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.

Snacking during a show (or: "Ruh-roh!")

We played the Galveston Pleasure Pier last night.

Photo courtesy of Brad Ober

We really enjoy playing the pier for many reasons.

It's a great stage. You can't help but feel like a star playing in the shadow of a ferris wheel.

The view is fantastic. From our perch, we get to see dolphins jumping in the water, pelicans flying overhead and the sunset right across from us.

The audience is so diverse. It's really fun to see such a cross-section of people enjoying the games and rides and being with their families, but also digging our music. Last night we had everyone from babies to senior citizens dancing, singing and smiling with us. Some were locals, and some were visitors from all over the world. We even sold a swag pack of merch to a couple from Canada who hung out for two sets and told us about their daughter who plays guitar (go, girl, go!).

But I did have one small challenge in the third set.

Playing - a little - for the Vapers Exhibit

We played the 2014 Vapers Exhibit this weekend, and it was an interesting experience. The exhibit is an expo for e-cigarettes.

If you don't know what e-cigarettes are, they're an alternative to regular cigarettes. With a regular cigarette, tobacco is rolled in paper, and the smoker lights the roll, inhaling (then exhaling) the smoke. E-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that hold a mixture of liquid and nicotine. The e-cigarette vaporizes the mixture, and the smoker inhales (then exhales) the vapor. Until Saturday, that's about all I knew about e-cigarettes. Now, I know more than I ever thought I would!

The cool part about the expo, other than getting a convention gig, was that it was held at the Austin Music Hall. The music hall has a real stage and, almost as good, green rooms!

Playing the Viva Terlingua Festival, Part 2

Part 2 - the conclusion! Okay, so as I ended my last post, after arriving in Lajitas on Thursday and catching some music, we called it a day and crashed in our lovely, Western-themed hotel room. The next morning, I arose to this beautiful view:

This was our room (the porch to the right), and my vantage point for the photo above:

Playing the Viva Terlingua Festival, Part 1

Last month we had the honor of playing the very first Viva Terlingua Festival. The festival consisted of three portions - music, film and photography, and it was hosted in the neighboring towns of Terlingua and Lajitas.

Terlingua, technically, is a ghost town in West Texas. But when we got selected to play as part of the music portion, we decided to conquer our fear of ghosts and participate. It was our first festival playing all-original music since our SXSW showcase a few years ago, so it was an exciting opportunity. And besides, you really can't let ghosts push you around.

So, off we went to West Texas! For those of you who don't really have a sense of how large the state of Texas is, Terlingua/Lajitas is about an eight-hour drive from Austin. What do you do in a van for eight hours? Well, if you're Johnny, you drive. If you're Joe, you do this:

And if you're me (Suzy), you do this:

Strange is live!

The glorious day has arrived - our new CD, Strange, is now live online and available worldwide!

This CD has been two years in the making, we are SUPER proud of it. Aside from blood, sweat and tears, a whole lot of vocals, guitar and percussion went into this album (and even some strings). Just look at some of the awesome instruments we got to play with when we were recording:

The nudie post

Okay, so apparently if you tell people you have a nudie story, they want to hear it. So, here goes.

The year was 2009. We were a four-piece called Johnny Austin back then: Johnny, Suzy, Joe and the handsome and talented David Henry on guitar (before he went on to have a successful career in IT - whatever, man).

Johnny answered an ad someone had placed looking for a band to play their community Labor Day party. They responded, said they'd checked out our music online and liked us, and they could pay our fee, but there was one thing we needed to know about their community: they were nudists.