Rizdales Christmas Party

The Rizdales (one of our favorite country bands) have an annual Christmas Bash with friends (this year it was Nora Galloway and the Tearjerkers, Ginger St. James and Jim McGinley) on a Sunday afternoon at the Richmond Hotel in London. It's a tradition over the last 10 years or more.

This year the Rizdales are celebrating the release of a new CD -- "Blue Ain't The Word -- A Tribute to the Music of Ray Price" ... and that's well worth a listen.

Here's some pictures from the event.

The Revolution Starts Now!

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My brother Paul was visiting at Thanksgiving and brought a matching T-shirt -- "The Revolution Starts Now" -- based on that iconic photo of Che Guevera. Paul is living in Thailand these days and we don't get to see him that often -- the last time he was here was back in 2012 when dad passed away.

Paul has some weird politics, he's fond of Che T-shirts and even has a matching red star cap. I matched the cap with a "button workers for peace" button on my sailor cap.

Anyways, here's some photos for friends and family to share.

And remember, the Revolution Starts Now!

Sudbury

I was with Kate recently on a trip to Sudbury (surprisingly green given the nasty mining and smelting history) and took this photo of the brilliant maple leaves on a rainy drive to the west to the A.Y. Jackson lookout. The colours were pretty bright in the first place but google+ photos has enhanced them even more. Nope it's not HDR.

See also the AY Jackson Lookout.

September in Chicago

Click on photo for Photo Album

In September of 2014 we had a short visit to Chicago. We've been through Chicago a couple of times over the years (flying or driving) but have never really explored the city. While we explored a bit, we hardly did it justice.

We flew direct from London, Ontario to O'hare Airport on United Airlines. The London airport is convenient to our home and, as it's a small airport, is an easy airport to park and navigate. Unlike Toronto, you go through US customs and immigration when you land in Chicago. Over the years there's always been a few regular direct fights into the US (we used to fly direct to Pittsburgh, then to Detroit, and now to Chicago).

From the airport it's a quick ride on the metro system to downtown. You could take a cab but the metro was much faster. We stayed north of the river near North Michigan Avenue and spent a couple of sunny days exploring the city. We ought to have stayed longer, there's a lot to see.

The most memorable part of our visit was a river cruise by the historical society (there are a lot of river cruises -- look for one where the guide is from the historical society). It's a city of bridges and tall buildings and there are lots of views of both from the water. The history of the river is interesting. It used to be an open sewer with consequent water borne epidemics as they take the water from the lake (and the river dumps into the lake). They "solved" that problem by digging a canal which reversed the river flow so it drained into the Mississippi River ... and sent their sewage down river to cites like St. Louis. These days the river is pretty clean and the city has embraced it. Old buildings ignored the river and present a blank wall. These days there's cafes and walk ways along the river with buildings fronting the water. I understand that any urban development along the river must, as a matter of law, include an urban walkway along the river front.

I explored the Chicago Art Institute -- a world class gallery you really ought to see. The Millenium Park along the water front, where the Chicago Art Institute is found, has some great art installations and odd buildings as well. The photo above is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in the park. It's an outdoor concert venue.

I also visited the library and went up to the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). There's a couple of viewing platforms where you walk out onto a glass floor. A bit terrifying.

One evening we went for a walk along the lake shore. It was still warm enough for swimming.

Here's some photos from our visit.

St John's

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These photos are of our trip to St John's, Newfoundland in August of 2014 and may be of interest to others.

Kate and I visited with our niece Paula (and her killer mutt Gerry Garcia) in St John's Newfoundland back in August. We got to visit a city we hadn't been to since 1981 -- it's a neat town with good music, funky restaurants and an arts scene. The weather, well it's Newfoundland -- it would be worse in Labrador.

And we got George-faced on Sh#t Street at O'Reilley's Irish Pub

Boot to the Head

These are photos from a 2004 "Boot to the Head" concert at Call the Office in London. 63 Monroe and others entertained. As per usual .... a crazy wild night with Steven R Stunning and Markii Burnaway tearing up the stage.
..

Eighty Schmeighty

Saturday August 2, 2014 was an 80th birthday party for our friend Bob Gardner -- that's him in the photo. His family (David, Wendy, Steve and their spouses) arranged a party in his backyard in London catered by Under the Volcano -- there was a Mexican theme with a Piñata for the kids, margaritas and more for the adults, funny hats and serapes for those who wished to join in. And funny T-shirts with Bob as a muscle man labelled "Eighty Schmeighty" that we all got to take home as souvenirs.

In honor of the occasion Kate and I composed/recycled a couple of tunes on melodies shamelessly lifted from others.

The first, in honor of the Mexican theme (and Bob's friend Merce who was visiting from Spain), is taken from She Never Spoke Spanish To Me made famous by Joe Ely and written by Butch Hancock. We were somewhat surprised that very few of the guests recognized the song but many did join in once a verse was out of the way. Our version, which documents a bit of Bob's life story, went like this:

Robert is a Loving One (apologies to Butch Hancock)

You say that you’re from Edmonton. Well, where’s your boots and where’s your gun?

He says he’s got guns no one can see [wink, wink]

Natives of the north agree, Bobbie is a friendly one.

But he never took X-rays of me.

He went to school in Montreal. He was handsome, he was tall.

Or at least that’s how the story goes.

Dames along the Main agreed, Robert [“Rrow-Bearr’] is a loving one.

But he never spoke Franglais to me.

He said to Janet “Marry me! We’ll be happy, wild and free”.

“I’ve got charms that no one else can see” [wink, wink]

She said to him “Vote NDP, I know that you’re a charming one,

...if you want to share those charms with me”.

They were married one fine morn. David, Wendy, Steve were born.

They left London for the Philippines.

All his progeny agree, Robert is a loving dad.

But he never threw the flannel at me.

“Silver Chief Dog of the North” - the only book he’s ever read.

But he wrote books that no one else can read.

All the Western Deans agree, Robert is a brilliant one.

But he never made much sense to me.

He travels for the kids you know. New York, Chicago and TO.

Then back home so he can teach some stats.

Then off to Spain to see Merce. She says “He’s a funny one”

“But he never speaks Spanish to me”.

He and Pat could carry on. Drink and party until dawn.

Jesus Murphy, they could at least stand up!

Even though he’s eighty now, Bob is still a lot of fun.

And he always seems ageless to me.

... But he never spoke Spanish to me!

---------------------------------------------

The second tune we thought would be familiar to more people. It's taken from "Yes, I Think They Oughta Name a Drink After You" and belabors the fact that Bob, although a retired professor, continues to teach graduate statistics.

Yes, we think they oughta name a stat after you! (apologies to John Prine)

Bob’s taught stats for most his life
The kids all think that he’s alright
He gives out B’s and maybe an A or two
He makes sure they know their stuff
Even when the going gets tough
And, yes, we think they oughta name a stat after you.

Gardner’s G! ... Bob’s Beta!

He’s had more grants than you can say
And grad students like Tremblay
Cindy Smythe worked for him too
He’s written programs in Fortan
That would daunt a lesser man
And, yes, we think they oughta name a stat after you.

Bob R Squared! .... No, Bob are round!

