Sergio Cuevas: [Leavenworth, WA] I wasn’t expecting much – from this town – or this live music opportunity. Both surprised me. Leavenworth is most certainly the tourist trap I expected, with its faux Bavarian-village styling. But it goes so hard, I found myself respecting it. Their public trashcans are Leavenworthized! They got McDonalds to Leavenworthize their sign! And it’s not just the one main street you see as you pass by on the highway, it’s a full three-main-streets town. Asher Goods was a stunner of a shop, providing men with a place to embrace their inner-cowboy-princess. They carried shirts by Howler Brothers, an Austin-based brand apparently. I definitely wasn’t at this restaurant for the sausages – I think I was persuaded through promises of live music. It was a simple setup – two men in a corner of a pretty relaxed rowdy outdoor but enclosed patio. They were playing plugged in acoustic and electric guitars. Looked like Rob Lowe. In further testament to the Leavenworth community, he told us how he wrote one song with a guy from the business across the street. Sergio calling out “for the Texans in the front row” was when I got interested. And then he did play “Deep in the Heart of Texas” (I doubted Gene Autry but looks like he's actually from Texas) and some Stevie Ray Vaughan type stuff (don’t like him, never did – but I like that song his brother did about his death). They played the song from the 1995 Robert Rodriguez movie Desperado – classic Spanish guitar with some punky pick-up. Took me back to when I was teaching middle school math in a neighborhood in southeast Austin where the majority of the kids were Mexican and recent immigrants. Like the young fool I was, I’d play a song at the start of each class. When I played “Cancion del Mariachi,” one of the ‘bad’ kids (i.e., smart & trying to hustle his way out of this neighborhood) yelled ‘THIS IS MY JAM!’ – gratified :) They’re southern rock (love it forever) crossed with Jack Johnson (love it never). They did a slow dirge. They had some Santana vibes. There was a lot of D minor … only pretending that I can call chords like that.
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