Got in to SA around 1 pm and hung out for the afternoon; tried to teach Dad the art of playlist composition in iTunes until Aaron got there around 2:30. Aaron, Dad and I headed up to Clark to toss ye olde frisbee around, which was a tonne of funne*. Aaron has crazy disc golf throws, so it was funny seeing our different approaches / angles of launching the disc. We came back to clean up and hang around the house a bit more with Deb and Mom, and then the iPfam pulled into town. With the set complete, we jumped in cars and took the entire crew - Pat, Ron, Grandpa, iPJ, iPMM, Dad, Mom, Deb, Aaron, Beck and Nyet - to the Alamo Cafe for some old time greasy food. We ate dinner and then proceeded to "camp," as Aaron put it, a behavior I'm sure made us lots of friends at the Cafer. Good meal and good times - the next day would be a busy one with all kinds of travel and coordination, so we went home, watched part of the Spurs game and then fell asleep. (Or, you know, graded more papers. THEME!). The iPFam headed on to Austin to meet up with the band and make sure they got into their hotels alright and were rewarded with a smelly Marriott and a band that never showed up for their troubles (they changed hotels, and the band would show up at about 3 the next afternoon. Sheesh, the GPGDS life).
* - Though in retrospect - especially given the balloon job my knee has done this week - running around without all of my braces was perhaps not the smartest thing I've ever done. Sigh...
Got up early Saturday morning at roughly 6 aka 4 Sunny Azz time to get some grading done. Beck and I had been DYING for some Chuy's - real style, Texas Chuy's, not the facsimiles we have here in Phoenix - so we headed out of SA at about 10:45 to go to Barton Springs Road in Austin for some more Tex Mex delight. Aaron made the trek with us separately in his truck, the iPFam met us at the restaurant, and we also hooked up with Rice bud Jason and his relatively new wife Phoenix. Had a delicious meal, complete with left over burrito, and a fun time catching up with my old college roomie. Somewhere in there we got a call from Jamie; he said the band was in Houston, which was a tad bizarre given they had been in Oklahoma the previous night. Lesson learned? Between this and the iP "Tulsa = Tucson" MM, we should never trust an iP with directions. Seems the band is in need of an GP(GD)S.
Back to the tale - we bid Jason/Phoenix adieu and headed into the gorgeous Austin day. Nyetfam plus Deb was originally planning to meet us up at Aaron's place in north Austin, and Kristin (Aaron's SLF) was going to meet us up there as well. But given that the show that evening was in south Austin and we were already there, we threw a wrench in the plans. Aaron and I went for a too-brief trip to Waterloo Records (for my first honest-to-life bin scouring record store experience in quite some time) - I picked up the new Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars album, Rise and Shine, while Aaron picked out a Bela Fleck album and a Dodos album - while Beck and iPFam headed to Zilker Park. Turned out everyone and their dog was headed there, too, on account of the lovely Saturday afternoon, so the iPFam redrew the plans. We called the Nyetfam and coordinated a meeting at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, requiring all of us to battle the nutty Austjam. Eventually everyone got there, and we enjoyed some intriguing bronze sculptures in a shady spot. Evidence!
That's St. Francis of Assisi (1,1); Icarus (1,2 & 1,3); Gabriel (Michael?) & Lucifer (1,5 & 2,1 & 2,3); a stunning pieta (2,2 & 2,4); and a weird, distorted image of the Beck (2,5). And a nice romantic pond statue in full size.
Idyllic little place, even if the moisture in the air and the gnats quickly reminded me why I like my new home's arid ambiance. Hung out there for a bit, then the iPFam, Beck and I went back to the iPHotel to meet up with Jamie while the Sr. Joneses went up to Aaron's with the plan to reconvene in a few hours for dinner.
