Recently in Shows Category

I headed down to the Parish Room on Friday night with Ballenger to see one of my new favorite bands, Telegraph Canyon, play with Quiet Company and The Morakestra. While Quiet Company was the headliner, I was really there to see Telegraph Canyon:

The other bands were good, don't get me wrong. If you like Rooney, I'd suggest you check out Quiet Company - they were really tight, had a ton of style, and stage presence to last for days. The Morakestra was also good, with a lot of tight instrumentation and jamming (although their stage presence needs a little work).

Telegraph Canyon is just really interesting to watch because they have so many musicians on stage and such different instrumentation. Their music is quite varied in dynamic volume, and they have a lot of good fun and are not your run of the mill band. I guess that's why they got a writeup in Rolling Stone's online edition last month. It's not the kind of music that I would normally listen to (and thus I don't have any comparisons to make of the "if you like {x} you'll like Telegraph Canyon" kind) so I think that speaks to how good their music is because it has earned me as a convert. Plus, they've released their latest album on vinyl, and that's got to count for something.

So if you're looking for some new music, check out any one of these three bands and I think you'll be glad that you did.

Five Dollar Friend asked me to play a show with them last night at the venerable Fitzgerald's in Houston. Fitz's is kind of like Texas' version of CBGB - a lot of really good pre-signed and signed acts have played here over the years, and usually the bands that play upstairs on the main stage are pretty good local acts. If you show up to a weekend show at Fitz's, you're pretty much guaranteed to hear some good music. Thus, for me, this was another personal goal realized as I got to rock a relatively famous club with a good band and with decent sound.

Deep Ella headlined the bill as they capped off their latest tour with the last show in Houston until next year. They're currently going back into the studio to record their next record and won't be touring again until the new joint is done. The rest of the bill had a band from Austin called Eyes Burn Electric (formerly Dremnt The End) and Floorbound, with Five Dollar Friend starting the whole thing off with a 6-song set at 9pm. It was kind of rough for the other bands as we had to work around Deep Ella's stage setup, but things went well and all the bands were great.

Fitzgerald's is a great club, with an actual backstage area for the bands to congregate in and relax before or during the show. They have a bathroom back there and a room with a bed (ostensibly for "napping"...yeah, right), but I pretty much stayed away from all of those places because they made that hotel that rents room by the hour that you know sound like the Ritz Carlton. But it was nice to have somewhere to stow gear without it being in the way of the crowd and also have a place to get away from the noise for a few minutes. I wish I had thought to take some pictures when we first got there, but I failed in that mission. Next time I play there, I'll be sure to take more pics. I was more concerned about getting my gear in and setting it up for sound check than I was about taking pictures, though.

My new Tama Starclassic was the belle of the ball back stage, with every drummer from the other bands making a comment on how great it looks and sounds. I was able to swap some gear tips with some of them as well, and even may have found a buyer for my nicked up K Custom crash that I had to replace. The green sparkle looked pretty fantastic under the green/blue light setup that they had at Fitz's, and it was a total blast and a half to play with FDF again. I posted some pictures that I took with the Pre of Deep Ella on my flickr page (see left sidebar), and as soon as I can get my hands on any pictures that were taken of FDF rockin' Fitz's I'll post them as well. Here's a sample:

And, this was the highest-paying gig that I've had so far, especially if you count the money that might result from selling the K Custom. All in all, a spectacular night and I hope to do it again before FDF calls it quits officially before the end of the year.

One last thing...it was kind of intimidating for me to play on a bill with such accomplished musicians, some of whom have been playing drums for 20 years or more. I always face that demon whenever I get on stage, wondering which person is watching me like I watch other drummers and critiquing my performance. But every one of the other drummers in the bands after us had great things to say and that they enjoyed my performance and my sound, and that just boosts my confidence like no tomorrow. I think the perception outside the bands is that each band is out for themselves, but almost every band that I've been on the bill with in Austin or Houston has had many complimentary things to say to the other bands. Yeah, we're all trying to get signed and make it big, but it's not a cutthroat thing and people have been willing to share instruments, drum keys, guitars, etc. and that's a great environment in which to make music. Being able to play in front of "elder statesmen" in the band scene and have them say that they enjoyed our show or specifically my interpretations of the music are worth their weight in gold to me.

