12/3/11- Well, we made it home from our November east coast tour, after our van died in Kingman AZ.  We are glad to be home, and grateful to everyone who donated to our ‘fundrazr’ account, it helped immeasurably.  Xavier has gone back to work with the Hotrod Hillbillies.  We are seeking a new bass player, looking forward to finishing the new cd, and playing all over Texas in early 2012. Once we can save up for a dependable passenger van, we will hit the road again.

We are also super excited to announce the addition of Chris ‘Howdy’ Darrell on acoustic guitar, mandolin, and lead and harmony vocals.  Howdy has some great songs we look forward to playing, and will be a great addition to the band.

11/7/11- East coast/south east tour was a blast, thanks to all the bands we played with, and new friends and fans!  Now we are a couple days away from heading west! We will play west Texas, New Mexico, several shows in CA, Arizona, and hit Taos NM on the way home.  Its the last tour of the year, and we are really looking forward to it!  See the calendar page for details.  Then we start up again on the record after the holidays!  We had to put it aside, after Ben left, and focus on working in Xavier for the tours.  In early 2012, we will take the time to finish it and get it out before we leave Texas again.

10/4/11- The midwest was a great time in July, we have been enjoying the heat in Texas since then….  The time has come to officially announce that Ben Sparks has officially left Horse Opera.  We appreciate all that Ben contributed to Horse Opera over the last 3 years and we wish him all the best in future endeavors.

We are also happy to announce that we have a new bass player, Mr Xavier Ortiz!  Xavier is a San Antonio native, a great singer and guitar player in his own right, and we are happy to have him playing the upright bass in Horse Opera full time!  We will be working in some of Xavier’s tunes over time, and he will be singing some songs, but right now we just gotta get on the road and go!

6/12/11- Work continues on the new cd, ‘Songs for the Ramble’, and we are gearing up to head out to the mighty midwest and a bit of the southeast in July.  check the calendar page to see if we are coming your way!

4/19/11- Horse Opera is home from 24 days on the road, all through the southwest, west coast, and mountain states.  It was a BLAST.  We are busy working on the new cd, “Songs for the Ramble”, and planning our July midwest tour.  The line up is really getting tight, and we are having a good time.   We will start our monthly ‘Hoedown at the Highball”, the last sunday of every month, on June 26th.  We have a Highball show on April 24th (Easter sunday) with special guests, and also on May 22nd!  Watch for Texas dates in April, May and June also.  Dallas and Houston are coming up soon.  See you out there! – Jimmy

2/3/11- We are throwing our own showcase.  We don’t need no sxsw, and we don’t need no stinking badges…. spread the word!!!!!!!!

1/29/11- Horse Opera is thrilled to announce the addition of Scotti Iman on the drums, as a full time member.  Check out Scotti’s bio on the band bio page.  He should be ready for March, and will be on all March gigs, and the tour, and there after.  He will be playing on the majority of the new cd as well, (we already tracked some songs w/Chris Walther and Chris Wallis). Welcome Scotti!  Glad to have you with us.  So when you see him at a March gig, say hello.

1/14/11- Happy New Year!  Work has begun on the new record.  Chris Wallis laid down fat, funky honky tonk beats on 3 tunes a couple days ago, and now we start building from there.  Chris Walther comes in this weekend and does 3 tunes as well.  We were on the Fox 7 “Good Day Austin” show on January 13, video is up on the ‘photos and videos’ page.  Doing some Texas dates this month, and working on the record.  See ya out there- H.O.

12/15/10- Happy Holidays from Horse Opera.

Jimmy and Ben are hard at work getting the studio in top form for work to begin on the new record.   Tracking starts December 12th, Stops the 23rd, and picks up again in January, after the holidays. So far there are 12 songs slated, including an instrumental, and an acoustic number.  Chris Walther and Chris Wallis will both take the throne for drum tracks, and lots of great players are ready to lend their talents to the record.

The fall tours through the midwest, south east, and south west, were great!  The band made some good friends and fans, and the guys look forward to hitting the road in March, after SXSW.

The record will most likely be done in April/may, but the band is going to try and shop it to a label or distributor for a bigger release than ‘sounds of the desert’ recieved.  Keep your fingers crossed, and keep checking back for details.   Right on, keep it country. -H.O.