Analysis of Variance
Correlation coefficients
When he started out, they only had a few
Now they have GLM,
HLM and SEM
And, yes, we think they oughta name a stat after you.

R.G.M! ... B.O.B!

And, yes, we think they oughta name a stat after you....

Grandpa is Regressing!
----------------------------

People got a good laugh out of our presentation of these songs. For those who missed the party, it was fun. You should have been there.

We are looking forward to Bob's next big day when we can sing these songs one more time. With feeling .... and pretend we're  18 all over again!

Home County

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Kate and I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at the Home County Music & Art Festival in Victoria Park, London, ON back in July.

We attended a couple of workshops we really enjoyed -- A Little Bit County, A Little Bit Rock & Roll: Doghouse Rose (Host), The Beauties, Mack & Mary Kate (The Allens), Amanda Rheaume; Celtic Spirit: Rant Maggie Rant (Host), Stephanie Cadman, Jim McGinley.

This photo album captures some of the performers in those workshops.

Seattle

Usually Kate and I travel together but on occasion we don't. Kate had a meeting in Seattle, Washington where I didn't join her. She travelled with Sam and Sam's mom. From the photo album it looks like she had a good time. The Chihully exhibit was especially exciting.

2014-06 Fry Visits

Kate and I visited with the Frys on our recent trip to Turin. We stopped in to see Chris (our no. 1 son and our no. 1 chum's real son) and Jean (his grandmother -- our no. 2 mom and our no. 1 chum's real mom) in Woking on our way through Heathrow. On the return leg we visited with Martin (my no. 1 chum), his partner Tina and his daughter Ines (Chris's sister) in Nierstein/Oppenheim (on the Rhine just outside of Frankfurt). These are close family friends who we only get to see every few years. They're a great bunch all tied around a relationship with my classmate Martin and my bike trip to England back in 1979 (I biked within England --- not to England). Chris was the photographer for our 25th anniversary back in 2005 when we were entertained by a 63 Monroe reunion at the London Music Club.

Here's a photo album of our visit.

[This is a repost form 2014 on Google+]

2014-06 Turin, Italy

Kate and I were in Turin Italy in early June of 2014 for her annual KBS conference. It was an interesting city but unseasonably hot -- even the locals were complaining. Kate also came down with a bug -- thanks Sam.

No we did not see the shroud of Turin, only a few replicas. But we did have some nice pasta, very good wines and as often happens .... I took far too many pictures. Enjoy if you're curious.

[This is a repost from 2014/Google+]

Mystery Mondays at the El Mercado

The El Mercado is a Tex/Mex restaurant on South 1st Street a short bike ride from where we stayed while visiting Austin for our winter vacation in 2014. There's another version of the El Mercado on Lavaca up by the University but I've never been there. Austin has lots of good Tex/Mex restaurants and the El Mercado is no exception but we were there for the music on "Mystery Mondays".

Mystery Mondays is a regular Monday night event at the El Mercado on South 1st hosted by Christine Albert. While we were there it was co-hosted with Jimmie Dale Gilmore (of the Flatlanders fame: Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock). Every week they would have a "mystery guest" to accompany them and they'd play a couple of sets. Mostly an unrehearsed grab-bag of music shared by friends. And often they'd bring a friend out of the audience on stage to sing a few songs. Butch stopped in several times as did Jimmy Lafave -- both of whom we also saw in concert at Strange Brew.

We stumbled onto this regular event when I saw a brief mention in the local newspaper. It's not advertised in the Austin Chronicle, the local bible to what's happening. Apparently Christine Albert and Sarah Elizabeth Campbell had hosted a long running event of exactly this sort at Artz Ribs on Lamar (we happened to see Sarah at Artz many years ago). The regular Monday event moved to El Mercado when Artz closed a few years ago -- it has yet to reopen but there's rumors it will. Jimmie took over Sarah's role as cohost when she passed away in December of 2013 after a battle with cancer.

It's a fine music tradition on Monday nights. There's good food, if you're hungry, beers and margaritas if you're thirsty. And the entrance is free -- they pass a tip jar. We enjoyed it so much we made it our regular Monday night event while in Austin.

If you're in Austin, check out Mystery Monday nights at the El Mercado on South 1st. You will be pleasantly surprised.

 

I've posted a photo album that documents our visits -- enjoy!

#Austin #LiveMusic #ChristineAlbert #JimmieDaleGilmore #Dining #SxS1st

The King of Tennessee

The photo at left is my sweet baboo Kate with the singer Chris Wall taken at the Twin Creeks Dance Hall in Leander during our winter visit to Austin in 2014. Leander is a suburb in the north west of the city and the Twin Creeks Dance Hall is located on a woodsy farm road essentially in the middle of nowhere. You're definitely in the country in more ways than one.

We were listening to a Jerry Jeff Walker record yesterday (Live at Gruene Hall 1989) and noted that there were three great songs by Chris written those many years ago -- I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight, Rodeo Wind and Trashy Women. Kate doesn't have too much lipstick, too much rouge or a Dolly Parton wig but she does pride herself on being a tad on the trashy side and proud to have a picture with Chris.

Like many country artists Chris does some funny songs -- Trashy Women and Something to Shoot are examples of that. But there are others that are sheer poetry -- Hank Williams, Rodeo Wind and We're All in This Together. You'll find "We're All In This Together" on his latest record, El Western Hotel (2013 produced by the ubiquitous Lloyd Maines). It's a confessional of a life lived, mistakes made and lessons learned. A song which really moved me when he sang it live at the Twin Creeks. I have the CD; got it last year on our visit to Austin but hadn't really listened closely. With live music you attend to the words and I finally listened and heard the lyrics. Like Townes Van Zandt he has written tunes where the words fit so well. If I had written anyone of those great songs I'd be able to hang up my hat, put down my pen and say I'm done. There's nothing more to be said, but that's never true:

"When you think it’s all been done
You’re sure it’s all been said
Some young unknown poet drops a line and stops you dead"

But just one more thing I wanted to say ... There was a great line used by Chris during his show which brought me to writing this. He clearly loves all thing Texas -- the cowboy hat and boots, a pickup truck and something to shoot (lyrics from  "Something to Shoot" on Honky Tonk Heart (1990)). He was raving about what a great place Texas is, like Jerry Jeff he's from elsewhere but loves Texas, and summed it up by saying, "I'd rather be a fence post in Texas than the King of Tennessee". I'm not sure where the line originally comes from, it's found as a bar room snippet on his album "Any Saturday Night In Texas"  (1996, a live at Greune Hall recording), and is usually credited to Chris. Whoever wrote it many thanks, it's a good one.

Postscript: There's a good collection of Popular Chris Wall Videos on Youtube -- check them out and become a fan.

#Austin #LiveMusic #ChrisWall

Guero's Taco Bar on SoCo

Guero's Taco Bar on South Congress is one of our favorite places to hang out while in Austin and we made the most of it during our winter vacation in this year. The photo album shows some of why we like it.

There is, of course, the Tex/Mex food which is quite good at Guero's. They say that (former) President Bill Clinton eats here when in Austin -- I'm not sure if that's true but it sounds good. We went several times for dinner and took Sam there for brunch one day. It's interesting to see the ladies making tacos and tortillas by hand over a large hot surface in the open kitchen.

