The More You Drink, The Better We Sound

The More You Drink, The Better We Sound
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Sunday, September 12, 2010

A private party, a West Virginia Hoe Down, a Fall Festival, and a Bull Ride, and we still want more!

So, Ice House Road has been a little busy these past couple of weeks. Since Gary Hawthorne joined us in our quest to concquer the Outlaw Music World, we've mostly played hour long gigs at Bull Rides, until two weeks ago that is. We played for three and a half hours at Billie Joe Morris's birthday party in Greene Acres and had a great time. The people were great, the burgers and dogs were great, and everybody seemed to enjoy some good old rockin' outlaw music. We were finally able to let our hair down and see what we could do without having to stay family friendly and confined to only an hour of playing time. It was really the kind of gig we needed. Thanks so much to Tiffany Wagner and Ellis for inviting us to the party.


The following weekend we played another party in West Virginia. The 5th annual Sun Rise Ranch Labor Day Wekend Hoe Down. And once again, we brought the house down. Loads of fun, for us, and the great people at the Hoe Down. Thanks to Kris Jackson for booking us last year, this year, and pre-booking us for Labor Day 2011! As much fun as we had making music, the highlight of the evening was our roadie, Chester "Roadie Butthole" Hensley wrestling a steer to the ground. You almost had that bonus bull buddy.

And on September 11, Ice house road did somethine we've never done before, played two gigs in one day. At noon we took the stage at the Taste of Falls Church Fall Festival at Cherry Hill Park in Falls Church Virginia. Then we hightailed it down to Gordonsville for the last Proud American Tour BLM Bull Ride at Oakland Heights Farm for 2010. The rain held off, the crowd was big, and the bulls were extra rank. Also, we showed off just how good we can sound. Thanks to all the folks involved with BLM that keep asking us back, looking forward to seeing you all again at the BLM Bull Ride at the State Fair in a couple of weeks.

Many of you probably have a copy of our CD, "Outlaw Band." We've distributed a pretty huge chunk of the 500 discs we had printed. A special thanks to all that purchased a disc or two. We really appreciate your support, please feel free to spread the word far and wide. Play the disc for your friends, give away your copy after you put it on yourt iPod, buy another one as a gift for a friend.

I'd like to remind everybody that we'd love to play music for you at your party, your favorite restaurant, bar, or club, and of course if you happen to own a stadium or arena, and a huge sound system, we might consider playing music for you and a few thousand of your closest friends. So please keep spreading the word and we'll keep rocking!., You can book Ice House Road simply by emailing us at icehouseroad@gmail.com.

See y'all
Ice House Road

A Beautiful Night in Gordonsville

Wow, what a show, what a bull ride, what a crowd, what a night!


Once again Ice House Road opened the show for the BLM Bull Ride in Gordonsville Virginia, and everything went off without a hitch. Our stage was much closer to the audience this time, so our little sound system was able to cover the crown with the melodic sounds of Bobby's singing, Rob's bass, Gary's guitar, and me on the drums.

We debuted a new song tonight, "Cowboy Code" written by Bobby Sims and his good friend Myles Herring. We got off to a shaky start but the new song quickly pulled itself together. The crowd really seemed to love IHR originals "Woman Done Left Me," "Outlaw Band," and "Beer Drinking Hippie." All of which you can listen to on http://www.icehouseroad.net/Music.html, and of course, on our debut CD which is now available at The Music Store in Ruckersville.

We also sold some CDs at the show, not quite as much as we wanted, but I think we got people's interest, so, anybody that didn't get one tonight, bring an extra $7 bucks with you next time.

The weather forecast had us worried as late as Friday evening there was a 60% chance of precipitation. We had the tarps ready, but the rain finished up early Saturday morning, and the rest of the day turned out to be the nicest weather we've ever had at the bull ride. 85 degrees, sunny, breezy, and beautiful. Bid shout out to the man upstairs for the support!

The good vibes continued on into the bull ride. Cowboys rode their bulls like I've never seen before, nobody got hauled off in an ambulance, the sound system worked, the timing of the whole show was tight, Butter Bean was funny, pretty women on fast horses were prettier and faster than usual, and Blaine Whip rocked an 86 point ride to finish it off.

Can't wait to do it again in August, see y'all there. And as usual, if you need a band for your next party, wedding, or any other kind of event. We realize that nobody's got the budget for a band, but you might be surpises how cheap we'll work. Call me or email me and we can work something out. (434) 566-8376 icehouseroad@gmail.com.

Check ya' later,
Ice House Road

Dave and Sally Lamb, the owners of Oakland Heights Farm called a couple of weeks ago and asked if Ice House Road would be interested in playing music at their Virginia Horse Conference at Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. They even said they'd pay us! We had to think about it though, playing music for a bunch of horse lovin' legislators? How "Outlaw" is that? Outlaw enough I guess, cuz we decided to do it.

