Head west, young man!

This past Saturday, The Staylyns' loaded up the van and headed west for our first trip to San Angelo, Texas - hopefully of many! We had a beautiful drive, but before I get to that, let me tell you about the gig.

We played a bar called The Office:

This little hottie greets you at the door. I have no idea why the bar's mascot is a sheep. Are they saying all office workers are sheep? That seems insulting. And slutty sheep? I don't know - I think more explanation should be given.

Not a bad looking little spot, though. They had some house sound, which allowed us to carry less gear, and they showcase art from a local artist on the walls, which is cool.

I guess I imagined that San Angelo would be one of those small towns where everything shuts down at midnight, so our 9pm-Midnight slot would be prime time. But San Angelo is a college town, so the bar scene actually gets going about the same time 6th Street in Austin starts hopping - which is to say sometime after 11pm.

That, of course, means that our first two sets were a bit of a struggle. Luckily, we had George and his crew paying rapt attention at the back of the room, smiling, dancing along at times, and on the break, bringing us a tip and words of encouragement. This is George:

George, we thank you for giving us a smiling, attentive face to play
to - you have no idea how much a band needs that!

We also had a cool chick at the bar who told us she had recently moved to San Angelo from Austin, and she was psyched to take in a little Austin music. Sadly, I didn't get a photo before she left, but the bar owner said he'd like to have us back, so hopefully we'll get another chance to bring a little Austin back to West Texas!

For those who don't grasp the size of Texas, the trip to San Angelo was about 4 hours, one-way. And we were nowhere near the state's border when we got there. So, we spent a lot more time in the car than on stage. But I did see a couple of things worth noting along the road:

This place: Cow Patty Patch. 

The hanging sign says "antiques," but the neon yellow sign says "Sweet Home Cooking." The place is out of business. Imagine that! You've either got some mistaken signage, or you've got an unfortunate business model. (A) No one wants antique food. (B) No one wants food from a place named after shiz. (C) Your building is painted like cow skin. Don't try to fix all this - just start a new business from scratch that doesn't involve any of these factors.

Also, this.

I saw a lot of imagery about deer hunting once we got through the Hill Country. Alot. I knew deer hunting was a big thing, but I'll admit, I was surprised to learn that venison is "the natural meat of the 21st century."

It's also unfortunate, because I don't like venison. So, that means I'm doomed to eat unnatural meat, and that sucks. There's no way I'm going to live into the 22nd century, and I'd bet $100 that beef is going to be the natural meat of the 22nd century (dammit).

I also saw several people taking pictures in the roadside bluebonnets, which was nice, but I couldn't get any good pictures of that since we were flying past them too fast. Maybe this weekend I'll get some shots of that since we'll be heading back out on the road, and the wildflowers still seem to be going strong.

For those to the south, we'll be heading back down to the coast this weekend to play again at the Pleasure Pier in Galveston (Saturday, 4/27, 6-10pm) and the Boardwalk in Kemah (Sunday, 4/28, Noon-4pm). Hopefully, we'll see some familiar faces. And I 100 percent plan on eating some unnatural meat while we're there.