So, things have gotten a little bit better...

The band has played a few decent gigs since the debacle that was Pappacito's. We're still figuring out how to move ourselves in a more fun direction, since the stuff we've been playing is getting kind of stale for all of us.

I've actually grown tired of making the set lists, so I'm going to ask the other fellas if they'll make them for a while.

I finally tweaked my Variax so that it's not too loud and sounds more authentic as a 12-string. It really helps on the two acoustic songs we do, since both were originally played with 12-string acoustics.

I definitely need to find an outlet for playing guitar soon, though. It might mean that the Acoustical Schizo (www.myspace.com/acousticalschizo) comes to life. We're so absurdly booked for the summer that I think I'd get it together just in time to book some dates in August and September. I might see if Dave can hook me up to play a few solo acoustic shows at Latitude 30, just to warm up the material in front of an audience. I'm having a hard time finding regular acoustic venues.

We'll see what happens. This coming weekend we're doing a sonic overhaul to Roman Holiday's PA - organizing it, getting really good monitor mixes without feedback, and basically putting together a system to make load-in and load-out easier (including labeling everything). I find that stuff fun, so that's cool.

We have received regular bookings for the summer at a few places, including Hayashi Sushi Grille in Cedar Park and The Tilted Kilt in Round Rock, so we have some public shows - yay!

I do dig the private parties a little more, though, most of the time, because the load-ins are usually easier and the pay is pretty much double on average.

No gig this weekend, but we're at a new venue (for us) in Pflugerville called "Hanover's" - they have their own house PA and pay a sound dude (I think) so we should be in good shape playing there. I don't anticipate a return gig there, because I don't trust all our peeps to show up, but we're going to have as much fun with it as possible.

Until the next time...