State road 71 provides most of the concrete betwixt Austin and Houston and we’re racing down it now, watching cattle hug the shade and overpowered pickups race past us – we’re listening to one of the albums from the band that opened for us on Saturday night and Mystery Loves Company is providing an admirable soundtrack to our trek.
I’ve got to admit I’m exhausted. I’m grateful for the next two nights being gigless – and maybe even musicless. I was thinking about hitting up an open mic tonight or tomorrow but I’m beginning to think that unless something really grabs me I really need some down time. We’ve covered a LOT of miles in the past two weeks (! Not EVEN two weeks – Frederick, MD, Columbus, IN, Bloomington, IN, Belleville, IL, Saint Louis, MO, Columbia, MO, Dallas, TX, Mansfield, TX, Waxahachie, TX, Austin, TX… we’re on our way to Houston and we’ve only been out for eleven days! I don’t know that we’ve ever maintained this kind of pace before and it’s not the right pace for us.
In addition to the miles, the gigs and the sunshine I’ve been sneezing my head off since Indiana and I still can’t decide if I’m in the midst of allergies or fighting off (or losing to) some summer cold.
I cut our time short in Austin, TX to make time for family (staying in Dallas a little longer with cousins on one side and staying in Houston a little longer with my brother on the other) – but I’m sad that we only got the one night in town. Hitting up a taco truck for breakfast with our friend, local artist and opening act from last night Jen Hitt, I’m reminded by just how physically interesting this city is. I’d like to spend a night here just wandering the bars and listening to all the bands. During the day it’s dusty and monotone, reds and tans and faded paint – but at night the whole place lights up with a city-wide OBSESSION with lights on strings. Every business has a courtyard and every courtyard has lights on strings and it’s like year-round Christmas.
Unfortunately, I feel like we only came to Austin on the very tail-end of its indie significance, and the place is swiftly shifting gears into a corporate / label / mass-produced – friends’ rents in extreme cases have quintupled in the last five years or so, SXSW is label-infested, it’s no longer as much a cool place to be as The Place to Be Seen, and the difference is palpable.
Still – I look forward to breakfasts here from cheap taco trucks with a salivatory anticipation that no other city can hope to match, and one solitary breakfast here is many too few.
Last night we played at a coveted night spot called Radio Coffee and Beer. Jen Hitt and a new-to-me crooner named Shane Bartell played the first two sets and ilyAIMY closed it out. May have to make a new policy that even on relatively early nights (last night was just 8-11) the out-of-towners should fight for the middle slot. Though we did get some money in the tip jar, sold some CDs and fortuitously got paid the soundguy’s share (he didn’t show up and I stepped in with the ilyRIG), we played to a comparatively empty room. Nowhere near as empty as the Social Room back in Columbia, but also nowhere near as full as it was at the heart of the night.
ilyAIMY should always play the heart of the night.
The two nights before Austin we crashed with my cousins up in the Dallas area – the first night after a coffeehouse gig in Dallas which was one of those weird shows where you get the impression no-one even knows you’re there and then you breakdown to such complimentary commentary from people coming up to you that you’d assume they were bullshitting you if they weren’t also backing it all up with tips and CD purchases… and Saturday night was back at The Music Room in Waxahchie, TX. This is our third time there and this was by far the most fun. The densely-packed audience was HUGELY responsive and it was great to be able to show that off to my cousins. My hair was almost literally blown back by the crowd at its height and you could’ve heard a pin drop (even on the nicely carpeted floors) through the rest of the show.
Randy Tredway’s “In the Music Room” is something that I want to place on a pedestal as a SHOWCASE of what happens when music brings very disparate people together. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that there were plenty of people just about as far apart on the political spectrum as you can get while all still being American – brought together by MUSIC. I think there’s something important to be said there and if I wasn’t so damned tired I’d figure out a way to say it. Looking forward to mixing those videos down and making the memories of that night into something sharable…
