If you live in Austin, you know that Halloween is a really popular holiday here. None of this "Halloween is for kids" bunk - people of all ages decorate and dress up in these parts!
It's a lot of fun to see people get so creative and be so uninhibited (Note: People who dress up are way more fun than people who won't because they're afraid of looking silly. Just FYI.), but I'll admit, it can be a bit of a distraction when you're trying to perform - not because people are looking at other people instead of you, but because YOU are looking at everyone, and it's very easy to find yourself suddenly wondering, "Wait - what song are we playing again?"
I had a moment like that this past Friday night.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Rebranding complete
Those of you who have been along for the ride with us for a while now know that we didn't start out as The Staylyns.
When the band first started, it was just Johnny with his very talented friend Scott on drums. Scott is a lifelong friend of Johnny's and a fantastic drummer. But Scott prefers to work individual gigs on a freelance basis, rather than being a standing member of a particular band. So, Johnny knew from the start that Scott wouldn't be his long-term drummer. Thus, he performed essentially as a solo act - Johnny Austin:
When the band first started, it was just Johnny with his very talented friend Scott on drums. Scott is a lifelong friend of Johnny's and a fantastic drummer. But Scott prefers to work individual gigs on a freelance basis, rather than being a standing member of a particular band. So, Johnny knew from the start that Scott wouldn't be his long-term drummer. Thus, he performed essentially as a solo act - Johnny Austin:
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Headlinin'
We did it! We hit the big time - we headlined a festival!
No, not ACL. That's this coming weekend, and we admit that we're not quite that big-time. In fact, I suppose if I really look at it up close, it's probably not "big" time, in the sense of the festival being, say, "large" in terms of attendance...or physical presence...or money. It's probably more like "not big" time. Maybe even "small" time.
The festival in question was Manor Fest. Manor is a small (but growing!) town just east of Austin. And apparently they hold a festival every year as a fundraiser for the town. Let's take a look at what this fiesta entails, and you can help us decide on the proper characterization for it.
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| Delicious bbq, cooked in biiiiiig, Longhorn-themed smokers, |
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Road trippin'
Last weekend (if you start the weekend on Thursday, which we will for this post), we had three gigs in a 48-hour period, which is a lot of gigging. What's most interesting, though, is that one of those gigs was 5 1/2 hours away. Yup - that's 5 1/2 hours each way. Road trip!
We actually decided earlier this year that we were going to be judicious about our long-distance gigs. We'd done a couple of trips to Nashville with marginal success (okay, one marginal success and one total disaster), and one trip to El Paso, which was almost a bust except that Johnny worked something out with the booker to make the trip at least a break-even (the event we'd been hired to play had been double-booked, and they almost sent us away without playing and with less money than our expenses to get there - it's 9 hours away).
We learned some lessons in those experiences about what kind of guarantees to get, and what to get in writing, if we were hired to play a gig outside of our usual Central Texas area. But as a general rule, we just don't like to book anything more than a few hours away. In this case, though, the money was good, we could go up and back in a day, which keeps our expenses down, and the people we dealt with were professional and put the things we needed in writing. So, last Thursday, off we went to play the Big Apple Deli in the bustling West Texas metropolis of Snyder, Texas!
We actually decided earlier this year that we were going to be judicious about our long-distance gigs. We'd done a couple of trips to Nashville with marginal success (okay, one marginal success and one total disaster), and one trip to El Paso, which was almost a bust except that Johnny worked something out with the booker to make the trip at least a break-even (the event we'd been hired to play had been double-booked, and they almost sent us away without playing and with less money than our expenses to get there - it's 9 hours away).
We learned some lessons in those experiences about what kind of guarantees to get, and what to get in writing, if we were hired to play a gig outside of our usual Central Texas area. But as a general rule, we just don't like to book anything more than a few hours away. In this case, though, the money was good, we could go up and back in a day, which keeps our expenses down, and the people we dealt with were professional and put the things we needed in writing. So, last Thursday, off we went to play the Big Apple Deli in the bustling West Texas metropolis of Snyder, Texas!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Turning into Mavericks
September has shaped up to be a great month for The Staylyns to play new venues. By the time the month is out, we will have played three new venues (for us) in three different cities:
I already blogged about playing Kemah, so I'll tell you about Mavericks - the club we played this past weekend.
- Kemah Boardwalk in Kemah
- Mavericks in Pflugerville, and
- Big Apple Deli in Snyder
I already blogged about playing Kemah, so I'll tell you about Mavericks - the club we played this past weekend.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Gig, soup and toilet paper
So, life remains interesting in Staylyn-land - both good interesting and not-awesome interesting.
On the good side, this past Friday was my (Suzy's) last day at my 9-to-5 office job. This is a very good thing. I will still be working a non-band job, but the new job will have more flexibility than the old one, which means The Staylyns now have more flexibility as well. Hurrah!
We also got very lucky on Saturday with the weather for our gig playing the Kemah Boardwalk. Not only did it rain every day leading up to our gig, but as we were playing in the sunshine in Kemah on Saturday, the other side of Houston was getting soaked. I think God decided to give us a break since we were rained out of this same gig in March. So, to all you folks who got the benefit of the sunshine that we were personally responsible for on Saturday, you're welcome.
Less cool was the cold that Johnny woke up with on Sunday. To be accurate, the cold had been coming on for days, so it didn't actually just appear on Sunday, but he was definitely feeling full-on crappy that morning. We had spent the night with my very generous family the night before, but when he woke up feeling bad, we loaded up and headed home as soon as we could get Joey vertical. Have we mentioned before that Joe can sleep? Anywhere, anytime, for as long as you'll let him. But I'll save that for another post.
