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