But there's lots of good Tex/Mex food in Austin. For example, we went around the corner on South 1st for lunch one day at Little Mexico to find out if for Susan Torres and Conjunto Clemencia were playing (they weren't but do sometimes). Little Mexico is a nice friendly neighborhood restaurant, where the staff are very kind -- an older guy with health problems was having lunch and the owner/manager sat with him while she ate hers and kept him company. She told us after he left that he was a nice man. They have very, very, very hot salsa at Little Mexico! Even by Austin standards it was hot!

And then there's the Habanero Café on Oltorf, Torchy's Tacos (Damn Poor Parking) and El Mercado (Mystery Mondays) on South 1st, the Magnolia Café further down Congress and lots more. So if you're after Tex/Mex food in the neighborhood there's lots to choose from. And all are quite good. Guero's is more than food.

The best thing about Guero's is the live music played under the live oaks in the waiting area beside the restaurant. Their music calendar shows a regular live radio broadcast on Wednesday evenings (we caught Joe Ely one night), early evening shows Thursday through Saturday, and afternoon shows on Saturday and Sunday. The afternoon shows, when the weather is fine, are especially fun. People come to dance on the small dance floor in front of the band shell. Another thing we like about the music -- they're always early evening shows. So you can return home at a decent hour or continue on exploring music at other venues.

The second best thing about Guero's is probably the excellent margarita's they make at the outdoor bar so you can better enjoy the music being played. There's beer or course but we prefer the margaritas and like ours shaken with no salt. They turn them out by the gallons when the music is playing and the bar tenders must develop very strong arms shaking the drinks.

We arrived in Austin about 3:30 on the last Thursday of January and unpacked our car after the long drive from Texarkana. Guero's was our first stop after taking the cats out for a bit of time in the backyard. We had dinner outside on the street under the verandah and heat lamps. But the music was cancelled that night because it was too cold (it got a lot colder while we were there). The restaurant was not busy at all that night – very unusual from past experience. I suppose the cold kept people away.

We caught the Bob Fuentes Show (it's a regular Friday night gig at Guero's) with our friend Sam when she was visiting from Winnipeg. That night he had Alvin Crow playing with him. We had seen him years ago at the Broken Spoke in the dance hall. He plays several instruments but is more famous for the fiddle. Bob Fuentes plays drums. I gather who plays in the Bob Fuentes show can be quite fluid. He had a very young girl from the audience come up and join him on tambourine! I understand Bob is also the booking agent for Guero's. They played a lot of Dylan and Rolling Stone covers which were enjoyed by all and especially Sam. Kate got up and danced to the song "Is Anybody going to San Antone" made famous by the Doug Sahm and the Texas Tornados. Her first attempt at dancing on her new knee.

One of Bob Fuentes favorite lines (we heard this several times) was to ask the audience if there was anyone visiting from out of town. He'd thank them for visiting Austin and then tell them to go home -- we have enough traffic in Austin and don't need anyone moving into town! There's apparently a T-shirt to that effect that circulates during SXSW.

We saw Paula Maya one Saturday afternoon at Guero's early in our visit. She's originally from Brazil and shows some latin influences in her music. On another Sunday afternoon we caught Mitch Webb & the Swindles playing Texas Roadhouse. They're a regular act from San Antonio and did covers as well as some of their own. There was lots of dancing to their music – it wasn’t that hot out but some of the men were sweating real bad as they did their fancy dancing.

And of course there was our surprise night with Joe Ely at Guero's. We didn't even know he was playing and only happened upon the event -- "Hey I recognize who is singing that song, it's Joe Ely!" A cold last evening in Austin with a packed house under the live oaks soaking up Joe's music in a live radio broadcast for KDRP. He clearly enjoyed himself, as did we.

Guero's is an Austin institution both for the food and the music (and the drinks). If your taste in music leans anywhere near mine you'll enjoy the music and drinks under the live oaks at Guero's on South Congress in Austin Texas.

More Austin Music Events!

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There were lots of music events in Austin during our winter stay. Check out the photo album to see some of them.

Amanda Cevallos and the High Hands:

The picture at left is the neon sign for the (in)famous Broken Spoke on South Lamar. It's an old time dance hall that was once on the edge of town — when we first started visiting Austin back in the '90s. These days it's getting crowded out by condos and other developments. Austin is a fast growing city.

We saw Amanda Cevallos and her band the "High Hands" one evening at dinner time at the Broken Spoke — they say they have the best chicken fried steak but then a lot of places claim that title. We had dropped in last year to see her and really enjoyed her music which I had discovered through Calvin Powers  and his Americana Music Show (a podcast I'd highly recommend if your musical tastes are any where near mine). We enjoyed Amanda's music — authentic country — and had taken some nice photos but were heading out before the show was over. Amanda caught us at the door saying "I know you, you've been here before!".

The Broken Spoke is famous for the dance hall. Amanda was in the dining room where you enter first. She has a regular weekly gig there. We've been to several dances over the years (Gary P. Nunn a couple of times, Alvin Crow and others) and you really come to understand Texas music when you see it on a crowded dance floor with those who can move to the music — Kate can dance, I can't get past the Owen Sound 2-step which ought to be more than enough for country music.

Austin Lounge Lizards:

The photo album starts at the Cactus Café on the UTexas campus. We had tickets for the Austin Lounge Lizards at the Cactus Café that we had bought while still at home in Canada (Kate loves them and we've always wanted to see them). We ate at a Noodle chain on "the drag" before the show (all restaurants near the campus seemed to be fast food) – surprisingly good food and wine was surprisingly decent. There's a funny picture in the album of some street kids "fishing" for change on the drag.

The Lounge Lizards were wonderful and hilarious – I was in tears with laughter when they were doing a song in Spanish and pretending to do simultaneous translation. Their chatter in between songs was as funny as their songs. During the break, they walked around chatting with fans (who were mostly about the same age as the band – about our age). Kate asked one of the band members if they planned to do "Pflugerville" (I fled with my flogger to Pflugerville, Pflugerville, Pflugerville) and he said he thought they might be as it was their encore last night – it ended up being their encore that night! They also did another favorite of ours  – "Cornhusker Refugee" (I’m going back to the flat lands, the good old welcome back lands) – where the audience were encouraged to sing along on the chorus holding their arms up and waving them as waving fields of wheat. The pictures of the band members with tin-foil hats was taken during the conspiracy theory parody "Black Helicopters". I was a little uneasy in the days to come when I then started noticing the "Black Helicopters" circling around our neighborhood!

They hung around chatting with fans after they were done and we chatted a bit, told them we were from Canada and had wanted to see them for years, etc.  Kate has since struck up a correspondence by email and invited them to come play in our part of the world.

