03-22-04
Well, apparently our last couple of news updates didn't ever see their way to this web site so there's a lot of updating to be done:
After the new year, Tom Bowman officially usurped the drum throne of the Czars. Tom actually played our very first show back in DEC '02. Tom is a steady time keeper and tasteful player. He comes to us from San Marcos jazz freaks the Big Orange. Our first show with Tom back on drums was at Room 710 in January.
We also made another trek down to Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio without Shirley, who'd taken ill at the last minute. We still played a tight set and were surprised when we sold out of the CDs we'd brought to the show!
February was the single busiest month the Czars have ever experienced:
We opened twice for Oakland, CA based accordionist Mark Growden at Trophy's and 710. Mark and his bassist Seth were subject to the most blowing-of-sunshine-up-the-skirts that we've ever witnessed. The Czars were also exposed to this most annoying facet of the music industry. The Room 710 show, however, did feature ladies in the audience dancing, now you're getting it!
On Feb 17, we finally played on KUT 90.5 FM's Eklektikos with John Aielli , who was very kind and let us play the entire hour, ending the show as background to his announcements. Unfortunately, we are not able to make this recording available on our web site but KUT archived it and you can hear the entire broadcast here.
We also made a return the stage of Emo's on Feb 19 to open for Sleepytime Gorilla Museum along with Attic Ted and SteerS. This show was the biggest audience we've had the honor of entertaining and they were quite receptive.
That same weekend, we were asked to play a benefit at Beerland for and employee of pirate radio station KAOS. This show surprised us: we went on at 4 PM with no one in the place and looked up after 2 songs to find 30 people who stayed for the whole show. Later that night we played at Rounder's Pizza.
Then we slept for a week.
In other news we were accepted to SXSW 2004! Our showcase will be Thursday, MARCH 18 at the Hideout at 6th and Congress in Austin.
Keep an eye on our calendar for more dates. We're going to be in Houston, San Antonio, D/FW, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana… just about everywhere but Austin for a while.