TEXAS MUSIC AWARDS winner, Thomas Michael Riley's Songwriter Showcase - Every Wednesday Night at Hondo's on Main (7:30 - 9:30)

Great Food, Great Music, Great People! Come Experience Original Texas Music & Texas Fun!

Thomas Michael Riley and Kevin Higgins take turns every Wednesday Night inviting a special guest to come share the gift of music with the audience at the TMR "Songwriter Showcase", featuring - MUSIC just too good to miss!

First Friday Artwalk in Fredericksburg, Texas, is quickly becoming a delightful TRADITION! Fifteen fine art galleries have joined to bring art and art lovers together. Participating gallery doors are open late until 8:00 pm. Enjoy fine wines from local wineries and scrumptious culinary offerings, while viewing stunning collections of fine art and crafts - Experience the Fredericksburg, TX ART scene up close and personal - all day long. First Friday of every month! Wine Partners: Becker Vineyards, Grape Creek Vineyards and Torre di Pietra
Participating Galleries:
* Agave Gallery
* Artisans at Rocky HIll
* Cowboy Bronze
* Fredericksburg Art & More
* Fredericksburg Art Gallery
* Fredericksburg Art Guild
* Galeria 19
* InSight Gallery
* Larry Jackson's Antique & Art Gallery
* R. S. Hanna Gallery
* River Rustic Gallery
* The Charles Beckendorf Gallery
* The Good Art Co.
* The Village Gallery
* Whistle Pik Galleries

Come join us for spring break at Tin Star Ranch! The Saloon is open from 8:30am - 7:30pm daily serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and other refreshments.

Be sure to join us on St. Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17th, for Live Music, dancing and $2.00 Keg beer.

Admission is Free!

Campers are Welcome!! We have a large area with lots of trees and two showers on site and limited electric.

Come join us for spring break at Tin Star Ranch! The Saloon is open from 8:30am - 7:30pm daily serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and other refreshments.

Be sure to join us on St. Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17th, for Live Music, dancing and $2.00 Keg beer.

Admission is Free!

Campers are Welcome!! We have a large area with lots of trees and two showers on site and limited electric.

As a son of the Texas soil, Clay McClinton reflects the country and blues traditions of his native state, while weaving a sound of his own. It’s been called honky-tonk, Americana, and Texas Roots. As a musician he expresses the joy and suffering of being alive. Clay is a soulful singer-songwriter and musician whose talent brings out emotions and moods in his audience. Clay has been creating his unique sound for nearly a decade. Some of his influences are his father- Delbert McClinton, Rodney Crowell, Mark Knopfler, J.J. Cale, Terry Allen, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and Willie Nelson.

Clay’s musical virtuosity shines with the release of his third album, Livin’ Out Loud (2010). He blends Americana and Texas blues with a touch of country to give us a tremendous follow up to his two previous releases—Out of the Blue (2004) and Son of a Gun (2006). Livin’ Out Loud is openhearted and thoughtful, and often explores the tension between the love for adventure and the longing for home. Clay has taken grand leaps both as a singer-songwriter and as a musician, and the eleven tracks also foretell of great things to come. Much like his earlier albums, Clay wrote or co-wrote ten of the tracks. He was honored to write with Bruce Channel, Dave Duncan, Rob Roy Parnell, Ricky Ray, and of course, Delbert. He produced the album with Kevin McKendree, a longtime family friend as well as Delbert’s piano player. Clay describes the process of creating the album with these and other great musicians as one of self-discovery and personal and professional growth.

In the opening song, “Whole Lotta Work,” Clay rocks the Texas electric blues as he laments what it takes just to have a little fun. He follows with “Puttin’ Down Roots,” a country song celebrating the joy of building and creating a home with his two hands. “Bird for a Day” is a brooding country rock song that expresses the desire to explore the world, free from responsibilities. Several tracks on the album wrestle with feelings of love and loss. On “Driftin’ Away With You,” Clay conjures love in the tropics. “The One You Loved” and “Damage is Done” are both emotional confessionals about heartache and regret. The closing track, “Gone to Mexico,” written by Delbert McClinton but never recorded, is a Latin-infused blues-rock tune that expresses the yearning for solitude away from the technology-driven world. The variety of musical styles and moods on Livin’ Out Loud reflects Clay’s growth and development, and offers promise that his sound will continue to touch the world.

