AUSTIN
Austin. The Live Music Capital of the World. We lined up a great show with lots of friends at a great venue. All we have to do is get there and sing our songs.
What could possibly go wrong?
We left New Orleans at around 9:30am after a quick breakfast at Casa Sowash. Dan had us cruising across the bayou at a pretty good clip, so we decided to stop and grab some drinks and snacks. I-10 is littered with roadside cajun food, and Lonn and I picked up some boudin: meat and rice stuffing in a sausage casing. Delicious.
Kyle had been unusually quiet during the trip, and we soon discovered why: he had pretty much completely lost his voice. We hoped for the best, had him rest his sing hole and kept the Silver Fox Texas-bound.
We have a pretty strict “no heroes” policy as far as driving goes. I drove us from Columbus to NYC once, and by the time we showed up I was so exhausted that I played terribly. Ever since, I’ll pretty much only drive for a two-hour shift, and we try to keep everybody else who drives on a similar schedule to prevent burnout.
Dan handed off to Lonn shortly after we crossed the border into Texas. Almost immediately after he took the helm, it started to rain. Hard. Everything’s bigger in Texas. The skies cleared after about 20 minutes and very shortly thereafter, Texas State Troopers were diverting traffic off the Interstate. After about an hour of holding pee and threatening to punch cops and horses, we were back on the road and really behind schedule.
And Kyle was getting worse. Uh oh.
We nixed any fancy lunch plans and ended up at a McDonalds. We normally try to avoid fast food whenever possible, but in the interests of making up time we bit the bullet. Two things became apparent while we ate:
1) Kyle’s voice improved just a little bit. Ketchup : Kyle Sowash :: Spinach : Popeye.
2) We were absolutely going to hit rush hour in Houston.
I took the wheel for the rest of the trip. It took us a little over an hour to get from one end of Houston to the other. Houston is a massive city, both in population and in sprawl, so I actually think our time was pretty impressive. However, every minute we spent creeping through gridlock meant another minute we weren’t racing for Austin.
We stopped at a Starbucks in Katy to get Kyle some hot tea with honey and lemon: the legendary vocal cure. A few more clicks down the highway and we started to realize that Kyle was not improving. We had a few options to consider:
a) We could wait it out and hope Kyle’s voice improved enough to play the show.
b) We could come up with a set that the rest of us could sing.
c) We could cancel the show.
In these situations, it’s best to remember some great advice. WWARDSICDTO: What Would Axl Rose Do So I Can Do The Opposite.
We pulled up to the Mohawk around 8:30pm. It took us a touch over 11 hours to make the trek from NOLA to Austin. Erick from Opposable Thumbs told us the night before that he routinely made that drive in 8.5 hours and once did it in a touch over 7.5. Fuck.
Kyle stuck to a regimen of hot tea, honey and lemon, but it wasn’t doing much good. We made the call during Arlo & The Otter’s set that Lonn and I would handle vocal duties for the night. I usually sing backups, but this was intimidating for me. Lonn hasn’t sung in a band in years. It was going to be interesting, one way or another. Blaze of glory and all that.
We finalized a setlist that made sense just in time to catch the Cocker Spaniels set. Sean Padilla (aka Cocker Spaniels) and Kyle have been tight for years, and it’s really awesome to see how much passion he pours into his performances. Surprise of the night: Thax Douglas showed up to read a poem for Cocker Spaniels. I didn’t even realize that he had moved from Chicago to Austin.
We have to thank the good folks in Austin for tolerating a Kyle Sowash show with significantly less Kyle Sowash. Lonn and I handled the vocals adequately, but I’m sure the overall performance suffered a bit from being out of our normal routine. Kyle still shreds on the guitar though, so I think we probably did OK. Closed out the set with “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory,” which Sean Padilla and Stephen Pierce (Zest of Yore) lovingly sang for us.
Speaking of Zest of Yore, those guys are fantastic. They played as a three-piece tonight and really impressed. We’ve been fans of those guys for a while now. They write some really interesting tunes; lots of changes to keep you off-balance, but never off-putting.
SETLIST (singer in parentheses):
Blast From The Past (Justin)
The 8-Track Recorder (Lonn)
Sharpshooter (Lonn)
Double Dragon (Justin)
Rumours (Justin)
Ordinary Man (Justin)
In The Mail (Lonn)
(It’s Not) Easy To Be Hard (Justin)
I Would Like To Speak To Your Manager (Justin & Lonn)
The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (Guided By Voices cover - Sean & Stephen)