Last night was an amazing show, and I had the time of my life. Super ultra mega awesome! I hope I can do it again in the near future!

LIFE ON LOAN
RED EYED FLY (715 Red River, 1 block south of Stubb's)
FRIDAY, JUNE 26
9PM

Tonight's show will be the best lineup we've played with yet - a LOT of fan favorites on the bill. Just take a look at this lineup:

The Soles - 8pm
LIFE ON LOAN - 9pm
Matchsticks for Memories - 10pm
Sixes & Eights - 11pm (EP Release party - free EPs for everybody!!)
Mike Truth & the Replacement Killers - 12:45am

If you've never come out to hear us, now is definitely the time. If you have been out to hear us, we would love to see you back again. We're adding some of the old favorites back into the set due to popular demand and we're looking forward to having a good time. This will definitely be one to remember and we hope to see you there! Bring some friends!!!

Rounding out my musical performances for the weekend was a gig with my friends from the GHBC worship band in a decidedly non-worship capacity. We were asked to play an hour set of cover tunes for the big memorial day bash for the Cedar Park Parks & Recreation Department at the Veterans Memorial Park pool. However, we had to do different cover tunes than what we usually do - no worship music - and we only had one rehearsal beforehand. I must admit, I was a little nervous about doing it after that rehearsal because I had never heard most of the songs we had to play and some of the funk tags and endings are not something I'm used to hitting off the top of my head.

However, it turned out to be pretty fun and we had a great time. We played some surf tunes, some funk/jazz songs, and a couple of pop songs. Most of the people were busy playing in the pool and stuff, but we had a few people that were listening to us and drew a crowd of girls with our version of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" - but that was probably due to our lead singer on that song being 6-year-old Madison McFeeters. It was a new experience for me, but it turned out to be pretty interesting - for the most part, the bass and I just setup a 12 or 16-bar groove and let the sax, guitar, and keys solo for however long they wanted to. I know that someone got it on video, so I'm hoping to see it at some point to hear what it sounded like from the outside.

Our set list was as follows:

"Wipeout" - The Beach Boys
"Pipeline" - Dick Dale
"Chameleon" - Herbie Hancock
"We Won't Be Quiet" - David Crowder
"Stratus" - Billy Cobham
"Upshot" - Grant Green
"Love Story" - Taylor Swift
"Footprints" - Wayne Shorter

It was a blast and the response that we got was pretty good, especially for us having just one rehearsal and totally playing by the seat of our pants (or maybe I was the only one playing that way). It was a totally different thing for me and I'm hoping that maybe we can do more things like this as it exposes me to a little different style of music than what I'm used to playing. I kept telling Danny that we needed to come up with a name, but he didn't agree with me. So, I'm going to stick with my original name for our little group which is "Danny Lacey and the Last Minutes". Perhaps you'll see us again at some point at a pool or mall opening near you.

Friday night's show was fantastic - A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL YOU FANS THAT SHOWED UP!!! Unless something amazing happened for The Organics after we left at 12:30AM or so, we had the biggest crowd on the bill - which is a pretty great thing for the opening band on a weekend card. It was also great to see a lot of new faces in the audience - so for all you new folks out there, we hope you enjoyed yourselves and we also hope that we'll be seeing you at some later shows now that you've gotten a chance to witness the awesomeness that is the Life On Loan live show. I know that some of our "regulars" were out of town due to Memorial Day, so hopefully you'll be able to make it out to our next show. For all of you that continue to come out to the shows time and time again, you guys TOTALLY rock our world!

Speaking of which, mark it down on your calendars that we're hitting the REF again on June 26th (another Friday) at 9pm. This is going to be a killer show as we're not only sharing the bill with Mike Truth and the Replacement Killers, but also Sixes & Eights - and from what I hear, Sixes & Eights are one spiffy show and have a HUGE crowd of their own and we're looking to put on a great show for any of their fans that happen to show up early.

