Austin Chronicle: May 29 - June 4, 1998: Dancing About Architecture: Balls to the Wall by Ken Lieck

Continuing to snowball, and I don't mean the promotional snack the band's label sent out last week, is Fastball's "The Way" single, which has risen to Number 9 on the Top 40, and shows no signs of peaking. Featured in the Beverly Hills 90210 season finale, the song is everywhere, as is anything having to do with the band; The New York Times Sunday magazine further listed the band's song on the Loungeapalooza compilation as an antidote to bad radio, plus Miles Zuniga ("Don't Forget Miles"), with Ryan Adams and Eric Ambel, made his first appearance in Rolling Stone's "Random Notes" section (bringing the band up to three consecutive mentions in issues of RS.) Still, it was the band's appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show that really hit home. First of all, as their Hollywood Records rep breathlessly puts it, "They got the couch!" Yep, who would expect a li'l ol' band from Austin would be given time to actually talk to Leno?! - in front of millions of viewers. The band made the best of it, too, with Zuniga using the band's anecdote time to tell the old Hole in the Wall guitar theft story, which should net him free drinks at the Hole for life. (One bartender who missed the show has aready been heard, exasperated, complaining about Miles' appearance at the club this past Sunday; "Everybody's yelling that I shouldn't charge this guy - I don't know who the fuck he is!"). Leno's sincere "hello" to the Iron Works that night should net him plenty of free BBQ in the mail as well. As to what Miles was doing at the Hole in the Wall, well, that was the night before the trio's packed show at the Austin Music Hall, which was also, in Zuniga's words, nothing short of "surreal." First, there were a couple thousand fans there to see him, one of which - his mother - almost didn't get in. When the band dedicated a song to "all of you who came to see us back at the Hole and the Electric Lounge," several hundred fans had no trouble taking personal credit with their applause! Those who had been there at those shows, however, were also seen in the audience, beaming at their buddies' success. After the show, that entire coterie picked up and moved to the Crazy Lady for a party coinciding with the Esquires (that's Speedy Sparks' new gig) set at that fine mid-town "gentlemen's" bar. Spotted were members of Morningwood, Wannabes, Superego, Gourds, Damnations, Prescott Curlywolf, Orange Mothers, Spoon, Jon Dee Graham, and numerous others oglers, who had to contend with three lovely ladies in various states of undress (whom my rep insists were not in the employ of the club) cavorting in Miles Zuniga's lap. "I'm glad I lost my dignity a long time ago," the dazed Zuniga was heard to say as he put the cap on a very busy batch of days for the band (fellow members Joey Shuffield and Tony Scalzo celebrated by sleeping in their own beds).

[ more at http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol17/issue38/music.dancing.html ]