ON THE ROAD WITH SPARROW BELLOWS ~ Part 2

Saturday March 20, 2010

Austin, TX

Saturday was a long and lazy day for our party. After staying up way too late partying Friday night, we slept until after noon on Saturday. Marcy whipped up some eggs and bacon for a delicious buffet of breakfast burritos. After our mid-afternoon brunch we laid around the house like lazy slobs. This is far from the best way to soak up SXSW, but we felt no shame about our sloth-like ways. We rallied the troops late in the afternoon for a brisk drunkwalk and rustled up a cab on Lamar to take us the rest of the way to Stubb’s. We waited on line for about half an hour before we were granted entrance to the downstairs bar. There we waited another 45 minutes or so before a grackle-voiced hostess screeched, “Sparrow! Party of four! Sparrow!”

After being seated we ordered barbecued brisket, sausage and ribs. The food was delicious, but the sides were every bit as good as the main dish. The Serrano cheese spinach was the biggest hit of the table.

After dinner we went outside for a cigarette and we saw Bill Murray standing about ten feet away from us on the sidewalk! He was with a group of about six beautiful women. He seemed really irritated and was heard to utter, “You gotta be fucking kidding me!” My interpretation of the scene and his body language seemed to indicate that he was not happy about the prospect of waiting an hour for a table at Stubb’s. His bevy of brunettes led him up to the door and after showing his face he was immediately admitted and seated at a table in the bar area. We went back inside to grab another drink and there he was: sitting at a table right near the steps that lead down to the basement bar. I found it odd that they would seat him out in the open, at one of the most visible tables in the bar. They probably had to roust some other poor sucker from the table to put him there, so why wouldn’t they do him the courtesy of seating him in a less conspicuous area like a corner table? Anyway – on our way down the stairs to return to the bar we walked right by him a second time. I met his gaze, nodded, and said, “Hey” as I passed by him. Frankly, I was numb. This guy is one of my greatest heroes! I was frickin’ SPEECHLESS… The huge crowd at Stubb’s and his apparent irritation with the circumstances definitely signaled that this was not the time to ask for an autograph, so we just retreated to the bar, all of us delightfully stunned and buzzing on a Totally Unexpected Celebrity Sighting of the Highest Order. That’s like seeing the PYRAMIDS, man! Historical and hysterical!

Brian in Dallas

After a round of drinks, our pal PJ appeared out of the throng of hipsters and led us through the security checkpoint to the stage area where The Drums were onstage. Not my thing at all, they were a twee rip-off of The Smiths. As is so often the case when I am initially underwhelmed with an artist’s performance, I was soon won over by their energy and the crowd’s enthusiastic response. (Nowadays it seems I can go from hating something to seeing all kinds of charm in it in a matter of seconds. I thank God I’m not the cynical little prick I used to be.) Funny thing, though: there were not very many people at Stubb’s, for what was purported to be one of the hottest shows of the Saturday line-up. The crowd barely filled half of the grassy area in front of Stubb’s stage. We were hanging around there about 10:40pm and the headlining Scissor Sisters were not expected to play until midnight, so perhaps the big crowd was yet to arrive. Friday had been a warm and beautiful day with temperatures in the 70s. Suffering from a precipitous drop of over thirty degrees, Saturday’s temperature hovered around 45 most of the day and dropped into the upper 30s after dark! We were really enjoying this rare opportunity to be escorted by security outside to check out the legendary main stage at Stubb’s, but when the wind started blowing we were freezing our asses off!

We darted outta there for the warmer confines of the first bar we could find that wasn’t charging a cover at the door. Last night’s insanity turned into this morning’s craziness and festivities didn’t grind to a hazy halt until after 5am. Needless to say we slept in again today. I was the first to rise and I walked to Austin Java for a large cup of Carmel Knowledge with an extra shot of espresso. Grabbing a Sunday paper at 7-Eleven, I hoofed it back to Marcy’s apartment where the rest of my party was wiping the sleep from their eyes and ordering a stack of pizzas for lunch.

Rickie in Austin

Sunday March 21, 2010

Sunday was uneventful in Austin as we capitalized on it for an opportunity to recover from our weekend. Brian sensed he was coming down with a cold, compounding a miserable hangover. I stuck around Marcy’s place with B while Sam & Marcy hit the town one more time. Late in the afternoon, Brian and I rallied and went for a walk thru Marcy’s neighborhood, up to Lamar for coffee and cigarettes. Sparrow left Austin at noon on Monday March 21st, stopping for lunch just north of town. We were starving and quickly grew impatient with the incompetent staff at a Mexican joint where we stopped. Walking out of there, we simply went next door and had Greek instead. We made good time, pulling into Dallas around 3:30 or 4pm. Poor David’s wasn’t open yet, so we killed a little time drinking beer in the back parking lot and checking out Bill’s, a great record store right next to the venue. I picked up a few CDs there, including a very rare Rolling Stones bootleg that I have only seen once or twice before. A multiple-disc set of Voodoo Lounge outtakes, one disc includes versions of every song from the record with Keith Richards singing lead vocals. Score!

Some of the other bands on the bill began to arrive as Sparrow executed a blazing soundcheck, foreshadowing the excellent set to come. The owner of the club showed up with a stack of about ten pizza boxes and the various musicians descended upon them like a pack of wolves on a helpless faun. Sparrow was first on the bill at 7:30 and we played our best show of the week. Once again we played to an audience of the other musicians and only a handful of others, but our performance was an inspired one and very well-received.

After the show we hung around for a little while but soon departed for Arkansas. Road Dog Sammy drove for over 5 hours, taking us north of Little Rock where we checked into a Super 8 hotel. Thanks to Sammy’s heroic efforts, we are only a 5-hour drive from our ultimate destination: Carbondale, Illinois. Tonight we’ll play our last show of the tour, dragging in our small PA to run our own sound. We’re the only band on the bill tonight at Tres Hombres so we’ll be closing out the tour by playing 2 or 3 sets of material.

Sleepy Sammy

The last show of our brief tour was in Carbondale, Illinois on March 22, 2010 at a great bar called Tres Hombres. Being a Tuesday it was a pretty slow night, but we got a really nice reaction from the few people who were on hand and the bar staff really dug us too. The club fed us like kings and they kept the ice-cold Dos Equis flowing all night! Tres Hombres took really good care of us, even putting us up in a nearby hotel for the night! LOVE THAT PLACE! And we plan to play there again VERY SOON!

At the end of the week we played what we all considered to be a most triumphant homecoming gig at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky. Our friends Duppy A’Jamba opened for us in the upstairs Parlour and they flat out SMOKED. Those guys bring so much energy that it is always a dubious distinction to have to follow them. We have Duppy to thank for contributing to one of the largest crowds that Sparrow Bellows has played for yet. We also hereby thank our dear pal Jeff Walls who went to great effort to pack quite a few of his friends and acquaintances into the Parlour for our show.

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And that’s where the tour journal ends, except to say that we were scheduled to play Evansville and Lexington both for the very first time just a few weeks later. Good times with great friends. Long live Sparrow!

~rh