Once again, thanks for the support, thanks for coming out to see us, and also thanks for spreading the word to your friends and bringing them along with you! It's so much more fun to play for a roomful of people, and we hope that you enjoy the shows to come. We can't do it without you guys, so continue to spread the word and we'll see you in a month!

It looks like I will not be playing with Five Dollar Friend on Friday. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we won't be able to rehearse before the show and so they're going to bring in a drummer that knows the set and can drop in and play without practice. I'm a little bummed for sure - I never like to miss opportunities to play - but I really do think that this is for the best. I have to get up early on Saturday morning for the big campout and trying to play a set without practice is just more risk than I'm willing to take. This is Adam and Michelle's last gig with FDF, and I want them to have the confidence necessary to have a great final show. Plus having to setup, play with Life On Loan, tear down, wait 2 hours, setup again, play with Five Dollar Friend, and tear down again will be quite an ordeal - if the sets were back-to-back, that would be one thing, but it just seems like a lot of extra work (even though it would be awesome). I will be playing with FDF in the future, though, so I'll keep you posted on any gigs coming up with them.

HOWEVER, Life On Loan is STILL going to be settin' things off for the Red Eyed Fly on Friday night at 8:30pm (doors at 8), so we REALLY want you to come out and join us - and then stick around to see the other great bands and support the local Austin music scene. Getting a Friday/Saturday gig at a club downtown is a BIG DEAL, so please come out to support us and help us keep getting them! Just tell 'em at the door that you're there to see Life On Loan and BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!

Allrighty, kids....Life On Loan's next show is going to be on Friday, May 22, at 8:30pm at our main haunt, the Red Eyed Fly. Bring friends, family, co-workers, and anyone you happen to meet off the street out to support us - we've been working hard on streamlining several of our songs, making them more enjoyable, and finding the hooks that will make the music stick in your brain and get your heads bobbin' and feet movin'. This is going to be a great show, so you won't want to miss it! Find a sitter, get off work on time, and come on down to rock out with us! NO EXCUSES!

AND, once again, we're on the same bill as Five Dollar Friend and they're still in need of a drummer, so I'll be playing with them for that show as well. They go on at 11:30 at the same venue, so come for Life On Loan, stick around for Five Dollar Friend! This is the band that I played SXSW with, so since most of you missed those shows, now's your chance to see me rock with a different crew of folks.

So, double the Drew drumming action! Come on out and ROCK WIT ME, PEOPLES!!!

9AM alerted me to the fact that Galactic was going to be playing in Austin tonight for the Louisiana Swamp Thing & Crawfish Festival down by the Bullock, so he and I and a couple more of our friends headed down there to chow down on crawfish and see Galactic bring the funk all New Orleans style. Stanton Moore is one of my favorite drummers and he comes here to Austin in various capacities all the time, and yet I keep missing him - so I was bound and determined that I was NOT going to miss seeing him again. Stanton is one of those drummers that inspires me not only by what what he plays, but by the way he plays - he looks like he's having a total blast the entire time, and that's what I want to be like. I wish that I could have gotten some clear pictures that show his facial expressions, but all I had was the Centro, so this is the best I could do:

That shot was taken during his awesome drum solo. But now I've finally seen Galactic and Stanton Moore, and I will definitely be going to see him again the next time I possibly can. I want to grow up to be him someday - maybe I need to get me some horn-rimmed glasses. I think that's where his drumming awesome is contained.

And thus, my South By Southwest experience comes to a close...but what an experience it was! I got downtown today at 10am. The plan was to meet up with one or two of the band members for breakfast, but apparently they partied pretty hard last night and didn't make it downtown until 11. No worries, though, because getting down there that early afforded me a pretty good parking spot, just two blocks away from today's venue. In a rather interesting twist (because it was totally uncoordinated), I ran into Jacob and Michelle at Starbuck's where I had stopped to get some mid-morning caffeine and use the restroom.

