Figured I'd post something since we're sitting in a hotel room in Springfield, MO with several hours until we load in to the club tonight. Been a long time since I've put anything up on the blog, so bear with me.

The show in Madison,WI was really good, got to see a lot of old friends and we poured a lot of Jaeger down Doug's throat in celebration of his 27th birthday.  And despite having trouble speaking, he was able to lead us to the exact spot where he parked the van, 5 hours earlier. 

We've been able to maintain all four tires on the van so far on this tour (last tour we lost three) and we only have 4 or 5 days till we get back to Austin.  We play tonight in Springfield, MO, tomorrrow in Kansas City, MO, and then we have to drive all the way to Golden, CO for a gig on the 1st of Sept.  The next day is a seven hour trek to the Sugar Pine Ranch outside Mancos, CO, where we'll be opening for Big Brother & The Holding Company at the Sugar Pine Ranch Rally on Sunday Sept. 2 at 7 p.m., in Mancos Colorado. And rumor has it that ETB and Big Brother and the Holding Company will be jamming together in the Beer Tent after Big Brother and Kathi McDonald perform. Should be an interesting little adventure. Hope y'all can make it.

Just as a fitting end to a "Patchwork" blog, if you get the chance, go out and get the new Tom Waits CD "Orphans".  It's a 3 disc album and worth every penny you spend on it.  It's on my iPod on repeat as I type.  Truly great RAW music.
~e

Here's the current news in ETB land...

The CD release for our new album "Blues Bullets" is scheduled for June 23rd @ Antone's here in Austin.  The next day we'll be leaving on tour for a hair less than a month.  We're excited.  The CD is sounding pretty good and the van just got some much needed repairs, so we aren't as worried about the transmission falling out in St. Louis or something awkward like that...

We are all still a little shocked by our dear friend Clifford Antone's passing but we had a great time at his memorial last Wednesday at the club playing with Carson Alexander (young badass) and Alan Haynes (older badass) and then finishing out with A.J. Vallejo and me cutting heads (that was seriously fun AND badass). It was great to see how many people showed up to show their respect for Clifford and his tireless work in the music community.  It's interesting to note just how much Clifford has done. 6th street would be just another street in Austin without him. Austin wouldn't be the live music capital of the world. And we would have all had to go through life without the blessing of knowing someone so kind and generous. 

In other news, Russell, our trusty sound engineer and one-man-security-team is now playing guitar and mandolin in a local Austin band on his nights off... On Tuesday nights you can catch him melting faces onstage with "Nowhere Texas" at the Velvet Spade on Red River.  I'll probably see you there...

Until next time,
be good...
eric

 

Hey y'all, haven't written anything for a good long time, sooo... As far as news in the ETB camp; we have a scheduled release for the new album in late June.  It will be 9 or 10 tracks of all originals and hopefully worth the wait.  We've got album art and photos in the works already and we'll be recording in May.  It's all a little tight, but we're confident it will release on time.
 
We had a lot of fun on our most recent tour and Canada treated us very well.  We'll going back on the road in late June and we'll be back in Canada to play the Montreal Jazz Fest on July 5th.  We'll post the entire schedule as soon as we have all the dates confirmed. 

Meanwhile we'll be playing around Texas a lot in April and early May, hitting Dallas(4/8), San Antonio (4/14), Pflugerville (4/21), Lubbock (4/28, 4/29), and Houston (5/12).  Our Austin gigs are changing slightly, we no longer play at Agave on Wednesdays (no falling out, just time to move on).  We still play every Monday at Friends and various weekend gigs, but with all the Texas travel in the coming months, those will be a little sparse.

That's what I got for now. Y'all be good and don't "lose yo' litto'" 'cause it hurts like hell.

eric

Just got home, well, didn't JUST get home, from Agave, tired.  Figured I'd write a little something, just in case I don't have a chance 'til we get back from Lubbock.  Agave was a lot of fun tonight, the crowd was really cool and we were in good spirits.  I've been unhappy with the tone of my amp lately, well, actually of the pedals, but tonight was in the "zone" of where I'm content with it, so....i'm rambling...

