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

02.16.2013 - Hollywood & Vine - Glen Rose, TX

Well, happy late Saturday night! 

Tonight we played at a place called Hollywood and Vine in Glen Rose, Texas. I've lived in Texas for a good chunk of my life, but this was my first time to visit Glen Rose. I really didn't even know exactly where it was until I loaded the address in the GPS to head to the show. 

While I was only there a short while this evening, it seems to be a neat little area. I mean, you know you're in a unique place when you've got dinosaurs and a nuclear power plant all in the same area, right? Works for me. Anyway, whatever is in the water there, I kind of liked it. Google it. 

Now let's talk about the place we played... it was called Hollywood and Vine. As with many of the smaller towns, my GPS got lost once I was in the actual town - took me down a dead end road and I was on my own. From a block or two over, I see this big "Hollywood" sign. Ok, must be close to that, so I headed in that direction. Turns out, that was their sign. 

When we originally got the booking, I had checked out their website and saw that it was "Buffett inspired" and I knew that was probably a good sign. Boy, was I wrong - it was a great sign! 

The interior restaurant portion of the place was kind of a maze. Like an old house with pathways leading from room to room. Typical Margaritaville type signage on the walls, etc. Then, you find the patio... I have to say that, in all my years of having fun on patios, this has to be the coolest patio I've seen. Sand, strange signs all over the place, a real football scoreboard from the old high school, an old water well, Elvis on a balcony, a good sized stage, all kinds of stuff. Reminded me of something you'd see on Route 66. And, those of you who know me well, know my passion for Route 66. Probably enough said, I liked it. 

Now for the bummer part - We had to play inside. Yes, we were originally set to play the patio. However, the weather did not think we needed to do so. 40 degrees in Texas is considered hardcore winter weather :) So, all agreed that if we wanted to have anyone at all in the audience, we needed to move the show inside. 

They set us up in what I understand is normally a pool table room. Small room, tin roof, rusted. But, it was heated! The owner had explained that things were hit or miss right now and that they really didn't know what to expect. Something about everybody in town having spent all their money on Valentine's day. Got it, no worries. I have no experience in this place, but I'm assuming it was a "miss" tonight. It was hard to gauge how many people were there, just due to the way the place is set up (maze - you can't see the bar area from the pool table area). While the room we were in was never wall to wall, we had a steady flow of people and didn't seem to run anyone off. We messed with our set a lot to keep the volume appropriate and ease them into the wildness of what the end of our shows are like. 

Oh, and the kids. It was an all ages deal. So, I figured it might be in our best interest if I didn't use my "concert mouth." It was amusing to try to think of words on the fly to substitute during certain songs. I can say that I haven't laughed this much during a show in a while. 

Oh, and the kids... did I already say that? Well, that was just funny. It's not often we play somewhere that Heath's kids are able to attend. Tonight was their night. I don't know if Heath was counting or not, but I'd be really interested in knowing how many times he heard, "I love you, Daddy." Here's Heath trying his best to rock out a solo and his little girls are climbing on his monitor saying, "I love you, Daddy." It was just funny. From here on out, he's no longer Heath (like the candy bar). We're calling him Daddy. I'm not used to being around kids. BUT, I think they had fun! Now if we can just get them to tune guitars and load gear... 

In the end, it worked out. We met some really nice folks from Glen Rose, received some nice compliments and the owner (who wasn't the owner when we were booked) said she really liked us. 

We're booked there again (on the patio) towards the end of March. I figure, being Texas, we should be in the 90's by then, so unless we're having a tornado, hail or both, we should be good to go. Really looking forward to going back. I think I may have to go a day early or stay a day after to check out the town. A guy I was talking to on the patio was telling me about another place around there that Willie Nelson owns called Loco Coyote and it sounds really fun... yeah, so far, I like Glen Rose... 

We're off next week for recording and mixing sessions but will be back on the stage March 2nd in the Big D. So, I'm sure you'll get to hear me type your ears off after that - I just LOVE driving in downtown Dallas :)

Stay gold,

RH

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02.15.2013 - Oui Lounge - Fort Worth, TX

Well, I'd say that successfully removed the taste of roadside armadillo from my mouth! 

First off, about this place... I am not originally from Fort Worth. But, Oui Lounge, as I hear from the locals, has been around forever - a beloved dive bar near the TCU campus. Recently, Chef Tim Love (Love Shack, White Elephant, lots and lots of nice restaurants across the country) bought the place and cleaned it up a bit, but kept the 70's decor. It was very comfortable and I could see myself going there for a drink or ten if I lived nearby. Reminds me of the Cosmopolitan ads running - just the right amount of wrong. So, the venue was fine. 

This was to be a late show, so we showed up around 7:30 to get setup and sound check. Unfortunately, we were to be running our own sound for the night. Not a big deal when we use our own system, but I had never ran a board like what they had and Cisco & Heath don't mess with the audio at all. So, instant learning session on my part. I don't claim to be a sound guy, but someone has to do it, right?

So, I finally got the house sound up and running, then couldn't figure the monitor mix. It was irritating, but kind of funny as the mixing board was wall mounted, hid behind velvet curtains on the stage - very static-y velvet curtains - and every time I touched the mixer I got a little shock... Eventually, I got some sound in the monitors. 

By this time, it was past nine and we should have already started, so we just decided to go ahead and do it and tweak the sound as we went along. So, on with the show...

I'd say the first four or five songs were spent with me singing a line, then running back to the wall mounted board and adjusting levels. Too much of this in the monitors, not enough of that, too much guitar front of house, can't hear the vocals, the list goes on. Normal stuff that isn't an issue when you have someone running sound for you. However, it kind of sucks any chance of "performance" out of me when I'm having to do this during a show. So, if you were there, I apologize for the first bit of the show. I see a steady sound guy in our future. 

