The Loveletter

If this article gets printed according to my timing, it's going to hit close to a weekend. That means most people reading this have their routine picked out: maybe some yard work, lunch with friends, a nice matinee with the kids or shopping at the mall. For the small group of friends I call my band, our routine is pretty rock solid too. It involves waking up at some point, shaking the cobwebs out and meeting at the band house to pack up our gear and head out to the night's adventure. There will be some tension as Danny runs late or is MIA, someone forgets to fill the tank, or buy extra guitar strings, but in true Loveletter fashion, when it's time to get on our second home you call the road . we feel like the luckiest people on earth.

It's been that way for the last two years.

I think about that as we celebrate two years as a band this month. The origin of our band is all over the Internet, it's been told. It doesn't take a history major to know we built it out of heartache with other lost musicians. I can look at the old pictures (when Neal was still doing shows with us). We all looked a lot younger and naive. I looked a lot sadder, heartbroken and lost. They say time heals all wounds. I say it's not just time. I say it's also good friends, and music - your music.

The music started out folky, with strange instruments. It was like a troubled teenager trying to find where it fit with the world. I still enjoy listening to it. It has since grown to a thriving, healthy beast of a band. Sometimes still with a folk element, but fully embracing the indie rock influence the band members come from, it is this music that lets us connect with people all over Texas. While some bands dream of being rock stars and playing huge stages, we have been content to win over people one song at a time. This is a formula that has worked, as we have walked onto stages in clubs, barns, pool halls, house parties, coffee shops and roadhouses, looking out over hostile crowds, and winning them over with a couple of songs about robots, whiskey or unrequited love. We have done this without ever compromising our style and constantly evolving to what we want to be.

Every time we play a show, we know we are lucky to have the chances we get. We know some bands would love to have our schedule. We know we get to share the music we write with people who would otherwise never hear it. Every time we get that honest reaction from a total stranger, we know it's been worth it.

That's what makes us want to keep doing more. After a couple of Texas tours, we are setting our sights for a West Coast tour this summer. It will easily be the hardest trek we have made (and the most fun). Instead of just writing another dozen songs for an album, we are writing a musical and working on having it produced for the stage (while also working on that elusive record that will finally capture our elusive stage presence) as well as another video.

The busy life has helped us in every aspect; professionally, our daytime employers grant us the leeway we need to go out and conquer the world, and musically we have made friends in clubs and stages all over the state. Locally, our bonds with local bands are strong, and it's good to hang out and watch your friends play on a night off. We have watched Victoria's indie music scene continue to thrive the past few years and have been honored to be a part of it.

It's a little strange to be typing this. I thought it would be easier to put into words how much this band has meant and continues to mean to me. I guess typing this and reflecting on it all, I feel a little more mature (at my age it's a wonder it's happened at all). I can still hear Danny's voice a few weeks ago ringing in my head, "We started a band to AVOID responsibility." While that may be true, it doesn't make us any less grateful for the experiences we have had.

I think about that as I look at that band picture we took as a group on our first "real" show. All nervous smiles, before we take the stage. I am clutching a beer in my hand and have a smirk, but my eyes are giving it away. If I had a time machine, I would go back and tell that guy that everything's going to be all right. But then again, maybe I wouldn't. It's the journey that has brought me to this point in the band's life. I wouldn't trade it for anything. - The Victoria Advocate

Since they first formed in 2008, Victoria band Loveletter has taken South Texas by storm. With two Texas tours already under their belt, the band also regularly plays throughout Victoria and the surrounding area.

Composed of Tim Lara, lead vocals and piano, Danny Kuykendall, guitar, mandolin and vocals, Aaron Puffer, percussion and guitar and Brea Guettner, guitar, bass and vocals, the band plays a mix of genres and classifies itself as an indie/alternative/folk band, Lara said.

So just what makes them the best?

"Our songs aren't super hard but they are original and have passion. I think that's what makes us stand out," Lara said. "We look, sound and play different. It's never about money. The stuff we get paid goes for gas and food. We look at the music we make and how much fun it is to play and travel with your best friends...and then we realize we play in the best band in the world." - The Victoria Advocate

Back in 2003, Tim Lara started writing songs for the same reason many men write songs.

He was trying to woo a girl.

The songs were slow, brooding piano songs and by 2005, they worked. The Victorian musician got married and, with his goal accomplished, put away the piano. As he put it, "I found myself happy and had no reason to write these depressing songs."

Then came 2008, when Lara found himself on the receiving end of a divorce. The news was a big blow and with his band, the Stout City Luchadores, on hiatus, he found himself without his music to fall back on.

And that's when his piano came back out.

"I pulled my synthesizer out of the closet and dusted off the old, sad songs," Lara said. "What followed was what I like to call a musical miracle. I began to meet up with old friends who were in defunct bands, and we formed a group playing my old songs, revitalizing them and writing new ones."

The band dubbed itself The Loveletter and consists of Lara, Neal Tolbert, Aaron Puffer and Daniel Kuykendall, all of Victoria. Since forming last November, they've been working on perfecting their unique sound by using traditional instruments such as piano, drums and guitar, and also experimenting with banjos, trumpets, harmonicas and mandolins.

"At first, it was more we were just adding instruments to tracks that Tim had written but after awhile, we just became a band," Puffer said.

Although fresh to the Victoria music scene, Loveletter is already releasing their first album, which is called "The Broken Heart Social Club."

"We didn't want it to sound like anything else anyone is doing," Lara said. "Some songs are folk music, some aren't. We have brooding, slow songs, upbeat songs and some that even sound like they belong in a Renaissance Festival."

The band recorded the album on random weekends when they had the time, Lara said. Their goal is to have it ready for distribution by the time they set out on their Texas summer tour on July 17.