So, other than the hate-site, other cool things that have happened this past weekend include (but are not limited to):

1. We played at The Backroom for the first time on Friday. We played on the patio and not only did quite a few of our die-hard fans come, we also made a lot of new friends and fans and got to hang with some other bands.  Unfortunately, only Russell and our good friend "Evil" Mike Bahr were able to stick around and watch Soulfly.

2. We met Tom Morello. When we were setting up at "Jazz" on Saturday in the afternoon, Tom Morello (seriously, the guitarist from Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave) walked in to get some lunch and we got to meet him and talk a little.  Very cool guy. Very humble, very down-to-earth.

3. Tom Morello CAME BACK for our gig.  Audioslave was playing in Shiner for the Bocktoberfest, and when they were done, Tom came back for the last hour of our show.  Very humbling.  He said we were exactly what he was hoping to hear from an Austin band.  Got to hang out with him for an hour, eat pizza, and shoot the shit.  Very VERY cool guy....

4. This isn't necessarily an amazing thing that happened to the band, but if y'all ever eat at "Jazz" on 6th here in Austin, definitely try the crawfish fettuccini.  Very good.  Had practically the same thing at "Buzzard Billy's" in LaCrosse, WI on tour in July, called crawfish alfredeaux. Anyway, you should try it, your mouth will thank you.

5. The amazing response we've had from fans and friends alike concerning the hate site.  You are the best.  The kind words and encouragement alone, in the last four or five days, has been so inspiring, it almost makes me happy that someone hates us...

6. Ephraim Owens.  I went to see him at Club 115 last night with Claire, awesome jazz trumpet player.  Very inspirational.  J.J. Johnson was on drums.  About as hip as it gets... I believe he plays every Tuesday there, do yourself a favour and check him out...

Well, I think I'm going to wrap this up.  Exhausted now.  Forgot to mention the Astro's are going to the World Series, I'm not a sports fan of any description, but I'm still excited, hmm.  Hope everyone in Austin has a good weekend.  Hope everyone in Lubbock has a good time when we're there (even when the Longhorns beat Tech, still, not a sports fan, just stating the obvious...). And I hope everyone else just has a good time in general and takes time to listen to some good music, whatever it may be.

be well,
eric

ps. ONE MORE VERY IMPORTANT THING!!!, if you are ANYWHERE near Austin Thursday night (the 20th) go to Antone's to see the one and only ROBERT CRAY.  Gary Clark Jr. is opening.  I, for one, will DEFINITELY be there. I'm out...

As many of you have already found out, we have found a MySpace page that someone has started, just to hate us!  We've known about this since last Friday (we're very excited) and at first the individual who made this page dreamed up some pretty wild stories about the band having a homosexual love tryst, identity crisis among the members, and numerous stabs at just about everything they could imagine about us.  They even took the time to WRITE TWO VERY IMAGINATIVE BLOGS!!!  Since then, they've toned it down quite a bit, I don't know the reason why, but it doesn't really matter.  We've mentioned the site to quite a few of our friends and they are very excited for us, exclaiming that it's the ultimate yardstick in measuring our progress towards success.  So just a heads up to everybody, if you get an invite from The Eric Tezmer Band (Not TeSSmer) and the profile pic is a pile of poopy with a flag with G.W.'s face stuck in it, it's THE HATER!!  

Just an after-thought: apparently, after reading the hate site, we're not worth anybody's time at all, but this fella has spent so much time on us already, I guess it tells what their time is worth... ah riddles....

take care and SUPPORT your local musicians, WHOMEVER they may be,
be well,
eric

Last night I got to hear the band on the radio.  Indeed a dream come true.  Thanks go to Johnny Walker @ KLBJ here in Austin.  Not only did he play "Ain't With You" on "Soundcheck" but he also was kind enough to take some time and tell everyone in "radio-land" about us.  It was all very flattering and very helpful.  And the radio spot combined with Russell nailing an excellent sound mix AND Doug, Allen, and myself having an "on" night, the show last night, as a result, was pretty kickin'...

