Saturday - The blisters arrive / Sunday - The final scene

8:30 AM - Too early especially after a late show at Sam's.  I arrived at the Continental Club and, as I mentioned, the smell of puke was wafting through the air.  I met Davey Schoenbaum and Mikey T. at the club and we began to set up the gear.  Allen and Jim arrived shortly after and began to get the pancakes in order.  David BB and Dazzling showed up shortly thereafter and the Oldies began to take shape.  David and Pete spent the rest of the time outside whipping the crowd into an Oldies frenzy and true to Mojo's Mayhem-ness we got the doors open by 9:30.  By showtime the front room was packed with a few folks hanging in the back.
We kicked off with "Double Shot Of My Baby's Love" followed by "California Sun".  I also play a different version of that song in Two Hoots so I actually had to engage my brain for 2:45.  The rest of the set was Oldies Oldies Oldies.  W employed "Sweets For My Sweet" which is a fairly obscure Drifters tune but we made up for it with "Hanky Panky".  This is the show the blisters begin to bubble up.


1:00 PM - A brief break for lunch with the family then I headed down to The Broken Spoke to play with Miss Leslie.  


2:00 PM - Miss Leslie's set begins.  Wayne Turner joined us on stage and sang the hell out of "Heaven Can't Be Found".  Leslie was awesome as usual.  A good short set and by 2:35 we were out the door.


3:00 PM - Waterloo Icehouse for some deal with some L.A. friend of Mike's.  Luckily the band The Lusitania let me borrow their (big) drums so there was no set up involved.  Pretty straight ahead Mike set and it was good to see Chris Johnson at the gig.  We had a brief chat and then I headed down to Tom's.


4:00 PM - Tom's Tabooley.  I know... a Mediterranean restaurant serving up live music.  Hey, it's SXSW EVERYPLACE is a live music venue.  But they do normally have acoustic shows there during the week.  Anyway I set up the house kit to my left-handedness and get ready to rock.


4:30 PM - We do a short Two Hoots and A Holler set.  We do play the new songs which are taking on a life of their own and they are great. 


5:00 - Load my drums into Brendon's van to be delivered to Ginny's later.  I go home, take a much needed shower and change my clothes.  I am beginning to get tired and have a hard time constructing complete sentences.  Off to the Highball.


6:15 - Arrive at the Highball and to my delight there is another set of house drums to use.  If I had to tear down and set up all day I would have been dead hours ago.  I have a cocktail and relax with the band until it's time to play.  The showcase run by Jimmy Deveny and his band are running ahead of schedule  That is called PRO, people.


7:15 - Two Hoots completely annihilates the crowd - people are dancing like dervishes, others are rocking in their seats, and those folks in the back are looking on in stupefied amazement.  They are probably thinking, "This is a country band?!"  This may have been our best show ever.  EVER.  So far anyway.  I was on cloud nine after that gig.  Off to the G&S Lounge!


8:15 - Arrival at the G&S.  We are playing inside and there is a band outside.  In the front room there is already a good crowd.  I set uo the house kit (yes!) to my liking replacing the craptastic Zildjians with my Sabians and we begin the last Mike Stinson set of the day.  Much to our delight... no... much to our dismay the smoke machine kicks on during one of the songs.  I'm sorry folks but Mike is not really a smoke machine sort of guy.  We finish at 9:30 PM and I am out the door to drive back to Ginny's to finish out the night.


9:55 - Ginny's.  A decent crowd of many tourists.  The band is playing with Chris Staples who was kind enough to fill in for me for the first set.  As I mentioned earlier I had Brendon deliver my drums for Chris to use and during the break I thanked him, paid him for his time, and re set the drums southpaw style.  We took to the next set but I could tell we were all tired.  I still had gas in the tank but halfway through the last set I played a drum fill (a small, short solo) and it was then I realized I had finally run out of steam.  The past 4 days of gigging and little sleep had finally caught up with me and my body was telling me it's time to call it for the day.  We played until 12:45 AM and decided we had all had enough of SXSW for another year.


Standing outside drinking a beer with the boys was a great way to end the day.  We were laughing, cutting each other up , and just hanging.  Yes, it's all that male-bonding bullshit but it is that bullshit that makes you realize how much you love playing music and when the chemistry is right you know it's 100% RIGHT.  Music is fun.  Did you know that?  Sometimes when you play a ton of gigs it can be cool but not a whole lot of fun.  Music is supposed to make you smile.   When the guitar player plays something cool; when the bass player is grooving just right;  or when the lead singer turns around and gives you smile like he knows that you know that this is the coolest thing in the world and it's happening right here, right now.   It's a few hours of leaving everything else behind and communicating on a different level with a different language that makes music so special and important in my life.


Although this is the end of SXSW I still have 2 more gigs today.  3:00 at Jimmy Quill's party... how may L.A. people can cram into one house?  That'll be a Mike Stinson show.  And then a 9:00 show with Two Hoots and A Holler at the lovely G&S Lounge.  Come on out.  I know it's a school night but all the db's are leaving.  Its safe to come out now...


PS.  Tired?  Yes.  Sore?  Yes.  Excited for the next gig?  HELL YES.