Terri Hendrix:

We got to see Terri Hendrix at the Cactus Café. I had dropped Kate in front at about 7:20 for the 8:00 show but the line was already quite long – extending into the cafeteria. Kate had her stool with her this time but was able to pull a chair into the line (also done by quite a few others). We chatted with the people in line – a couple (she from near Buffalo but had been here quite a while, he from Wisconsin wearing a Billy Joe Shaver T-shirt) and a guy wearing a beret (probably around our age or a little younger – looked a bit like George Clooney). Billy Joe Shaver was playing that night at an east end dive called the “White Horse” (very near the fancy restaurant called Qui where we had dinner earlier). The guy with the T-shirt said he had moved to Austin about 30 years ago to follow Jerry Jeff Walker. When Kate told the beret fellow about seeing the Lounge Lizards the previous week, he told her an anecdote about when he was travelling quite a bit on business all over the country and the Lounge Lizards seemed to be playing everywhere he went and he would gather up some local friends and go see them. He said they were friends of his. He had also worked in the Amazon about 15 years before as an engineer on a medical project. Seemed like a nice guy – easy to talk to. We chatted with him and the couple about the Olympics (the Canadians did very well at hockey, the Americans not so well) and the Great Lakes being 88% frozen, etc. We still managed to get seats in the second row even though we were way back in the line so had a very good view of the show.

Terri Hendrix had lots of great music (which Reg already knew about – why we were there) but also was very lively and told lots of funny stories. Lloyd Maines who plays with her and has produced every album and CD of note coming out of Austin in the past 30 years as well as being the father of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks also told some funny stories, including how Terry was visiting his family for a few days at Christmas and was always practising the harmonica and they decided she needed a blues name – so they decided to call her Blind Lemon Pledge.

Lloyd told a story about a gig they were playing in a similar setting with the audience wrapped around the stage. During a song someone in the audience to the side kept calling out “Lloyd, Lloyd…” to get his attention. After the song had ended he asked her what she wanted and she replied “Could you scoot back a bit, you’re blocking our view of Terri”.

Sadly we missed seeing Iris Dement who played two shows at the Cactus Café while we were in town. Both shows were sold out by the time we discovered them!

James McMurtry:

One day Kate had taken me for a wine tasting tour in the hill country around Dripping Springs (motto: "Just West of Weird) — more about that later. That night we saw James McMurtry at the Gallery of the Continental Club – a fairly small space with couches and a few high tables and chairs. James plays a regular midnight gig at the Continental Club with his full band but that's at midnight and we're not willing to stay up that late. We had seen him and his band a few years ago at an outdoor concert at Threadgills garden which we really enjoyed.

This show in the gallery was just him with an acoustic guitar – sometimes a 6-string, often his 12-string. His songs were great (very much story-telling – usually depressing stories), his playing was amazing as always (although he did an awful lot of tuning – he would tell people to take a break and get a drink while he tuned – happened several times in the 90 minute set – he made some droll comments at other times as well like – “There’s lots of room here. All the non Baptists can get up and dance. I guess they’d be Methodists.” And then when nobody danced said that he guessed there were no Methodists there). The only downside was that we were sitting right in front of one of the speakers and it was way too loud.

One of his more well known tunes is Choctaw Bingo where he tells the story of going to a family reunion up in Oklahoma where his uncle Slayton "Cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell". It's a rousing spoken word tune in the style of Woody Guthrie ... but not political. For that you should listen to his version of "We Can't Make It Here Anymore".

I spoke to him before the show and then we spoke to him again after the show thanking him and telling him about seeing him at La Zona Rosa years ago as a solo gig when he was working on “Where’d You Hide theBody” (1995). He said he might see us in Canada – he has a friend in Peterborough. We were going to ask him if his friend was Washboard Hank but by then someone else was talking to him.

We bumped into him again one night at the Continental Club when we caught a bit of the Whiskey Sisters.

Chris Wall:

Chris Wall's song "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight" is a classic of country music made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker. Like all good country music it tells a story. A sad evocative story of a marriage breakup. We have all his albums and have followed his music for years. But had never seen him. The previous year we missed him at Gruene Hall when he was doing a CD release of "El Western Hotel" (his first CD in many years) and this year we saw that he was playing a regular gig at Luckenbach — that would have been a treat.

When we couldn’t go to see Chris Wall in Luckenbach because of other plans we found on his web site that he was going to be in Leander (a far northern suburb of Austin — about 30 minutes drive). We had to do quite a bit of research to find out where it was — it wasn't listed in any of the usual papers or anything. His show was listed as 7pm at the "Twin Creeks Dance Hall". If you go to Google now you'll be hard pressed to find anything about the dance hall!

We thought we would go early (about 6:00) so we could find the place while it was still light out. There was no trouble finding it – lots of cars were parked on the road and motor bikes too. We entered this patio area where tons of people had clearly been there all afternoon — quite pretty surroundings on a creek that feeds into Lake Travis. There was free food of various kinds — hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, carrot salad and various hot things that probably contained various meat. It wasn't really clear what you were supposed to do — it was like we had crashed a private party — which in a lot of ways, we probably had. It felt like the first time we went to Luckenbach — only seemed even more of a private event than that. There was an open-mike stage going on outside on the patio and Chris Wall was listed with several others in the line-up playing on the main stage (which we had to ask about) – open-mike outside, main stage inside the "dance hall" – which was the size of a small bar with about 8 tables, a few bar stools and the rest standing room. Fortunately, we got a table in front of stage while everyone was outside watching Dr. Danger set himself on fire – turned out it was a woman – a roller derby champ. Yes people set themselves on fire just for fun. Kate missed it because she was holding the seat inside but Reg captured it on digital.

We saw the guy who preceded Chris, Bob Cheever, a 70-year-old who kept forgetting the words and so going off onto other songs — great voice, sounded a lot like Willie. Then Chris Wall who was great, very friendly, but didn't seem very healthy — looked him up later and he’s a week younger than Reg (we would have guessed that he was at least 70). Then a guy called Bill Callery (also of an age – Bill mentioned Vietnam several times and seemed to be best known for writing Hands on the Wheel on Willie's Red Headed Stranger record. All 3 seemed to have connections to Willie and Jerry Jeff. The musicians were playing for free because it was a fund-raiser for a new sound system for the dance hall (which they needed — we didn't enjoy Bill Callery at all mostly because the sound was so bad — he was with a band; Chris was fine because he played on his own with one other guy sitting in). They announced they had raised $800 which didn't seem very much considering there was probably 100 to 200 people there.

Joe Ely:

On our last night in town we had been exploring Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon in north Austin. On the way home, Kate got the yen to try out Home Slice Pizza on SoCo across the road from Gueros. I was not enthusiastic as our car was loaded down with bikes and everything. Especially cranky when we had trouble finding a parking spot, but we finally pulled into the Home Slice lot, got out of the car and who should be heard but Joe Ely!

He was playing across the street at Gueros under the live oaks for the KDRP radio show they do on Wednesday nights (which we had never figured out involved live music). We ran over to check it out – there was about ½ hour left of the show so Kate went in and got drinks while I moved the car to a more permanent parking spot.

It was a great show and a real treat for us. It was pretty much a standing room only show in spite of the very cool weather. Joe had a young fiddle player (Warren Hood) and another guitarist (Jeff Plankenhorn on slide guitar as well) with him. He commented that he had known Warren, the fiddle player, all his life — he was an accomplished younger fellow and the son of Champ Hood. I've written about Joe and the Flatlanders in other blog entries.

