PARTY!!!

Hello again everyone. This past week Randy Rogers celebrated turning one year older. Happy B-Day Randy! His Wife Brooke threw one of the most fun parties I have ever been to. It was held in Austin at Cederstreet Courtyard where we had the balcony above the stage reserved for the night. The band playing was the Spazmatics, an 80's themed band, they are freakin bad ass and soo fun to watch. Since the band was 80's, Brooke made the party 80's and everyone dressed up for the occasion. People showed up dressed from miami vice to Robert Palmer. Chops was dressed like me in the 9th grade with a mullet and Metallica shirt. Geoff was straight out of revenge of the nerds. I was the 80's hip hop guy in overalls and run dmc shirt. It was soo much fun. It seamed like everyone was there, Kevin Fowler, some of the Motercars, Wade Bowen, Dub Miller, Fred Andrews from Honeybrowne, Django Walker, Cory Morrow, and so on and so on. I got too drunk to remember everyone that showed up, so here are a few pics from the night.

 

IDAHO

Hello again everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to update my blog. The truth is that I was sick most of the time we were in Idaho and didn't get very many pics. Well, I have pics now. 

I guess Ill start by giving a basic outline of the weekend. 

We arrived on a thursday and had to play the 

street dance that night. Friday was the golf tournament with all the musicians. friday night was Robert Earl Keen and Reckless headlined. Saturday there was music all day and night. We also played on saturday.

 

The street dance was held on main street. I guess it would be downtown Challis. It was basically a strip of buildings lining each side of the street with bars and liquor stores. There was even a crosswalk that went diagonally across the street that went from one bar doorstep to the next. The weather that night was rainy. It rained all through the Braun Brothers set but nobody left, everyone partied in the rain! The rain finally stopped and we went on stage. Here are a few pics from the street dance and downtown Challis.

About 5 songs into our set at the street dance

, were playing "Again", our guitar player Geoff turns around pissed and screams, " what the F was that!!" I looked over at him and blood started pouring out of his head! We finished the song and had to leave the stage. He got hit with a beer bottle from the crowd and needed stitches. Well, there is no where near Challis to get stitches. We cleaned Geoff up on the bus, put a bandaid on his head and he actually went out and finished the set. Pretty tough SOB!! Thanks to Robert Keen's road manager Toby, They caught the kid that threw the bottle and took him to jail. Funny, he tried to come back to the show on sat. and got arrested again! 

Saturday Morning was the golf tournament and you

 got strokes off for all the goofy golf attire you wore. Here are some pics from that. We all had soo much fun!!

Saturday was amazing! But the weather was some of the weirdest I have ever experienced! It would rain then quit and the sun would shine. It even hailed on us with the sun out as bright as ever. The crowd partied through it all! I almost couldn't believe it. Here are some pics from that day of the shows and everyone partying together, being silly, and just having a blast! 

If any of you are

 looking to get away next year, you should really think about making it to the Braun Brothers Family Reunion! There is GREAT music, golf, rivers, hot springs, bars, and just alot of fun to be had! Its really worth the trip up there!

Golf!

This week was the week for golf! We played 2 rounds, Randy and Brady met Ben Crenshaw, and we all got honarary memberships to a country club in Austin!

 We played in Nacogdoches on Thursday at Woodland Hills golf course. Nice course for a municipal . At about the 13th hole the sky opened and we got poured on! We still played all 18. I killed everyone by about 12 shots.

 The next stop on the run was in Waco. Wade Bowen's dad lives there and he picked us up and took us to his country club that morning. We played teams, Randy and Wade's dad VS. me, Geoff, and Brady. We ended up tieing for the round. Wade's dad is bad ass! Its really nice to be able to get off that bus for a while and just be outdoors, sometimes that just isn't possible. Here are a couple of pics from waco

After golf in Waco, Wade's dad took us by the National Guard where we met a great bunch of soldiers on their way to Iraq. We signed some stuff, took pics, and got a few of them tickets to our show for their last night out before they left. Its and unbelievable sacrifice those guys chose to make for us! It was humbling to think those guys were headed overseas and I was just headed to the bar to play another concert. Id like to just say thanks to all of our men and women in the service of our country!

