Friday Evening

I wasn't sure who to see at 8. I had only one band on my schedule and I wasn't particularly excited to see them. I decided to flip through the schedule and noticed "Hot Rod Circuit". Apparently Andy Jackson from HRC was playing a solo set at Red Eyed Fly.


It was a pretty good show. It really reminded my of Dashboard confessional before he got really popular and started to suck. I think he was just playing HRC material. I'll have to check out their latest albums.

From there I headed to see Georgie James at Bourbon Rocks. Andy Jackson finished early and it looked like Bourbon Rocks had some audio troubles and were running behind. It gave me a chance to see Lonelady. The lead singer had a great crooning voice, but there just wasn't anything else about them that stood out. If they had a less formulaic sound, they might be good.


Georgie James was about as good as I expected. The chemistry between Laura and John is just amazing. I can't wait for their full length. As you can see from the picture above, the club was using the same lights that they use for their normal dance club evenings. It was really funny to see the bright swinging lights and strobes during a simple, groovy set like that.

Since the set started late, it also ended late. I booked it over to Club DeVille to see Via Audio. There was a good crowd there that seemed really excited to see them.


The singer was really short. It was kinda funny because at first I thought she was sitting down. Then I noticed she wasn't. And I laughed at someone's physical shortcomings. It was great.

The band was really rock-a-billy-esque. After a couple songs, I realized that I wasn't really grooving to it. Why did I want to see this band anyway? I texted Gus and he told me to meet him at Red 7 immediately.

Gus couldn't wait to tell me about the band he just saw. Monotonix from Tel Aviv apparently put on a great show. According to Gus, the singer went completely nuts and started throwing shit from the bar all over the place. I'll leave it to him to describe the whole thing, but it sounded awesome.

We then walked to Latitude 30 to catch The Saturday Knights. On stage at the time we got there was a rasta hip hop artist called Beyond. Didn't see enough of him to be a critic, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

While waiting, Gus offered to buy me a beer. We went to the beer tub girl and Gus asked her about the open beers that she had. She explained that it's just bottles she opened by mistake. I told her I'd take one to help her out and she gave Gus a good deal on the beer. The thing is, I'll bet she was just saving them for a really drunk guy to walk up and not notice the beer was already open. I didn't mind it though. Gus couldn't believe I drank it. I guess I just don't like the thought of beer possibly going to waste.

I would like to take a moment to thank Gus for taking me to see The Saturday Knights. They were way cooler than I ever expected.



They reminded me of the Aerosmith/Run D.M.C. version of "Walk This Way", except it was an entire set like that, not just one song. I left after twenty minutes so I could make sure I got in for the Sloan show. Gus told me I missed the best part of the set, but I didn't regret it. I wanted to make sure I saw Sloan.

When I finally got into The Dirty Dog (which was packed and still sucks as a music venue), You Am I was still playing. Again, I didn't really pay enough attention to critique their music, but that's a terrible band name. Besides, The Saturday Knights were so cool that everything would have sucked by comparison. Well, everyone except a band I'm excited to see, like Sloan. Living near Canada I heard a lot of Sloan on the radio. I didn't really get into them until recently. Fortunately they just put out a new album (that is awesome) and are touring again.



Sloan was acually way better than I expected. There's just one problem, they have a lot of material. Enough to easily fill up a three hour set. Forty minutes is just not enough time. So as good as they were, it was still disappointing in a way.

At the end of the night, I saw The Mooney Suzuki at Ritz. What a disapointment. First off, I have decided that Ritz has a lot of potential, but in reality it totally sucks. They charged me $7 for a beer which is total bullshit. Also, if this place applied themselves, it could be one of the best music venues in Austin. Unfortunately, we have to settle for places without any character like The Parish. Come on Ritz owners! Take out the bar in back then put in a tall stage and a balcony. It would be awesome! You could even let Hoek's sell pizza inside during shows to add to the awesomeness. Oh yeah, you also need to STOP CHARGING ME NEW YORK PRICES FOR BEER!!! Assholes.

Oh yeah, about The Mooney Suzuki being disappointing. They sounded like a bad version of the Black Crows. Sorry, that's not gonna fly here. You may have a lot of fans, but I'm not gonna be one of them.