We got pizza slices to take home after at Home Slice Pizza – which were also great.

MapJam:

MapJam is a day long music event spread over several places in East Austin sponsored by the UTexas radio station KUTX. The idea is to walk or bike from one event to the next over the course of day.

We drove over to Mapjam with our bikes on the back of the car. The event seemed to have the same itinerary as last year – starting at the Hops & Grain brewery and then Tillery Park and ending at Scoot Inn. We only planned on going to the first three places so that we could come home to rest before going to see Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines at the Cactus.

We saw the Carper Family (an all female acoustic blue grass band) and the Brewery and Growl (a young punkish band) at Delta Millworks (a lumber yard of sorts). We enjoyed both acts and bought CD's.

The brewery once again was not able to handle the numbers. We were there early but they weren’t serving yet (it was 11:45 and they couldn’t serve until noon) so I went out to schmooze with the police and Kate sat at a picnic table outside the brewery door. Next to her was a guy set up for selling one kind of draft beer to refill glasses for those who had purchased tickets inside. He told Kate they couldn’t serve yet but that she could buy tickets so she went back in to do so. There were 2 or 3 people ahead of her for the bar and when she got there it was about 11:52 but they had decided to start serving. She got the refillable souvenir glass (about 16 oz) filled with their pale ale plus 2 tickets for refills for $10 – to share with Reg. By the time she turned from the bar, the line was about 30 people long; it never got better – by the time we left an hour later, the line snaked around the room and out into the inside corridor (probably over 100 people). We assume that some gave up but there was only one small beer seller at the next event (Tillery Park) with a long line when we arrived there so a lot of people remained thirsty. They were giving out free bottles of water though as we left the brewery.

Funniest thing that happened was Reg was talking to a guy in a bicycle helmet about the GPS device on top of his camera (Nikon) – turned out it was expensive. As the conversation went on and we told him where we were from, he said “Were you at the downtown market this morning?” [yes] “We saw the Ontario license plate with the Austin Lounge Lizards bumper sticker and commented about how these people had come a really long way. Sort of interesting because the market is pretty small (somewhere between St. Marys and Stratford size) and not that many people go there, plus there are other markets in the city.

We rode our bikes to Tillery Park but the crowds were more than last year and the space for music watching was very small plus there was no food and it was 1:30 and we were hungry as well as a little drunk from the 3 big glasses of beer we had shared. The band was R & B (Latasha Lee and the Blackties) – okay but not our favorite kind of music so we rode to the next location (a lumberyard) hoping to find a restaurant on 5^th St on the way but no luck. At this point, we decided to ride back to the brewery because there was a restaurant (Mettle) in the same building along with a glass blowing place and a few other things. The restaurant was a bit overwhelmed with the numbers of people (apparently no one had told them about Mapjam and none of the staff or management had noticed all the write-up about it in the paper). It’s a little on the upscale side – Reg had fish (sea bass) and chips that were really good; Kate had Caesar salad with candied walnuts and Balsamic – good but not great – made with the white romaine hearts (Kate prefers the green outer leaves). Food was not overly priced ($11 and $8) but the glass of wine we each had was pretty expensive ($11 for my South African Chenin Blanc and $12 for Kate’s California Russian River Chardonnay – expensive but excellent).

We then rode back to the lumberyard where a kind of punk band called Growl was playing to the huge crowd there. Kate sat on some logs/lumber (along with other people doing the same) while Reg shot some pics and then we decided we had probably had enough and rode our bikes back to the car then home for an evening at the CactusCafe.

Cajun at the Evangaline Café:

The final band documented in the photo album is Charles Thibodeaux & the Austin Cajun Aces who we saw at the Evangaline Café. I like Cajun and Zydeco music. Austin is a great place for a diversity of music and these guys play authentic Cajun music — squeeze box and all! There's several bars/restaurants that make an event out of Mardi Gras.

We originally had intentions to make a side trip to New Orleans and Louisiana to see a friend and catch some Cajun/Zydeco music. As I had a bug for most of our visit we weren't able to do that.

Austin - Winter 2014

Kate and I spent 5 weeks in Austin this winter (late January through to early March) to repeat the wonderful time we had last year. Here are some photos of the South Austin area where we stayed. The photo at left is Kate, by her bike and the "Greetings From Austin" sign painted on the side of Road House Relics in our south Austin neighborhood. The sign is a landmark that's been recently restored.

The weather in Austin, while warmer than home here in Canada, was quite cool by times. The "polar vortex" that made for a tough winter in Canada definitely had an effect on us in Austin. There was at least one day were schools we closed because of icy roads and many mornings were quite cool. Nevertheless we had fun -- lots of Tex/Mex food, live music, biking on the river, etc. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold/flu that lasted for weeks. I was sick enough that I ended up having to see a doctor and get some medication.

The Drive Down:

We drove down over three days in our new Hyundai Elantra (we packed in our 2002 Honda Civic after the trip last year) with our two cats Richard Parker and Piscine Patel and our two bikes on the back. It's about 2,500km (or about 25 hours on interstate roads) to Austin from our home here in St Mary's Ontario.

The first night, after 9 hours of driving, we made it to Elizabethtown Kentucky just south of Louisville where we stayed at the La Quinta (one of the few hotel chains that's cat friendly). We had some really nice take away food from the Namaste Indian Cuisine and Bar next door -- we even got a discount for staying at the La Quinta. Kate was so impressed by the food there she promises to write a review.

It was a cold drive down with snow in the fields and still very cold in the morning when we awoke with a heavy frost on the car windows.

We took a little detour on the Western Kentucky Parkway to avoid Nashville and Memphis. That's a pleasant drive through rolling hill country only mostly interstate grade highways where you meet up with I55 in Missouri just north of Memphis. In retrospect, the quickest route is probably to stay on the interstate and go through Nashville and Memphis as we did last year.

That night, after another 9 hours of driving, we stayed in Texarkana TX at another La Quinta. Much warmer but still a bit cool -- no snow of course. And then the last day was a short drive to Austin arriving at mid afternoon at Casita del Sol our home on South Austin. The same place where we had stayed last year.

The Neighborhood:

Casita del Sol is an area known as Bouldin Creek in South Austin (south in the sense of south of the river) not too far from South Congress where there's lots going on that we're interested in. We like this place because of the neighborhood, the yard and the pet friendly policies. Our cats can enjoy supervised play in the back yard as you can tell from the pictures.

The neighborhood would have been working class at one time. The original homes are quite modest -- ours we'd call a cottage -- two bedroom, one bath but a nicely sized yard. As the area is so close to downtown it's a desirable neighborhood where people are buying up these old worker cottages, yanking them down and building modern brutalism architected homes in a style you might expect in the hills of LA. It's a transitional neighborhood.

As an older neighborhood it's well treed. Other times I've picked pecans off the street where they've dropped from the trees.

The photo album has pictures of our home and others in the neighborhood.

Markets:

There are a couple of farmer's markets we regularly went to for fresh veggies. The HEB supermarket around the corner on South Congress served most of our needs although we did pop in to Whole Foods a couple of times. Whole Foods started as a hippy-dippy kind of food store in Austin. My brother Paul worked for Whole Foods for a while in Vancouver. At one time Whole Foods set the standard for quality wholesome foods but these days the supermarkets have caught up to them. HEB variously stands for "Here Everythings Better" or Howard E. Butt -- I prefer the first and we usually shopped there.

