Kori Jean Olsen

Last night was our band's first experience at a true country place. It’s a “club” or “joint” or whatever they might call it. I’m not sure what the roof was made of, but it was supported by steel beams and the floor was concrete or asphalt, depending on the where you were. The walls were basically a tall chain link fence or something with thick plastic sheets (kind of like super thick cellophane) to block the wind. It seems to be a fairly popular place (but there are other popular country places that are in buildings).

There was an FFA Alumni event there that night. Chino High had an FFA program, but I doubt the alumni still get together; obviously it’s more important here. The MC was talking about how much FFA does for the teens, the lessons learned from doing things like castrating goats, etc!

There were, of course, cowboy hats, plaid shirts, country jeans, boots and big belt buckles. It was fun and interesting to watch them dance, even seeing the teens do these specific couple country dances; how you hold your partner and move your feet, they’ve obviously grown up with it.

It was the most southern aspect of the Texas culture I’ve experienced here in a long time. We noticed the southern hospitality from Texans right off the bat, but so many people are not from Texas, or if they’re an Austin native, they may not be a “southern” type Texan, so you go a long time not experiencing the southern culture. It reminded me again that we’re in Texas.

We got this gig through an ad Kori has in a Texas country music and lifestyle magazine called Country Line. Some people from the mag gave us the chance to do 3 songs while the cover band was on break, but it was just Kori and I, and I played acoustic. The band came and watched. If the mag had known out about Kori sooner they said they would have had us do our whole set with the full band, maybe to open for the cover band.

They were really impressed. One lady from the mag said to Kori, “Wow, you’re better than your CD!” She did a great job on stage, one of her best performances. Everyone said we both did great. This was a bit of an audition for the mag, who have a lot of connections that can get us some good gigs, including the possibility of opening for Kelly Pickler and Jewel if they can raise the money to get them to do an event here.

We also may be doing a show for a Texas women’s organization that may be able to get us shows doing a lot of rodeos and other events around the state.

We don’t have pictures from the show but I’ve posted some from our show in July and a practice.