Clay was raised around harmonicas, guitars, and pianos. Born in Fort Worth, TX he spent much of his childhood around a lot of talented musicians, watching and listening. During his early teenage years he spent a couple of summers touring as a roadie for his dad. Clay felt at home in the culture and lifestyle of playing music and being on the road. It should come as no surprise then that by the time he was seventeen Clay had already played in several bands and was occasionally sitting in on guitar with Delbert during live performances. But it wasn’t until he graduated high school and moved to Austin, Texas in the mid-nineties that he began to focus more seriously on his music career.

Once in Austin, Clay began sitting in on harmonica and guitar with local musicians. Austin’s music scene was the perfect classroom for him to cultivate his talent. Several years after moving to central Texas, Clay went on a four-month tour through Europe and parts of North Africa doing street performances with some musician friends. Upon returning to the States in 2000, Clay decided to move to a small mountain town. He settled on Flagstaff, AZ, moved into a converted school bus on the outskirts of town, and started two bands—The Blues Project and Second Harvest. For the next three years Clay was performing locally five to six nights a week. It was in Flagstaff where he met Brandy Alan, who is now his wife and band manager. It was also in Flagstaff where The Clay McClinton Band first took stage.

In 2003 Clay moved to Nashville, TN with the intention of focusing exclusively on writing and producing an album. Nashville provided the creative atmosphere and demanded a level of professionalism that allowed him to grow as a musician and songwriter. With the release of his debut album, Out of the Blue, in 2004, he had accomplished his goal. Clay wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, and he co-produced the album with Vinny Constantine.

By the time Out of the Blue was released Clay had enlisted several musicians who would form the backbone of The Clay McClinton Band for the next three years. While he called Nashville home, most of his time was spent on the road touring; the band was typically booked for about 175 shows a year at venues across the U.S. and as far as Norway. Clay took time in 2006 to return to Nashville and record his second album, Son of a Gun, which Indie-Music.com rated as in the top 25 Indie albums of the year. He co-produced Son of a Gun as well, this time with Kevin McKendree.

In 2007, after three years on the road, Clay moved back to Austin to regroup and begin writing his third album. The current incarnation of the Clay McClinton Band is best described as a cooperative filled from the pool of Austin’s rich community of musicians. He plays regularly at prominent venues across Texas such as the Saxon Pub, Granada Theatre and Luckenbach. In 2009, the newsletter from the historic Gruene Hall in Gruene, TX described Clay as one of their fastest growing acts. With the release of Livin’ Out Loud, Clay is poised to get back on the road for another national tour. We hope you enjoy the album as much as Clay enjoyed creating it!

Written By Gardner Harris

http://www.claymcclinton.com/

Luckenbach Texas - 1st Annual Mud Dauber Festival Chili Cook-off

Luckenbach brings back the Chili Cook Off. It's not your mothers Chili Cook-off... It's a brand new event.

A full day celebrating the Return of the Mud Daubers, one of Hondo's favorite events. Grab yer Kazoo and come join the fun. Kevin Deal provides entertainment from 1-5pm.

The Chili cook-off returns! This event is open to the public. Purchase a Tasting kit and help us choose the best tasting Chili in the Universe! Tasting kits will be available for purchase the day of event for $10 Proceeds to benefit ALS. Many THANKS to the Central Texas Tolbert Chili Group . Please visit their website for all the latest happenings in the Chili World.

ON Site Cook Registration Sat, 3/24 starting at 8am. 1st Come space (15x15) selection. ONLY 150 cooking spaces available. (Tolbert-Sanctioned)


Proceeds to benefit the ALS Society!

Insight Gallery is proud to host "Artspring". Artspring is Ambleside’s main fundraiser. It is held every other year and is an evening event that celebrates the arts with music, fine food and drink and a display of professional and student art in a gallery setting. Our goal is to raise $40,000 but we think we can raise more than that!
Artspring will be held Saturday, March 24, 2012, from 4-9pm. InSight Gallery owners, Meredith and David Plesko, have offered to host Artspring. Elegant appetizers will be provided by August E’s. Many national and local artists have already donated, including Nancy Bush, Mark Haworth, Phil Bob Boorman, John Bennett, Chuck Mauldin, David Camp, Melissa Estes, Deborah Harrington, Katherine Lott and many more.

“TWO TONS” Show at Crossroads? Might be a good idea to get here early.

