03.23.2013 - Hollywood & Vine - Glen Rose, TX

Hollywood & Vine - Round Two!

Ah, that's how you take a rainy, icky, crappy weekend and make it good. Saturday night, we made a return visit to lovely Glen Rose, Texas. You know, I liked the town the first time, liking it even more after the second visit.

The weather in the DFW metroplex was rainy and cool on Saturday. We assumed we would be playing inside. H & V has an awesome patio area and we were really looking forward to playing outside. You can imagine how we felt when we saw the forecast. But, here's the deal... probably 20 or 30 minutes outside of Glen Rose and it starts clearing up... getting a tad warmer.

When I arrived, the owner grabbed me and explained they thought it might work outside, but it was our call. We could tell 2 out of 3 in charge thought we'd do best outside. And, while Heath fears the cold (aka anything below 70), I enjoy cold on stage - I normally am really hot. So, we played outside!

The crowd was ok. You could tell, there were some people turned off by the "cold." But, for the most part, it was ok. Towards the end of the night it was probably in the 50's and starting to get damp. We'll be playing there again on June 8th and it should be, wait for it... fun (ok, le gen da ry). The picture below doesn't really do it justice, but it's a cool stage on their funky patio as well. I'm guessing it's about 6 feet off the ground, built into the side of a hill.All 3 of us were clumped together in the picture, but we had room to get spread out and comfortable when we wanted. We're kind of curious about the snake situation once it warms up, though!

Oh, and for those of you readers that are not in Texas... Hollywood and Vine had quite the week. A new movie was partially shot in their restaurant this week. Randy Travis and James Dupre star in it. If you check out the picture below, this is them on the little stage area we played on last time (aka the bad weather stage). Anyway, I can't remember the name of the movie, but when I do remember, I will let you all know so you can check it out. Hollywood & Vine is a really neat place. I'm glad to see that Wanda & Curtis (da bosses) will be getting some much deserved attention in the near future.

Next weekend we're off. While I love playing live with Sand Dollar Rodeo, I am quite glad. It's been a very long week or two with some home and family issues that I won't get into here. Plus, finishing the album with all that going on has proven to be exhausting. Fair to say, I want nothing more to do next weekend but color Easter eggs and drink beer.

I hope the Easter beagle treats you all very well. Talk to you after the next show!

Til then, stay gold...
Roy

03.16.2013 - Diamond D - Granbury, TX

Fun show last night - things worked out really well for us! 

This was the first time Sand Dollar Rodeo had played in Granbury. This was also my first time to visit Granbury and I was pleased to see we were playing so close to a lake. There's always a certain amount of laid backness in a lake community and its presence was definitely known. For all my trop rock beach bum friends who don't live down here, unless you're on the Texas coast, the lakes are pretty much our beach scene. 

The venue itself was pretty much what you'd expect in a smaller town sports bar, with the addition of a dance floor and a DJ by the name of Harper. Lots of pool tables, shuffle board, etc. They also had an attached food joint by the name of Redneck's Chicken & Burgers. I remember that because, before we were even finished setting up, I was reminded that I needed to talk about it during our show. Scripting from a venue is not really my thing. In fact, it aggravates me. But we were working, I wanted to stay in a good mood, so I just smiled and said, "ok." 

Unfortunately, it's part of the 4 hour gig scene. The customers really aren't there for the band. They're there to get drunk, have fun and have music in the background that doesn't run them off. While we had a good time last night, I am really glad that our 4 hour show nights are coming to a close. It's just not how we want to present the band to you guys. Regardless, last night was the exception. We had a good time, the crowd had a good time and we just had a party! Oh, and they had fried okra on Redneck's menu. That always makes life ok! It also made it easy for me to talk about their menu in between songs. Heath, Cisco and I happily shared a basket of fried okra right there on stage... and the "redneck sauce" for the okra was pretty darn good. If you're in that area, stop in and try it. 

It was their St. Patrick's Day party and the green was in full effect. People were in a good mood and ready to have a good time. So, it was the right mix of ingredients for a fun night. By the end of the night, we had the dance floor hoppin' and the crowd was singing along. It was really nice. It was so nice that Candy even graced us with her presence. These are the nights that make up for the other shows that aren't so nice. 

Props to Murphy (hope I got the name right!) for the awesome thrift shop robot moves on the dance floor -  wish I had some video of that - thanks for the okra as well. Also, thanks to Harper for taking care of everything, keeping the funky white kids groovin' on the dance floor and for being a cool guy. We appreciate it. 

Afterwards, we had several people inquire about bookings and received a lot of really good feedback. Oh yeah, then there was that fight at closing time... well, it's late Saturday night, people are drunk, shit happens. To my knowledge, no one died. Breathe in, breathe out, move on... 

