Austin360 blogs > Almost Urban > Archives > 2006 > July
July 2006
Jurassic 5 with (sigh) Dave Matthews
In advance of J5’s August 1 Stubb’s performance, I have to say that I don’t hate the new Jurassic 5 single “Work It Out” featuring (sigh) Dave Matthews nearly as much as I thought I would. Yes, it makes me a little sad to see this vibrant hip-hop outfit that was born out of the same movement that spawned groups like Freestyle Fellowship and Project Blowed making a bland KGSR-ready, adult contemporary hip-hop jam, but the song itself could be a lot worse. It’s not edgy, like Mr. Blakes’ incredible riff on Neil Young’s “Southern Man” which I’d love to hear on KGSR, but it’s not terrible either. Reminds me of “Hole in the Bucket” era Spearhead.
You can check the track for yourself on J5’s Web site.
Fourth Friday on the Eastside
Word to all my lovelorn ladies: Miss Lavelle White feels your pain. If you’re feeling a little beat down or broken hearted, a good thirty minutes or so of her Texas-style blues might be just what the doctor ordered. Myself, I’m perfectly happy, but by the time I heard her lilt through the second chorus of “It Haven’t Been Easy” and segue into a talking blues breakdown that combined the sassy spark of a smart-mouthed homegirl with the weathered wisdom of a grandmother, even I was feeling some phantom pang of heartache past.
I caught Miss Lavelle down at Kenny Dorham’s Backyard during the July edition of the East End Fourth Fridays celebration on Eleventh Street. Fourth Fridays isn’t quite a rockin’ block party yet, but it’s got great potential. “Y’all are like the cool people who set the trend for what’s hot,” organizer Harold McMillan quipped to the sizable (and very diverse) crowd who turned out to see Miss Lavelle sing.
The outdoor performance at Kenny Dorham’s is the highlight of Fourth Fridays, but events also take place across the street and down the block. I bumped into a couple friends at the show and we wandered down to the Texas Music Museum, just east of I-35, where a group of hip-hop/reggaeton kids called the Muzic Cartel were closing up shop. Their performance was fresh and energized, bangin’ beats topped by smooth flows in Spanish. I liked it. Plus they rock patent leather pimp shoes and pork pie hats (complete with jaunty feathers) when they play. Nice!
There are currently two exhibits inside the museum, one on Tejano music and the other on Texas gospel. The displays are low-budget yet well-curated collections of photographs, news clippings, album jackets and instruments. The museum is clearly a labor of love, built from grassroots enthusiasm. It’s worth checking out if you take pride in Texas sounds.
We ended the evening at Ben’s BBQ where (full disclosure) my man was one of three DJs taking turns on the tables. A gentle breeze wafted through while we sat on the patio drinking cold Dos Equis and listening to classic soul mixed with Brazilian funk. Right now Fourth Fridays is more a scattering of cool, loosely related happenings than a cohesive block party. East Eleventh lacks the built in foot traffic and infamous hipness that made First Thursday on South Congress an automatic, slam dunk success. But the Eastside is coming up. Ben’s been talking about expanding his spot, adding an upstairs deck and applying for the necessary permits to open a full bar. As I sat on that patio gazing west toward downtown I felt confident that Austin will slowly become enamored of the Eastside’s charm.
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ACL side parties, Ocote Soul Sounds, and Strange Fruit Project
I’ve been trying to dig up a couple almost urban ACL fest side parties for y’all, cause odds are if you’re even a little bit urban you’re not going to shell out for the rootsy rock-oriented fest. So far Thievery Corporation at Stubb’s is the best I’ve found. It’s a good one though. Thievery Corporation travels with a full band and their ACL set last year was ridiculously hype. In addition to opener Federico Aubele, Ocote Soul Sounds will play a set.
Ocote Soul Sounds is a collaborative project between guitarist Adrian Quesada from Grupo Fantasma and saxophonist Martin Perna from the amazing Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. They dropped a joint called “El Nino Y El Sol” a year or so back that was a glorious swirl of instrumental Afro-Latino jazz-funk-electro fusion. Drop by their myspace page and treat yourself to some free tracks. Or, drop by iTunes, shell out a couple bucks and scoop the 12” of “Tamarindio” which includes a remix by Thievery Corporation. There’s also an Ocote Soul Sounds remix by UK’s Quantic available on Emusic.