There's a farmer's market on Saturday downtown where we learned about broccoli greens. We'd never had them before -- sort of like rappini. It was winter time so winter vegetables were plentiful. There was also a nice lady who sold fish and shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico.

One day Kate bought a big bag of fresh spinach which we serve with pasta -- you boil up some pasta and at the end add in the spinach. Drain and serve with olive oil or butter (if you're not counting calories) and lots of fresh parmesan. Kate was cooking this time (I'm usually the chef) and served me a big bowl of pasta, fresh spinach and a giant sized cooked bug! A bit of fresh meat I was not expecting. Wash your spinach carefully!

The second market we regularly went to was on Saturday on South Lamar a short distance away. It has a pretty big flea market but we bought nice veggies there as well. We also tried some mead (honey wine) and some ready made Indian foods we could take home to eat later in the week. Other albums show some of the restaurants we enjoyed.

The Austin Marathon:

There's an annual marathon race early in the morning one weekend in February and part of the race is down South 1st. It's odd to wake early in the morning to the sound of live music (it's Austin so every event has live music) and cheering. I went out to explore and to get the morning paper at the neighborhood gas station. As far as I could see in either direction the street was packed solid with runners. So many that I couldn't get across the street to get my paper!

Not everyone seems to agree with the idea of running a marathon. I saw a pickup truck go by with a sign saying something along the lines of "I bet you wish you had gone to the crapper when you had the chance" (I didn't catch a photo of them). Another group, apparently the chess club, had a sign saying "You're all crazy -- you could be playing chess".

It's not the Boston Marathon but I am impressed with how big it is. Of course Austin is a city where it seems that everyone is out jogging around the lake most days.

Closing:

I'll bring this posting to a close now. And I'll be back later with more postings on our adventures while in Austin, TX this winter.

Last Days in Austin

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This photo album documents our last day in Austin and the return home to Canada. We had been vacationing in Austin from late February through to early March staying in the South Austin neighborhood of Bouldin not too far from South Congress.

On the last day we loaded up our car (I'm not sure how we got all the gear in but we did) and headed up to the Little Longhorn Saloon on Burnet in north Austin. We were curious about this bar and hadn't found the opportunity to visit. It's famous for Sunday afternoon "Chicken Shit Bingo" (use your imagination) and hot nights where the band plays to a crowded dance floor. We didn't catch either of those but have high hopes for next year.

What we did catch that night was a smoking show by Joe Ely for KDRP radio at Guero's. We just happened onto that event.

Pictures after that document our adventures in the car with our two cats. On the way back we drove up through Oklahoma to St Louis on the first day (a very long drive). And then home to St Marys on the second day.

We arrive home to discover that winter still has our home in it's grips.

[This is a a repost from 2014 on Google+]

Austin Restaurants

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If you're in Austin for winter holiday, and that holiday lasts 5 weeks, then it's a sure bet you're going to eat out a few times. There's lots of fine restaurants to explore along with the expected Tex/Mex. Some restaurants are shown in other albums - this album is all about restaurants we explored.

There's a couple of very fine restaurants where you will pay top dollar and have a dining experience. We tried out Paul Qui's new restaurant "Qui" in east Austin and sampled a few dishes. We did the 15 course tapas styled prix fixe dinner at Barley Swine on South Lamar (in our neighborhood) and left feeling stuffed and over fed -- please don't bring another dish! It would be better if one could select a few dishes from the 15 or so courses and walk away pleasantly fed. Both are very fine restaurants but the one we kept coming back to was Sway on South 1st (in our neighborhood). It's a Thai restaurant with good food, a nice decor and a reasonable price.

For Thai food we also tried IM Thai in a south suburban strip mall. We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it.

Kate is vegetarian (but does eat eggs, fish and cheese) so we tried a few. The Bouldin Cafe in our neighborhood is funky with a younger crowd with very good breakfast/lunch foods. Mother's Cafe in north Austin above the University is well worth a visit. We did try Counter Culture in east Austin but it's not our cup of tea.

We liked Red's Porch on South Lamar -- Kate especially liked the salads. It would be a great spot on warm evenings as it looks out over a green belt. Mettle, in east Austin, is a reasonably priced up scale restaurant with a nice patio.

For down home cooking you can't beat Sunday Brunch at Threadgills where they have live music -- usually gospel tinged. And for a "bowl of red" try the Texas Chili Palor bar on Lavaca near the capitol. We went because of the Guy Clark song: "Oh, I wish I was in Texas. In a Chili Palor bar drinking Mad Dog Margaritas and not carin' where you are.."

We tried some cajun food at Evangalines in a south Austin strip mall. The music and decor seemed genuine enough. Tex/Mex food -- Guero's (of course), El Mercado every Monday and the Hula Hut on Lake Austin where we had gone to try something different only to discover more Tex/Mex.

Still haven't tried the food trucks.

Here's a photo album of our adventures.

Austin Music

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Austin is Live Music and that's one of the main reasons we take our winter holidays there. This album is a collection of photos from various shows we went to during Feb-Mar of 2014. See also the albums for Strange Brew and the El Mercado where we returned many times.

The Cactus Cafe on grounds of UTexas is a folk club with a long history of booking important folk acts. We saw the Austin Lounge Lizards and really enjoyed ourselves. They're very funny and we've been hoping to see them for years. Another night we went to see Terri Hendrix (with Lloyd Maines) who I have followed for years. We missed Iris Dement at the Cactus Cafe (tickets were gone by the time we discovered, then a second gig was booked and it sold out before we knew about it). The night we saw Terri Hendrix was the same night that Kinky Friedman and Billy Joe Shaver were in town at seperate gigs!

We went back to the Broken Spoke for dinner one evening and to see Amanda Cevallos. James McMurtry, who we've seen before a couple of times, plays a midnight gig with a full band at the Continental Club -- we caught an earlier solo acoustic gig in the Continental Club Gallery (above the club). He can make a twelve string sound like a whole orchestra. We caught Charles Thibodeaux and the Austin Cajun Aces at Evangalines where they play every week. I'm a big fan of Cajun and Zydeco music. Cajun... Acadian... Canadian...

Mapjam is a day long musical event in east Austin sponsored by the UTexas radio station. On a sunny day you can bike or walk between outdoor events. We caught the "Carper Family" (a bluegrass outfit) and Hops & Grain (a brewery) and a punkish band "Grow" at a lumber yard (odd venue for sure).

A big treat for us was to see Chris Wall at the Twin Creeks Dancehall. Chris is a great song writer -- "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight" was made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker. We got a snap of Kate with Chris.

The best of all was the happinstance of catching Joe Ely's live to radio KDRP at Geuro's on our last night in town. We were aware of the KDRP radio broadcasts but hadn't investigated who played at them (they're not listed in the Chronicle). On our last night we stopped into a pizza joint across the street and recognized Joe signing when we got out of the car. We dashed over and caught the last half hour of the set. We wish we had known before hand.

Anyways, there's lots of live music in Austin.

