The Blaggards

When it gets close to St. Paddy’s Day the Irish/Celtic music community starts gearing up for the celebration. All of a sudden EVERYBODY wants an Irish band from some event or another.

Patrick Devlin of The Blaggards contacted me because he knew of a gig for us and in the course of the conversation he asked if The Fish would be interested in opening for them at Fitzgerald’s on March 2nd.

I ran it by the boys and it was a done deal.

Good times, good times! A fantastic show with many old fans and many new ones!

Here are a couple of the pics I got that night. The link to many more are at the end of this post.

Turi Hoiseth
Turi “Tuffy” Hoiseth (click for larger version)

Patrick Devlin
Patrick Devlin (Click for larger version)

Click here to be taken to the gallery for more pictures of The Blaggards from that night!

The Umbrella Man

Umbrella Man
Click for full size

Nick Gaitan has a new musical project (in addition to The Octanes) called The Umbrella Man.

I caught them at a lively live performance this past Saturday night at Dean’s Credit Clothing.

The sound is a mix of swing jazz, blues, ska, and country and features Patrick Wheeler on drums, Hillary Sloan on the fiddle along with guitarists Johnny Rojas and Jeremy Peña, saxophone player Nathan Smith and accordion player Robert Rodriguez.

The sound is rich and complex and they are well worth listening to if you get a chance to see them live.

More pics in the gallery.

Tijuana Dreams

Guy Fantasy
Guy Fantasy

Buddy Llamas
Buddy Llamas

I made it by the Continental Club a few Fridays back to catch The Small Stars. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you will know they are one of my all time favorite bands.

Featuring my guitar hero, Landis Armstong (aka Richard Steele), they are a must see each and every time they come to Houston.

They were here this time in support of their new album “Tijuana Dreams.”

I’ve always contended that The Small Stars are an act best seen live, and I think that holds true. That being said, I was having a fairly lengthy and rambling conversation with Miles Zuniga (aka “Guy Fantasy”) and he was telling me of his desire to have the band be more than just a memorable stage act. He said their goal with the new album was to have the music stand on it’s own.

I ttook home a copy of “Tijuana Dreams” and I must say, it definitley stands on it’s own as a great listening experience. It’s been in my CD player for a two weeks now and I simply can’t get enough.

If you cruise by their web site there are some audio samples and their calendar. Check it out.

Click here to visit the gallery of pics from that last show.

The Harry Rags – Kinks tribute band


Chase Hamblin


Derek Dunivan

After leaving Notsuoh I headed over to the Continental Club. On the bill for the evening were Von Hindenburg, a Led Zepplin tribute band and another band called The Harry Rags, a Kinks tribute band.

I had seen Von Hindenburg before and was not overly enthused, but I was intrigued by The Harry Rags. As it turns out the two bands have some band members in common, most notably Steve Candaleri who drums for both bands and Derik Dunivan (Willie “punkdaddy” Dunican’s kid) who plays keyboard, guitar and sings for The Harry Rags and is the singer (aka Robert Plant) for Von Hindenburg.

I must say, I was rather impressed by the performance of The Harry Rags. They not only performed all the classics like “Lola” and “You Really Got Me” but they also dug deep into the Kinks repertoire and pulled out some rather obtuse songs like the one that obviously inspired the band name.

It was a great show and only at two points did I experience any distress.

The first twinge was brought on when I was discussing with a friend the fact that the members of this tribute band (with the possible exception of Steve Candelari) were not even born when these songs were written.

The second twinge was brought on when they started playing “Picture Book” and a young woman in the audience declared that they were playing that song from that cool HP commercial

Best shot of the show is this one of Derek Dunivan:

Derek Dunivan
Click for full size!

Many more in the gallery

Orange Is In

Amy Price

Found my way to Notsuoh to catch Orange Is In. My friends Amy Price and Jeff Balke are members.

I thought it would be a larf to catch some pics of Jeff but, as luck would have it, he was standing in the one spot on the stage that was not well illuminated. Ah, well….such are the vagaries of concert photography.

The above photo of Amy is my favorite of the evening. Here are two of the front man, George Kovacik, that came out pretty well.

The El Orbits

The El Orbits
Click to see full size image

The El Orbits line-up has changed for 2007.

David Beebe has taken a hiatus from the band to have surgery on his throat and will be spending the next few months recuperating. After that he’s off to Marfa, TX to work on another project.

Thomas Escalante, front man for Clouseaux and lead singer for the Houston based ska phenomenon, The Suspects, has stepped into the role.

Other changes include guitar sensation Jim Henkel (The Musical Find of the 90’s) hanging up his ax and moving into the role of keyboardist while Allen “King of the Oldies” Hill picks up the bass and Allison Fisher take over as lead guitarist and also lends her unique vocal stylings to the mix.

Steve Begnoche and Eric Hughes stay in their role of alternating drummers and I’m not sure where Landis Armstrong fits into this new mix. Probably still the pickup guitarist when the band plays Austin and other outlying areas.

The El Orbits have always been one of my favorite bands. Beyond that, they have been Cynthia’s all time favorite local band. She even likes them more than MY band, The Flying Fish Sailors!

Cynthia had not seen the new El Orbits and therefore had not rendered a verdict on the new line-up. That changed a few Fridays back when the band played a rare Friday night public gig at The Big Top. I say rare because The El Orbits are a wedding and private party machine, only breaking this pattern every Monday night at the Continental Club from 9-Midnight and I we’re just not a go out on Monday night kinda couple.

The show was really good. Even though the band had not played in public very many times in this configuration, you could hardly tell it by the way it sounded. This new incarnation of the band is strong, stong, STRONG.

If you’re a get out on Monday night kinda person, I strongly recommend checking ’em out!

Experimentation

I’m processing several hundred images. I’m not nearly done but while I was going through my shots of The Aqua Velva, one picture in particular caught my attention and I started tweaking it in Photoshop:

The Aqua Velva
Click image for full size

I didn’t do much. The motion blur and contrast was pre-existing and I simply expanded upon that. I used a noise filter to clean up some of the roughness and give it an smoother overall texture and amped up the color just a little.