March 11-13 / Fast Times with Husband&Wife and Rodeo Ruby Love

The first leg of our trip to SXSW was lucky enough to spent with both Husband&Wife and our great friends in Rodeo Ruby Love. The morning after our second show, we took some time to consolidate gear and managed to pack all the equipment for tour in the Beauville. Husband&Wife added a bench seat to their van for more body room and we were off—9 dudes strong, 2 vans, merch hot off the flash dryers and a quick repair on our muffler with an untwisted coat hanger. Jared Cheek, owner and founder of Flannelgraph Records, taking on the role of tour manager and Kevin Rose, XRA multi-tasking in-fielder, as our resident "merch guy."

The first three nights with Rodeo couldn't have kicked it off any better. Great turn outs and a whole lotta pillow talk. We met a 5'3" singer-songwriting acoustic punk powerhouse named Houston who opened the Peoria show and put us all up at his place for the night. He and his lady were amazing—cooking us pizzas and providing and endless amount of Seagrams until the feature film, "Heavyweights." I think there were 15 people snugglin on top of one another in Houston's living room watching Ben Stiller at his finest. 

Houston, you're amazing. Sorry for all the "Houston, we have a boner" jokes.