Beaumont to Dallas to Austin to Beaumont
04.29.01
It's Sunday night, and I'm at work, trying to operate on a severe lack of sleep. Shannon and I drove in from Austin at 7:30 am and had to be at work
at 2pm. We made almost record time coming home to Beaumont (my record is 3 hours and 42 minutes ) in a mere 4 hours. It was a marvelous weekend on the
road with Podunk and I'm already looking forward to the next road trip!
Friday morning, Shannon and I left my house at 12pm and began a 5+ hour to drive to Dallas. We stopped in Huntsville for some grub at this dive called
Casa Tomas. If ever you are stuck in Huntsville , I highly recommend the cheese enchilada dinner there! Anyway.....we finally pulled into Dallas at
6:30 and drove over to the Bronco Bowl (a gigantic complex with a bowling alley, arcade, nightclub, and auditorium). I was highly pissed when the stupid parking attendant told me my laminate was no good and I'd still have to pay $7 for parking (I can't believe people in Dallas will pay $7 to go fucken bowling!). After a few choice words under our breath, we paid the $7 and drove around to the other side of the club to where the guys load in. We were just in time for sound check and got to preview the skills of the new
drummer, Brian Hays banging out those block rockin' beats on his first day on the job. Shannon and I went to the back of the room after sound check because that's where we were gonna work merch, and we listened to the opening band, TRACK 10....who was very good, and the singer Jeremiah was very kind.
Second up was FROLIC. Now this band should have definitely been 3rd instead of 2nd and I wish to God they could have played longer. This band blew my
mind!! They had a great presence onstage and when they busted into
The Cars'"Just What I Needed, " I couldn't help but howl! Their rendition was absolutely amazing, even Rick Ocasik himself would give them a bowing nod. I was sad to see them leave the stage even though I was anxious to see Podunk(It had been two weeks, haha). Watch out for this band.....they are definitely going somewhere.
Third band up, and I forget their name (if you know, please tell me) was also pretty groovy.....well designed to make you groove on your feet. A lot
of musical talent in that band. I was highly impressed with the keyboardist/organist.....he was rockin'!
Finally, midnight came along and PODUNK came out and blazed through a rockin' set. Brian Hays fit in perfectly and never once let on that this was
his first gig playing with Podunk in some 3+ years. He didn't even get to practice with them, and that really impressed me.
The sound in the place was awful....and anyone who argues with me on that one is suffering from severe hearing loss. When I stuck my fingers in my
ears, the music was perfect (and this goes for all the bands) but when I took my fingers away from my ears, it was intolerable. Goodness knows, I can handle a loud rock show, but this was to the point of being obnoxious and it wasn't very pleasing to many people that I talked to. This was only Shannon's second time to see them, and I was kinda mad that both times she
has seen them (The first time was at Beach Balls 2000 at Crystal Beach),there have been shitty sound problems.
Aside from the shitty sound (man), the show was excellent and worth the drive. We didn't sell much merch, but we made a decent amount for only
having a small handful of people (Just our luck, their was a TOUGH MAN competition in the same building that night). Shannon and I got to hang out with Track 10 and FROLIC's merch folks, who were both cool. We got to meet a few fans from the mailing list, which I must say , it is always nice to put faces to email addresses.
When the night was over, the band loaded and Shannon and I followed them toAustin and stayed with Bryan at the house that he shares with Dwight Baker.The house is fucken immaculate and beautiful! At about 7am we finally went to sleep (I tried to sleep anyway, but I was kept awake by the glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary that was onto of the dresser in the room
( At about 11:30 or so, Bryan stirred with the help of Dwight telling him that he and Jason were going to the studio, . Shannon woke up and came to join me on the balcony and Bryan went in the room to make phone calls to people to come out to the show. At around noon, he took a shower and we sat in the
lush living room shooting the shit until he got finished and then I took a shower and then Shannon did. While Shannon was in the shower, I went outside
to smoke and Bryan came out and we talked some more about the house and the upcoming show for the night and also the website. Then he showed me the
downstairs part of the house. It has a beautiful master bedroom and bath (that is still under construction) and also this weird room that is all dirt
and rock from the side of the valley wall and a bunch of boards. Bryan said this room was "screaming to be a wine cellar." We came back upstairs and about this time Shannon was out of the shower, so I got dressed and got ready to leave. We packed up our stuff and put it all in the car and Bryan wrote us out directions to get back into the city. He told us to meet him at
the club at 5pm and then we hugged him goodbye and got into the car and headed back to Austin. We didn't get lost once and that shocked me.
