I just wanted to say that I got the lead in the class play. It’s called the toothpaste millionaire.

the second alternate John Whipple in the last month. Check out the band. He plays slide guitar and barefoot organ bass pedals while the other plays kick drum, high hat and guitar. They can suspend beer cans in mid air.

Can you imagine?! That’s what Renee and Randy have to contend with as far as internet connection goes Costa Rican style. She asked me to share that with everyone to help explain why she is not posting more often. She says that she has frequently tried to respond but gets booted offline the majority of the time. The phone company tells her that it is the ISP, the ISP tells her it’s the phone company. I think we should all commend Renee on not introducing the Ticos to the concept of “going postal” . . .

He called the recording studio here to try to promote his book about how to get signed to one. Our Intern asked if he’d ever worked at an independent record label and he said no. I told her she should have said “then I’d like to sell you a copy of my book”.

He will answer (?) a question about the music business for $10.
His FAQs are here.

Agent of the Year Award!

shooting game

We’re old. All of a sudden everything is like 25 years of this, 30 years of that.

Roosevelt 30 Year Class Reunion

At the risk of removing a BB gun target, I just had to tell you about my Mom’s success with keeping squirrels away from her bird feeders. Get ready for this: She uses Dial bar soap in a pantyhose tied near (3′-5′) the feeder. She said that a generic brand (yellow antibacterial soap) worked just as well. She suggested splitting the bar in half to save money and replace as it gets washed away in the rain. It doesn’t bother the birds and the squirrels won’t come near it. She swears by it. Let me know if this works for you!

Congratulations again on your Silver Anniversary! We were so glad we could come out and be a part of your celebration. I loved all the scanned photos you had showing. The Whipple Quiz was great fun and I learned a lot about you both. Casey should be proud of the job she did. It was a wonderful celebration.

Love to all,
Hillary

That was one of the biggest night of our lives. For every word we were able to speak, there were a thousand that we felt.

I get to have beer and brisket today. 25th Anniversaries are GREAT!

We’re experimenting with some advertising for the CD, a couple places that seemed to give a decent bang for a little buck

TwangCast - Real Music Played by Real People — For a mere $50, our CD is a “hot new release” on Twangcast for a month. If you don’t know Twangcast, it’s a popular internet Americana/Country station out of Austin. They play us about twice a day.

We will also have a 5×5 ad in May’s issue of 3rd Coast Music, which is a free monthly American/Roots music newspaper distributed at a handful of places in SA (Casbeers, Krazy Kat, etc.) and a decent list of places in Austin (Antones, Threadgills, etc.), plus they have subscribers. Apparently, he prints about 7,500 copies a month, which makes the $60 I paid for our ad super cheap…

There’s supposed to be a review in May’s issue, which will be out in about a week…I hope he goes easy on us. The publisher is kind of a crotchety dude, and his reviews can be pretty harsh.

Here’s our ad:

Here’s the schedule.

Not to Chernobyl. To the anniversary dinner.

GHOST TOWN

Casey asked me to point out that we misprinted her phone number on the invite. Her number is 830-832-2112. She’s also says that she’s calling everyone tomorrow. Funny, we all proofed the invite and none of us saw it. Didn’t even get the area code right. That’s kind of like flubbing the punchline, huh? Jim Waller called me today to say that when people call the number on the invitation, it’s a pre-recorded sales message. I called it and sure enough, it’s a weird deal about “adding speech to your phone”. (?) Well, after 25th years, we figured something would eventually go wrong. Or more like every 25 minutes.

Here’s our original wedding invite. Jimmie worked as a layout artist for the New Braunfels Herald and snuck in and layed it out on the old linotype machine. Doing graphics on a personal computer was science fiction back then.

Here’s the semi-matching 2004 version. With the typo. OK, so we’re senile.

Info.

Some great tips. A Goggle Ad Word of “Americana” or “San Antonio Music” would be good. “Apple has an agreement in place with Google that can get you a discount on purchasing ad words to promote your songs on iTunes.” The review also mentions Iris.

The Guide To Selling Your Music In The iTunes Music Store

Of course, they first suggest that you do this. But watch this video first.

If all that bores you. Check this out. Skip the intro if you have a slow connect.

O Z O M A T L I

We’re off to Austin to see Ozomatli.

A little Central American humor. Randy’s picking Mangos in his backyard in Costa Rica.

and his name is easy to remember. I want to ask him if there might be anything that we can contribute from Texas for his new art car. Both he and his wife are artists. We’ve emailed and he sounds like a very nice guy. Their work is great - check it out.

Will be playing for free at Gruene Hall this Sunday Noon to 4:00. While watching Townes Van Zandt, we’ve seen his son grow up in pictures over the last several decades. Now it’ll be fun to go see him play for the first time. And, Steve James is my favorite guitar player. They don’t do these shows on the stage but on the floor up against the backside of the bar so you’re right there like sitting in the living room together. It’s great. We’ll be there from Noon to at least 2:00 if anybody wants to join us.

I had great success with the Atkins diet but neither Jimmie nor Casey can do it. It’s hard having a family where nobody’s eating the same stuff. So Casey, Jimmie and I are doing this McDougall brown rice and vegetable thing. We’re vegans. Live long and prosper.

This may have been like this for a long time or it might just be up there today - I don’t know. I was reading this interview with J.T. Van Zandt and, hot damn, I looked over and saw Glenn and Kim at the top of the “On The Road” listing. It appears on every page. Mitch called me today about LoneStarMusic and I went to the site to look at examples of what works there in the way of a bio.

I always find something interesting at this site. If you have an interest in Townes, read this interview with his son. It gets good about half way down. Then listen to J.T. sing this orginal song: Don’t Take Your Dog Fishing. Made me smile.

The Sculptors Dominion Outdoor Gallery looks like a good place to visit.

Here’s info on admission and location.
The Slide Show has great examples of the artist’s works.
Look where it’s at!

Tuesday is this month’s Casbeers open mic, if you guys are free.

I’m finally getting the audio posted from the last show in February (the majority is done). There were some pretty special moments. You guys should check out Victor Andrada’s clip. He was the very last guy to go on, after having sat in a booth alone all night. The place was basically empty by then. Once he started playing, we all stood there with our mouths open. I’d like to point out, too, that he was playing solo. The bass lines are all him. Pretty freaking amazing.

Also Joe Sanchez’s “White Flour Tortilla” was great fun. A fair number of the young kids who come out to play are Mexican, and they were all singing along with gusto by the 2nd chorus.

Claude Morgan’s song — “There’s More in Texas” — was great, too.