Going Back to Freddie's!

This post is a little out of order, but I wanted to post it because I'm super excited about our continued relationship with Freddie's. If you haven't had a chance to drop by, then you are certainly missing out.

With everything moving North these days, I'm always happy to talk about and promote resturaunts and businesses South of the river. I grew up in South Austin and can remember when MOPAC ended just across the river, directing you to exit at Rollingwood/Bee Caves, to make the hoop around and head over to South Lamar via Barton Springs. Never did we think that resturant row would pop up in the mid 80's on Barton Springs or that so many great eateries and drink joints would open up on South 1st. The only resturaunt that I can remember, that was on South 1st back in the day, was La Reyna where my dad introduced me to Huevos Rancheros at the ripe age of 7. While that is a hearty breakfast that I'm more than happy to comsume at age 37, it's not exactly what you want to see when your 7!

Regardless! Back to Freddie's. We played our first show there back on the 25th of May, which also marked the exit show for our good friend Widgeon Holland. Widgeon was here from Europe where he lives full time on a small island off the Northern coast of Africa called Lanzarote . . yeah, I agree, must suck for him! Anyway, Widgeon and I have been friends since high school at James Bowie where we both chased the same girls and had the same "thoughts" about our music teacher . . .hope she's not reading this, or maybe I do . . .

This was another show that feature the keyboard stylings of Mr. Mateo Ellis, also a longtime friend of Widgeon Holland and who might also have a mutual "respect" for said teacher. Mateo has become a regular on the stage with Six Sons of a Gun and he will be pulling solo duty at our next show at Waterloo at Circle C. Mateo and I have spent a lot of time in other projects and this is the first sucessful "come togetherings" that we had musically minus the adhoc shows that we do with Widgeon downtown.

So based on our performance at Freddie's, we were invited back to play some more shows for the summer and we encourage you ALL to come out and support the band and this wonderful eatin place just a hop skip and a jump from downtown Austin. You can enjoy the music, washers off the back deck, great food and THE BEST frozen margarita in town. Seriously, if have have the means, I highly recomend picking one up.

Check the myspace calendar for upcoming shows, send me an e-mail at sixsonsofagun@gmail.com to get on the mailing list for upcoming shows or just shoot me a quick note about your life and what-not and I'll do the same.

Wednesday at NXNW

Wednesday it was time to entertain on the North side of town, so we did that at NXNW Brewery as the sun shown bright behind us, back lighting the show like some bizzar Kubric sceen from A Clockwork Orange. Acutally it wasn't quite like that but it was a little bizzare, a little rock and roll and a whole lot of fun.

The weather has been really HOT these last few days and I'm under the impression that we aren't destine for a freak cool front any time soon. But in the wake of this Texas heat, the humidity level hasn't been that bad and the pavillion tempurature while warm, never seemed really hot. I even enjoyed a nice walk in the hood with my kids tonight. Something that I haven't done in a few months.

This week we shared the stage with Mateo Ellis and my very good friend and trumpet player, Dr. Jonathan Hoyle. Hoyle plays with a little outfit called Casa Del Swanko that does a pretty regular gig at the Tree House down on South Congress. It was great to have Dr. Hoyle with us. We played together in A Band Named Sue and I always appreciated that extra "swing" that is applied to the music when he playes. It was just darn good.

We also had a special guest on the drums, our new drummer Deano. This was Deano's second show with us and we are really excited that he's part of the crew. We will certainly miss Duane, but are very anxious to see what kind of tom foolery Deano will bring to the stage.

We will be down at the Mean Eyed Cat next wednesday and will be playing from 8:00 - 10:00 to try to let some of that sunshine break before we take the stage. Check the myspace calendar at www.myspace.com/sixsonsofagun for upcoming dates and times!

Waterloo Ice house at Circle C

We did it!

Yes sir, we really did it . . the whole lot of us! I'm talking about the successful performance by Six Sons of a Gun, the Beta 5 version of the ever popular band Six Sons of a Gun . . .what does all that mean? Well a few weeks ago I booked the band at Waterloo Ice house only to find out that I was the only member in the band that was available for the gig. John was on his way to LA, Duane's son was graduating from High School (congratulations Dylan!) and Randy was in Houston with Rick Hornyack. So I pulled together my musical resources and got Mateo in on keyboards, Kerry to come in on bass and Deano on drums.

Now some of you know and some of you don't, that we will be experiencing a grand exit from Duane Hamilton. Duane is going to take a short sabbatical for some rehabilitation on his lower extremities (keep it clean!) and then go full time with local Honky Tonker, Weldon Henson. Randy is going to take a less dramatic exit at the end of the summer to go full time with Rick. Randy will still be playing a few shows with us through the summer and I'm sure that he'll come back from time to time as will Duane if I get in a pinch and they aren't working. Super Kudos to Duane for helping me get the band this far. Thank ya LARGE!

So I stripped out the "hard" songs and built a two hour set for our show at Waterloo. We arrived early to set up for our 8:00 show, fresh from a "first time" rehearsal the night before. We kicked it off with a little Hawkshaw Hawkins and made it all the way through and ended with a little Chris Knight.

We really enjoyed ourselves and I think the audience was please. We had a great turn-out from the ladies at Child's Way School, where my sister is a teacher and there was even an appearance from my next door next door neighbors!

We managed to pull off the show minus a few glitches here and there, but we had a great time and the staff at Waterloo was amazing. The beer was cool and flowing and the after-show appetizers were just what the doctor ordered. We will be continuing our shows at Waterloo Ice house on Fridays towards the end of the month. Check the calendar on the myspace page and add us as a friend.