SHORT AND SWEET CAUSE I'M IN NO MOOD...

We'll be playing this Saturday in San Angelo at one of our favorite bars, Blaine's Pub. Every trip there is a story and a half, and I'm sure this one won't be any different.

To fill in for lead guitar we have a special guest tagging along, Zach Huckabee. If you haven't heard of him go Google him up and take a listen to his music. Recently Zach has turned down another path from his previous work and released a Christian album. I think Cody explained it best when he said Zach's new album is , "what Ryan Adams would write if he wanted to do Christian music." needless to say it is very good and not over the top. That's it, like I said I'm not in the mood today. Have a good week folks and I hope to see a face or two in San Angelo.

The Ranch Rumors

Well I'm an idiot, because I could have just visited their Facebook page to get a few things cleared up about The Ranch closing down. Poor journalistic due diligence on my behalf, but hey, I'm not a journalist. Any ways The Ranch posted this on their Facebook site and I apologize for leading people into the gossip mill,

The Ranch To our customers and friends .... The Ranch
is temporarily closed for remodeling and will reopen very soon! Stand
by -- we'll be better than ever! In the meantime, we would like to
address some (expected and unexpected) rumors. Hopefully this will
answer all your questions. SPECIAL ATTENTION to all of our local NEW...S
stations: I'll pause a second so you can all start taking notes ....
ready? GO ....

38 people like this.

The Ranch

‎1. The Ranch was NOT shut down by the TABC.
2. The Ranch did NOT cause the Nashville flood.
3. The Ranch is NOT owned by a bank.
4. The Ranch is NOT reopening as a gay bar.
5. The Ranch did NOT kick Lady Gaga out of the Yankee clubhouse while wearing no pants.... See More
6. The Ranch was NOT shut down by the Comptroller.
7. The Ranch did NOT cause the BP oil spill.
8. The Ranch has NOT surrendered it's liquor license.
9. The Ranch is NOT responsible for global warming.
10. The Ranch was NOT shut down by the IRS.

June 22 at 11:13pm ·

The Ranch

To all of you who have been supportive and kind, we thank you -- you mean a great deal to us and your kindness will not be forgotten. To all of you who were so anxious to start rumors and feed nasty gossip ..... karma. It's amazing how unkind some people can be to each other. Times like these are when people really show you who they are. 

 

Well at least they have a sense of humor about things. So they didn't lose their liquor license, and weren't shut down by TABC, or a comptroller, or the bank. They didn't address the Graham's buy out whisper, but from the looks of things I think all the rumors were just that, Rumors. Hopefully their doors will be swinging back open soon enough. 

Here Comes The Dottie Hill Musicfest & The Ranch Is Gone For Good?

First off, I just wanted to get everyone's radar going for the upcoming concert August 7'th at The Hog Pit in Midland, Tx. It is The Dottie Hill Music Festival and this year will be featuring The Jackson Lee Brooks Band, Emory Quinn, Mike McClure, and ourselves. (not necessarily in that order) It should be a wild show with possible surprise guest appearances and plenty of beer to get you out on the dance floor.

I know I'm late to the party on this bit of Midland gossip, but I thought I would address the rumor mill surrounding The Ranch closing their doors for "remodeling". There are various stories milling about and I thought I would just share what I have heard. You can choose for yourself what to believe or just mash them all together to make a brand new bit of gossip. Backtracking a bit for those of you from outside our goldfish bowl, The Ranch in Midland, TX is/was a bar that catered to the Texas Country scene and had a healthy traffic of the leading bands across its stage. One thing that made them such an appealing venue for the area was that they were one of the only places in Midland/Odessa big enough for the larger bands to come through while also being 18 and up instead of the staunch 21 and up at most other places. This let the fanatical fans who couldn't drink yet, stampede into the place with their black X'ed hands and fill the front of stage while buying every bit of merch the band had to offer. Anywho, one day The Ranch had a sign on its marquee "closed for remodeling" it was not planned as far as anyone knew and it seemed rather strange. 