I've blogged as well. Here's a photo album.

Guero's Taco Bar

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Geuro's Taco Bar on South Congress in Austin is one of our favorite places to hang out. Good Tex/Mex food of course but especially fun on the weekend when the weather is fine. On the weekends they have live music in the afternoon under the live oaks in an area that had been used as a waiting area for those waiting for a table in the restaurant. These days it's just one of the better music and dance places in town. They also make fine margaritas which we really enjoy -- shaken, no salt please. It's always a busy spot.

An especially great treat for us happened on our last night in town. We had stopped in at "Home Slice" pizza across the street to pick up some pizza for our dinner. Only to discover that Joe Ely was playing live for KDRP radio at Guero's. It was a very cool night but a really great show. We only caught the last half hour but Joe was in fine form. Another instance where we ought to have been prepared and investigated ahead of time.

If you're visiting Austin Texas, check out Guero's and the scene on South Congress. When the music is playing it's a great place to be.

Here's a photo album.

El Mercado

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The El Mercado is a Tex/Mex restaurant on South 1st Street a short bike ride from where we stayed while visiting Austin. There's another version of the El Mercado on Lavaca up by the University. Austin has lots of good Tex/Mex restaurants and the El Mercado is no exception but we were there for the music on "Mystery Mondays".

Mystery Mondays is a regular Monday event at the El Mercado hosted by Christine Albert. While we were there it was co-hosted with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Every week they would have a "mystery guest" to accompany them and they'd play a couple of sets. Mostly an unrehearsed grab-bag of music shared by friends. And often they'd bring a friend out of the audience on stage to sing a few songs.

We stumbled onto this regular event when I saw a brief mention in the local newspaper. It's not advertised in the Chronicle, the local bible to what's happening. Apparently Christine Albert and Sarah Elizabeth Campbell had hosted a long running event of exactly this sort at Artz Ribs on Lamar (we happened to see Sarah at Artz many years ago). The regular Monday event moved to El Mercado when Artz closed a few years ago. Jimmie took over Sarah's role as cohost when she passed away in December of 2013 after a battle with cancer.

It's a fine music tradition on Monday nights. There's good food, if you're hungry. And the entrance is free -- they pass a tip jar. We enjoyed it so much we made it our regular Monday night event.

If you're in Austin, check out Monday Mystery nights at the El Mercado on South 1st. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Here's a photo album.

Strange Brew

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Strange Brew is a 7/24 coffee shop in a strip mall on Manchaca in South Austin (sort of way south Austin as it's south of Ben White) that happens to be one of the better venues for live music in the city. Kate and I went to several events during our winter stay in Austin and saw lots of acts. We like Strange Brew because it's the kind of place where people listen to music -- it's not a noisy bar like those on 6th St. downtown. But it does have beer and wine along with coffees and various sandwiches. Check out the photos in my Strange Brew Album.

The photo at left is Alejandro Escovedo (an east Austin original) and Rosie Flores (a San Antonio native) playing together at Strange Brew at a benefit concert for Alejandro's son-in-law Matt McCormick who lost his Onion Creek home in a flash flood late in 2013. This was one of the few events where we stayed up late. Often times we'd catch one of the early shows and be home in bed at a sensible time. There's often 4 shows each night starting at 4:00pm and ending by midnight. The benefit was an evening filled with many acts headlined by Alejandro and Rosie.

We had caught Rosie last year at a MapJam concert at the Scoot Inn in East Austin but didn't get to see much as the place was very crowded. For Matt McCormick benefit event we purchased tickets on line which gave us early access to good seating and several raffle tickets. We had front row seats and got some good pictures of many of the acts. One of the best tunes at the concert was the duet by Alejandro and Rosie of "Goodbye Again" a song Rosie made famous as a duet with Dave Alvin on the 1994 "King of California" album. Alejandro also sang a smoking version of the Rolling Stones "Beast of Burden" which has been posted on YouTube.

It was an evening of great acts. One that stood out was Kacy Crowley with Will Knaak on guitar. We saw them last year and she did some of the same songs – "A Funeral for Spring". He did a great song "Take It All Away" and has just put out a record that he funded through crowd sourcing -- we've contributed and hope to see the CD soon.

We caught John Imnon several times at Strange Brew. He's a guy about our age who had played with Jerry Jeff, Marcia Ball and various others. Most of his career as a sideman but during February he was doing an early gig at Strange Brew to try out as a front man. We caught that act twice. The first time his set ended when he said that was all the songs he knew but that he would try to learn a new one each week! I'm not sure how well that went. He's well respected and we saw him another time with Jimmie Lafave.

On Valentine's day, when I was not at all well, we saw Butch Hancock at Strange Brew (with his son who looked about 14-15 noodling on the electric guitar, a guy playing fiddle (whose name we didn't catch) and Bob Livingston  (who looks a bit like Phillip Hoffman Seymour) on bass. Butch is one of the folks we really like to see and this year we caught him guesting several times at the El Mercado on Mystery Mondays. It was another good show at Strange Brew and early in the evening. Butch did some favorites that he wrote ("If You Were a Bluebird", "Thank God for the Road" ) as well as the Townes Van Zandt classic "Pancho and Lefty"  Butch leads a birthday tribute to Townes every year at the Cactus on March 7 (Townes’ birthday) and we missed that again having to return home -- next year we should be able to catch it. We were right up close to the stage on the side where we have sat the previous times there and got some good pictures. He told some funny stories including one about bringing his jeep back from Mexico to Terlingua after the jeep had been impounded by "The Federales" for a couple of years. The show was over by 10:00pm – another band was coming on.

On Sunday March 2 we had several entertainment options for the afternoon – there was a Sarah Elizabeth Campbell (long time host of Mystery Mondays at the El Mercado) memorial in Kyle with music by Christine Albert and others but it’s about 30 miles south of Austin and was in a hall but still the weather was crappy. The Lost Gonzo Band (Jerry Jeff Walkers old band with John Imnon, Gary P Nunn, Bob Livingston, Lloyd Maines, etc.) was having one of their reunions at the South Austin brewery just south of Ben White between IH-35  and Congress but we had gone to check it out and couldn’t figure out how they would be able to fit everyone inside plus there would probably be a lot of standing for Kate's new knee. So we went to see Sam Baker and friends at Strange Brew. Sam Baker was recommended by a fellow who works the door at Strange Brew who we had bumped into at an El Mercado Mystery Monday event. Kate liked Sam Baker and his music a lot  and bought all 4 of his CDs. I was not so keen -- his music is more spoken word poetry than song but still there were some very nice songs. It was an entertaining evening and went from 6pm to 7:30 so the timing was good. We also bought the "Caldera" CD of one of the women who was playing with him – Raina Rose. Her music is very nice and reminds me a bit of Sara Harmer (the Canadian singer).

