Saturday, December 4, 2010

Saturday, December 4, 2010, 11:51 PM

So we were a bit apprehensive about playing the "early" slot at Dan's tonight in Denton but to our surprise, we had quite a nice sized crowd that came out to spend their Saturday evening with us. We played a full 2 hour set and SLAYED it tonight!







So much fun! Thanks to everybody who came out and be sure to mark your calendars for later in the week when we'll be back up this way twice. We'll be back up in N. Texas on Thursday night to play Cape Buffalo and Lakewood Bar and Grill on Friday night - both in Dallas. Saturday night we'll be rocking The Armadillo Palace in Houston. Gonna be a good week! If you're anywhere near and you feel so led, come out and join us! Rhoades is now driving us through the night to get home from Denton. "And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep..."

- Doddsy




Saturday, December 4, 2010, 3:16 PM

It's a cool 50 degrees in Tulsa, OK today. After all too brief a rest after last night's fun, we left our hotel to grab lunch. Rhoades and Fallon and I fed our bellies at an Indian buffet and shared some laughs about last night. In case you missed it, I'll share my thoughts with you now. After having left my home at 10:30am to meet the guys at 11:00, we made our way through time and space to arrive on the other end of what wound being 10 hours on the road (9.5 together in our time capsule). Surprisingly, we were all feeling pretty good despite having been packed into the van for such a long time together (although the van smelled somewhat of a locker room by the time we crawled out of there). We arrived in Tulsa at the Merc and set about to unloading our gear and using our best Tetris skills to fit all of our instruments into what is quite a small area that serves as the stage. Once setup, we even had plenty of time to say our hellos to old friends and a few new ones too, and time to quench our thirsts; our throats dry from such a long day's journey (Wink! Wink!)










We then played a long first set of just under 2 hours before breaking to visit a bit more with our patrons and wet our whistles one more time before finishing out the night with another 60 minutes of music. We quit right around 1:30am and then our night "began". Not quite as wild as other nights we've spent in Tulsa, but long into the wee hours of the morning (as is so often the case with my friends in this band.) Rather than dread these late nights out every weekend, I've come to where I really enjoy them and even look forward to being out til way past crazy-stoopid o'clock.




After so many miles unbroken by nothing except a few stops for gas and vulgar bumper stickers, we were hungrier than we were thristy and the hotdog vendor outside on the corner hooked us up with however much (or little) nourishment there is contained his tubes of salted animal meat product squeezed between the sides of a white bun loaded with everything we could possibly fit onto them. The "Party Bus" rented for the night that was parked out in front also made for some very unique entertainment while we dined, the likes of which can only be witnessed after midnight outside of one of the many area watering holes. (Remember - there's a reason why yo' momma siad to be home before midnight, because "nuthin' good happens after midnight".) And of course once the festivities outside had calmed down, we made our way back into the empty lounge to enjoy a nightcap (or two) (or three) and see what the few remaining bar employees really look like under flourescent lights.










After lots of ridiculousness and lots of laughs (some of which was captured and committed to celluloid for posterity's sake), we said our thank you's and goodbyes and ventured into the early hours of a new day to find our quarters for what remained of the darkness. Once checked in, Dennis decided he was hungry enough to head back out in search of something tasty.




Rhoades and I followed him back to the van where I attempted in my own weird way to assist in his hunt for food by using the map application in my iPhone to navigate us to the nearest late-night eatery but we only wound up burning fuel and stopping at a local filling station for what offerings we could find at that hour. (Note: The maps app on the iPhone WILL chart a course "From: Current Location" "To: Eggs". However, the chances of being led to anywhere that actually serves eggs is anybody's guess and thus, our settling on a gas station for a "meal") I settled on a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit and some chocolate milk, followed up by an Andes thin chocolate mint and I'm not sure what Fallon found but Rhoades ate something with a corn tortilla and it was very fried. That's all I know. The rest of the night was pretty tame and we all found our way into our beds at roughly 4:30am. Party! We're now approaching Denton to play Dan's Silverleaf Tavern and rock everybody's faces off. We're playing the early set tonight which means we'll make our way back home through the night to wake up in our own beds tomorrow. I'm not sure what shows are on the schedule this week, but I'm sure we'll have a blast a couple of somewheres a couple of times this week at least. In the meantime, enjoy this cooler autumn weather and be safe out there and we'll talk soon.

- Doddsy

Friday, December 3, 2010

Friday, December 3, 2010, 2:41 PM

It's been soooooo long since I've posted an update and I really have no reason why I haven't been more diligent about keeping up with this online journal, nor do I have anything substantial enough to say that warrants a new post but nevermind that. If you've read this far, you're hooked. Plus, it's 9 hours from SA to Tulsa and we're not even to Dallas yet which brings me to my first item of interest. We're driving to Tulsa (duh!) to play The Mercury Lounge tonight. While 9 or more consecutive hours in a van is most certainly not the first thing I think of when I decide what would make for a fun day, the weather outside is beautiful, my companions are my pals, and above all I get to see the layout of our great state of Texas (& my favorite place to be in the whole world). The Mercury Lounge has recently come under the ownership of our pal Reggie, who prior to owning the bar was previously our favorite bartender. (Well, "male" bartender anyway!) It's been quite awhile since we've been back through Tulsa to play the Mercury and I can safely speak for all of us when I tell you how much we're looking forward to playing the "Merc" again tonight. We've had the good fortune of making friends with so many great people in Tulsa and it will be great to see everybody again out there tonight. Of all the places we play, the concert posters for our shows up there are easily the coolest of any made for us anywhere. Thom and Ian with A-Studio Design do some fabulous work. Head over to http://www.astudiodesign.net to see what I'm talking about - you won't be sorry. I love their work.




So here we are. Dallas, Texas. Just like I pictured it. Rhoades is driving and his GPS shows black lines all along our route. Green lines = open lanes, Yellow lines = congestion/traffic, Red lines = slow moving traffic, Black lines = apparently means everybody for that length of the road has stopped completely. Oh well. More time for me to spin into written words the random thoughts generated through my synaptical points of electrical currents pulsing through my grey matter. The absence of my online presence since we returned home from our midwest tour is no reflection of a lack of travelling since that time. We've continued to play and play and play, and play some more. We've been back to play Granada Theatre in Dallas, Hank's in McKinney, Phoenix Saloon in New Braunfels, Broken Spoke in Austin, Continental club in Austin, Austin City Limits music Festival, and many other fine establishments since my last dispatch.










I took part in the Texas Big Beat in Houston which is a drum related event and benefit and I also held my first ever "clinic" at Sam Ash Music in San Antonio. With Halloween and Thanksgiving now past, we are finally starting to wind down a bit in preparation for the Christmas holidays. Looks like the first couple of weeks of January we'll be taking off to spend time with family and decompressing/rejuvenatung from our 200+ dates played in 2010. The end of January will find us flying back to Norway where we'll play on a boat trip travelling from Norway down to Germany. From there we'll head over to Amsterdam and play 2 nights at a festival in Holland, another of my favorite places in the world. In the meantime, stay tuned right here for more updates throughout the end of the year. We have a few more really fun shows before ringing in in 2011 and I'll do my best to keep you up to date with my brand of verbose entertainment describing our all-around tomfoolery. This is really my outlet to do my best to create a black-hole vortex of "timesuck" that by the end of which you wonder where your time went and why you spent so much of it reading this. My best to everybody and I'll have more to say soon, I promise - and next time it'll even be worth reading.

Cheers.

- Dodds

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