Anyway, we had a great set - mad props to Delisa, Kyle, James, and Andrew for not only coming to check out our show on their lunch break but for also bringing a bunch of people with them to enjoy some live music for lunch - check out Kyle's blog for some photos and videos that he took at the show. Darwin's Pub is a pretty nifty venue (although the stage is tiny) and the fact that it had some open-air windows on front facing 6th Street meant that many passersby could stick their ears in and take a listen. We had a great crowd, and I really enjoyed myself (even if it was about 1,000 degrees in there). As it turned out, we were the first band so we had plenty of time to setup and then the band after us punked out and didn't show up, so Jacob, Michelle, and Adam did another set of acoustic material in the other band's time slot. It's too bad I had already packed up my junk - they did one of the songs that I had practiced but hadn't made it into the set, one which I really enjoy. But, c'est la vie...watchagonnado?

So, all that to say that I had a great SXSW experience, and I can totally check this one off my list and put it in the scrapbook of memories. Many thanks to Five Dollar Friend for giving me the opportunity to realize one of my personal dreams with them, and I hope I get the opportunity to play with them again in the future. This was the most awesome week in the history of awesome for me, and I had a total blast! Everything worked out for the absolute best this week, and I thank God for every minute of this awesomeness that He gave me...I could literally not have asked for more!

Rock on, baby!

Well, by all accounts, my first SXSW gig and first gig as drummer for Five Dollar Friend went really well. All of the members were very complimentary, with my biggest compliment coming from Dave (the bass player): "You did such a good job I didn't have to watch you the whole time...that was awesome!" That was all I needed to hear - if I can come in and play such that the rest of the band has confidence and is free to do their own thing, then I've done my job well. We had somewhere between 15-20 people there to hear us, which is pretty good for a 5:30pm show on a weekday off 6th.

I got a pretty wicked case of the nerves this morning...the "I think I'm going to throw up" sort of nerves. I was thinking about all the fills and count-ins that I needed to do, and started worrying about missing them and throwing everybody off. But, once I got down there and unloaded, and started to relax a bit, I was fine. By the time that we were to go on I was ready to rock and roll and apparently it showed.

I also learned a couple of things about the SXSW experience. For one thing, I humped my drum set down there needlessly - the Texas Rockfest was totally backlined, so all I needed to bring was a snare, cymbals, my kick pedal, and my throne. I also ended up using some of my own hardware because none of the cymbal stands had enough reach for me based on the setup, but overall the kit fit the bill. Tomorrow I won't need to take my whole kit down there because Darwin's is also fully backlined. It seems like any festival with tons of bands running half-hour sets will be backlined so as to minimize the soundcheck and changeover time.

SXSW also seems to be a place where the goal is to play and hope the right ears hear you, not necessarily to get a bunch of your fans out there. While it's always nice, the goal is to get exposure - primarily to a label, of course, but also to those who haven't heard your band before. So, playing to just a few people may work out better than you think, if they happen to be the right people. Plus, you have an opportunity to interact with other bands, so if you hear one you like, perhaps you can start a relationship and extend your influence and connections.

Finally, I learned that the official SXSW shows are usually ones put on by smaller record labels hoping to pimp their talent to a larger record label for bigger deals. If you're not on a record label of any sort, then there's virtually no chance to get into one of those shows. All is not lost, however; the other way to get to play is to work your contacts to get into off-SXSW showcases that are put on by various other local places - the two shows that Five Dollar Friend is playing are fine examples of exactly that. The Texas Rockfest and the Red Gorilla festivals are put on by local promoters to run concurrently with SXSW. There's still massive exposure and a good chance to get heard by people even though you're not an official part of SXSW...but nobody can tell the difference. The way to get into these other showcases is to play a lot of shows with a lot of bands and work your contacts to get a slot. But, the short of it seems to be that in order to get in somewhere you need to have an album and you need to play out a lot.

So there's one more show to rock tomorrow at 1:30pm, and after that it sounds like my SXSW experience will come to an end...but what an experience! This has been a dream come true, and I'm just super glad that God allowed Life On Loan and Five Dollar Friend's paths to cross so that I could get this opportunity. Check it off the list, I've now played SXSW - and also rocked it hard.