One of the odder stories about Strange Brew is a camera story. While I really like the place for music and how close you can get to the stage I do have to complain about the lighting -- it's very minimal and therefore very hard to get good natural lighting photography without a high ISO rating and fast lens. While I can push my camera pretty high on film speed (the Canon T4i can shoot at ISO 25,000) and I do have a short 50mm f1.8 standard lens I sometimes resort to using a flash have done so many times at Strange Brew. Others, who have way deeper pockets, come with very expensive fast zooms -- like the Canon 7-210 f2.8 L series. One night, while shooting pictures of Jimmy Lafave, I decided to shoot some flash pictures and was clamping on my Vivitar 285 flash (it's big, ugly and very powerful) when a photographer nearby came to me and said "You can't use that!". I am aware that performers don't like flashes in their face and do try to be unobtrusive. The place doesn't have a no flash policy -- there are lots of point and shoot flashes going off.

Gosh, there's lots more I could write about Strange Brew but suffice to say -- it's one of the nicer places we have found for live music in Austin and we kept coming back. If you're in Austin, do check it out.

[PS. Strange Brew is no more.]

Sam's Visit to Austin

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Our friend Sam came to visit us in Austin for a few days. We caught some music at Z-Tejas (Sam is a fan of Stephen Doster), Guero's (of course) and the Continental Club. We did some shopping on South Congress and we took her to Sway on South 1st for another great Thai lunch. Got a nice postcard photo with Kate and Sam under the "I Love You So Much" graffitti. We had fun, as always

This photo album shows our adventures.

[This is a repost from 2014 on Google+]

Austin Adventures with Cindy

Reg & Cindy at Saturday Market

Our friend Cindy, who has travelled with us many times over the years, came to visit us in Austin during our winter retreat from the snow in 2014. She came just after my birthday in February when, unfortunately, I was sick as a dog with a cold or flu. But we did have some fun and got to some events together -- check out the photo album.

She flew in for a few days; however, her arrival did not start well. We had the right flight number from Chicago but were at the airport a day early on Wednesday. So of course she wasn't on that flight and the front desk folks for the airline are really reluctant to tell you who was or was not on the flight. Back at our cottage we discovered our mistake and laughed it off.

But then the next day, a Thursday, Cindy wasn't on the flight and again we were left waiting at the airport. Back at the cottage we had some email and then a phone call with Cindy. Winter weather conditions in Detroit and Chicago meant that she missed her connection and wouldn't be arriving until late in the evening. Rather than make one more trip out to the airport we encouraged her to take a taxi and we went out for dinner at Guero's. She arrived at about 10:00pm -- I greeted her but went off to bed to nurse my cold. Kate and Cindy stayed up to all hours of the evening talking, drinking and having some quality time together.

Kate & Cindy - Lunch at Sway

Kate and Cindy had a lunch at Sway (modern Thai cuisine) which is one of our favorite restaurants in the area. It must have been a nice day as they ate outside on the patio. It's always a good lunch there and it's so convenient for us -- it's on South 1st very near, but across the road from, El Mercado (of Mystery Monday fame)

We then had an evening down town where we went to "Life After Lubbock" at the Stateside Paramount on Congress. That night Jaston Williams (of Greater Tuna fame) had Jimmie Dale Gilmore (who must have thought we were stalking him!) and Jo-Carol Pierce (who had been married to Jimmie Dale years ago in Lubbock). Jaston read some stories, Jo-Carol and Jimmie did some songs and they recalled their early days in Lubbock. Jo-Carol sang "Has God got us by the twat or what!" from "Bad Girls Upset by the Truth" (1996) -- we are fans and had even weaseled her phone number on a previous visit.

We went for drinks at the Driskill (Guy Clark lyrics: "Stayin' up all night at the Driskill Hotel, Ramblin' Jack and Mahan was cowboyed all to hell..") before the show where it was quite the noisy gathering of young people in cowboy boots and western wear – some in little dresses and big shoes. But we can’t complain as the drinks were less than $5 ($12.99 for 3) – a happy hour deal we tried to repeat another night with Sam and less success.

We walked down 6th Street to El Sol e La Luna (Kate walked about 6 blocks!) where we had half-price margaritas and appetizers -- we each ordered a quesadilla and I also ordered some jalapeno rellenos (Kate and Cindy didn't want to share their quesadillas with me -- bad mistake). The quesadillas were made with two huge flour tortillas with cheese and fillings in between. Each of them was the size of a large dinner plate! We barely ate half of them but will know better how much to order next time! One order would have been plenty, three orders was silly.

Kate's knee is much improved and she was able to comfortably walk 6th Street to the restaurant and back.

We took Cindy to the Saturday market in the morning (that's her and Reg in the photo at the top), toured around UTexas and drove by Franklin’sBBQ (voted best BBQ in all of America) in East Austin to have a look – the line-up went around the block! People were sitting on lawn chairs in the line with coolers, kids, Frisbees and having a good old social time waiting to get an order of BBQ. There was even a guy renting lawn chairs! The irony is that they only serve until the meat runs out so some of the people in line might not get anything.

We went to the Radisson to sit on the balcony looking over Town Lake and the Congress Street bridge (with the cool weather the famous bats were not expected). In part we dropped in so Cindy could see how much it had changed from when it was the Austin Crest when we were first here in 1990. Unfortunately they had renovated and no longer had a balcony. It was quite lovely bar and restaurant with floor to ceiling glass but we wanted to be outside. The only place we could think of with a view was Joe’sCrab Shack – where the food was not so exciting.

Afterwards, Reg was still pretty sick so he went home for a nap while Kate and Cindy went to Gueros to enjoy the music and so Cindy could look in a few shops on South Congress. It is a bit of a mad house on the streets and sidewalks on the weekend though so she didn’t do a lot of shopping.

We went to Barley Swine on South Lamar for dinner on Saturday to show Cindy some fine dining. We arrived early as we could not get a reservation for another month -- it's a popular, but very small spot. Fortunately there had been a cancellation so we got a table. We had been before last year but they now have a prix fixe menu ($70 for 13 courses (sic!)) – still smallish tapas sized portions for sharing but it was too much food and not all of it exceptional. Apparently, the meat dishes (quite frankly rabbit is not that interesting) were not that great – Kate had one or two dishes less than Reg and Cindy because she didn’t get the meat dishes but she got her own and didn’t have to share. There were far too many courses in this dinner. We got to the stage were we didn't want to even see another plate only to then have three (3!) dessert courses. If I were to make a suggestion it might be better if one were able to select dishes from the fixed presentation list. Even as a slow food dinner, we were there from 5:00 until 7:30, it was way too much.

That evening we went to see Ira Glass of "This American Life" at the Paramount itself (the Stateside is smaller and next door). No photos allowed so none taken.  It's essentially a one man show but he did have a couple of dancers with him. He's very funny and we really enjoyed the show where he talked about the radio show and how radio, especially "This American Life", has a unique perspective when telling stories. He's best described as quirky as are the stories on the show. It's a podcast we both enjoy.

Our seats were in the front row of the first balcony which had no leg room and a bar blocking the view (for $77 – we could have gone to see Kinky Friedman at the One-2-One (he's campaigning for office again) or Billy Joe Shaver at the White Horse had we known before we bought the tickets that they would be playing … or even Joe Ely in "Life after Lubbock" next door at the Stateside). Ira Glass was nevertheless really interesting and he had some interesting modern dancers as well.

Cindy flew back on Sunday. A short, but fun visit. Perhaps we can repeat it next year and I'll be in better shape for adventures.

#Austin