"The whole point of the tour is that we know we aren't rock stars, so we picked small, intimate places to play. Basically, we just took a Texas souvenir map, saw places we wanted to see, like a small town with the tallest chicken statue and booked gigs there," Lara said. "It's more of a vacation with friends, but we'll be playing shows at night."

So far, 10 dates have been set up across the state, including Lubbock, San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, Houston and College Station.

After the tour, which the guys describe as an old school, sleeping on friend's couches kind of deal, the band is planning a big CD release party complete with a big show in Victoria, Lara said.

"I plan to bring back the Luchadores eventually, but there is a big difference between singing about drinking beer on a Saturday night and the Loveletter songs that are full of true stories and true emotions," Lara said. "That's why I'm so proud of this project. It's a very personal and emotional thing for me and it's another testament to how powerful music is in people's lives." - The Victoria Advocate

Like almost any family gathering, there's the grown-up tables and the kids' section.

On the lawn, children pow-pow-pow and point plastic guns at each other, or scrape their toes through the dirt under the swings. Under the pavilion at Riverside Lions Club Park, the adults convene in what could be a catalog of Victoria's most colorful tattoos. They're sipping beers at picnic tables or frantically dancing and banging tambourines along with the bands on stage. The concert is to raise money for the American Cancer Society, and the smoke is thick enough it seems like insurance for the organization's future.

The night's entertainment is typical of many local shows, swinging through a near-schizophrenic range of music:

Ana Vega, singer for The Cherry Bombers, who as far as anyone can remember are Victoria's first girl band, will shriek out pro-girl lyrics with the bratty resonance of the early Donnas.

Thrash band DFF will perform a song with a name that's certainly printable - in that it contains 12 of the 26 letters of the English alphabet (some more than once) - though unlikely slip past newspaper editors' scrutiny. The singer will resemble a pinball in build and movement, bouncing through the pavilion.

Chris Ordonez, the front man from Toxic Fuse, will, in the space of a moment, deliver a touching speech about his sons as he brings them up to play, then prove lighting a guitar on fire is a greater challenge than it seems.

A majority of audience members will perform at some point in the six-band lineup. Many people have played music since their teens - and known each other at least as long.

Even though the tools are basses and voices, keyboards and mandolins, this is a story about building community. Scratch the surface of a city where cover bands reign, and there's a network of original musicians crafting creative, catchy lyrics, scraping out practice time and pulling together gigs. These are people who have local ties, but also put a premium on a progressive music community.

"Victoria's a diamond in the rough," said Cuero singer Doug Blank. Blank performs acoustic rock solo. He also sings in Corpus Christi metal band Stringer, with a stage presence that incorporates throat-scratching yells, glee and sass. "There's so much talent."

This is not a group not content with the notion there's nothing to do in Victoria.

"It's easy to complain about where you live," said Tim Lara, singer for The Love Letter. "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. You have to do something to improve your situation."

Lara also sings with the Stout City Luchadores, a punk band on break after a stressful run in a music competition. The Love Letter is a quieter, slower paced band, with lyrics stuffed shamelessly with emotion.

The act started as Lara and a piano, but has evolved to include more and more instruments, including a mandolin.

The Love Letter and Stringer bookended the April American Cancer Society benefit. Having such diverse shows is a natural product of Victoria's pay-to-play music culture, Lara says. Most local bars book cover bands, so original acts organize their own shows. They rent venues, invite friends' bands and try to recoup costs at the door.

"I think it works because it brings more people out," said Patrick Wallace, guitarist and singer with AR-15, a harmonic, upbeat punk band.

Though many of the same people circulate through the scene, it's filled with new developments.

Take, for example, The Cherry Bombers. Unlike many local musicians Vega made it well into her 20s without singing in a band. But she knew Chris Ordonez, and his wife Mellisa, who plays drums for Toxic Fuse and The Cherry Bombers. Vega told Chris Ordonez she wanted to "be in a chick band."

For Mellisa Ordonez, it was a great opportunity. She has more than a decade of experience playing in Victoria. Ordonez prides herself in knowing how to make calls, pull strings and cash in favors to make things happen.

She's also seen plenty of wives and girlfriends watching the guys, wishing they could do something too, but discouraged from playing.

Bassist Brea Guettner had similar experiences. Though she's a technically serious and passionate musician, the Shiner woman took years off from playing in bands because she couldn't find a good fit.

Finding good band mates is always a problem. Danny Kuykendall, mandolin player for The Love Letter, said in previous projects he's always had a tough time finding a drummer. Original members of AR-15 left when they joined the military or had children, Wallace said.

But for The Cherry Bombers, recruiting is tougher still. They don't keep strict standards for musical skill.

Ordonez said she'll teach any woman who cares about music and will dedicate herself to practice. Finding that hasn't been easy.

"People would rather sit at home and watch TV than learn to play an instrument," said Stephanie Perry, as if the very thought stretched believability.

But like other bands in the Crossroads region, they've decided the payoff is worth it.

"Playing original music is very tough," Lara said. "It takes a special kind of person."

And a special kind of audience, Chris Ordonez said.

"A lot of people can only relate to things they hear or see all the time," he said. "I like to expose people to art and other things that aren't on the radio."

There's almost unanimous acknowledgement that paying gigs in bars would be nice. But there's also unwillingness to sacrifice creative freedom.

"We want to be the bands they cover," Kuykendall said.

MySpace Band Information:

myspace.com/stoutcityluchadores (Stout City Luchadores)

myspace.com/thelovelettertx (The Love Letter)

myspace.com/texascherrybombers (The Cherry Bombers)

myspace.com/toxicfuse (Toxic Fuse)

myspace.com/dougblankproject (Doug Blank)

myspace.com/stringer (Stringer)

myspace.com/287678278 (AR-15) - The Victoria Advocate