Last Call....For This Year

Howdy partner! Well, we played our final show of 2013, this past Saturday at Community Beer Company. As we've stated before, the brewery gigs are a blast, and this one was no different. We had a great time, and want to thank Community Beer Company for having us out. For a complete re-cap of this show, and all of our shows, be sure and check out Roy's blog "The Holliday Road" found here www.royholliday.blogspot.com He goes into more detail about each show, and often times will share some behind the scenes stuff, that goes on.

As for now, we have a little break in the show schedule. Our next show is not until January 4th, when we will return to the Railhead Smokehouse, in Willow Park, Texas. Part of this break was by design, and another out of necessity. As far as the design part goes, we blocked out the weekend of December 28-29, several months ago. Roy will be traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit his family for Christmas, and my oldest daughter's birthday is on December 29th. My wife and I have always made a point to celebrate her birthday, on her birthday. I'm sure you all know someone, who has a birthday right around Christmas. Heck. maybe yours is? I've heard story after story of how the birthday, and Christmas all gets lumped into one. I'm sure you've probably heard of this, as well. "Well, this is your birthday and Christmas present." Or, "We will just celebrate your birthday on Christmas. The family will already be here, anyway."

With my daughter's birthday falling on a Sunday this year, she and my wife have decided to host a slumber party for her birthday. It will run from Saturday evening into Sunday (her actual birthday). I've been grounded and ordered to stay at home that evening. I had thought about checking into the local motel for the night, but was advised that was not an option, either. Oh well, too bad for me! Actually it can't be that bad can it? We will only have 5 or 6 screaming girls running around the house.

Also, we found out awhile back, that Cisco was not going to be able to continue on as our drummer. I think I mentioned this in a previous blog post. When we found this out, we still had the weekend of December 20-21, open on our calendar. After we received this news, we decided that the December 14th show at Community, would be our last one until January 4th. The Railhead show was already on the books, as they book their bands, pretty far in advance. The only exception we were willing to make, was if something came through on New Year's Eve. We put out several feelers for New Year's, but nothing panned out, so we are using this break to find our new drummer.

We will be holding auditions this Sunday, December 22nd. We have two drummers, scheduled to come out. We decided to rent a rehearsal studio for the day. If you've been following the blog, you may recall, that the last time we attempted a full band practice, we got the cops called on us at Roy's house. We decided not to take any chances, this time, so we rented the space. The other nice thing with this situation, is that we will have all of the time that we need. We will have access to the space from noon, until midnight.

Our goal, is to hopefully have our new drummer in place, after these auditions. This will then give them a couple of more weeks to get ready for the Railhead show.

Shifting gears now, I would like to re-cap our year for you. I'm usually not one of these " Year in Review" kind of guys. It's just not something that I am all that into, but after looking back, we accomplished quite a bit in our first calendar year. I'm not mentioning all of this to brag, or say "Look at us, ain't we great!" That's not my intention at all. I just wanted to review some of the great, and not so great moments from 2013.

For the record, we played 39 shows, during the 2013 calendar year. It could have been more, but we had six shows cancelled for various reasons. Two were cancelled due to bad weather, including our December 7th show at Cowtown Bowling Palace, which was cancelled due to "Icemaggedon!" The other weather cancellation, happened back in March, due to thunderstorms. The weather did wreck havoc on several other shows this year. Our very first show at Hollywood & Vine had to be moved indoors, due to freezing temperatures. We also had two shows moved indoors at Keller Tavern. One was due to a hail storm and freezing temperatures in January, and the other was due to thunderstorms, in May. That show was particularly difficult. We had completely set up our gear on the outdoor stage, when the manager came running out, advising us that storms were headed our way. We ended up breaking everything down, and re-setting up indoors. I was exhausted before we ever started playing, that evening. The weather in Texas has been strange, all together, this year. I remember when we played Mayfest, back in May (lol), I had to wear long sleeves, as temperatures that day were in the mid 60's, with a gusty wind. By May, we are usually into the 80's, and flirting with 90. July 4th was also cool, as it only reached a high of 85. We are usually into the 100's by then.

We had one show cancelled because the venue closed down, before our date arrived. Another venue cancelled us, because they double booked some other band on the same date. We had another gig cancelled at Hollywood & Vine, due to a scheduling error, and the best cancellation of all happened out at the Happy Armadillo in Everman, Texas. I don't think I will ever forget this one, as long as I live.

We drove out to Everman, which was a pretty good hike for all of us. We arrive, and their is maybe two or three customer's in the bar. We weren't really worried about that, as it was still early. We proceed to bring all of our gear in and set up. We start sound checking, and the waitress comes over and tells us that the manager doesn't want us to play. The manager comes up with the excuse that she was told, "We would be playing classic rock, and country." This was all being relayed through the poor waitress. I proceeded to argue our case with the waitress, that we never claimed to be a classic rock, country, or cover band. Now, we will mix in some covers, at our longer shows, which I also explained to her. I went on to advise her that we only submit our original material, for booking considerations, and that her venue had booked us, based on this. Roy could see that the situation was quickly deteriorating between she and I, so he stepped in and asked, "Well, do you want us to just pack up and leave?" And she replied, "Yes." The final kick in the crotch, of this evening, happened in the parking lot. We were all discussing what had just happened, with our booking agent at the time, when an Everman police officer drove up. He said he received a report of us drinking beer in the parking lot. Actually, we were all drinking bottled water. He had a radio call asking if he needed backup, and he said he was good. The officer on the other end of the radio asked if we were were drinking, and the officer with us said, "Yeah, bottled water." The officer was very nice to us, and appeared very irritated with the bar. He said he was going in to talk to them. We called it a night after that. To make matters worse, I got a speeding ticket on the way to the show. As I look back on this now, it's kind of funny, and makes for a good war story, but at the time, it totally sucked, and was probably the low point of our year.