Photo Shoot

Hello everybody.... Today was a long eventful fun day for the RRB. We got to have our picture taken. The scene of the shoot was in and around Club 21 in Uhland, Texas. A pretty cool place that you may have seen before. Like in Wade Bowen's, "God Bless this Town" video or more recently scenes from a newer movie, "Stop Loss".

We all showed up around noon and the stylists immediately started going through all of the clothes we brought and organized them on racks. We also had boxes of shirts from our wonderful sponsors Panhandle Slim. Once they figured out what each of us would wear for the first shoot, we had to go through hair and makeup. 

We took pictures all day, from noon till 8:30. We had several breaks though for wardrobe changes and to eat some really good mexican food. One shot we took we decided it would be fun to all jump on the count of 3. Well, I jumped on 3, did some kind of karate move and split my favorite jeans wide open! ha ha ha! I was kinda upset though. here are a few pics of our day of photos

We would like to thank everyone involved who made this day really fun, run so smooth, and hopefully made us look really cool. Here is a big group photo of all who were involved. Thanks again from the RRB family!

Breakdown!!

This week started out Awesome!! We played El Paso for the first time ever and had a great show. We loaded up immediately after the show and headed north to Red River, New Mexico. If you have never been there before you should go. The town is a ski resort in the winter and full of cool stuff to do in the summer. Randy grew up coming here every year as a kid. We spent the day there on rented mopeds (wish I had a pic to show you), Brady and Geoff did some fishing, Me and Sean hit up the frisbee golf course there in the mountains and played about 31 holes. Next time were back there will be with CCR and the Motercars! Roadtrip anyone?? After Red River we went to Denver and had the biggest crowd we have ever had there. Most everyone stayed up late partying. The next morning on the way to Fort Collins we were awaken around 9:30 on a broken down bus on the side of I25. They towed our bus off to the shop and our trailer to the Aggie Theater while we piled into a limo bus that we all thought was going to shake apart cause it was not built to do 75 down the hwy. The Ft. Collins show was amazing. We were exhausted but I think we play better when we get like that. It was another RRB record attendance for Ft. Collins. The next morning we all flew home. Here are a few pics I snapped of us dragging our bags down the side of the hwy. 

My Biggest Fan!

Drummers hardly ever get enough credit! We sit in the back, hide behind a wall of drums and cymbals. BUT.... when we go to Victoria I get my own cheering section. They scream Les F'n Lawless, made up a kind of "gang sign" by forming 2 L's with their hands, and even made T-Shirts. It makes me feel alot cooler than I am. The last time we were there we took a few pics and I let them rock out on my kit for a bit after the show. Id like to send out a special thanks to my crew in Victoria, you guys rock!

Opening For The Eagles!!!!

It was the first part of May. We all loaded up  on the big blue bus and headed west towards California for the first time since touring with Dierks and Miranda. We played a couple gigs on the way out there in New Mexico and Arizona. We were all surprised at the number of people that knew our songs in places we had never been before. We woke up in Indio, California to an absolutely beautiful day! Sunshine, no humidity, palm trees, mountains.... it was a perfect day.

 The venue was at polo fields and the festival was probably the biggest set up we had ever seen. It was hard believe that our little band from cheatham street warehouse was about to share the stage John Fogerty and The Eagles!  

                                    

This is a picture of me on the same big screen as the eagles album cover shown above. They had two of 

these screens on each side of the stage. I bet that

they were each a couple stories tall.

This is a photo of us waiting to take the stage. We were the first band on the main stage and the first 100 yards directly in front of the stage was reserved seating. well, most people with reserved seats don't rush out to see the first band at 5 in the afternoon. That made it a little weird because we are soo used to connecting with our crowd but they were a football field away. It was a great show and a real honor to play drums in the same spot that Don Henley would be playing a couple of hours later!

John Fogerty and The Eagles ROCKED!!! Afterwards everyone was arguing over who rocked the most. The consensus was that Fogerty slayed The Eagles. To me they were both equally amazing!