I’m still on the hunt for more parties though, so if anyone knows of a secret Damian Marley , Cee-Lo, or Los Amigos Invisibles afterparty please hit a girl up!
On the way to work this morning I heard a couple tracks from the brand new Strange Fruit Project release “The Healing” on KAZI. It’s good stuff. One of the tracks featured vocals by Ms. Badu. Very nice!
SFP is from Waco. The media player on their site is a little sketchy, but you can check a few tracks including the choice cut “Soul Clap” on their myspace page.
A 3-stop Saturday in the ATX
My girl Melissa and I hit the streets on Saturday night in search of almost urban entertainment in Austin. I inadvertently received a tip from Thomas Fawcett (who runs the excellent blog The Corner) about a “throwback” hip-hop group called Mike and Ike so we dropped by Jazz on Sixth to see what was up.
The name of the event is “In the Pocket” and there is truth in the advertising. When we arrived the 4-piece band was locked into a smooth and expansive groove that did provoke a head nod or two even as it veered dangerously close to jam band noodling. With a vibe that owes more to instrumental hip-hop icons The Roots, or even the Freestyle Fellowship, than any Dirty South superstars, the group is alright. With a little stage time and polish they could grow into something hot.
Plus they have a ridiculously cute fan club. Always a sign of a band on the rise.
From Jazz we headed out to Plush on the corner of Seventh Street and Red River to check out Table Manners Crew’s weekly residency. Plush was my stomping ground in the early 00s. Planted on a spot that once housed a punk rock drag bar, the early Plush was a cool and sophisticated New York-style corner bar where Baby G’s reggae Thursdays were a veritable ATX hip-hop family reunion. Every week.
Over time the place began to slide, the swankiness progressively fading, until a change of management signaled the end of the club as we knew it.
I hadn’t been back in a minute, but when we walked through the door to the sound of Beenie Man’s “Girls Dem Sugar,” it sounded like home. Tats and Diggs are no joke on the turntables. In the first 20 minutes we were in the house they dropped classic Jay-Z, Too Short’s ultra-hot new joint “Blow the Whistle”, and my all- time favorite Kelis jam “Trick Me Once” (mixed into a dancehall set, no less). The sounds were hot, and with an enthusiastic crowd augmented by kids from B-Boy City working on their spins, the dance floor was hoppin’.
The vibe in the club has changed considerably though. Due to a laissez-faire management style, or perhaps the ghosts of anarchist transvestites past, the walls are now scrawled with graffiti and the crowd skews a little younger and a little grubbier than it used to.
Around 1 a.m. we decided to head out and hopped a rickshaw over to the Warehouse District to end our evening hob nobbing with the grown and sexy at the Red Fez. After talking our way past the door guy, (on weekends the Fez generally hits capacity around midnight which makes late entry an exercise in charm, or palm greasing) we pressed our way into the crowd. DJ Kurv was on the wheels, and he was dropping the hits that make the ladies move. The ladies, in turn, were moving.
Now I understand that Saturday night DJs have to cater to a broad crowd, which means playing songs that people know to keep them dancing, but Kurv’s set seemed to consist solely of the most familiar of the familiar. Songs I couldn’t listen to six months to a year ago (think “Gold Digger”, “Magic Stick”) because they radio had killed them for me. These are the tracks that you’ll find packaged into one of those “Dancefloor Gold” compilations they hock on late night TV for $9.99 in a couple years. His one twist on this formula was dropping Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” into the mix. Twice.
I didn’t really get it.
While the scene itself was undeniably the hottest we found, and the catchy hits, were, in fact, catchy, I found myself a little bored by the track selections. But booties were moving and the grown and sexy were present and accounted for, making the evening overall a successful venture.