We pounded out another new song today, probably going to try it out Wednesday on Agave'. "Blind Eye Blues"

One more thing, we've been informed that the Lone Star Bike Rally in Galveston has been rescheduled once again to the first weekend in Nov and since we took that whole week off for recording purposes AND since our scheduled recording days have not spilled over to those dates of the rally, we are happy to say we CAN play the rally this year.  Look for us at both Buck's locations...

Gotta roll, be well
eric

Well, trying to keep this blog "wheel" a'rollin'. Like I mentioned last time, we're working on a bunch of new songs and we planning to record in early November.  So, with all that said, we're getting a chance to play on FOX 7 News in the Morning here in Austin this Friday.  I don't know how this will affect us in the long run, but we're hoping to snag a wider fan base (plus I can call my mom in WI and say "Hey Mama, we was on the Tay Vaaay!!!").  I guess even more exciting, is that we're scurrying to finish up one of our new songs that we are really pumped about so we can debut it on the air.  If we can't, for some tragic reason get the song ready, we'll probably play "Ain't With You" and or "Noise Song".  or something.  But my money is on the new song... knock on wood...

Also, in the category of new exposure, we've become friends with Johhny Walker from KLBJ.  We met him at the Hard Rock when we were both working to raise money for the victims of Katrina and since then he's been kind enough to mention us on "Soundcheck", when he tells where Austin bands are playing every night.  It's been encouraging, to say the least.  And now tonight he's going to play one of our songs on the radio. Around 7pm on 93.7FM.  Y'all should tune in if y'all get the chance.  It'll be a track off of "Last Night At Joe's...". 

Anyhow, I've got to take one of my amps in for a tune-up so I'll catch up with y'all sooner or later. Hopefully sooner...
Be well,
eric

Hey y'all, this is our first blog (pretty new to this, what does 'blog' mean??) and I guess we'll just try to give y'all a heads up on what we've got in the works for the coming months.  We've been spending a lot of time writing and rehearsing new material and we're planning on recording a studio album in early November.  Unlike "Last Night At Joe's", which had 3 covers included on it, this will be all originals.  We're thinking of including 'Noise Song' and 'Ain't With You' on the disc (those were both on "Last Night...") because we feel studio versions of those songs could provide a kind of 'refreshing perspective'. Wow, that sounded horribly lame. Anyway, I'm sure you understand what I mean.  All in all, a new disc will be an exciting development. I'm excited.  Blah Blah blah... (blah+g=blog?)

Also, as far as touring is concerned, we won't, unfortunately, be playing the Lone Star Bike Rally in Galveston this year due to the fact it's been postponed (couldn't stand the weather...................that was bad, sorry...) and the dates they have moved it to, we already have booked.  We will continue, though, with our posted Houston dates, Austin dates, Lubbock dates, etc.  Which brings me to our first Dallas date.  We'll be playing "Deep Ellum Blues" in Dallas on Nov. 11th.  So for all y'all who have waiting patiently for us to break into the Dallas scene, the wait is over. 

Our next midwest tour is slated for March of 2006 and this tour is projected to include a brief excursion to Canada to do an in-store performance for "HMV", the Canadian distributor of our disc (which is doing quite well there, props eh!).  We don't have any solid dates (we leave that up to the booking agent for these big tours) but our MySpace page will have the dates as soon as I do, so stay posted, ye people of the Midwest.  As far as the East and West Coast fans (and the surprisingly LARGE number of fans in Denver, who would've known???) are concerned, keep your fingers crossed, we want to get out there as much as you want us to, but it takes time to network and make these things happen... 

That's pretty much all the updates I can muster at this time, I just woke up and I haven't seen my guitar yet, so I'll leave it at that.  Hope to see and hear from y'all soon.  Be well and support live blues,

eric