Welcome Party // Ashley + Jerren

If you happened to pass by Casa Cody in Palm Springs last Friday night, you probably heard a really epic concert happening and were also secretly jealous of the wafting aroma of In-N-Out sprawling through downtown Palm Springs.

There’s never been an In-N-Out in Palm Springs. The nearest one is off the 10 freeway in Morongo. But that’s not why people were freaking out. That’s not what you would have been freaking out about last Friday night at Casa Cody.

This party was supposed to be the welcome dinner for Ashley + Jerren’s weekend-long wedding bash at Casa Cody, but instead basically became the night that the greatest cover band to exist in Austin, TX, 12 years ago, had a reunion concert in Palm Springs. Ashley made the leather jackets, Jerren played the drums, and his former college bandmates played the piano, guitar, bass, harmonica, and tambourine, respectively.

If you happened to overhear the reunion bash at Casa Cody last Friday night, you would have heard some epic covers of Johnny Cash, Oasis, Billy Joel, and much more. You would have heard Ashley, Jerren, and their friends, singing along to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”, and seen Jerren’s Aunt Ethel, basically the Aunt Betty of his family, standing proudly in the center spotlight while listening to a soulful rendition of “Georgia”.

Something magical happens in Palm Springs during evening events like this. The low light gives way to moonlight-covered palm trees, a soft breeze cuts through the humidity, and if you listen very closely, you can hear the soft sound of Billy Joel playing his harmonica distantly across the valley.