recap of the last two weeks

Last weekend I drove down to Austin and New Braunfels to have a mini vacation and to watch the Locks of Love Benefit in New Braunfels. It was worth the drive. My girlfriend and I walked into Billy's Ice House at 5:30 and found ourselves right in the middle of Stephanie Briggs and Cody Canada (Lead singer of Cross Canadian Ragweed) having a little acoustic time on stage to a crowd of maybe one hundred. They swapped songs back and forth for an hour and then The Dead Rock Stars took the stage and blew my mind away with dominant creative renditions of great songs. I missed most of the Los Garza Brothers so i can't really give much of an opinion of what I did catch, but they were on stage after The Dead Rock Stars. After that, Stephanie Briggs and The Oso with special guest Cody Canada playing lead guitar took the stage. It was very good. Cody was a great addition to the band's sound and he added some great riffs. They spent an hour or so on stage and you could see the crowd slowly growing as word of mouth grew regarding all the great musicians donating their time for a free show. There was a section of the bar set up with stylists cutting people's hair off so they could go to children affected by Alopecia. Alopecia is a condition where usually in your youth, all of your hair falls out and it never grows back. My father incidentally has Alopecia, no eyebrows, no arm hair, etc. and growing up it never was something I noticed as odd. He did at times share with me the hard times he had as a child being the different one in the crowd, and I was really happy to see an organization doing something about it. The hair donated there would later become a prosthetic implant of hair for someone suffering from the condition and giving them a better chance at a normal life. Reckless Kelly headlined the event and burned the bar down with their high energy show. They finished up the evening with "Crazy Eddies Last Hurrah" and Billy's Ice House, now packed to the gills, sang along to every single word. It was a great trip and one hell of a concert.

Cody Canada and Stephanie Briggs playing acoustic.


People donating their hair. Notably, Cody Canada and Matt Briggs gave some inches for the cause.


Reckless Kelly finishing up the night.

Yesterday, our band played at the Hog Pit in Midland, openeing up for Billy Joe Shaver. Cody was still on the mend from his brain trouble he had last week and the show had a rough way of things. Cody's vocal mic was running a short and kept shocking him while he was singing, which of course caused some mayhem to our tempo and so forth. Rough show but they do happen once in a blue moon. We finished strong on our last few songs so it wasn't a complete wash. I had bought a BBE Two Timer two channel delay pedal and had a blast fiddling with my delays during the show. It's always fun to bring a new sound to the stage. Billy Joe Shaver, although older than the dirt blowing in the wind, put on a great show. He had a ton of energy on stage and kept bouncing around punching the air with his fists and flapping his arms to choruses. He was a pleasure to talk to and was very friendly to all his fans. He spent the better part of his night, after getting off the stage, taking pictures with people and signing autographs.

Our band at this very moment is taking to the stage down in Rockdale.We are playing for The Jubilees Day Rodeo Dance. I am on my computer because I am in Midland thanks to too much work. This coming week Cody and I are doing an acoustic show in Fort Stockton for their summer lawn concert series. I will be back to my constant blogging soon enough once we get our internet troubles figured out. My apologies to anyone who has noticed my infrequent posts.