8/10/10 – Austin

In our Texas hotel room, we wake up one foot away from each other as usual. We’ve all slept horribly. Nick announces that he had Dave Matthews Band’s “What Would You Say” in his head all night. We offer our condolences. I mention that I woke up singing Aerosmith’s “Take Me To the Other Side.” Nathan says his mental soundtrack was the first song on the Harlem record. Yoshi confesses to total radio silence.

We head to Lockhart TX to eat some barbeque, hitting up both Smitty’s and Kreuz to compare and contrast the brisket and hot rings. We agree that Smitty’s wins.

Then, we head to Austin. Oh how we love Austin, even though it is 104 out. We arrive late afternoon, panting from the heat. My friend Andy has kindly donated his entire house to us, complete with a pack of feral cats outside to keep Yoshi the Cat Whisperer happy.

We hydrate, and then rehearse for our Daytrotter session that evening. The recording takes place in a compound set back from the street, engineered by a great fellow named Matt. Nick’s pedals start to act up, my throat gets scratchy, and then I start to hallucinate that I can’t find the key of the song. We finally get three good takes and pack for the club. On the way out, Matt tells Yoshi he’s a great drummer. For about the eightieth time, I thank my lucky stars that I fired myself as drummer.

Loading in the Mohawk, I get excited–it’s a massive sprawling complex but not overly precious. To me, this is one of the hallmarks of Austin as a city: lots of space and time dedicated to having laid-back fun.

The bill is amazing–a band called Stunts, Horse+Donkey (who Nathan totally loses his shit over), and The Carrots, who sings awesome girl group songs and are extremely good looking. The audience is fired up and we have a terrific time both playing and spectating.

At the merch booth, I see a woman named Mikelle who we met last time we were in town–she had driven THREE HOURS to come see us. And she showed up again! I kept introducing her to people: “This is the woman I told you about!”

We’re having such a good time, the club has to kick us out. We go back to our hijacked house and sleep the sleep of people who really need sleep but have had too many beers instead.