Hey Y’all,

There has been lots of cool stuff happening so I suppose it’s finally time to get back to the blog. Back in October the band relocated to the wonderful city of Austin, TX!   Blake, David, and I all live together in a Band House, which, although trying at times, is a total blast.  We’ve had construction going on in our backyard for the past few weeks because we are sound proofing our garage for a rehearsal space (uber exciting news for our neighbors lol).  Austin has been so friendly to us, the people we meet and work with are kind and extremely supportive of musicians.  Despite a few cold spells and one short burst of white powder from the sky, the weather has been gorgeous (sry North East).  The three of us that live together have been playing lots of acoustic happy hours to keep our chops up between official gigs and to promote our full band electric sets.

Maybe the most important and latest development is the addition of Chris Copeland to our band.  Chris is a very talented drummer with an always lifting spirit, he was born and raised right here in Austin and is a blast to play music with.

We have been gigging like crazy!  The highlights form the past month were most definitely our show at STUBB’s and our show at the Gibson Show-room which was filmed by FOX 7.  Now, we are gearing up for all our shows during SXSW.  So far we are playing 5 shows, 3 for the RedGorilla Festival, 1 for Berklee College of Music, and one special show at Stompin’ Grounds.  It’ll be my first SXSW and I’ve heard that the traffic is crazy but the experience is worth it, so I’m pumped.

Our website is about to be updated so that it will be easier to see our schedule and interact with us.  For now, I will try to post shows here, however, the best place to look for updates on show times and venues is our facebook band page CLICK HERE

Hope to see you soon at one of our shows

Best,

Tucker

Check it out! Thanks to our friends at Wonka, we are now featured on their Myspace page. Plus, they will make our song “Easy Livin’” available for a free download!

In the square of downtown Denton, on the corner is Andy’s Bar. The saloon-y venue had a hip basement billiards room, and a main room which hosted a long neon lit bar. A rolling librarian ladder allows the bartenders to grab new bottles of Jack and Gin. The 21+ only balcony overlooks the stage at the back of the room.

Our roll that night was to cap off a night of 90s reunion shows. A Hootie-esk band and a Metallica wanted-to-be band were getting together again for a single show. It was a night of wondering if they were any better 15 years ago. The verdict was not. After a 2 hour delay and mass exodus of the supporting crowd, we played a semi-drunken set to the bartenders and local drinkers. Semi-drunken because, lets be honest, if you’re supposed to play at 11:30pm, but you start at 1:30am, you’re not going to NOT drink until after your set.

We had a hotel, so we slept in that night and drove back to Houston in the afternoon. We decided to head to the beach later last night and got here after the sun set and the moon had come out. Beach walks in the moonlight are unbeatable.  We’re here for another night and back in Houston tomorrow afternoon. Couple days of practice too before we head out west!  More and more excited to get to LA again.  See  you all there,

Jon (bass)

Once again the Powell family shows us their kind hospitality. Due to the cancellation of our House of Blues show, the Powells are going to enjoy our company until we have to leave for LA. Well, we hope they enjoy us.  The cancellation saddens us as much as it causes delight. A show is cancelled, but we get to eat really good food. Such is life.

We knew when we were planning our second trip out to the west coast, wanted to hit up Momo’s in Austin again. It just has a nice atmosphere, it sounds good in there, staff is awesome. We were fortunate enough to get a time slot on a day we could do it, so I know we were all looking forward to it in our own little ways.

Simply because a time slot was available for us to play in doen’t always mean it is the best slot for us. At this stage in the game we will take anything. As we should. But closing the night after sitar, soprano sax and tabla night is pushing it. Some how we got tacked onto the end of ‘World Music Night’ at Momo’s, which I believe is what happened last time.

“And now, representing America, ‘Tucker Jameson & the Hot Mugs’!”

It was a late night but a chill one. We had some great Mexican food, drank good beer in the air conditioning, hung out. Set for us started at midnight.  We played till about one and then headed out, but not after relaxing with our friends who had come out to see us.

And now, we practice, work out in the pool, see old friends, eat great, and hang until our departure to LA.

Jon (bass)

We played Lizard’s (ironically owned by a chick named ‘Liz’) about a month ago on our last tour round the country. We liked it so much that we wanted to come back, especially since the booking agent for the venue promised us we could directly support (play right before) the headliner: owner Liz’s band. But since disappointment circulates in the music business like the common cold, we got slotted as the opener for the night. What ev’s. We dealt with it.