A close second though, would be the show we put on at the Across the Street Bar, with our good friends, August & J. Their friends, The Five Hands, were also involved with this show. The Across the Street Bar was located near the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU). Notice, I said "was". More on that in a minute. From what I had heard, the Across the Street Bar was a really hip place in Dallas. When you looked at their website, you would see a picture of the venue, with tons of people, indoors and out. It had been around forever. August mentioned that he had played their during the 90's, if my memory serves me correctly, and said it was pretty good.

Our thinking was, this would be a good way to get into the Dallas market, and we would get a good college crowd. Plus, with three bands playing, we figured it would be a good draw. The show was going to be advertised in several publications, so we felt pretty good about things.

Have you ever had one of those experiences, where you show up to your destination and it doesn't quite look like it does in the pictures you saw? Well, this was one of those experiences. The place was really run down. The only person working their, was the bartender, who also happened to be the owner. The Five Hands, and August and J were already there, setting up their merch and gear. We were the last scheduled band, so I had plenty of time. I decided to strike up a conversation with the bartender/owner. I introduced myself, said we were glad to be there, etc.... I asked him where the rest of his staff was, and he said, "I'm it." I was very puzzled, and asked, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm closing the doors for good, next week." I was shocked. I said, "Well, do you think we will have a good crowd tonight?" He replied, "Well, it just depends on how many yall bring." I was getting this sinking feeling now. I asked, "So, you don't have crowds from SMU, come and hang out?" He said, "Nope, no one will show up, except for the people you invited." He went on to explain that the bar's failure was basically his fault. He never kept regular hours, and if it was slow, he would just close up early. He said he was tired of messing with it, and was done.

My spirit was crushed after that. But, their was nothing I could do about it. Time to make the best of it right? About that time, Jay came over and warned me that the stage had a soft spot in it. He was actually worried about falling through the stage. As we found out, when our time came, the stage was barely stable. The show was a disaster. The place was not grounded correctly, so you had this horrific hum coming though the PA. The guitar amps were buzzing, the vocals were distorted and you couldn't hear anything out of the monitors. All three bands had horrible issues with the sound system. My wife said it was awful. The only saving grace from the whole night, is that no one was really there, except for a few friends, spouses, and significant others. The night mercifully ended and we packed it up and headed home. I guess the only cool thing to come out of it was, that we were the last band to ever play at the Across the Street Bar, as far as I know.

One other show that really stood out to me, was another show we did with August & J, down in Gun Barrel City. This show took place in April. It was at a really cool place called the Venue. This was their grand opening. This was a sit down concert venue, and they went all out. It had a great stage, and sound system. They treated us like rock stars. We even had a dressing/band area! We had a great show that night, and the crowd that came to see us, was so nice. We were looking at doing another show down there, but before we could get it together, it unfortunately went out of business. I was really sad, when I learned of this. Dino created an awesome music venue, and it was so nice to feel appreciated. I really appreciate the hard work that he put into this place. It just doesn't seem fair that this place didn't make it, as it was such a unique venue.

The rest of our shows, seemed to go well for the most part. We felt like we were better on some nights vs. others, but that just seems to go with the territory, when your in a band. I don't know why that is. I think it may have to do, with us being our own worst critics. The off nights are usually not as off as it may seem, and the great nights are probably not as great as they may seem to be, at the time. Either way, we usually had some nice comments from people who had heard the show.

Brian Barton joined us in August, on the bass and backing vocals. He has been a tremendous addition. His bass gives us that deep thumping sound, and his backing vocals are top notch. Our live sound has definitely improved since Brian came onboard.

The other major event that happened for us, was the release of our debut album "GPS To Nowhere", on April 2nd. I really enjoyed co-writing with Roy, and recording the album. If you haven't checked it out yet, you can listen to the whole thing on Spotify, or on our website www.sanddollarrodeo.com We've received internet airplay for several songs, off the album, and we want to thank everyone who played, and continues to play the songs. Also on the recording front, we released a single called "Island Holiday" on Black Friday. You can get this single for free, by simply joining our mailing list, through the website. Roy and Brian also did some funky remixes of this song, so check those out too!

I would also like to thank Marti Ludwig, for helping us get this thing off the ground. She convinced a lot of venues to take a chance on us, and we really appreciate it!

Well, this is the last call for 2013. The blog will return in a few weeks. We are really looking forward to what 2014 has in store for us. If I've learned anything from this year, it would be to expect the unexpected. We have a lot of new song ideas that we are hoping to get ironed out, and into the live show. We also hope to have a new album either completed, or well on it's way, towards the latter part of 2014.

We would like to thank all of our fans for your love and support. Without you, their would be no SDR, and none of this would be happening. I want to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a great holiday season. Ok, I'm out of hot air. I'll talk to ya next year!