Next week - A return visit to Hollywood & Vine in Glen Rose. Fingers crossed the weather holds up and we'll be out on their awesome patio!

Stay gold,

RH

Candy getting her green on.

Redneck's fried okra and Redneck sauce!

©2013 Roy Holliday  

03.15.2013 - Tammy's Hideaway - Burleson, TX

Well, hello Burleson - Home of Kelly Clarkson! I don't know if they have any other claims to fame, but on a tourism promotion note, if you like Kelly's personality, visit Burleson. Every single person I met last night had that same bubbly, good ol' friendly, slightly off, personality... especially, Tammy. What a great lady! I have played at a lot of places over the years and I have to say that Tammy was one of the nicest and professional bar owners I've met. 

Now about the show itself... I'll be honest. When we received the booking from our agent, we were like, "how the Hell did she find this place?" It really is a hideaway, not much of a web presence, etc. I'm very glad to say we were wrong - as I mentioned above, it was a great place. Unfortunately, it was Spring Break and I guess no one wants to go to Burleson to party on Spring Break. That and the local honky tonk down the street apparently had something big going on. Slow night at Tammy's. But, the small crowd that were there were really fun folks. We had dancing from the first song and that always put us in a good mood. 

There's really not a lot of highlights to mention on this one, pretty much a routine gig - no technical issues this time (thank God). Oh, I guess there was something... this was the debut of Heath's new amp and his new guitar (sorry Heath, I can't remember the make/model of either). His new gear sounds nice, very smooth. Good choice there, HFF. 

Due to the size of the crowd, it was fairly laid back on the stop/start times and we have several good conversations with Tammy. Luau? Yeah, I think we'd like to go back and play Tammy's luau, for sure... maybe mud wrestling night as well... to quote Tammy, "I'm out there." They do all kinds of fun stuff there. Although, I hear that, unfortunately, they will never do spaghetti and meatball sauce wrestling again due the the cleanup LOL. 

Ok, kids. It's a busy weekend in SDR land... gotta go get ready to head south and west to Granbury for another show tonight. High hopes I won't be as tired tonight as last night and can update you guys after the show as usual. 

In the end: Visit Burleson. Visit Tammy's Hideaway. Go Kelly Clarkson! 

Stay gold,
Roy

Tammy's Hideaway...

03.09.2013 - Lynn's Saloon - Azle, TX

Another eventful night... gotta love drama, right? We pretty much had all the ingredients for a disaster in the making...

First off, it's Spring in Texas and you know what that means... storms! Before I left for Azle, I noticed the line I had been watching earlier in the day had tightened and was strengthening. It was also looking like it was  going to be on top of me the whole trip. Fun! Or not! I'm not a big fan of driving in a lightning and hail storm, so I really wasn't looking forward to it.

Luckily, it didn't kick in until I was about 5 miles from the venue. But, when it kicked in, it KICKED IN! Lots of lightning, really heavy rain and hail. I'm thankful we were tornado free. These are the types of storms that spin off tornadoes really easy.

The place we were playing was one of those where the GPS can't find the exact address, small town. Anyway, in the midst of the hail, I took an exit too late and went too far. I pulled over at the peak of the hail and my phone rang - it was Heath. He was somewhere around there having the same problem. He had the sense to go in the liquor store and ask if anyone knew where the place was. I just kept driving in the wrong direction. Oh well, I finally found the place and only got there about 20 minutes later than I had planned. The rain let up right as I pulled in and we were able to load in without soaking our gear. That's always a good thing.

Speaking of gear... about 5 minutes before we were to start, Heath's guitar amp died. Not good. But, he had a backup practice amp with him and it worked for the night - didn't sound half bad at all! But, how about some more drama? After Cisco loaded in, he was just kind of a little distracted and kept looking around. Turns out, his wedding ring and another diamond ring had slipped off and were missing. We searched the parking lot, the bar, everywhere and couldn't find it. We could tell he was worrying about that for most of the show. Don't blame him... I would be upset as well. Again, things worked out. I got a text from him about an hour ago that he had found the rings. But, why not one more bit of drama? Ok. I'm eating dinner and I have a crown pop right out! No time for a dentist, just going to have to deal with it. I thank God it wasn't up front - how hillbilly would that have looked, band with the lead singer missing a front tooth! LOL. And again, I lucked out - doesn't hurt, no pain really. It is irritating my tongue back there on the side where it came out a little, but not terrible. Dentist appointment has been made. We're OK! This completes the dramatic portion of the night. Yay!!!

Due to the amp issue, we started a few minutes late and bypassed a sound check to get things rolling. We were using our own PA, so we're pretty familiar with how it needs to be set. Sounded fine. Probably a thousand times better than that last show in Dallas.