Lizard’s, to refresh your memory, is this dive across the bad side of the train tracks outside of Indy. A basement venue, it’s just one of those places all the blue collar guys go to drink when they want to get away from the wives, and where all the bikers end up when they’re done being seen. So needless to say, we fit right in with the crowd. We’re surprisingly liked at Lizards however. We don’t get it, but we won’t fight it.

So after we got done with our set and put our stuff back in the trailer, we got hit with a musical experience NOBODY wasprepared for. Words do not describe.

Then Liz, the owner, played a trio set with her boyfriend/bass player and new guitar player.  We called it a night after that one.

After a pit stop at Guitar Center we are headed down to Houston, TX for a day of R’n'R before the show in Austin on the 17th. Austin, Dallas, Houston, LA, HOME. The end is coming to a close. :’(  Wish us luck on this last leg!

Jon (bass)

What a cool show yesterday. We we’re the only out of town-ers, and the rest of the groups brought great crowds. This was a special show though; we were the oldest band there, which for us, is a rarity. The first group was a 16 year old Allman Brothers band who ripped on some bluesy jams and hinted that they had some jazz chops too. They were from a local Chicago School of Rock, which, by the way, has yet to let me down. Every band that I’ve heard from those types of programs has been burnin’.

Our set was fun.  I think the other bands enjoyed seeing what the older kids could do.  We had some friends of Tucker’s dad come out to the show again (they came to our last Chicago show) and it was great to see them again.

The band after was a cute group of 13 year old girls and their 24 year old baby-sitter/drummer. They were so good! Even for 13 year olds. Great performers too. Then the band after them was a group of high school students who had a Killers or MGMT kind of vibe. The whole night I was thinking about how great it must be playing at those levels at such young ages. They kids we played with last night could all go really far if they wanted.

Now, I’m only typing this based on drunken babble, but I think Blake and Austin and David hung out with the Black Eyed Peas last night after our show.  All I put together is that they were at a club they all went to after the show and that cigarettes were smoked together.  Will confirm in the next blog post.

New show added: House of Blues in Houston, TX! That’ll be sweeeeet. Show date is August 24 (11 days from now), @ 8pm. But first off to Cleveland tonight, Indianapolis tomorrow, and Austin, TX a couple days after that.  See you guys at the show!

Off to Cleveland, OH!  Looking forward to meeting Mary Kate, who did a radio interview with us on Wednesday.

Jon (bass)

So after a packed weekend of… packing, we’re back in CT to prepare to head out to Chicago!  We’ll leave momentarily.  It’s about a 16 hr drive but we want to get there a little early to enjoy the city for an afternoon.

We’re all moved out of Boston, this time for good.  We will miss it, but we are more excited to make Texas our home.  We loved being down there this past month and look forward to settling into such a cool town (Austin).  But first another 2 weeks of the tour.

The buzz around here though is our first chart debut, number 183 on the CMJ top 200.  It’s such an inspiring thing to see, being that we are in the top 10 of all the unsigned indie bands.  So thank you if you had a part in that!   It takes the listeners to see that kind of progress!

Next stops Chicago (Reggie’s Club), Cleveland (Roc Bar), and Indianapolis (Lizard’s).  See you guys around!

Jon (bass)

After a couple days of breaking in Boston, we headed out to Pittsburgh, PA for a single show at the Altar Bar. The ‘Altar’ Barin uptown Pittsburgh is rocking the ‘church converted to a venue’ renovations. A two story club with a balcony section and bar upstairs, it was definitely one of the cooler places we’ve played this summer. They get a lot of major acts in there too. I don’t know if you saw my Twitter post last night (@jonkolar, and @tjandthehotmugs while your at it), but Vanilla Ice is playing there in 4 days. They can get some bigger acts, if only the washed up ones, but should any roll through they have the facilities to handle them; I believe I saw that the Method and Red men would be performing there in October.

Good to play again, but now we have an even longer break. We all have to go to Boston to pack our stuff for our move to Austin!  Be back in a couple days when we head out to Chicago.

Jon (bass)

We played at Angels & Kings about a month and a half ago and loved it. They do a great job of setting up shows, so we were happy to come back. It’s an intimate setting, so you feel like you get to know your performer, you get more of a VH1 Story Tellers atmosphere. But last night was even better than our previous time at A&Ks, bigger and more supportive crowd, better fellow performers, overall another great gig.

The drive back to Connecticut was quite silly after the show. For some reason we ended up with a light saber iPhone app fight in the middle seat. I think I won.

2 days off for now.  Some of us came up to Boston to pack for Austin, and the rest stayed back in Connecticut to rest up for the next leg of the tour.  Next stop is in Pittsburgh, PA, so if you’re from west Pennsylvania, make sure you come say hi.

Jon (bass)