Great to see Jamie; he's doing very well and feeling much happier since the band rearranged its lineup not too long ago. They've been touring with G Love & Special Sauce, a '90s alterna jazz-blues-rap band of sorts that specializes in a sort of slacker frat vibe (their most famous song is Baby's Got Sauce," followed by "I Like Cold Beverages") that is legitimately known by anyone anywhere near my age group and into such things. Jamie regaled us with great behind-the-scene tales of band drama and personalities, of how Matt McHugh cornered G Love and got him to agree to let Matt use BGS for the soundtrack of a comedy short. Hilarious stuff, and quite nice to see a happy / healthy GPGDS bassist / (lead?) singer.
We combined our iPhones into some sort of Captain Planet monstrosity to locate a nearby sushi restaurant and grabbed some delicious sushi appetizers. Or allegedly delicious; I cannot pretend to know such things. I did, however, get my requisite Ziegenbock! Huzzah! Left there to meet the entire clan (all the aforementioned plus Paige!) at the Moonshine Cafe where we had some excellent down home food (I grabbed bbq chicken and red beans and rice). Beck easily won the award for innovative dinner choice as she got the biggest piece of apple pie a la mode I have ever seen (that's Aaron's gargantuan 6'5" person hand for reference):
Ay caramba! Good times and good dinner (part two); we walked a few blocks from there to Antone's and got ready for the show. GPGDS took the stage a little early (9:20?) and TORE IT UP. I was too stupid to write down a setlist, but they threw down a number of great new tunes as well as some hot versions of classics. "Seasons Change > Jam > On the Moon" was particularly shwank, and I finally got to hear a personal favorite, "45," live. The catalog has changed a little bit in the absence of Matt / Rachel - some "Matt tunes" are no longer in the repertoire, and the melodica tunes are no more, either. (Beck finds this a-okay, as she thought the meolidica killed all energy, and one song in particular that she is downright venomous against, "Pollen Song," appears to have been stricken from the record for good). (Btw, if you're interested in hearing the new quartet's sound, check a show at archive.org here, but trust that this is not entirely representative of the type of mixing that the band likes to employ on their live recordings). It was also shwank to see Aaron, the now sole keyboardist, able to really show his chops. He played two to three sets of keys at once at times, pulling off some serious wizardry. Two of the Special Sauce crew made appearances, too - Timo, the Sauce bassist, played a wicked "Summertime"-derived sax solo, and the Sauce keyboardist jumped in for some blistering solos, too. Fiery, energetic set that seemed to grab the crowd (Jamie gave it a 6 or 7 out of 10 in terms of the energy they had experienced on tour), and my parents got an anniversary shoutout taboot. Well worth the trek. I got some decent pics in the low light of Antone's - feel free to check out the set on flickr, but here are a few solid entries:
We stuck around a bit to watch G Love et al - they're exceptionally talented and delivered a solid set, but the entire shtick is a little samey and played at this point. Don't get me wrong; highly entertaining and silky slick, but gimmicks like the "smoke the joint from the guy in the front row during the song about weed" has got to be old by this point, no? Still, fun and catchy enough to entice Beck to buy a shirt (and later a CD on iTunes). We headed out a little before midnight and after a bit of an adventure taking Paige back to her car, we made it back to Aaron's by 1.
Left Aaron's early the next morning (he and Kristin were headed to her family's for Easter dealings) to meet the iPFam and the remainder of the band for a hotel brunch. Said goodbye for real to everybody - Houseguestapalooza iPEdition finally seeing its end - and drove back to SA. Had a laid back afternoon at the homestead, watching the Spurs and hanging a bit with Pat and Grandpa before eating some burgers and heading on our way. We got back to Phoenix around 8 and I jumped into super-work mode while Beck grabbed us some small MoJo snacks to cap our nice weekend.
And *that* was actually the end to Houseguestapalooza. Phew. Another good March / early April in Sunny Azz, but it was nice to have things settle down somewhat to normal, too. Of course, Rice friends Jamie and Elaine are in town this weekend, so...
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