When we got into the city, we headed straight for Babe's on 6th Street. I had been craving their Chicken Strips for months. Shannon had a club
sandwich. After eating way too much, we loaded up and headed to Target over on the other side of town and went to buy supplies for our posters and some
film for the camera. Spent $14 on just markers and poster board, glitter,and some film. Then we headed back over to 6th street, put our makeup on in
the car, and just as we finished, Paul and the road manager Danny pulled up by us and got out of the car and were heading towards the club, so we followed. When we got inside the club, we spread out our stuff all over this table and went to work on our posters. Shannon made this really cool one with a Texas flag and Podunk written across it, using the flag's star as the "O" in Podunk. Then she put the website addresses on it. I was attempting to make a really cool Podunk Merchandise poster, but I kinda fucked it up when
I tried to paint the inside of the letters instead of just using markers like normal people. The paint didn't go so well, so I tried to fix it with
markers....wrong answer! It was really fucken ugly, even in the dark. But I hung it up high above the merch so no one could really see it. We put down a
black table cloth on the table and taped Shannon's poster to the table, and then we put up the shirts and stuff on the wall with duct tape. Now
normally, this works perfect.....oh but no, not this day. The wall was made of rock...and the rock and the duct tape did not get a long. So we spent our
main part of the evening, trying to keep the merch from falling down. We used up an entire roll of tape!
Podunk sounded excellent. The other 3 opening bands were okay........I can honestly say we didn't pay too much attention to them cause Shannon and I
were busy scoping out men, and rating them. I saw Farrell , an old friend from Beaumont there...she rocks! Brad, Joseph and Julian from Canvas were
there, Chris Webb and Tommy from Room 21 came out, and also a few fans from the Dallas show came out. Leslie Coker, Austin's most famous homeless drag
queen was also there, bikini and all.....he signed my t-shirt "That Bitch, Leslie." I think Leslie rocks! What sucks is, he probably makes more money a
day than I do in a year just by squatting on 6th street. He has my respect! Anyway, overall it was a very very good crowd.
Then Hector Vargas from KLBJ came over and was signing the mailing list and then just randomly decided to scribble all over Shannon's poster that she'd spent 2 hours on! So I yelled at him and he thought it was funny. Hector is someone you can't be mad at.........He's just too adorable, so we forgave
him, and he signed my KLBJ shirt with "Hector's All-Time Favorite Baby!"and Shannon's poster.
We hung out for a little while with the guys as they talked to the lingering fans, we happily tore down the merch setup, and then we realized what time
it was and that we should say our goodbyes. We told Jason and Brian Hays bye cause they were right there by us, and then we went on a search for Bryan
and Paul. While outside the club looking for Bryan, this woman came out and was trying to bum cigarettes and said that Podunk needed cigarettes. She
wanted me to give her 3 cigarettes. And I was like,"well I work for Podunk and if they needed a cigarette they would ask me, not send you." And she got
huffy and puffy and started telling me that one was for the road manager and one was for some guy doing an interview with Podunk upstairs ( there was no
one from podunk upstairs cause we had just come from upstairs when looking for Bryan) and that the other one was for the member of Podunk being interviewed by this reporter. I told her that I'd give her one cigarette and she started whining telling me a bunch of crap and I told her "Look, I have one cigarettes left in this pack, and I will give it to you. The other pack is still sealed and I need it cause I have a 5+ hour drive home." Then she starts pulling out her money and she gives me two dollars for another
cigarette so I just opened the pack and gave her one more. Then she started being smartass and was like "Oh, well THANK YOU!" in this rude tone. It kept
everything in me to keep from spinning her around and slapping the shit out of her.
Shannon and I went back inside to look for Paul and Bryan, and when we asked Danny where Bryan was, Bryan came walking in from outside and said "Here I
am. " Shannon gave him her poster that she made cause he had said he wanted to keep it. He thanked us for staying with him?!?! And we we're like, "Are
you kidding? Thank You for having us there!" (Seriously, B, if you're reading this, Thanks again for letting us crash at your house! Thanks a lot
a lot a TREMENDOUS a lot! ) So I kissed him bye and he hugged Shannon bye and then Shannon and I walked over to my car parked out on 7th and we headed home.
This was one of the best weekends I have had in a loooooong time. And I can't wait to do it again! Thanks to Podunk and all the Podunk fans for
being so cool and rocking out. And I will see you all at the next show!
Until then, take care and God bless.
Love,
PEANUT