Destination: The Bugle Boy

The Bugle Boy has amassed a lot of diehard regulars over the course of its first two decades of presenting original live music in an intimate setting, with many of those fans regularly making the trek out to La Grange from Austin, Houston, and beyond. But when it comes to traveling the longest distance to get their “loyalty card” punched, Canadians Michele Milne and Sarah Hayes definitely win the prize.

Milne and Hayes first fell in love with the Bugle Boy in February 2023, when they met up in Texas for a holiday together. That may sound like a long way to go for a rendezvous between two friends, but given that they live well over 2,000 miles from each other back home (Milne in Montreal, Hayes in Calgary), Texas was actually closer for both of them. Milne, a family physician, drove down in her camper van, while Hayes, a vice president with the Calgary Stampede rodeo in charge of community programing, went by plane. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was first on their agenda, but once they decided to make music “the theme” of their trip, a social media post alerted them to a show by blues guitar hero and fellow Canadian Sue Foley — not at a loud club in Foley’s longtime stomping grounds in Austin, but at a tiny 80-seat venue in a little town they admittedly knew nothing about the time.

“The chance to see Sue was definitely a draw for me, because she gets a lot of airplay back home — but mostly we just really liked the idea of a ‘listening room,’ which sounded like a really cool thing neither of us had experienced before,” said Milne. “People asked us, ‘Surely you’ve been to a listening room before?’ But no. I live in a city with 4 million people, and I don’t think we have anything like the Bugle Boy.”

After seeing Foley, they returned to the Bugle Boy for a handful of more shows over the course of the next two weekends, and promised each other and their new friends in La Grange that they would do it all again a year later. And they did!

Milne, who arrived a week earlier than Hayes this time, was greeted like part of the Bugle Boy family the minute she walked through the door on March 1, catching both shows that weekend (Fastball’s Miles Zuniga and Austin singer-songwriter Jenny Reynolds), and returning the following weekend with Hayes for Ruthie Foster and touring rockers The Silos. The Foster show was actually sold out before they could buy tickets, but Bugle Boy regular Sheri Innerarity (who bonded with Milne as a fellow medical practitioner) kindly offered the visiting Canadians her two seats. Innerarity also invited them to stay at her place, giving them a handy home base from which to happily revisit their other favorite local attractions. “We really appreciate the culture here,” said Milne. “The quilting, the arts and crafts, the painted churches — it’s fabulous.”

Not to mention the Texas cuisine! “We’re eating a LOT of barbecue,” said Hayes.

But ultimately, it all comes back to the music. “Every show we’ve seen here is different, but it’s always profound songwriting and really engaging music,” Hayes continued. “We were so moved by it all last year that when left we wanted to come back right away.And it took us a full year, but we came back! And, yes, we’ll be back next year, too!”