Texas Thunder is almost here. 19 Bands over 3 days. If you're going (and with all the tickets we've been giving away there is no reason you shouldn't be) you will know a lot of the bands. Especially people like Josh Abbott, Randy Rogers, and Casey Donahew who will be closing out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. But there are a few bands who you might be less familiar with... so here is a helpful crash course in a few of the bands/performers who will be playing each day.
The whole fest opens with the lovely and talented Bri Bagwell, here is a performance of her single "Banned from Santa Fe"
Another one of Friday's performers is Curtis Grimes (who you may remember from when he appeared on The Voice) and my personal favorite song of his "Whiskey Drunk"
Johnny Cooper plays on Saturday, his song "Texas To You"
Whiskey Myers goes on Saturday, we play their single "Virginia" a lot on KICKS but here is a song you may not have heard "Broken Window Serenade"
Jake Kellen starts the show off on Sunday, here's the music video for "If Love Was A Road"
William Clark Green also plays Sunday, he did an acoustic version of this song live in our KICKS studio a few weeks ago and I can't wait to hear it again. Here's the album version of "She Likes the Beatles"
Radio DJ's have certain tools we use every day. Tools that we can sometimes take for granted because we use them so often we forget it would be impossible to do our job without them. Our microphone and our headphones. If you were to compare Radio DJ's to ancient Gladiators (a comparison which has never ever been made before but I like it so I'm going to use it) the microphone would be our sword and the headphones our shield. And this week my shield has started to break.
Here at the KICKS studio Mike and Dana, Kelly Peterson, and I all use our own headphones. We may be one big radio family but we don't want to be swapping ear germs* with each other all the time. eww. A DJ has a special connection with his or her headphones. Heck, Kelly's profile pic is just of her headphones. So earlier this week when my headphones started to peel apart I was understandably COMPLETELY TERRIFIED.
Oh the Humanity!!!!
I don't want to use hyperbole but this is basically the beginning of the end times. I've had these headphones for years, For countless hours it's just been me and my headphones listening to music. They have outlived at least 3 iPods, countless plane trips and all sorts of marathon music listening sessions. Soon they will meet the fate of all great headphones: tangled in a drawer and forgotten about until you find them again years later and you go "oh hey look it's my old headphones". But until then my metaphorical shield and I still have some music to listen too.
*I am not a Doctor and ear germs is not a scientific term
I've recently decided to try and achieve the for most non-committal words in the English language "Get Back in Shape." And even in the vaguest of ways I'm not trying to achieve that much, I'm well aware "in shape" does not mean I will become like old school Arnold Schwarzenegger or current school Michael Phelps. My goal is to basically be able to walk up and down the stairs here at the KICKS studio, do it again immediately (usually because I've only realized I've forgotten something when I've reached the top of the stairs) and not be surprised at how much effort that took.
So I've started doing some more intensive exercises. Intensive being running on occasion or riding my bike, maybe waking up a little earlier and doing a light workout. And I'm doing some things with the upcoming Summer Mummers which requires a whole lot of physical activity. It's not all that much, I'm not even going to a gym... mostly because I'm like Homer Simpson every time I see one.
I was expecting some soreness in my legs and arms, that's how you know exercise is working right? But no my legs and arms are fine, but my back, neck, and entire torso are killing me. It feels like I was lifting a refrigerator and not just doing ten jumping jacks. Is this what people who are super fit always feel like? If thats the case no thank you, excersise is supposed to make you feel younger not older right? I'll take my my pudgy stomach, drink my prune juice, watch some Matlock, go to bed by 8pm and be able to look left to right without groaning. That sounds a lot nicer.
You know what's awesome? Space is Awesome. I'm not talking about the space around you where you have so much room to do activities. I'm talking about outer space. The Final Frontier.
I still have a childhood dream of going to Outer Space, and to see the Earth from that rare perspective of looking down at it and not looking up from it. Did you know it's been over 40 years since humans have landed on the moon? The coolest thing I've seen a Space Shuttle do in my lifetime is get towed by a Toyota to a museum.
To Infinity! And... slightly down the street...
I grew up on Star Wars and Star Trek, which has given me extremely unrealistic expectations on what Space Travel can be. I know we are not going to travel through wormholes or blow up a death star anytime soon. We have the international Space Station which is super cool but it's not exactly inspiring. Let's mine an asteroid, or start a station on the moon, or have a manned mission to Mars. NASA has given us super soft mattresses, freeze dried ice cream, and pens that write upside down… who knows what else they have up their sleeve. If not NASA than somebody, there is a company that is taking applications to help build a colony on Mars in ten years, you can apply yourself or check out applicant videos over at their website: http://applicants.mars-one.com/ . Heck James Cameron researched and financed the deep Ocean exploration so much after Titanic he was actually the first person to reach the deepest part of the Ocean in decades, wouldn't it be awesome if Steven Speilberg or Tom Hanks did the same for space after Apollo 13. A century from now Tom Hanks could be remembered as the first person on Mars, and who also did some acting before that.
Mars is like a box of Chocolates, really red and no oxygen... or something.
I don't get sick too often, or I'm constantly a little sick. I'm never really sure. I've always had allergies that have given me problems but usually a dose of clariton or zyrtec keeps them at bay. But every once in a while I'll come down with something a little more serious, and that's what I've been dealing with the past few days. Yes I've got a wee bit of a cold but I think I'm on the upward swing of it. I always take the same steps when I start to get sick and I think they seem to work so I thought I'd share them to give you ideas when you catch a cold.
I stay uber hydrated, I already drink a lot of water during the day but I've at least doubled my normal amount. Plus a whole lot of sprite and gatorade. I really take the throwaway medical advice "drink plenty of fluids" to heart
Spicy soup. I made some chicken noodle soup for myself but I add a lot of pepper and Tabasco sauce. The spiciness helps clear out my sinuses and whatever vague toxins I think I might have (This might work only in my head, but I'm a firm believer in mind over matter)
NyQuil. The motto in my family when I was growing up was "take some NyQuil and go to bed" I'm pretty sure my dad thinks a NyQuil induced coma could fix a broken arm if it needed to. If nothing else it helps break a fever and lets you get into deeper sleep faster so I still take copious amounts every time I'm sick.
Hopefully I'll be fully back up to speed soon, but really I'm just glad I haven't sneezed on-air yet.
