Quiet Company.


The second band last night was another local band, Quiet Company. I'd not heard of them before this past week when I came across a rave review of them on a website. The site linked to Quiet Company's website and a free download of three tracks. After listening to the tracks I figured it was going to be a pretty good double bill with Built By Snow.

My Built By Snow shots all either had too much light from the flash or not enough light because I chose not to use it, but after looking at a couple of people's camera set ups I started trying to block the light a little bit to get softer shots but avoid the blurriness I would get without the flash. I thought this shot, despite being a little grainy, came out by far the best of the night.

Two good bands.


Tonight I got to see two really good Austin bands with completely different styles, Built By Snow, and Quiet Company. Best of all, the show was free and I even got a free beer for showing up early.

Built By Snow has really started to get some buzz around town especially after the release of their second CD, Mega. Since I don't listen to the buzz around time I had to find out about the band in a more unusual way. I ended up playing golf at Butler with Ben Bauer, one of the band members. He and his friends suggested I listen to their CD and Ben gave me a copy of it. I've been listening to it in my car pretty much non stop since then. They've got an unusual sound, kind of a mix between early Cars and Weezer, with a lot of video game sounds thrown in.

Anyway, here's a shot of the band from the show tonight.

I think I could take it.


Here's a nice shot of one of the many inhabitants of Crococun, all smiles for the camera, pretending to be completely harmless. Right now this one is a little small to attack a full grown man, but once he's bigger I won't come within 20 feet of him.

High society, High Point, North Carolina.


Here's a shot of our mom at her debutante ball. She is second from the left, with Pops standing behind her to the right.

They may look innocent, but you can tell in their eyes they are about to cause some trouble.


I actually have four nieces but Sara's daughter Nova and Megan's youngest Isabella haven't made it out to Austin yet, but last year Megan brought her sons George and Stephen, and her daughter Vivia, who is a little younger than Nicole. I think you can tell from this pic that Nic and Viv are making plans to get into some trouble in the kitchen and hope the smiles will fool everyone into letting them continue with their scheme...

From last year.


Akumal this year certainly seemed busier than the hotel we stayed at in Cancun, but last year it was a lot busier. Here's a nice shot looking north.

Jo Jo.


Here's another pic from their set at Republic Square a couple of months ago. It was much harder to get decent shots of Jo Jo because of the lighting but I thought this one came out pretty well.

Something I will never do.


It looks cool from a distance when you are standing on the beach, but given I don't swim, I'll probably just stick to watching and taking a snapshot or two of it. Hey, give me a break, I did go parasailing on this last trip.

Butler Pitch and Putt.


A few months ago I took my camera down to Butler and took some pictures while I played a few rounds. For one round I played with singer/guitarist Wynn Taylor, a local musician and an all around cool and friendly guy. Here's a shot of Wynn hitting from the 6th tee box. If you look really closely, you can see the golf ball above the flag and slightly to the left in front of the far left upper branches of the central, smaller tree.

Fun at Crococun.


It looks like the red tegu lizard is in pain but really it's mouth is open in this picture because the guide opened it several minutes earlier to show us the tegu's gullet, and afterwards the lizard was too lazy to close it back up again.

From years gone by.


Since her appearance at ACL two years ago, my brother and I have seen Grace Potter and the Nocturnals appear at Stubbs, but that was some time ago, and it would be cool to see her and her band perform again some time. Here she is from ACL two years ago.

The flamboyant tree.


I've gone down to Akumal a dozen time now and Dad and Susan have pointed out the flamboyant trees countless times, but usually it was while we were driving down the highway and it was just something pretty to point out to pass the time and I we never stopped to take pictures, but there was a nice one right next to the hotel on the side away from the beach that i had never noticed before, so I took a few snaps of it.

And looking back.


Since I posted a shot of M. Ward yesterday I thought I would post a shot of Jenny Lewis from the same day last year at ACL. Most of the time I was on the wrong side of her piano but every once in a while she would pop out so I could take a decent pic while she performed.

Last year's festival was pretty good.


Last year I was pretty lucky to get to see M. Ward and Jenny Lewis perform right after each other. For their shows I managed to get right up front. Here's one of M. Ward I think came out pretty well.

My name is on the wall.


In January I sank a hole in one at Butler Pitch & Putt, but Lee, who actually writes out the names didn't get around to posting all the new names of people who had hole in ones until late May. Apparently she posts them twice a year but my impatience wore her down.

Anyway, if you ever go there please gaze in wonder at the wall where my name is located:

Weiner mobile siting.


I took couple of smapshots from my old iPhone of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile a few months ago. I thought I had posted the image here but I guess I forgot in all the excitement??? I'm not sure where it had come from and where it was going. It just pulled up along side me at a stop light for a brief moment and once the light turned green it was gone...

Beck at ACL last year.


It's almost not worth staying for the last show of the evening at the ACL Festival because it's impossible to get anywhere close to the stage where you can actually see the performance, but last year I did manage to get close enough to get a good view of one of the jumbotron monitors during the Beck performance.

I couldn't snap any close ups of Beck, but here's one of the screen that I thought came out as well as any that I took.

Los Lonely Boys appearance in the Solar Powered Summer Music series,


I've been a fan of Los Lonely Boys since I first saw them way back in 2002 at SXSW, so it was a treat to see them in May at Republic Square. I was surprised by how small the crowd was but the boys put on a great show. Here's a shot of Henry Garza from that night.

I have no idea why I named the last post what I named it.


Jay posted one of the pics I took of Nic on his facebook page so I thought I'd post another one of her from the same "photoshoot" which I think is almost as good a shot of her.




I took several shots of Nic but this is the one in which she has the best smile.

It's been a while since I posted a month of pictures. Here's a nice shot from the 4th of July fireworks at Jay's place.


It reminds me a of a giant green dandelion...

Abandoned.


The hotel down the beach from us in Akumal was closed temporarily due to lack of business. I'd never been to the hotel but it looks like it has a pretty cool beach bar. Next time we are in Akumal we will have to stop by to see if we can get a drink there.