Xenia Rubinos

oh Austin, what can I say? I’ll sum it up stream of consciousness style.

bbq, meat, truckers, hippies, hipsters, long lines, sun, palm trees, drive thrus, everybody drunk, sweaty, punk, metal, party, lazer lights, rachel rae, little dragon, sean lennon and his girl sitting next to me, tune yards, j. roddy walston and the business playing piano like it’s going out of style, james blake, new friends old friends non friends, nonsense, all music everything, gas station naps, “ya’ll”, hotels, motels and yes, a holiday inn.

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Austin Post says I’m “performatic”.

All in all, we had a blast, played our butts off and will be back soon! The tour ended with a pretty painfully long drive back to NYC. We’re back hibernating and planning. Thanks to the road for being so kind to us and for all the friendly folks along the way. This tour restored my faith in people, especially the midwestern variety, ya’ll are the bomb! See you soon!

Intriguing to say the least. Home to Hanson, route 66, lots of oil, punk bands, and Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa promptly showed us its teeth upon our arrival. However after a rocking show and a really fun night at Soundpony we felt more at ease and ate hot dogs with new friends. The end… and now, AUSTIN !

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We spent the day driving through beautiful Kansas farmlands on the way to Tulsa, OK. If our calculations are correct, we must have seen nearly 1,000 cows. Also- the set of the Little House on the Prairie. There were lots of unexplained fires on the road (anybody know what that’s about?) and peculiar looking contraptions that we’re guessing are irrigation systems. Lots of things I don’t understand- except for the fact that Kansas is not joking my friends. It is fierce and wild.

Ohhhh Omaha, what can i possibly say to sum it all up? YOU ROCK! We played the Waiting Room to a crunk crowd of folks who came to dance! The aptly named Funk Trek hosted us for a truly raucous night. These guys are a dream come true- great musicians and the epitome of midwestern friendliness! We ate spanish tapas, visited a cigar bar/liquor store, danced, got lots of hugs, drank homemade moonshine (ouch), slept with the fluffy house cats at the percussionist’s lovely abode, made a whole hot mess of new and interesting friends, and generally laid it down hardcore onstage. We loved the energy of the town, and when the sun came up the next morning we stumbled out of the sleepy hippy party house and found ourselves in a gorgeous neighborhood with wrap around porches, lots of trees and space. OMAHA- I have a crush on you!

We had a great show at Vaudeville Mews, an awesome rock club in the heart of Des Moines, Iowa! We shared the stage with the young and imaginative Vivacious Bean Dip- fronted by songstress Eva Lewin (pictured below) and the  local female-powered band, Pennyhawk. Thanks to Jared Curtis, editor at CityView for the great photos of the show! We sleepily ate dinner at a place called Fong’s Pizza which used to be a chinese restaurant. When the new pizza shop owners purchased the joint they decided to just leave up the decor and take it all the way with chinese pizza and tiki drinks. It’s basically chinese food on a pizza folks- beef and broccoli on crust… wild.

All in all, Des Moines was very good to us! We were welcomed enthusiastically, made good friends, and hope to return to again soon!

On the road to chicago we found fields of windmills and jesus…

I am officially in love with Chicago! It is a ballsy city with a big heart, great food, soulful music…. what more can a girl ask for? Picture above is from a downtown Thai place that kept it real with their egg noodle soups. We had an awesome show at Reggie’s Live Music Joint, where we played to a really diverse crowd. People from all walks of life brought together by music and the 25¢ chicken wing special! Writer Blanca Mendez of the great music blog Club Fonograma, stopped by to hang with us, had a blast chatting her up!

The other bands on the bill were talented and warm- The Jettison Never on tour from Chattanooga, TN and the Red Buttons on tour from Cleveland, OH. The night ended with a killin’ old-timesy blues band, Mr. Blotto, which was the perfect soundtrack to my half slab of bbq ribs- food coma!

Geoff Farina (of Karate and Glorytellers) and his lovely wife Caterina (above) graciously welcomed us into their beautiful home for the night. We had a great time chatting with them about tours, Chicago, and checking out Geoff’s amazing guitar collection!

All in all, an awesome time in Chitown! We’ll be sad to leave tonight, and are already scheming our return!

We played the first “away” show of our tour at a cool little rock club called “The Bishop” in Bloomington, IN. We found Bloomington to be a funky college town with a big heart. We made lots of new friends in the local skate punk scene including the bands, “Humans” and “Barf Blood”. There was alot of moshing going on, beer being spilled and good times being had. Although we aren’t exactly a punk band- we were very well received (marco was kissed by a punk rock drummer!) lots of cds were sold, and all in all there was a whole lot of love to go around. We look forward to returning to Bloomington during corn season!

ps. one of my life dreams has been fulfilled in driving past Xenia, Ohio! check mark.