(Generationals At Waterloo Records In Austin)
We’ve been friends with Grant Widmer & Ted Joyner since their days in The Eames Era. Their new band, Generationals, has earned some great reviews for their debut album Con Law, which just hit stores recently. The guys have hit the road on a Park The Van tour across the west coast and have been making periodic updates from the road exclusively for The Futurist. Here’s their final update…
We’re back home and we had such a fun time. What a great tour!
We left off the story in Tucson, Az, last Tuesday night. That night, we plaid at Club Congress which is an amazing hotel and venue in downtown Tucson. Along with Schuba’s in Chicago and Cafe du Nord in San Francisco, Club Congress is one of the top mid-sized clubs we’ve played in all our travels. They really go out of their way to welcome bands; they even gave us a hotel room to sleep in for the night. That kind of hospitality will get you a lot of goodwill from touring bands.
Our labelmates Golden Boots are from Tucson. They headlined the show that night and they drew a big crowd there to welcome them home, which is not easy to do on a Tuesday. The show was excellent and we spent several hours in the hotel lobby drinking and telling stories with Floating Action, who by this time had become our very good friends. We love them.
(Tess At Caroline Collective in Houston)
The drive from Tucson to Austin, Tx., for the next show was divided up over two days, so on Wednesday we set our sights on Balmorhea, a small town in West Texas with a beautiful hot spring. We made it there by sunset and we all got to swim in the spring for about an hour before the park guards came to kick us out. Texas is a beautiful state, it’s a shame we haven’t made the effort to visit there more often. We will be back soon.
We finished the drive into Austin on Thursday morning. By the early afternoon, we were loaded in and ready for our in-store showcase at Waterloo Records which is one of the country’s best and most celebrated independent record stores. It was a real honor getting to play at Waterloo. Their staff was very nice to us, they even bought a keg of beer for everyone. The crowd at Waterloo was great too, we spent at least an hour after the show talking to fans and friends.
The show that night was at Stubb’s Barbecue in downtown Austin. Stubb’s is a great restaurant with an even better venue built into it. Anyone who’s been to SXSW in Austin can tell you that Stubb’s is one of the best-attended clubs in Austin. We were thrilled to be there. We had so many good friends come to the show, including WOXY’s own DJ Shiv himself who was in Austin hunting for a new apartment. One of the best things about a tour is getting to catch up with so many great friends who have spread out all over the country. So many of our friends have moved to Austin over the years (we had 21 guests on our guest list), and it’s easy to see why Austin is such an attractive destination for young people. The town is beautiful, relatively walkable and full of innovators and interesting things to do. It’s truly one of America’s great cities. With so many friends in the room, our show was a lot of fun. We stayed up into the wee hours that night hanging out with friends and walking the streets of Austin. None of us can wait to get back there.
(Eating At Alabama Ice House In Houston)
When we set out for Houston on Friday morning, there was a palpable eagerness to get home. After driving all the way to Seattle and L.A., it’s a weird feeling knowing you’re just a few hours from home but not quite their yet. That said, we knew Houston would be a blast. Ted and I have an old friend there named Matt Wettergreen who we met back in 2004 when we were touring with The Eames Era and he was a DJ at KTRU, Rice University’s radio station. In the years since, Matt has made some major strides toward making Houston a great place to live. For one, he founded a place called The Caroline Collective which is a non-profit, collaborative workspace where entrepreneurs and artists from all over Houston can take advantage of all the resources of a traditional office for free, and in a really cool and interesting facility. It really is a great resource for motivated people in Houston. Matt gave us a tour of the place then led us over to KTRU’s studio on Rice’s campus where Ted and I performed a few acoustic songs on the Friday afternoon radio show.
After KTRU, we rushed over to Cactus Records for another in-store performance with Floating Action, then we moved on to a local “icehouse” (like a barbecue party with a bar) called Alabama where we killed a few hours before our show that night at Super Happy Fun Land. After a short stop at the high school where “Rushmore” was made, we headed to the venue. Somewhere between the icehouse and the stage, we decided with Floating Action to set up both our drum kits onstage that night and turn our bands’ two set into one extended set.
That was the best idea we ever had. It was so much fun. Our bands get along so well and love each others’ songs. We had all been contributing some guest-performances to each other’s sets throughout the tour so it was only a matter of time before the lines between our sets got completely obscured. That trend continued at our homecoming show at the Hi-Ho Lounge in New Orleans an Saturday night and it was one of the most fun shows we’ve ever played. We played to an amazing, sweaty, packed house in our hometown and sent Floating Action on their way back to Asheville. If everyone could have the experience that we just had on our tour, I’m pretty sure everyone would start a band and hit the road. I can’t wait to start it all over again. Talk to you then.
-Grant
Generationals Guest Tour Blog Entry #2
Generationals Guest Tour Blog Entry #1
The Dodos are a folk pop outfit from San Francisco, California. Time to Die is their third full-length record, the second on label Frenchkiss. Meric Long has come a long way since starting as a solo project called Dodobird. The duo recently turned into a trio when an electric vibraphone was added to the instrumental fold. On the new record, the Dodos continue in the same direction as previous efforts, tightening and perfecting stompy pop tunes with a newfound precision. The previous album’s long-winded and sometimes self-indulgent meanderings have been reigned in and we’re seeing a highly talented group of musicians move forward in exciting new ways. Produced by Phil Ek (The Shins, Fleet Foxes), Time to Die will see official release in September. Until then, stream it at Time To Die.net. 
