Beautiful Lake Tahoe

After the San Jose situation we headed out to South Lake Tahoe. 4th of July weekend in Tahoe is unbelievable. First of all Tahoe in the summer is beautiful, couple that with TONS of people on the beach, grilling it up and ready to party. It was like MTV spring break mixed with girls gone wild(and guys for that matter). We played at the Block Party hotel. This is the most original and creative hotel I've ever been to. It caters to skaters/snowboarders and young people in general. Each room has a different theme, poker tables, PS2s and grafitti art on the wall come standard. This is our kind of place. We rocked our first set as the hotel guests started tapping the kegs. During our break the cops show up threaten to shut it down, but the owner talks them into letting us play another set. We turn it down from 11 to 10 and finished up for the night. Although the party was crackin we headed to the strip to celebrate Sean's(the drummer) birthday. Harveys, Caesars, Harrahs and even the Mustang Ranch was called into question......Needless to say we made a night of it and walked away from the craps tables the next day...about $150 up. Not bad for another day at the office....damn we love what we do.

Tragedy in Downtown San Jose

Everytime 40 Watt Hype has played the Agenda Lounge, it is packed with hot, sweaty, dancing bodies inside and out. A line usually is still out the door until 12:30am. We noticed this was not the case at our show there July 2nd. Our first set was to about 15 people, as we started asking around on our break we found out the tragic truth. The night before several security guards became involved in a scuffle with a group of men after the club had closed. After the police came and went, the security guards encountered the same group of people in the parking lot behind the club as they headed to their cars. After an altercation three guards were stabbed, one was killed, one was injured and still remains in the hospital and the other returned to work the next night. The story was all over the San Jose Mercury and on the news as well. We hadn't heard about it since we were in San Francisco and Fresno the night before. Our frustration turned to sadness when we found out. The security guard who was killed was only 25 years old and had a three year old daughter. Three of the four suspects have been caught. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. Live life strong because you never know what is around the corner.

The Boom Boom Room

The Boom Boom Room is a throwback juke joint in San Francisco that was owned by renowned bluesman John Lee Hooker. Dark but sophisticated atmosphere. Just by looking around at the room and at the pictures on the wall you can tell there have been some serious players on that stage. Now we can say we were one of them. We hit Magnificent 8 just as the curtain was rising and proceeded to rock Muevete, La Sombra and newer songs like Animated World and Controversy with a Temptations twist in the middle. The set was wrapped up with an always sloppy rendition of Drunk&inLove. After our set the headliners came on... The Soul Rebel Brass Band(soul, 2nd line New Orleans brass funk). Bass drummer, snare drummer, tuba, trumpet, trombone and sax. Again...serious players. These fellas brought it all the way from their hometown of New Orleans. Their set was banging with seemless tunes that went in and out of hip-hop and funk classics. Their horns had chops for DAYS!!. Road tested and professionally phunky. Backstage we talked about collaborating during their second set, but we had to hit the road. They played the High Sierra Festival the next day, I highly recomend checking them out.