We wake up late, and there isn’t a lot of time to do anything before we have to check out. We decide to head into Austin and go to a Guitar Center. We hang around there for about an hour, just messing around on stuff. I played some surf songs on this nice Fender Deluxe, which sort of brought a little bit of California into Texas. Ryan, of course, slept in the van.
Afterwards, we head into downtown Austin. I’ve been bugging them ever since we got to Austin to let me go to this hot sauce shop called Tears of Joy, which I’ve known about for awhile. I love hot sauce shops, and since I don’t really go to the LA area much anymore, I can’t really go and buy lots of hot sauces that you can’t get most places. So, we go over there and they drop me off. There is a huge line of emo looking kids standing in line for some show in front of this venue, but I just head into the hot sauce shop.
I take a look around and I see all of the familiar hot sauces. They have a shelf for the super extract hot sauces which is shaped like a coffin. After I grab a bottle of the Tears of Joy hot sauce that they make themselves in the store, I ask the guy at the counter the guy at the counter for his recommendations on hot sauces. I ask him what the spiciest hot sauce that still retains flavor is, and he points me to one of the Ghost Chile sauces. I’ve had the Melinda’s ghost chile sauce, and I like it a lot, so I picked up the bottle he recommends. I ask him some more questions, and he’s being kind of a jerk to me for no reason. I mean, I’m the only one in the entire shop, and I’m just asking simple questions about hot sauce. I go up to the counter to checkout and I tell him that I’ve been looking forward to coming to his shop, and tell him that I’m from California, and the only hot sauce place that I know of is the one in LA. The guy says “I went there. I wasn’t really impressed. This place is bigger and has more variety.” Come on, guy. No unity between hot sauce shops? I grab my bottles and leave.
I ask one of the emo girls outside what the line is for. They said “We The Kings”. I don’t know who that is, so I call the guys to come pick me up. They ask who the line is for, and I say “We The Kings”. Ryan knows who they are, and their some sort of emo band, of course. We see their huge tour bus parked outside the venue, and we see them hanging out outside of it. They are way way emo. It kinda gets me down a little bit to know there’s this huge line of people waiting to see terrible music. Oh well.
It’s Ash Wednesday, apparently. John, who has never expressed an interest in religion before, ever, wants to be dropped off at a church so he can do whatever. The rest of the band gives him crap about it, but we have time to kill, so whatever, we drop him off at some church. The rest of us go and find this café that has free wifi. We hang out for awhile, I eat a cupcake, and John comes back with the ridiculous ash crap on his forehead. I’m thinking that his Columbian mother probably guilt tripped him into going to church today.
Anyhow, we eventually head over to Headhunters where we’re playing tonight. There’s nowhere to park, so I jump out and head inside. I walk in, and it’s this smallish bar, but they have a stage. Not many people are there, yet. I walk up to the bartender and say that I’m from the Atom Age and that we’re playing tonight. He’s this huge metal-looking guy, and he turns to me and goes “YAAH!?” I’m used to bartenders not really knowing what’s going on, and being kinda like “well… uh… I don’t really know what’s going on, you should probably talk to the promoter… or something… lemme see if he’s here yet” and not really being forward about anything. But, this guy is loud and swears a lot and is generally awesome. He tells me where to load in, and some more info, so I go outside to tell everyone else. They go and find a place to park, and I go back inside. The promoter was there, this other big guy with a New York style accent named Billy, equally loud and equally nuts. Him and the bartender would yell at each other, and make fun of the patrons. TRU TV was on (which is this channel that has shows like high speed police chases, or people fighting, or other crazy stuff caught on camera) and every time someone got punched in the face or hit by a car, the bartender would go “HOLY FUCK!” or similar.
I walk scope the place out a little more, and I head out to the back patio. Low and behold, there’s like 30-40 kids back there. This got me pretty juiced. There’s 5 bands playing tonight, and having a turnout like this before the first band plays is phenomenal. Not too much longer after this, I realized that there was actually going to be 2 shows in this bar tonight, one on the back patio, one inside the bar. The back patio show is all ages, and there’s only 2 bands playing, but they’ve still drawn a crowd. They were setting up, and I caught the name of one of the bands. It was “We Deal Suicide”. So, this was most likely another screamo/post-hardcore/metal show. Great.
I went back inside and it was time for the first band to play, but they didn’t show up. So, the next guy went on. He was beat boxing. But, somehow, it wasn’t lame. It was just him and an acoustic guitar, but he beat boxed and played bass with his mouth. He also played harmonics on the top strings of his guitar, and then let them ring while he played the melody on the bottom strings. It was really cool, and nothing I had ever seen before. He was a one man rock band. He played sort of slow alternative stuff, which was pretty much perfect for what he was doing. It was cool. He was called Bow Legged Gorilla. During the last song of his set, this guy in the bar lights a glass pipe (weed) and goes up to the performer and blows it in his face. Bow Legged Gorilla maintains perfect composure, which is impressive because he’s doing like 4 things at once. The bartender takes the guy and literally throws him out of the bar by his jacket. This, too, was impressive.
I went outside to the back patio, and the band out there had started. And, I got pissed. Synchronized headbanging of the guitarists in a formation is not cool. Two lead singers is not cool. In fact, there were so many things not cool about this band that I got kind of mad. So, I went back inside. The combination of “We The Kings” earlier, and this stuff now, was just lame.
We played next, which was alright. The stage was super small, and there were hardly any people in the bar. I literally couldn’t move an inch on stage. We played well, the sound was good, but I couldn’t move and was in a not so good mood. The people that saw us seemed to like us fine; I think we sold some merch, too. The sound guy came up to us after our set and was extremely impressed by us. He said “I’ve seen thousands of bands play, and you guys were one of the best bands I’ve ever seen.” He actually came and talked to us a few times later in the night to reiterate himself, and to say that he was “giddy” and “star-struck”. Wow.
The band that was up after us was Homeless People. Remember them? The crusty anarchist folk-punk duo that we played with in Las Cruces? When we were loading in, I said “hi” to them, but didn’t really strike up any conversation with them. We loaded all our gear outside, and hung out outside and talked to Billy, who was constantly making fun of Homeless People. I felt a little bit bad for them, but then they went on this preachy rant about how Texas is super racist, and I wasn’t anymore. I also found out that they rapped over their accordion and fiddle playing, and that hurt my feelings.
The last band was called Knights, or something. They described themselves to me before they played as “Alternative Prog, kind of like Radiohead or Rage Against The Machine”. For those of you not catching on, tonight we’ve played with 2 acoustic bands and these guys. Who puts together these bills? They weren’t bad at all, but I don’t really like Radiohead, so it wasn’t for me. I went outside and guarded the gear, and called Danny, whose best friend just broke up with her boyfriend. There was a hippie pizza place next door, so I grabbed a slice. Later on, some girl went in there and started screaming at one of the guys. I think the guy slept with someone and lied about it, or something. I like it when hippies get yelled at; it proves their not the perfect people they make themselves out to be.
Billy offers us a place to crash at his place. Very cool. This guy is seriously awesome. He liked our band, too. We leave, and we have to follow this guy in his van and he’s driving like a maniac. We get to his place, and he’s got a few dogs that are overly friendly, of course. He’s got 2 couches, and Peter and John take them, the rest of us are on the floor. The guy offers us a pipe, and says he doesn’t smoke. I realize that this is the pipe the guy he kicked out had; he must have confiscated it. We all decline, and head to bed.
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