We did make one stop on the way home, and that was for lunch. Johnny needed soup - possibly soup with a little sinus-clearing kick. So, we stopped in Columbus at this fine establishment for some tortilla soup:
As soon as we were seated, I noticed a cool old-timey map on the wall that had this on it:
Since we play Hotel California in our band, I took it as a sign that we had made a good decision.
In fact, it was an excellent decision. Johnny and Joe both got the soup, which seemed pricey until we saw the enormous bowls delivered to our table. These people hook you UP with some soup! And even better, Johnny said it was officially the best chicken tortilla soup (he added chicken, because you're supposed to when you're sick) he'd ever had. Here it is about halfway eaten:
To give some perspective, that's not a teaspoon - it's a tablespoon. Somehow the picture doesn't do it justice, but trust me, it was a lot of soup.
One more point of interest came as we were getting ready to leave. I went to the bathroom, because you should always do that at all possible opportunities when you're on a road trip, and as I was washing my hands, I saw another woman enter, go into one of the stalls and then do this:
What the...? I saw her hang this piece of toilet paper over the door before getting to business. But...why? Is she trying to signal that the stall is ocupado? Because your feet under the door are a pretty good indicator. And, of course, there's the whole DOOR LOCK thing to keep urgent strangers from busting in on you. So, what could that be? Oooo - I sense a game opportunity. Let's all come up with theories! Here's mine:
She's a germophobe, and she's afraid that the last person who touched the toilet paper had dirty hands. So, she pulls a foot or so of paper out to get to the clean paper. But she's also OCD, so she has to hang the pulled paper on the outside of the stall where she can see it when she washes her hands so she knows she did, in fact, remember to pull the first foot of paper and, therefore, only has to wash her hands - not her hoohah, too, which she would surely have to do if she had used the first foot of contaminated paper. And that is NOT something she wants to have to do again in a public restroom.
Your turn - put your theory in the comments!
On the good side, this past Friday was my (Suzy's) last day at my 9-to-5 office job. This is a very good thing. I will still be working a non-band job, but the new job will have more flexibility than the old one, which means The Staylyns now have more flexibility as well. Hurrah!
We also got very lucky on Saturday with the weather for our gig playing the Kemah Boardwalk. Not only did it rain every day leading up to our gig, but as we were playing in the sunshine in Kemah on Saturday, the other side of Houston was getting soaked. I think God decided to give us a break since we were rained out of this same gig in March. So, to all you folks who got the benefit of the sunshine that we were personally responsible for on Saturday, you're welcome.
Less cool was the cold that Johnny woke up with on Sunday. To be accurate, the cold had been coming on for days, so it didn't actually just appear on Sunday, but he was definitely feeling full-on crappy that morning. We had spent the night with my very generous family the night before, but when he woke up feeling bad, we loaded up and headed home as soon as we could get Joey vertical. Have we mentioned before that Joe can sleep? Anywhere, anytime, for as long as you'll let him. But I'll save that for another post.
We did make one stop on the way home, and that was for lunch. Johnny needed soup - possibly soup with a little sinus-clearing kick. So, we stopped in Columbus at this fine establishment for some tortilla soup:
As soon as we were seated, I noticed a cool old-timey map on the wall that had this on it:
Since we play Hotel California in our band, I took it as a sign that we had made a good decision.
In fact, it was an excellent decision. Johnny and Joe both got the soup, which seemed pricey until we saw the enormous bowls delivered to our table. These people hook you UP with some soup! And even better, Johnny said it was officially the best chicken tortilla soup (he added chicken, because you're supposed to when you're sick) he'd ever had. Here it is about halfway eaten:
To give some perspective, that's not a teaspoon - it's a tablespoon. Somehow the picture doesn't do it justice, but trust me, it was a lot of soup.
One more point of interest came as we were getting ready to leave. I went to the bathroom, because you should always do that at all possible opportunities when you're on a road trip, and as I was washing my hands, I saw another woman enter, go into one of the stalls and then do this:
What the...? I saw her hang this piece of toilet paper over the door before getting to business. But...why? Is she trying to signal that the stall is ocupado? Because your feet under the door are a pretty good indicator. And, of course, there's the whole DOOR LOCK thing to keep urgent strangers from busting in on you. So, what could that be? Oooo - I sense a game opportunity. Let's all come up with theories! Here's mine:
She's a germophobe, and she's afraid that the last person who touched the toilet paper had dirty hands. So, she pulls a foot or so of paper out to get to the clean paper. But she's also OCD, so she has to hang the pulled paper on the outside of the stall where she can see it when she washes her hands so she knows she did, in fact, remember to pull the first foot of paper and, therefore, only has to wash her hands - not her hoohah, too, which she would surely have to do if she had used the first foot of contaminated paper. And that is NOT something she wants to have to do again in a public restroom.
Your turn - put your theory in the comments!
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Life needs to back off
Has it really been almost three weeks since my last post? What the...?
Sorry for the silence. I wasn't ignoring you - it's just been kinda crazy in the land of The Staylyns. I'll see if I can do a photo recap of what all has been going on. I make no promises that these will all be actual photos of us, but see if you can figure out which ones aren't actually us!
We've done a bunch of this:
Johnny and I dealt with this at our rental properties:
Sorry for the silence. I wasn't ignoring you - it's just been kinda crazy in the land of The Staylyns. I'll see if I can do a photo recap of what all has been going on. I make no promises that these will all be actual photos of us, but see if you can figure out which ones aren't actually us!
We've done a bunch of this:
Johnny and I dealt with this at our rental properties:
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| "We may need a machete for that back part." |
"An anteater is probably the cheapest solution."
"So, you're saying that a ceiling fan isn't insufficient when it's 104 degrees outside?"
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