One story is that the owners hadn't been filing the correct taxes for the place, got audited, fined, and then TABC jumped in and revoked their licensure to serve alcohol. (this one sounds the most plausible) Once that gossip was established there was a buzz that the Graham brothers were buying the place from the previous owners since the cost to reopen after paying the fines and regaining the licenses was too much of a financial burden. Seems to make sense considering Graham's is the only other competition in the area for their type of establishment. Someone had even said it will be renamed "Diamonds and Denim" and I have no idea how to feel about that. I'm not a big fan of Graham's (for those outside the know, these are large bars with different themed rooms attempting to cater to the whole demographic of the town instead of one type of club country, ghetto, dance, karaoke, etc) only because of the mash up of so many different groups of people in those places always, from my experience, end badly. If they keep The Ranch or whatever it is they'll rename it to under the same format as before I'm sure it won't be too rough of a transition. But then again this is all hearsay. 

A smaller whisper for their reason for closing was the place just went broke, and that I can't quite believe. We played there a few weeks ago for the Ranch Jam and they seemed to be doing just fine with headcount and door charges. Of course, you never know how the money is being handled and if in fact it's being funneled back to the right parts of the business. Still I doubt it....

Finally yet another reason I heard floating around was that it was because of a sting TABC ran on the bar for serving minors. There is no way that place intentionally serves to minors. They were always pretty serious about carding when I went, but teenagers are smart and they know how to wash a marker X off a hand. 

I really don't know what the real story is, but I just wanted to share the whispers and see if someone could set us all straight. It could be part of one of these stories is true or none of them. I had noticed that a few people were filtering into the blog looking for info on The Ranch closing so I thought I would address it. If you have anything to add please feel free to leave a comment.

Gained Guitarist (?), Lost Our Booking, and My Sweet Samson 77 Airline Wireless...

A quick blurb about the state of things. We are practicing with a lead guitarist this afternoon at our practice session and seeing if he's a good fit for the band. He comes highly recommended so hopefully things work out and we're back in business just like that. If he isn't the right fit we got another referral for a guy that is a great guitar player as well but he lives in New Mexico. His work schedule is flexible and he would be available for any gig and willing to drive in for a weekly practice. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out. I'm happy we were sans guitarist for only a few days instead of being one of those bands eternally looking for a lead player and cursed to never gig again. Crisis averted and moving on.

 Every post needs a picture, so why not make it a random funny one?

Second wave of bad news, AUE our booking agency, has dropped us and quite a few other bands from their representation. They have decided to put the majority of their time and efforts into a few bands they have that are full timing gigging and have already established a name for themselves. Life goes on. We're really not too worried about this one though. In recent months it had begun to be more difficult to rationalize our agreement with them. They would call us for a gig across the state and one of us couldn't swing it. We would call them asking to be booked for a connecting gig and they couldn't book us. Cody had a baby so we took a month sabbatical and then Cole left to work in Oklahoma. I think the timing is fine for us to be moving back into booking ourselves. Also we no longer have to pay their booking fee which means more money for us! We don't hold any grudges to AUE and wish them the best on their new ventures.

 Wow.............

In the good news side of things, I got a wireless set up for my harp mic! How over the top is it for a harmonica player to have a wireless rig? Screw you, you don't know me! You can't judge me! All I know is I'll be having a whole lot more fun on stage running around doing sweet David Lee Roth kicks, well maybe not, but I can if I wanted to now. (picture below) I'm trying it out tonight and I'll let you know how it works out.

Samson 77 Airline Wireless Guitar System, awww yeah!!

Other than that we're playing a wedding at a private venue (duh) this Saturday. If anyone asks me to play the Macarena or the Chicken dance, I'm out. If we like the guitarist trying out tonight, tomorrow's show will be the best low pressure dry run for everyone to feel things out. Next weekend on July 16'th we play Kroc's Bar's 2 year anniversary party in Midland. After that, its back on the road and God willing, with a new lead guitarist.