Show Date: November 27, 2009 - The Organics

We've been trying to play Austin all year to no avail. It's a highly competitive market. They favor their local peeps and they have the luxury and are very choosy about who they book. So getting asked to play in San Marcos was as close as we were gonna get and we jumped on it.

The Organics asked us to play The Triple Crown with them, and The Triple Crown reminded me a lot of The Ten Eleven. Gabe's kit took up the whole stage so me, Jason and Rick had to play more or less in the crowd. What was cool about the crowd at The Triple Crown was the more crazy, experimental and progressive we played the more they loved it. They were not interested in hearing straight up pop music at all so our progressive side fit right in.

We opened the evening and The Organics closed it out. The Organics packed that place out. They groove with a strong ska feel, complete with horn sections and really brought the house down. So much in fact, that I'm learning to play trumpet.

Show Date: November 21, 2009 - Vicarious Me

Life is a 360. Our very first show ever was supposed to be at Rudyard's. They were kind enough to book us and one of the very first bands that we asked to play with us was Vicarious Me. Unfortunately, Vicarious Me couldn't play that show with us, and then Gabe ended up getting so sick, we couldn't play the show, but a year goes by and who reaches out and asks us if we'd like to play a show with them at Rudyard's? Yeah, man. Spooky, I know.

I'll admit to being a little nervous playing Rudyard's again after pissing off the sound guy royally at our last show there. But I figured we'd just go in, have fun, and let bygones be bygones. That still didn't keep me from hiding from the sound guy all during load in. I didn't want him to recognize me and pull something crazy with our sound, you know like pissing off a waiter and they spit in your food. I was like a ninja, man, crawling behind risers, walking behind ppl, always staying just out of sight. Then when sound check rolled around and I could hide no longer, turns out he didn't even remember me.

Stateside Stereo opened and then guys were tight, sounded great and had an awesome draw. Then Vicarious Me played, and if you've never seen a VM show, them dudes are seriously crazy. And I thought we were wild when we played. They wore matching shades and T-shirts, got shit-faced drunk and had a rowdy time and still sounded great.

Then we played. Nothing super eventful I'm sorry to report. I didn't slam the mic down this time. I was dressed like a damn fool, though. The sound was fantastic and to our surprise we made a fan that night that wouldn't stop talking about how good we were. The sound guy.