Exposure is a good thing

Boy, when things start improving, they really improve! When I last left you, Johnny was on the mend and we'd had a lovely lakeside gig to get things moving in the right direction again. In the week since then, things have only gotten better!

On Tuesday, July 24, we were notified by Reverbnation (see my Reverbnation review if you're not sure who/what that is) that The Staylyns would be one the site's 10 featured bands on their home page for the following week - EXCITING!! In case you're not sure what the big deal is, RN has nearly 2.5 million artists, and they get 25 million visitors per month, so to be selected among all of those artists for that kind of exposure is just phenomenal. We're so very grateful! Here's a photo of us in the primo spot on their home page:

Back on track

It appears our luck is finally back on the upswing. Johnny's ankle is improving; he has replaced his old, dead phone with a long-desired iPhone; and we had two really great shows this past weekend.

The first of the two shows was a Friday afternoon electric bike rock n' roll tour. I think there may be a song in that name. It sounds kind of Beatles-esque, circa 1967. But I digress. The gyst of the gig is that Joe and Johnny took a group of five guys on a tour of the city, sightseeing the city's iconic rock 'n roll sights (like the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue and Victory Grill), atop Pedego electric bikes from our most favoritist electric bike shop, Rocket Electrics.

After cruisin' the sights and, no doubt, charmin' the bejeezus out of their charges, the boys then entertained them with a short rooftop concert with a skyline view:

It started with rain

It's been a helluva week. Weather calamity. Injury. Even (dare I say it?)...death. Yeah, you read that right. Somethin' died. So, don't even think your week has been bad. Just read about ours, tell us what troopers we are for soldiering on, then go buy our CD or something.

It started on Saturday. We were scheduled to play at Little Woodrow's in Bee Cave. On our way out to the venue, we saw a few clouds here and there. They seemed to be dropping some rain in the distance, but the weather reports said it would all fade out by around 8:30pm. We were set to play at 9:00, so that should have been manageable.

We got completely set up. All that was left was a sound check. And then I looked up, and saw this:

Okay, that's not actually what I saw - I didn't have time to snap a picture of the storm that was descending on us at that moment. So that photo is just a really cool photo of a supercell. But the storm that swept over us had the same basic elements: rain, wind, clouds. And when I say I didn't have time to take a photo, I'm not kidding. I saw the cloud approaching, pointed it out to Johnny, and we immediately started putting out tarps next to all of our gear.

Back in the saddle

We played our monthly gig at Junior's Icehouse last night, and it was SO fun! It wasn't just that we had a good crowd (we did), or that the show itself went well (it did), or even that it was National Fried Chicken Day (it was - I had some fried chicken quesadillas to celebrate); it was also just that fact that we were back on stage after a week and a half.

It wasn't a planned break - it's just how our gig schedule worked out, but it was a nice break, and it was even nicer to get back to it last night. It's amazing how when you start playing every week, sometimes several times, taking just a week and a half off can feel like an eternity. Getting back to work last night at Junior's felt great!

It's good to take breaks, since life has a way of piling up on you when you're in constant motion. Sometimes you need to stop, get off the hamster wheel and take care of "stuff." I doubled-up on my break by also taking some vacation time from my day job, and I got a lot of "stuff" done. It felt great!

And a week and a half or so is a good period of time for a gig break, because it's enough time to let you stop and breathe, but not so much time that you get rusty.

It probably sounds crazy that you get rusty after just a few weeks of not playing, but it happens fast. You suddenly can't remember how a song starts, or you get to the second verse of a song, and you start singing the first verse again. You know these songs, and it actually surprises you when everything doesn't just come by rote.

But you get warmed up and get going and everything is fine, as long as you shake off that initial feeling of "What just happened?" when the brain fart catches you off-guard. You can't let it get to you or your whole show will be blown.

I've heard that golf is the same way - that you have to do it all the time to stay sharp. I don't play golf, so I can't vouch for that, but that's the word on the street. The homies say it all the time: "Golf, man. You gotta stay on top of that shit." So, I guess I'm saying that playing music is not like riding bike, which apparently you never forget, and it is like playing golf...which honestly sounds nothing like playing music, so I don't know what you guys are talking about with this golf thing.

Walls are important

Lesson learned at Monday night's gig: walls are important.

This week, instead of a weekend gig, we got crazy with a Monday night gig at a place called Billy's Icehouse in New Braunfels, TX. I admit, I didn't know anything about Billy's, but after we booked the gig, I found out from several people that Billy's is a bit of a legend in those parts. I wasn't sure about playing late on a Monday, but I liked the idea of playing some place legendary, so I got on board.

When we showed up at our gig, though, I discovered that this legendary place was missing two things that I find vitally important for a Central Texas venue in June when temperatures in the triple digits (the high on Monday was 106): air conditioning and walls on two sides to hold in said a/c.

Me, upon arrival at Billy's: Uh...where's the inside?

Johnny: This is it. There's not really an inside. 

Me: Escue me?

Yeah.

Now, outdoor venues (or in this case, partially outdoor) are not at all unusual in Texas, and we play them regularly. But it really helps a person to dress appropriately if you KNOW you're essentially playing outdoors in killer heat. I can also mentally prepare if I know in advance.

But I didn't know. So, I did what any self-respecting woman in jeans with her hair down would have done in similar circumstances. I hung out in the bathroom, which for some reason WAS air conditioned, until it was time to go on.

I gotta start bringing a full slate of emergency outfits for any situation: ripped pants, too cold, too hot, shirt scratching me, etc. Is this why music stars really have big tour buses - for the closet space?

There's no place like home

This weekend we played a gig at a lovely lakeside resort in North Texas. It was about a three-hour drive from Austin if you're not in a hurry, which we try not to be, and the distance brought up an interesting point for a band that travels outside of their home city.

First, let me say that we really enjoyed the gig. Our stage was a deck overlooking the lake, which is a pretty sweet office, and the weather was great (a little too windy, but I'll tackle wind and its annoying properties another time). We had a nice, appreciative crowd, and the staff was very friendly and took good care of us. 

The interesting point that came up was the question of when you stay overnight at an out-of-town gig and when you drive back home immediately afterward.

Runnin' on ROT Rally fumes

We had a huge weekend this past weekend - so huge that it's taken me a couple of days to recuperate enough to write about it. I could've tried yesterday, but it would've been incoherent, and I hate to waste server space on rambling nonsense. I leave that to Kanye West. ("OH! Whaaaat? She did not just dis another artist!" Uh, have you heard what comes out of that man's mouth?)

We had ourselves what I like to call a bit of a Rock n' Roll Marathon this weekend. We worked almost non-stop from 5:30pm on Friday until 1 a.m on Sunday. I think there was a five-hour catnap in there Saturday morning, but that was about it. Luckily, I had taken Friday off from my office job, so I had a chance to rest up before we began this little gauntlet. But here's the rundown: