Day 1: OP to Germantown,TN. Bruce was so generous for lending his home,practice space, and amazing rock n roll memorabilia and knowledge! (Jimmi Hendrix scarves, Spirit drumkit, impressive music and concert footage collection.)
Day 2: 3.5 mile morning run, practice and then BBQ at The Commissary ..must get the coconut cream pie if you're in town! Just got the email that I made it to the final round of the Detroit Music Awards!! Get this..best rock/pop vocalist?!? Dallas bound...
Day 3: in and out Burger (why didn't I know about the animal style) to Austin ..holy crap Austin during sxsw is overwhelming!!! No joke..25 pages of size 6 font of bands performing this week,...snoop dogg and ozomatli to assacre and !!! I got so overwhelmed i started to feel nauseous... joined a radio interview with the sights for 89.9 local college station. ... walked around the city today ... 6th street felt like Bourbon St. meets dally!! personal advice : you really should have a wrist band if you want to get into ANY venue ...I have one! First gig is tomorrow at 3.. can't wait
Day 4: 1st gig of 5 was at a bar called Holy Mountain and called Motown Lowdown: SXSW Music Day Party It was a Detroit takeover ... free Coney dogs and mcclures bloody Marys, detroit inspired posters all around, the Detroit hustles harder people and that girl that sells her own spandex creations..plus a bunch of old michiganders that moved to Austin came to support the scene.. afterwards, did a bunch of bar hopping.. it's been pretty fun trying a new liquors and beers that they don't sell at home.. Waited in line for Nick Cave .. it didn't happen. You kind of have to plan out some of the big name shows out here. Went to see a band called phosphorescent ..pretty cool warehouse with a ton of people and dollar a minute chair massages..yah, took advantage of that! 2 gigs today!
Day 5: whew what day is it?? 1st gig was at The Sidebar it was an outdoor gig ..the place reminded me of the parking lot at honest Johns with a stage in it...the bar inside was similar to the Bronx. ..the opening band was called the beards ...every song was about beards ...pretty funny ...if you had a beard... afterwards, Liz ( vocal partner in crime) and I found lunch at le cafe crepe..gotta love a lil Paris in the middle of Austin..I could picture Simone of peewees big adventure eating here everyday..I certainly loved it! Later that day we had our official sxsw gig at The Ten Oak ..this has been my favorite bar so far .... walking in listening to my wedding song followed by every song in our cd collection kindof helped ...I was fading fast before the gig and was saved by a most delicious iced soy chai from Frank's next door. Amazing show withthe best Detroit bands!! Afterwards. Front row at Austin City Limits ..Margarita morning ...gig in a few hours
Day 6: we all took it slow cuz our gig was at scheduled around 7..got to take advantage of the pool and dry sauna .. headed out downtown for margaritas and queso dip on a rooftop outdoor patio .. lots of girl talk with Eddie. ..the day was young so we went to Austin's. Museum of the weird..although it was pretty small, we did get to see a 3 eyed cow, pet a lizard, and watch a stage show that consisted of a sword swallower and and t Rex man..you could touch his skin and get a small electric shock...it was weird...to bring back the buzz, we went back to maggie Mae's for a couple more drinks...the gig we had was scheduled at a recording studio on the east side, out of town...we were all running low on energy and stopped by a local coffee shop..I had an iced coffee ..the first since Mardi gras. . Totally worth it! When we showed up to the place , we knew right away that we weren't part of anything official south by....pretty local, it reminded me of the old abreactplayhouse days...a ton of artists, free drinks, crazy loud band giving it there all, and a horse named silver! The gig was pretty cool ...we all agreed that we had a ton of fun and the sound was great...so excited to hear what we sounded like ..it was a live recording.. eventually headed back downtown and just hung out amongst the masses of people ... too crowded to really go to any shows without spending the day in line ...we ended up at Stubb's BBQ. ..the sauce was pretty good ..the food runner did not like me!! You can tell that some locals get pretty annoyed with the festival...kind of like at dreamcruise..out of town there was a competing festival called south by so what ..just walked around town the rest of the night ..noone really separated ...the town was freakishly full of people ...and the crazies were out at night...the best people watching of my life ..last gig is today ..a sunny 80
Day 7: has it really been a week?..that really seems like forever ago...so we all packed up, checked out, and pretty much headed straight to our last gig at the gingerman..this was the first time I didn't have to do a vocal mic check ..the crew checked all 5 mics using some app on his ipad...it worked ...we all knew it was our last gig of the week and so we totally rocked it!! The audience was pretty encouraging too ...a couple of people that saw us earlier in the week came to our last show, as well as Carl whom I had met at the daptones show ...nice surprise to see barb from the sandy mulligan gypsy band!! Being our last gig, we got a couple of band photos backstage ..Liz has one on her camera that might be my favorite pic from the whole trip...eddie said we had some time before the van left and I had a couple of missions in mind beforehand ...go back to frank to get that juniper Berry gin drink...it was indeed delicious, but Liz had ordered the bloody mary, and even my small sip was oh my Gawd!! Second was to get the fish tacos from turf and surf ..the healthiest looking food all week... blackened catfish over spring greens and a house made cilantro ranch..the hushpuppies ( made with grilled onions) weren't too shabby either! Made it back to the van and then we all did some reorganizing... I wasn't taking the van back home, so they had 9 instead of 10 passengers and I 1 less bag..it still looked crammed in there ...we all hugged, wished safe travels and went our separate ways..Being that Liz and I opted for crack o dawn flights instead of 20 hour straight through drive, we still had a day infront of us!! Liz was The Best tourguide ever!! She took me outside of downtown and we got to walk around...such a cool area ...
Day 7 (2): I really had a blast driving all around with Liz we went to Barton springs, did some shopping, and got a taste of the local fair ( including 2 different kinds of kombucha)..we even had time to catch some local tunes!! we were back around 11 and stayed the night at Liz's friends' Candice, tom and cash place ...so wanting a bed..it was hitting me pretty hard, so I pretty much set my alarm for 4am and crashed!! Here I am at the airport now, and there are musicians everywhere ofcourse...can't wait to see my family ..I miss the morgan pack of dude,littleone, and ofcourse the best husband ever, Chris! This is probably the last post of my sxsw adventures with the The Sights...I had a blast with new friends!!! Thank you nicole, stephanie,Travis, and raechel for being such awesome van mates!!! Thank you Eddie, Jarrod, kyle, jaime,rod, and Liz for being such amazing musicians to share the stage with!! Singing tonight at PJ' s lager house with bricktownstation and back to cork on Wednesday nights!!!!
so it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things..did a rockin set last night at Pj's with Bricktown Station and made a couple new fans..and now I'm getting ready to promote a couple other things I'm involved with THIS WEEK!! Back at Cork this Wednesday, singing at the Lushes LaMoan benefit on Saturday, and really wanting your vote for the Detroit Music Awards for best pop/rock vocalist!!!!