After a while, the sound out front smoothed out (although my monitor mix was still off the whole night - couldn't hardly hear the keyboards at all - and that's what I follow when I sing!) and all was well. 

Interesting crowd  mix. Had an even mix of older folks (our age) and college kids. That was much like Keller Tavern's crowd. Maybe we're seeing a trend. The places we seem to be doing well have had that mix of people and are less country flavored. Heath and I made a decision a while back to go with our gut and head more in our own direction, rather than trying to fit in with the places that want "country." So, it was nice to see the reception we had here. We have a few more of those shows on the books where they're going to want herd country (aka whatever country radio tells the sheep they should like). But, they will eventually come to an end as we find and grow our market. The Oui show helped with growing that market. 

Highlights from the show... Well, Candy made an appearance. She likes the college guys - what can I say? She was running late and was kind of beside herself during the first set. But, on the break, she came out of her box and got social. She's a pain to work with, but the beer goggled crowd seems to really like her. I'm cool with her as long as she sits there, plays her part and shuts up. Life is good that way. 

We also had a group of about ten women that were feeling no pain. They were a lot of fun and ribbed Heath a lot during the show. Heath was having a ball with it, jumped off the stage and played at their table, while they all got up and danced. Cisco seemed to be having a good time, too - he offered some of his hand percussion and we wound up with a stage full of audience members dancing and singing along with us throughout most of the last set. They were snapping pictures like crazy, hopefully some will make Facebook as I did not have my phone with me the whole time. Would have liked to snapped some of the interior, too!

In the end, we had a really good time and I think the crowd did as well. We'd play there again, for sure. Tonight, we're off to find dinosaurs in Glen Rose, TX... talk to you after that one!

Stay gold,

RH

02.02.2013 - The Happy Armadillo - Everman, TX

It's Saturday night and I'm back before midnight... Well, I guess tonight would be "the ugly." 

What a night! I'm somewhat obsessive about checking and double checking, then checking again to make sure I've got everything before I leave. Today, my stomach's been bothering me, not feeling 100%. Guess I wasn't all there, mentally. I probably should have known it was going to be one of those nights when, half way to the show, I realized my capo was still on the mic stand in the studio where I practice. Ok, I only use it on 3 songs, I'll improvise and we'll get through it. Right? Right. 

So, I show up to the place around 6:30. I go in to see where we're to set up. Small place, but the bartenders are friendly enough. It'll be fine. 

Next sign of the evening -  Heath shows up and had just received a speeding ticket! There goes his profit for the night. Oops! Ok, so Heath's nerves are a little rattled as well now. 

So, like I said, we set everything up and start our sound check. We get about two songs into it and the bartender comes over and needs to talk to us. I figured it was the "turn it down" speech. Nope... it was the "we were under the impression that you were a classic rock or classic country band" speech. Seriously? Did you not listen to our demo before you booked us? Anyway, the manager was "off duty" but, was sending this poor girl over to tell us that it wasn't going to work. She said the manager said they were already getting complaints about the style of music. Really? There were on about 6 people there while we were checking the sound. Plus, we didn't even play the full songs, we were just getting levels on the sequencing. We explained we did a few classic country covers in our set, but mostly play originals. Should we just try and see how it goes, etc? "Oh, you can't do originals at all. We just want covers. Classic country or classic rock." 

Here's the deal about bands that use a lot of electronics and sequencing - we can't just "play" whatever we want on the spot. We play what we programmed for the set. We have some extras programmed in case we get in a mood or whatever, but if it's not programmed, we can't do it unless it's acoustic... and you know how I feel about acoustic LOL. 

Anyway, so we're discussing between ourselves, trying to figure out a way to make it work. Our sound is country enough, that we were pretty sure we wouldn't run anyone off, just a matter of restructuring the set list to ease them into us. She comes back again and, you can tell, she's still getting an earful from her "off duty" manager who won't speak to us. So, we asked if we should we just pack up and go? "Yeah, I think that's what she's wanting. She (the manager) thinks you're going to run off the crowd." 

So, after an hour drive and an hour setup and running sound, we tore it right back down and packed it up. We never even played a full song. And no, we weren't paid either. "The manager" told her the contract was void because we weren't a cover band that played classic rock or classic country. So, in addition to wasting time, we wasted quite a bit of gas. Oh, and Cisco had turned down another gig the same night. So, he really lost out .

And the icing on the cake... after we're done packing things up, we're standing outside catching our breath and talking for a few minutes - 10 or 15 minutes, somewhere around there - and up pulls a cop. He had received a call that there were some people out drinking in the parking lot. Again, seriously? You cancel our show, then you call the cops on us? The police officer was very nice. We were drinking water, it was all fine. He went in the bar, we talked a few more minutes then left. Fair to say, we won't be back there to play... or to spend money. I don't like to bad talk a place. I really don't, but we kind of got screwed tonight. Generally, if a venue cancels, you at least get half the pay. Not here. If you're in another band and are thinking of playing there, I hope you are a cover band. If not, you might want to re-think. 

So, now it's 11:43, I'm on the laptop and we move on forward. Being in a band that does original music is a challenge. We knew it would be and that's ok. We just didn't think a place would book us without listening to us or exploring what we're about. Looking forward to the next show to get the bad taste out of my mouth... and, as Heath said in the parking lot, "Someday we're going to look back on this and laugh." 

Stay gold Ponyboys and Ponygirls,

RH