$10 cover

If there’s one thing Texans love, it’s a good party. But if you ask self-respecting Lone Star carousers what turns a bash into a blast, they won’t say beer or barbecue. They know it all comes down to the music. And there’s one band that can rouse revelers like no other: Two Tons of Steel.

Two Tons’ rambunctious brand of country-rooted rock has been inspiring listeners in the great republic — and far beyond — for more than two decades, and with its 10th album, NOT THAT LUCKY, the band is ready to throw its weight around even more.

NOT THAT LUCKY, which reached #4 on the Americana Music Charts in Sept/Oct 2009 is the band’s first studio album since 2005′s VEGAS (which ranked among the top 20 Americana albums for 2006) is its fourth helmed by Lloyd Maines, Texas’ most in-demand producer (the Flatlanders, Dixie Chicks, Pat Green, James McMurtry). Explaining why he always clears his schedule for Two Tons of Steel, Maines simply declares, “They’re one of the best bands in Texas.”

And beyond. Already familiar to fans of the Grand Ole Opry, where Two Tons has performed some eight times, and to visitors at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, where it appears in a documentary about country music, Two Tons tours Europe regularly and in 1997, became the first U.S. act in 37 years to perform in the national theater of Havana, Cuba. It’s so beloved in its home state that Two Tons of Steel is featured in the IMAX film, “Texas: The Big Picture,” and is considered an institution at the state’s oldest, most revered dance hall, Gruene Hall, where its annual Two Ton Tuesdays summer series has been selling out for 14 years (and can be witnessed via the 2006 CD/DVD release, TWO TON TUESDAY LIVE!).

Lead singer-acoustic guitarist Kevin Geil does the heavy lifting when it comes to describing the San Antonio-based band’s sound. “Two Tons is two tons of steel,” he says. “We’re kind of in your face, almost punk rock at times.”

It’s high-energy, that’s for sure. Inspired equally by Elvis Presley and the Ramones, Two Tons combines the talents of the kinetic Geil with Dennis Fallon on electric guitar, Chris Dodds on drums and harmony vocals, and Chris Rhoades on upright and electric bass, joined in the studio by regular contributor Danny Mathis on pedal and straight steel. B3 player Riley Osborne, fiddler Brian Beken, acoustic guitarist/vocalist Tom Gillam and vocalist Drew Womack also played on NOT THAT LUCKY along with producer Maines, who added some acoustic guitar. Gillam, in fact, wrote the closing track, “Bottom of the Bottle,” and sings the second verse.

The album was recorded over the course of a month at The Zone in Dripping Springs, outside of Austin.

“It was really nice, because VEGAS was done in six days straight, including mixing, so there wasn’t a lot of chance to sit back and listen,” Geil says. Recording a few days at a time gave the band the luxury to change a line here and there, or try new approaches — often based on Maines’ suggestions.

“Lloyd is a master at taking what you have and making it better, but it’s still the same,” says Geil with a laugh, “like on ‘Alcohol and Pills,’ which is a Fred Eaglesmith song. When we went in, we were doing it as almost a train beat, and when Lloyd listened to it, he said, ‘Try this. Boom-chi-chi-dom.’ So that right there changed the whole feel of the song. The train beat was just too busy. It would have been a good song, but when you listen to it — when we listen to it — it’s like, that’s right. It’s all about the feel.

“We push the envelope of our abilities every album,” says Geil, “and this album, Lloyd just really did a great job pushing us even further.”

The new disc also contains the debut recording of “Without Your Love,” a song by hit-making tunesmith Monte Warden (co-writer of George Strait’s “Desperately”) penned with Two Tons of Steel in mind.

Geil, who wrote the other cuts on NOT THAT LUCKY, until recently had a second career as the San Antonio Express-News’ award-winning senior photographer. A massive round of layoffs gave him the opportunity to concentrate on the band fulltime. With the kind of work ethic that already has the band performing 200 dates a year, consistently earning top honors in San Antonio music polls and backing by its new label, Smith Entertainment Records, Two Tons is chomping at the bit. The band is itching to get out and pump up new audiences with its Two Tons cheer and its now-classic countrified version of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” (a take so popular, other bands have covered it), not to mention its new tunes.

“We’re primed right now,” says Geil. “We’re ready to go.” Ready to ladle out some hot molten steel, that is.

http://www.twotons.com/