The Western Saloon & Run in with Ramblin' Jack Elliot

As I mentioned in an earlier post we tend to play some of the more out of the way, yet World Famous places and tonight Ramblin’ Jack Elliot was sitting at the bar at our show at The Great Western Saloon in Point Reyes. Apparently a few of our friends in Flagstaff are friends with his friends and told them to come check us out.

Point Reyes is only about 30 miles as a bird flies from San Fransisco, but a million worlds away. It was Jeff Manson’s 30^th birthday and we were surrounded by the most wonderful collection of Hippies, cowboys and general weirdos that I could ever imagine. We played with our friends Windy Gap & Leopold & His Fiction.

Ramblin' Jack used to travel with Woody Guthrie (is from Brooklyn like me) and is one of our biggest heroes.

Here he is singing San Francisco Bay Blues on an old TV set.

http://ramblinjack.com/

He bought me a Budweiser and we chatted about Brooklyn and his turn of the century row boat. He found it rotting in an old boat house in Massachusetts and drove it to California to rebuilt it. I imagine it's not exactly the luxury yacht that the Rolling Stones probably have, but he did it himself, which is what we love. I could see a million miles of highways in his eyes, and yet he looked so relaxed and in his element surrounded by all the crazy characters from Jeff's Birthday.

I used to have a picture of him and Woody Guthrie playing in Washington Square Park hanging on my wall. Landry and I have played there many times, and I love the photo because Woody looks like a bearded Hippie and Ramblin' Jack looks like a Brooklyn Cowboy.

I myself would like to split the difference.

The show erupted into a sweet booty-shakin' dance party and all three bands played a bit of Musical Chairs.

Leopold and his Fiction are one of our favorite new bands.

We met them in Nashville at a show we were both on at the Springwater Super Club a few months back. It was some sort of mystical meeting. It turns out we had tons of mutual friends from Santa Cruz way back, and I went on tour with Micayla and Little Wings to the K Records "What the Heck Fest" about 10 years ago.

They are one of the few bands we know that sound just as awesome in a backwater Saloon as a hip venue in San Fransisco.

Here they are on the web.

Check them out:

http://www.leopoldandhisfiction.com/

We will have many more awesome shows in the future

Longbeach: The Pike & QSC Audio.

The Pike is owned by Social Distortion’s former drummer Chris Reece, which makes it a legendary place for us to play in Southern California. They also serve the best Lobster Tacos ever and all our friends from Element Skateboards live in the neighborhood, so we play there every time we are in Southern California.

Our friend David brought a pair of QSC speakers for us to try straight from the QSC factory down the road in Costa Mesa. We have been travelling for 5 years with the same beat up set of QSC 8” 82 H’s that were donated to us after The Austin Music CO-OP broke up a few years back. No one can ever believe that we can get so much sound out of a pair of 8” speakers, and try and make us use whatever giant rig the club has, but the secret is not in the size, its in the design, they don’t color the sound at all, so we can, and together we sound totally awesome.

David brought a pair of the new powered 12” speakers for us to try and they felt just as awesome, but with a whole lot more volume. It was really amazing to have a company as big as QSC come out and help a band like us. Last summer they gave us a personal tour of the factory and a care package of sodas and cookies to bring on tour. I got to meet the guy who designed our speakers and we all agreed that our pair of speakers might have the most dents and miles on them that anyone had ever seen.

At first we thought they realized just how famous The Lonesome Heroes are in the underworld of Psychedelic Country Music, but it turns out they were impressed with our Vantastic lifestyle, and were stoked that we came out to see how they create their magic. Which is just the sort of thing that keeps a small band like us on the road.

Here we are after the show with The Speakers & The QSC sound team:

http://www.qscaudio.com/

Afterparty.....

We had an after Party at the Hager Brothers house. They are the raddest bunch of Lonesome Heroes we have ever met. Twin Brothers that skate, bike, and build bow drill fires across America.

Here they are sliding a rail:

You should see them build a fire.

Our friend Leo Rondeau and his band stopped by for some late night trouble on their way up to the Bay

Area for a show. They are almost as cool as the Hager Brother, but in a more musical way. Landry designed Leo's new record cover:

http://www.leorondeau.net/

We will be playing some shows together in Wyoming this summer.

Hollywood, Santa Monica, keeping a blog, & Stretch Pants

Played Hollywood last night.

2 hours in traffic, getting lost, $8 beers, and a red velvet stage… we got the full Hollywood experience at Room 5. The sound was incredible and we opened for the songwriter swap.

Our good friend Ben sensed our non-Hollywood tendencies and smuggled us in Kosher Burritos and Tofu eggless salad Sandwiches. He pretty much saved the day, because all of our Hollywood Producers forgot to come and buy us dinner.

I couldn’t help thinking about what a strange world we live in where we can go from The Doll Hut in Anaheim to Room 5 in West Hollywood in less than 24 hours.

Santa Monica

We got a coffee machine that plugs into the Cigarette Lighter in our van so I can work on the Blog without having to stop for frapachinos every 15 minutes. Landry just fell asleep under a palm tree playing dobro, and our neighbor in Austin just texted me a photo of our VW bus Helga Covered in Snow in Austin.

I am realty diggin’ this blogosphere, and will probably buy some stretch pants and begin my daily Yoga Routine in no time if I stay here in Santa Monica. Fortunatly we are rolling down to Long Beach to play at The Pike tonight.

All our skater friends live there and they are going to be thrilled about our recent rollerblading adventures.

Also our friend David is going to bring a million dollar sound system from QSC Audio for our show tonight. He used to run sound for Selena, and has offered his brilliant ears for our show tonight. We met him last summer when we toured the QSC factory.

Somebody donated a pair of QSC speakers to us many years ago and we wanted to thank them for the awesome sound, we ended up with a bunch of new friends.

Can’t wait for the Show and the Tacos….