Lamar State College Fundraiser 4/14/12

I played piano tonight with Rob Roy Parnell (harmonica), Chris Wallis (drums), Ralph "Coffeeboy" Ibarra (guitar), Pat Whitefield (bass), Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff (sax) and Al Gomez (trumpet) in Orange, TX for a fundraiser event for Lamar State College. We had a great turnout, and the crowd went crazy for Rob's music. They also were big Jimmy Reed fans, so we played a few of his tunes tonight as well. Towards the end of the evening, things got weird as a chorus of frogs joined in the music. We were under a big tent, and the frogs gained volume as we rounded out our final few tunes. Fun night performing with the big band!

Wake The Dead Coffeehouse 4/13/12

Ian Lee and his Fine Fellows (Chris Wallis - djembe, Errin Scroggins - bass, myself - accordion) performed our acoustic set in San Marcos, TX to a packed room this evening. The Fellows sounded great behind Ian's original tunes (as well as a few covers). This vibe on smaller shows is a cool one, with the songs changing ever-so-slightly to accommodate the instrumentation. I think the crowd enjoyed themselves, and I'm looking forward to Ian's CD release party, coming soon!

AJ's Ale House 4/12/12

Tonight, I had my ego boosted by three separate people in New Braunfels, TX when they told me I was their favorite performer they've seen live! Aww...shucks... That's a pretty big compliment from folks who are surrounded by music daily! I humbly say thank you to the great crowd at AJ's.
In other news, Chris Wallis once again made my job super-easy by keeping great time on the drums. We even performed half-a-dozen new songs together, and Chris made them sound great! See you in New Braunfels again soon everybody!

AJ's Ale House 4/7/12

Joe Resnick joined me in New Braunfels, TX to try to perform requests from the crowd. The most unusual one was from a man from the Netherlands who wanted to hear "Do Re Mi" from the Sound Of Music. Joe played along, and we covered that tune plus a bunch more for the eclectic crowd. Good crowd tonight. Happy Easter to everyone!

Pier 27 4/6/12

Kerrville, TX got a dose of the Chris Wallis and Dan Holmes show tonight. We celebrated an anniversary and also someone's birthday, we played rock, blues, country, funk & Goofy Goober. Random songs were complimented by Chris' vocals. Lots of alcohol was consumed by the crowd and lots of people left happy. Really, what more could you ask for?

AJ's Ale House MF 4/5/12

Joe Resnick played drums while I tried out a few new tunes in Marble Falls, TX tonight. We had a good group of people in dancing and requesting tunes, and giving us a few interesting requests. Good tunes were requested, and a few unusual tunes came up, too. Van Morrison's "Into The Mystic", Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman", and Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Lookin'" were all requested. My favorite request was one gentleman who gave us a slip of paper which read, "Anything from the past 50 years". Fortunately, I knew a couple of tunes from the past 50 years, so he was happy.

Pier 27 3/31/12

So, as I reached the end of my seven hour gig at Sundance records in San Marcos, I quickly packed up and headed to Kerrville, TX for a four hour request show with Chris Wallis. There was a big biker rally happening just a few miles from the club, so most of the festivities were going on there, which made for a smaller than usual crowd at the club, but the people who were there stayed with us all night long as we played everything they wanted to hear. After the show, I packed up and headed an hour-and-a-half back home to San Marcos to fall asleep soundly after a crazy two days of solid gigging!

Sundance Records 3/31/12

Last night, I drove back from Lake Jackson, TX to San Marcos so I could be ready to provide P.A. and perform for the final day of business at Sundance Records. I set up all the equipment by 10:30am, and then for the next seven hours, I ran sound for some of the best musicians in central Texas, all of whom either were regular customers of Sundance for years or ex-employees. There were so many acts, I'm not sure I could name them all, but a few of the highlights were folks like Freddie Krc, Sons Of Fathers, Kent Finlay, and Bill Whitbeck. Greg Ellis proudly introduced each and every one of us with equal gravitas. It was an honor to perform at Sundance with such great music surrounding me. I must say, San Marcos lost a true treasure this weekend in the form of Sundance records. They have done much for the community over the years, and they truly will be missed!

ConocoPhillips Party 3/30/12

Greg Galindo joined up with me to go perform a Howl At The Moon Piano-Show-To-Go tonight in Lake Jackson, TX for ConocoPhillips emergency response team. Greg and I blended well together as we tackled a variety of requests from the small-but-fun party crowd. Prince, George Strait, Sonny & Cher, Areosmith... the requests were all over the place! But we kept up, and everyone had a great time.