Hey y'all,


Well, this was Bull Ride number 2 for Ice House Road in 2010, and our third gig with new lead guitar player Gary Hawthorne. This music thing gets more fun each time we do it, especially with our ability to do songs we've never done before. Gary singing and wailing on All Along the Watchtower was pretty damn amazing!

For those of you that come out to see us in Gordonsville each month, thank you. We are working on getting our stage moved closer to the audience, it'd be nice to connect with you. Kinda sucks having the entire bull arena between you, the crowd and us the band. But at least this time we didn't have the tractor guy raking the arena while we were playing. And it was very nice of mother nature to drop some precip on us two hours before the gig. Killed all the dust and cooled it down a bit.

Our debut CD is being printed now, and should arrive at Ice House Road headquarters (on Ice House Road) this week. We've ordered enough that we can use them for promotional purposes (getting gigs) and sell a bunch, and give them away to friends and family. I am considering how we can sell these discs, online, on this website, on iTunes, please let us know how you'd like to buy your IHR CD. The cost will be $7, that's a dollar a song. At the risk of sounding anything but humble, we think this CD rocks, and rolls. Looking forward to spreading some Outlaw Band around the countryside.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to email me regarding anything Ice House Road, especially if you need a kick ass band to play your next party, BBQ July 4th event, birthday, wedding, bar mitzvah, Bull Ride, or 80,000 seat stadium.

Later,
IHR

icehouseroad@gmail.com

Dave and Sally Lamb, the owners of Oakland Heights Farm called a couple of weeks ago and asked if Ice House Road would be interested in playing music at their Virginia Horse Conference at Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. They even said they'd pay us! We had to think about it though, playing music for a bunch of horse lovin' legislators? How "Outlaw" is that? Outlaw enough I guess, cuz we decided to do it.

Dave and Sally Lamb, the owners of Oakland Heights Farm called a couple of weeks ago and asked if Ice House Road would be interested in playing music at their Virginia Horse Conference at Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. They even said they'd pay us! We had to think about it though, playing music for a bunch of horse lovin' legislators? How "Outlaw" is that? Outlaw enough I guess, cuz we decided to do it.


Quite the haul for us, 2-1/2 hours to get there, including a drive thru Fredericksburg on Rt. 3, yuck. But we figured we'd cruise in style with the new "Ice House Road, Outlaw Band" logo on the equipment trailer.

We got there and got all set up the historic dining hall. We couldn't help but notice the impressive spread of food. A real meat and potatoes kind of meal, with the meat provided by the Virginia Cattleman's Association, so we figured why pass up on the best Rib Eye steaks in Virginia, slow cooked by the VCA? That was some good beef, with homemade cornbread to go with it!

OK, time to play some music, there was some confusion over how long we were to play. We found out that we were going to need to wrap it up by 9:30 instead of 11:00. So, we had 3 hours of music planned, but we only ended up doing about an hour-forty-five. But it was a damn good time. We played some IHR originals, Outlaw Band, The Poker Song, and Beer Drinking Hippie, and for the first time we rocked Jimmy Hendrix, All Along The Watchtower. Along with some of our favorites. We finished her off with some Good 'ol Mountain Dew.

We had to figure out how loud to play. We used about half our speakers and amps, and sounded twice as loud as we normally do to the fairly small room. We cracked open the doors and people were dancing in the parking lot outside. So we didn't have to turn it down, and everybody was able to have a good time.

When we finished were told that Ice House Road is the first band to ever grace Stratford Hall. We made history tonight folks. I don't know if it'll make the history books, but it was good enough to get asked back again to play the VHC again next year. How outlaw is that? We got paid to play music, that's good enough for us! Hell, we'd a been playing music at Bobby's house for free anyway.

Later,
IHR
This is a previous posting from May 9, 2010 - relocating to this new Blogspot.

Hey all,


Well, you've found our new website, right on, thanks for checking us out.

IHR is about to step it up a notch. We've recorded a 7 song CD at Virginia Arts Recording Studio in Charlottesville. It's going in for final mixing now, and hopefully soon we'll have some actual discs available. The songs on the disc include:

Outlaw Band
Beer Drinking Hippie
The Poker Song
Woman Done Left Me
Mountain Dew
Little Mountain Church
The Bull Riding Song

Yesterday marked the opening of the 2010 BLM Proud American Tour Bull Ride events in Gordonsville. Once again Ice House Road will be opening all the BLM shows this year. Despite the windy conditions we had a great opening show yesterday. By the June 12th bull ride we hope to have a stage built for us closer to the bleachers so you folks in the audience can get into the songs a little better.

Yesterday was our first gig with new lead guitar player Gary Hawthorne. The rest of IHR are still excited as hell to have a guitar player of Gary's caliber, he's amazing. For example, just before we took the stage yesterday, Gary lost his slide, so he used a Budweiser beer bottle. It was a sight to see, very hendrix like! Good news, he found his slide later in the evening.

Keep checking back, we'll be blogging on a regular basis as the summer season picks up.

Later,
IHR