2014 - a beautiful, Strange year

Well, we made it - one more year in the books! 2015 is going to start quickly for us, with a gig on Jan. 2 at Junior's Grill and Icehouse in Round Rock, so it's worth taking a moment to look back at what's been a successful and fun 2014.

This year, we continued our long-running residency at Junior's, but we switched to an all-night format. Instead of an opener followed by The Staylyns for two hours, we now play 7:30-11:30pm every First Friday. And we're pleased to announce that we'll continue this residency in 2015. Woohoo!

We returned to several other stages this year, as well, including the Pleasure Pier in Galveston, the Boardwalk stage in Kemah and Cafe Mueller stage at HEB - all venues that we have gigs for on the books in 2015.

We got to play a few places/events for the first time this year, including the inaugural Viva Terlingua Festival, The Cedar Door, Cherrywood Coffeehouse, Javelina Bar, the Vapers Exhibit, and the inaugural Austin BikeFest.

The Thirsty Goat in Lajitas, Texas

We also had the pleasure of playing several private gigs including a wedding for a couple from South Africa who came to Austin to get married in front of several friends from all over the world, while simulcasting the wedding via Skype to relatives in South America; a Memorial Day party at a ranch in Gatesville; and a birthday party for a woman who survived a near-fatal car accident a year ago and danced at her own party this year.

It's so cool to be part of people's celebrations and important events in their lives. Music creates such a connection with people, and it's incredible to know that you'll be a part of people's memories of some of their most special moments.

(Looks emotional, then gathers herself and continues on.)

On the media front, we got some nice mentions this year. We were featured in Texas Music magazine's Winter 2014 sampler CD.

The CD was included in the Winter issue of the magazine. We weren't mentioned on the cover, shown here, but trust me, we were on the CD!

In addition, Johnny got his picture in the local newspaper and was quoted in article about Austin for The London Times. And Joe was quoted in Reporting Texas.

We even started a new YouTube series, "Three Questions About..." We've only made one installment so far: Three Questions About...Animals, starring Joe, but look for more of these videos in 2015.

But I think the best part of the year was the release of a new CD, Strange:

We are so proud of this CD. If you haven't had a chance to get a copy, please take a listen to the tracks at CD Baby, where you can order a hard copy CD or download the whole album or individual tracks. We're also on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc., so if you like what you hear, you can find us wherever you listen to music.

We're already starting on new music to release in 2015. We're looking forward to a process for releasing music next year, where we'll release individual songs as we produce them, then collect them into CDs when we have enough tracks, rather than holding on to tracks until we're ready to release an entire album. We're excited about the idea of getting new music to you more often!

Thank you all for being part of year in 2014. Here's hoping 2015 will be just as great, and just as eventful. I love this ride!