Sundance Records 3/29/12

Sundance Records, a San Marcos tradition, is going out of business. It's another sad reminder of the digital age we live in, but we performed a live show to show our appreciation for a great local business. Ian Lee and His Fine Fellows (with me on accordion, Chris Wallis on djembe and Errin Scroggins on bass) performed an hour long acoustic set to close the show this afternoon. We were joined by a couple of great acts who opened the show. First up was Adam Lilley on guitar, Jason Harold Wilkinson on djembe, and Patrick McBain on guitar, who performed a great half-hour set. Then second up was Stephen Wells & G.K. Matthews on guitars, and Adam Lilley on percussion. Great show for a sad occasion. Long live Sundance!!!

Sundance Records 3/27/12

I took a day off from playing music to provide P.A. and run sound for the great Texas singer/songwriter, Ray Wylie Hubbard for one of the last shows at a local San Marcos landmark, Sundance Records, which is in its final week of business. Mr. Hubbard put on a fantastic set of his original material, and I would be happy to run sound for him again.

Tantra Coffeehouse 3/25/12

Ian Lee and his Fine Fellows performed our first official band show tonight in San Marcos, TX for a fund raiser to help out the Coffeehouse. Ian, Chris, Errin and I performed about and hour to a packed tent full of people. This show also marked the first time in many years I brought my accordion out to a show. Great tunes written by Ian will be available soon, and the CD release party will be held at Tantra! See you then!

Pier 27 3/24/12

40 Rock Entertainment was responsible for providing the seven hour long show tonight in Kerrville, TX for the grand opening of Pier 27, so that's exactly what we did! Josh Adams, Chris Saucedo, Alex Sutherlin and I took turns singing to the people and playing requests. We traded off instruments regularly, so at any given moment, we had all kinds of different configurations of piano, bass, drums, sax, and guitar. The crowd stayed to party all night, and it was a successful grand opening for the club!!!

Taxi's 3/21/12

I drove down the street to the San Marcos, TX piano bar known as Taxi's to perform a show with the man himself; Taxi Haskel. It's been a while since my last show here, and it was a welcome return! Always a good time to perform with Taxi. But before we started the show, we had a small problem with the piano, which involved drilling a couple of hole in the side of it before we even could hit note one. Taxi had a drill, and I'm handy with power tools, so I cut a place to run some cable in the piano! Never had to do that one before a show before. Thanks goes out to Taxi's crowd for a fun night!

Betsy's Bar 3/18/12

Ryan Kennedy invited me to perform with him and his band in Austin, TX for the end of the South By Southwest festival. We performed about an hour-and-a-half of blues and rock to an appreciative crowd. Pete on drums and Jeremiah on bass rounded out the sound as Ryan sang some of his original tunes. This line up also just finished a soon-to-be-released CD. I'll keep you posted!

The Hanger 3/17/12

For St. Patrick's Day, I headed to San Antonio to perform with Josh Adams of 40 Rock Entertainment. We had a good crowd, all dressed in green of course. Right at the beginning of the show, green beer was served, green beads were given out, and green bills appeared on some request slips. It was fun to perform with Josh again, too. We traded some U2 tunes just to get us in the spirit...

Pier 27 3/16/12

Kerrville, TX is about 1-1/2 hours away from my house, so Chris Wallis loaded up his drums and met up with me to caravan out to the club. The crowd steadily grew all evening long, and the requests were flowing like water. Some very unusual songs were brought up, too. Requests for "Mess Around" and "Black Magic Woman" came up, as well as "Mack The Knife" and "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces". We played them all, even though Chris and never had even talked about some of the tunes we played, he knocked them outta da park. Great crowd!

AJ's Ale House MF 3/15/12

Big night in Marble Falls, tonight! Joe Resnick banged out beats on the drums, and I played piano for a packed house. This was easily the best Thursday night crowd I've performed for so far at AJ's! The peeps were throwing requests our way left and right. There were actually so many requests that Joe and I decided not to take a break all night. Then, at the end of the night, something happened which has never happened to us while at a request show. The crowd began chanting "One more song" over and over. We left the stage, and for five minutes, the crowd steadily grew louder and louder, still chanting "ONE MORE SONG" until we retook the stage to play one final tune. Great crowd!

AJ's Ale House MF 3/10/12

The crowd instantly propelled the show into high gear tonight in Marble Falls, Texas. We played request after request, including all the popular hits and many odd ball songs. My favorite part of the evening was during our second set, Chris Wallis (drums) took over the vocals for a rousing rendition of Guns N Roses' "Sweet Child Of Mine". I personally think Chris should sing that song every time it is requested! Fun night all around!

AJ's Ale House NB 3/9/12

New Braunfels, Texas was rainy as I set up and prepared for my evening performance with Joe Resnick. The crowd filed in almost on cue right as we started our first song of the evening. We had tons of requests from Madonna to Ray Charles, and we played every one of them. Several people just camped out to party with us all evening long! At one point, I unintentionally made Angie's mom cry by playing the Stone's "Angie" for Angie. Who's Angie, you may ask? Guess you had to be there.