The show itself was pretty uneventful. Not bad at all, just uneventful. I take that back, there was the guy who hurt himself on the dance floor BEFORE our show... I'm guessing he was in his 40's, drunk, doing push-ups on the dance floor... switched to one armed push-ups and threw out his shoulder. This was one of those places where there were some really drunk folks. Most of which had been there longer than we had and should have been cut off before we even started. But, hey, that's a different issue and is the bars business, not ours. The drunks did dance quite a bit. Was kind of fun to watch from the stage. Oh, and the drunk lady in red that just got down and boogied all by herself right up front near the stage. We lost track of her later in the night and decided she probably had passed out somewhere in the parking lot. Ahhh... bar life.

It was nice to get the bad taste of the last show out of our mouths. Weather cleared up as we left town and now I sit here with some home brewed Jamaican Yea Mon beer (which is pretty tasty) and a little Margherita pizza. Life is good.

I leave you with a picture of the storm battered sign from out front - I feel honored that our letters didn't get blown off as well... maybe it was a sign... wait, it IS a sign! Oh, and Happy Birthday, Brad.

Stay gold,
RH

03.02.2013 - Across The Street - Dallas, TX

Well, that show's over LOL! 

What can I say? This was the technical glitch show from Hell. I've played in electronic bands in the past where the power has gone out mid set, complete and immediate silence. I'm not sure what's worse... that or what happened tonight. 

The issue tonight was the PA. First off, the venue charges the bands to bring in the PA. Ok, fine, for what they're charging, must be good, right? Right smack in the heart of a college campus, we'll make it back on the door, right? Wrong. 

But, let me back up... the staff were very nice. The sound guys were very nice. They tried. I think they just didn't know how to handle the signals we were sending to their board. As all of you should know by now, we're highly electronic driven. Lots of keyboards. Lots of bass. What's that equal if you aren't used to it? Blown speakers. Yup, that's what can happen... and, while the front of house, I hear, was ok, I'm pretty sure all our monitors blew. 

So, we'll back up even more. Sound check and load in at 7:30. We're there, but only the opening band is setting up. Normally, you sound check the last band first, then build out from last to first. Not tonight. It was band up, band down, band up, band down, band up, band down. We played last, so we really didn't get a sound check at all - we didn't want to lose the crowd so we just said, "Ok, we'll play now and tweak the sound the first couple of songs." That was probably out mistake. We wound up over at World Of Beer to kill time a little down time.

So, as I mentioned, we use heavy electronics. My vocal effects unit was feeding back all over the place. Finally got past that after the first song. Then comes the monitor issues... when we started, it was fine. Couldn't hear my vocals, but I could hear the keyboards. I'm pretty good about not needing to hear myself and keeping in key, but I gotta have those keyboards (aka the drums and bass) or I'm lost. So, bam... monitor goes... then it starts coming in distorted. Then out again. I spent most of the show singing to the mix that we heard bouncing off the far wall (which is a second or two off from real time - try compensating for that when you're singing - can you say confusing?). 

I guess Heath was experiencing the same thing. He kept thinking his amp was going out. Pretty sure it was his monitor now that we know what all was going on all around. But, it threw him for a loop. 

Supposedly, it sounded ok out front, but it was the weirdest kind of feeling to be on stage, trying to entertain people and to not be able to hear anything. I thank God for Cisco. His timing was right on tonight and, when the monitor would cut in and out, he remained on beat. Without his percussion, I wouldn't have known where I was in the songs. 

In the end, we survived. This kind of stuff happens. It will happen again. It just was kind of a bummer as we were very excited about this particular show. We were playing with some friends, August & J, and another up and coming band called The Five Hands (and they were really good, by the way). I didn't get a chance to talk to August or J afterwards to see if they were having issues as well (their front of house sound was kind of funky - so, probably so), but Adam from Five Hands said they were having monitor issues, too. So, wouldn't be surprised if the sound issues were universal - I think our electronics probably just were the icing on the cake for that sound system. I don't feel bad about the show tonight. I just would have liked to have been able to hear myself so I could be more "into it." When the sound is good on stage, I can forget about it and focus on showing the crowd a good time. Tonight, I spent the evening with an ear on the PA system out front, just trying to figure where we were in the songs. Since the sound never remained consistent, we wound up cutting our set a little short - after an hour or so, it was time to call it night. 

Next week, the fun continues and I'm sure we won't remember a thing about tonight. I'll be working on finishing the mixes of the new record for most of the week and then we've got live shows on Friday and Saturday. That's what makes doing this so fun. It's different every day and night. There are good nights, great nights and sometimes there are bad nights. Regardless, it keeps life interesting and worth living!

Ok, kids... my beer is empty and it looks like I'm the only one that is around to refill it. So, I will leave you with the cheesiest toast I've heard in years... there are tall ships, small ships, big ships, ships on the sea... all kinds of ships... but there are no ships like friendships... thank you for being my friends - cheers! 

Stay gold Ponies,

RH