than done i've typically thought, and get past the odd uncomfortable feelings regarding the past spurts and starts of activity amidst a virtual black hole of inactivity (the black hole being metaphoric by the by) ..

so maintain we will ..heading out to Poodies tonight to hang up some posters for our June 6th show opening for Austin blues guitar slinger Bobby Mack and having a couple practices this coming week with Jason Toll  and Jack Schultz, drums and bass respectively (haha, just my dumb sense of humor).

yes

hey we've got some shows coming up.. things happening .. a show at a new club, the Sahara, in July.. also opening for Bobby Mack at Poodies in July.. also practicing a lot with a new bass player, Jack Schultz, who's doing some of the shows with us, and still playing shows with Jason Rasberry who's also playing bass for us..

yes

..lots of stuff happening.. shows around town at 1st Down & Stassney, Boomerz, Poodle Dog, places out of town - National College Radio Day in Kingsville, TX on Oct 11, the Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop, Juniors in Round Rock, Cypress Creek Cafe in Wimberley, Adobe Verde in Gruene .. also playing a couple chili cookoffs, one for the Austin Vegan and Vegetarian Network and one for the Natural Springs Garden Chili Cookoff Festival on Oct 22 .. also we'll be playing and interviewing on UT's KVRX on Nov 2 for Blues at Sunrise with Colin Sturrock .. and then there's the second TB or NOT TB at Blue Bamboo on Nov 11 .. thanks for reading!

yes

..so we played Jovita's outside stage the other day, it was good .. I remember really liking a select group of songs, one was Other Side of the Road, mentioned in the last blog, I always like what G brings to it and just really like the song.. we didn't play Cadillac Seville ..another one that I really enjoyed was Mean Old Frisco by Arthur Crudup, very nice song ..glad to see some friends out too, it was fun .. and on and on ..

yes

ok, well evidently I'm somewhat better at doing gigs, playing and writing and such than I am at maintaining a blog, it seems convention isn't working for me because truly I find it boring and redundant, SO I've decided to screw convention and get working on this blog in a way that I can continue to be productive (ahem) and stay interested.. so, and therefore, I've decided just to write whatever the hell I feel like writing about, and really I think that was the original intention behind creating a blog for the band in the first place, to let out some of the weird creative musings and things that are happening behind the scenes which we find interesting, and perhaps it'd be fun to share that stuff .. read on if you like

beginning: three nights ago practice, Let My Love Open the Door by one of our faves, we've done this song before, for whatever reason I always remember playing it at the Hideout near Congress and 7th Street at an early duo gig, around 2004 or 5, anyway we used to do it more or less like the recording, same key which my voice hardly touches in the bridge and basically the same tempo which is a little trying to maintain on acoustics, so the new deal is a lower key and we've given up on trying to be the rhythm section with acoustic guitars and let it breathe a little.. so, then we looked at several originals that we'd like to introduce, two of which are Gabriel's contributions, Taking My Heart Out and Mommy Dear, the latter of which we did a spoken word version of as part of Channel Austin's EXSE Spoken Word 2011, and the other original is one of my contributions which we've played live here and there called Other Side of the Road which is literally the "other side" of a previous song that I'd written for TB called Cadillac Seville which we've performed extensively for years, and which our current bass player, Jason Rasberry, loves to play so it's bound to be played along side it's newer counterpart.. so these four songs we plan to perform this coming Saturday at Amy Zamarripa's open mic at Native Nom Nom ..glad to work on new material..

so there, I guess that's the first installment of the newfangled loose fitting blog, much more comfortable, think I can manage ..I hope

m

South Austin Show

Here's some pictures taken by our friend Catherine Olzcak of a recent show at 1st Down & Stassney in South Austin. Jason Toll is visible on drums in one shot. We really enjoy playing with him. I believe this may actually be the last show that my oddly patterned green Stratocaster was used. It has since been replaced by a black acoustic Takamine.

Gabriel, Mike and Jason

 Mike on vocals

 Gabriel having a seat

Dueling strats

Wow again!

Wow, again, as in wow another month went by with nary a touch of the new exciting blog.. hmm

Wow!

Wow! ..as in - time flies when you're not looking and a whole month goes by and you haven't touched your new blog. Well of course it's not "you" that hasn't touched "your" new blog. Well you know what I mean, I hope. Anyway this is just me "touching" the blog for the sake of getting back on the ball, so to speak. Although I think that being on a ball would inherently be a difficult thing to do if I'm understanding the analogy correctly. Perhaps I'm not. Why would one want to be on a ball anyway? Well, as nerdy as it is to muse on such things I guess it'd be just plain moronic not to click the mouse a couple times and find out what all this "on the ball" stuff is about anyway and perhaps how close or far I was to the actual origin of the saying, thus, and if you care to have a look; On the Ball. So! ..this has been the latest blog entry. I guess it's the kind of thing that's gonna appear at 2:30ish in the morning after a show. We played C. Hunts Ice House tonight by the way, in case anyone feels that this blog should have some relevance to what we do musically. It was a good show, really neat little place in North Austin. So there it is. It is a band blog after all! Peas and Ques!

What's New?

What's New? Well we've been busy. Beyond playing shows we've been doing some other sorts of fun and interesting things. Yesterday we did what has become the annual Channel Austin EXSE Spoken Word Poetry Showcase. This is the 4th year that we've done it. It's always fun and thanks always to Karla Saldana for selecting us to perform. This year we had our friend Eric Sterns come and play Native American flute behind our music and poetry. In fact I think that this may have been the best one yet, thanks in part to Eric.

Also the other day we did a live radio broadcast on KDRP Dripping Springs with Bill Paige which was a lot of fun, and thanks to Bill for having us. We happened in on vinyl week and helped Bill to pick out some of the selections that he was spinning. I recall that for some reason Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin II was among the choices of records (remember that word?) to be played and between the two Bullies we picked the tracks "What is and What Should Never Be" and "Lemon Song" which famously references (being nice) Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues". Well being that "Lemon Song" is over 6 minutes long, not exactly suitable for quick action radio shows, the former track won out. Then out of the blue Bill played Willie Dixon's "I'm Ready" which oddly enough was the inspiration behind the name "Tombstone Bullies". Although in truth the lyric in "I'm Ready" is actually "tombstone bullets" we maybe heard or thought differently of it and went with the "bullies". And speaking of Bullies and music we also played several songs on the air, three actually and an interview, which is a lot of air time. So, overall it was a great broadcast for us, glad we did it. Thanks for reading,

TB