i am freaking out/my last 3 weekends rocked....literally

I started waaaayyyy back in September, 2008, preparing to apply to grad school. I had it all mapped out in a timely matter to have everything ready for submission early January: research, contacting schools for info, shooting my pieces and arranging my digital portfolio, visiting schools, checking out the schools surrounding community (which is very important to me), filling out applications, writing my "statement of intent" (which I think was harder than birthing a child... although I have never done that so I could not tell you for certain), and finally submitting all the requested materials in the manner requested by each school.... and I told myself in my mapped out calendar that I would submit, and then put it out of my mind... until March, which seemed sooooo far away at the time. WELL IT'S MARCH, AND I'M FREAKING OUT!!!!! I ended up applying to 3 schools, and I have heard from 2, and both places I am on the FREAKING WAIT LIST (which I guess is better than straight up being denied, but doesn't help my rising anxiety) AND my numero uno choice... I haven't heard from yet! EVERY-SINGLE-DAY I anxiously await a call, an e-mail, a letter, I may appear calm on the outside BUT I AM FREAKIN' ON THE INSIDE... hence the capitol letters, ahhhh, I should have told myself April...boo

On another, more interesting side of this post, March has been a-lotta rockin' for the Diamond Center. The first weekend of the month we played a show with our friends from Athens, Georgia, The Visitations... this is the second time that Davey and the crew have been thru Lubbock since we have been here, and I have to say that this is the best things about having transient/musician friends... you never know when they will come see you OR you will randomly run into them (this comes into play later in the post)! The second weekend we played a little mini-tour.  Thurs. we played a Conferette in Denton, the first annual NX35, AND we got to play with some other friends from Athens,  Madeline & the White Flag Band AND Ham 1. This posse included one of k's and I most favorite people in the world, the one and only, mr. Jim Wilson. Friday we played again with Madeline & the Band in Ft. Worth and then all 3 of us back together again in Austin on Sat. night. It was hard to say goodbye to that crew (and yes now I am breaking out in the Boyz II Men song). THEN, this past weekend we went down and played a day show in Austin for SXSW! I have now figured out that THIS is where it's at! Screw those official SXSW shows, the fun and the people are at the day shows. We played at an Ethiopian Resturant, Karibu (owned by our Lubbock friend Akiles' parents) with some of our other friends from Lubbock: The Numerators & La Panza, and some touring acts too... Treasure Mammal & Polka Dot Dot Dot. AND right down the alley was, in my opinion, probably the best outdoor day party, Ms Bea's. A long list of hip bands played there including, but not limited to, Marnie Stern, Mika Miko,  and my fav, The Vivian Girls, who were hanging out there all day. We also ran into several of our friends from Athens, Twin Tigers, and the Dark Meat crew, who we would be hosting for a Lubbock show Sat night. There are pictures to follow so I wont go into the details here BUT we basically squished about 3 days of SXSW into less than 24 hours.... enjoy!

ohhhhh yea, and I thought I would also mention that somehow, thru her magical powers, my sister Jana, drummer of the Diamond Center, convinced Ales Maas, the vocalist of The Black Angels to come to our SXSW show... AND HE DID! ....AND he seemed to really dig it, and came up immediately after we finished our last note and wanted to buy a CD.... AWESOME!

Alrighty, these pics are from the night after we played with the Visitations in Lubbock. A band that Kyle regularly plays in called 90% death sex, opened up for Wovenhand. It was an ultra expanded lineup this night though with me joining them on TAMBOURINE and the Visitations guys on whatever weird sound things they could find. On the right is Kyle and our friend Kate (you might have seen her around this blog before) I mainly wanted to show this pic to showcase K's awesome slick-back-do.

Alan on the left (our newest member  of the Diamond Center) and Madeline, Jeff and Me on the right our first night at Rubber Gloves in Denton. The light in the green room was AWESOME.
I love this series of Jana changing in the Rubber Gloves green room.

HERE is K on the left and mr. Jim Wilson on the right mentally preparing for the show, i'm sure.


WOW... this is the Style Station outside of Waco, Tx. It's an AWESOME vintage shop that I will have to do an entire post on at a later time... this is the sneak peak!

I just had to throw one in of Cotton, what a sweet face!




This series is the alley in Austin that was between home base, Karibu, and party central, Ms. Bea's. 

The Vivian Girls. (I am really no good at shooting live music, sorry.... BECAUSE...

for some reason I am usually taking shots like this. For some reason I think it is very interesting to shoot the feet of people watching music.... who knows!?

Bike-land at Ms. Bea's

Austin sunset. I have also learned that this thing that I like to do where I shoot things out of focus ACTUALLY is called something.... Bokeh... check it out!

Dusk at Ms. Bea's with more feet and buts! Notice the sticker on the garbage says, "No texting on the dance floor" HA

We ran into Chris, Nate, Aaron & Charlie on 6th st. waiting to get into see Thee Oh Seas
We know these guy from Athens, and they all, at some time play in Dark Meat. Chris now lives in Austin, and Nate in Denton... so we actually get to see THEM pretty often.

This must be when Aaron & Charlie decided not to stand in line BUT to.....

come with us and find some pool tables. Here is Aaron showing his signature move... those are skills I tell ya!

We also ran into my friend from high school, Cory to join us on our pool escapades.

Now here are all the guys having some kind of serious conversation although it must be pretty boring because it seems that Cory & Charlie are asleep... hmmmm

Now here is Kyle, Aaron, Charlie and I attempting to walk to the pedestrian bridge to see The Vivian Girls again for a 2am show.... Although we did make it to the bridge....



we didn't make it until show time BUT we found a sweet cab for to take us home.

The end.