Love and Madness
During SXSW I caught a solo set by TV on the Radio guitarist Kyp Malone that had an artsy/indie vibe that was far too much for your girl’s low-brow sensibilities. I was ready to write the group off. But rock critic Joe Gross liked their latest “Return to Cookie Mountain” so I snuck a listen while pulling an audio clip for his CD review. It’s good. The lead track “I Was A Lover” really stuck with me. I woke up this morning with the melody in my head. Take a listen:
TV on the Radio
“I Was A Lover”
I’ve also been listening to the new release from D Madness, “It’s Time”. A ridiculously talented instrumentalist, D plays sideman to everyone in Texas hip-hop from Houston icon Devin the Dude to local up-and-comers Element 7d and DOS. His new joint is a solo endeavor which dropped a couple weeks back. It’s a smooth platter full of lush, jazzy instrumentals and RnB crooners. Good music to slip on while preparing dinner (or, if you’re like me, slapping takeout on a plate) for someone you love. It sets the scene for quiet conversation and candlelight romance. It’s a soundtrack for gazing into someone’s eyes. Get your love on:
D Madness (ft. Willette Wallace)
“Everyday”
‘Evil Blondie,’ extended buffet hours, and aerosol art
After this story on starstruck tweens ran in Saturday’s paper, it was very refreshing to spend a few hours this weekend hanging out with a couple very astute 10-year-olds who hate Paris Hilton. I mean, they really hate Paris Hilton. They refer to her as “Evil Blondie” and firmly believe that the hotel heiress is somehow connected to everything terrible in the universe.
Unrelatedly, the lunch buffet at Sarovar, my favorite Indian restaurant in Austin, is now open til 4 p.m. on the weekends. So come Sunday, if you’re trying to sleep off a hangover or waiting for your boyfriend to get out of church (or both, you godless hussy) you still can make it in time to get your fill of tandoori chicken, hot nan, veggie curries, mango pudding and more.
Finally, I went to a Latino film fest at the Ruta Maya in San Antonio on Friday. In advance of Prhymemates’ annual Clogged Caps Graffiti Jam, a 3-day celebration of aerosol art that happens next weekend, July 21-23, in S.A., they screened the graffiti film “Clogged Caps Three”. The film was all right. Some nice break-dancing shots, and naturally, some great graffiti art. The thing that struck me was the claim that San Antonio news stations regularly take footage from the yearly Graffiti Jam (which includes a day of legitimate, city-sanctioned mural painting) and mix it with stories on gang violence, vandalism and more. Not fresh.
A little bit urban?
Dear ACL Fest promoters:
I understand that your festival, like its namesake television show is geared toward a roots-rock crowd. I do, however, see hints of a more diverse appeal in your 2006 lineup — splashes of indie-pop, glimmers of soul. It makes me a little sad though, that no urban music acts from our fine state are on the bill. I get that this has grown from local fest into national music event, but if we’re bringing folks from around the country down to Texas can’t we show them a little homegrown flava?
Need a big name act? Beyonce’s probably a little too flashy and H-town boys like Chamillionaire and Paul Wall might be too rough, but what about Erykah Badu? Her brand of earthy, hip-hop oriented neo-soul seems like it would fit right in.
Or, try an alternate route and sprinkle a few smaller names into less conspicuous early slots throughout the fest. Here are three suggestions of ways that great Texas hip-hop and R&B acts could blend in, charm your crowds and spice up the festival a little.
Slide Dallas’ PPT into the opening slot for Gnarls Barkley. These guys blew my mind at The State of Texas Hip-hop show a month back. They sing, they dance and they work a crowd like champs. When I saw them, they had the scant offering of ladies in the crowd swooning. Hard. I’m convinced that in a larger arena they have the kind of rockstar charisma and sizzling soul that could send the crowd overboard.
How about Austin’s own Element 7D opening for Damien Marley? If you’re into the hard driving conscious reggae of Bob’s youngest son, you’d probably also get into the kind of serious rasta tinged hip-hop soul Ele drops on tracks like “Child of the Ghetto” and “Hold On”. Plus, Ele’s fiery “Murder Rap” done over the beat to Marley’s amazing 2005 hit “Jam Rock” is so raw that I think it actually tops the original.
Close out the Washington Mutual stage gospel showcase on Sunday with a short set from 14-year-old R&B princess Lakrea. Sure, she’s a kid, but she’s got a deep voice and a naturally inviting performance style that many artists twice her age struggle to achieve. Plus, her youthful exuberance makes her mad entertaining. The crowds at the Urban Music Festival loved her. I think she could win over the ACL folks, too.
Other local urban music acts that I feel could mix in at ACL: Zeale 32, D Madness, Mr. Blakes, Ter’ell Shahid, Global, Rochelle Terrell, Dallas’ Strange Fruit Project, Hydroponic Sound System, or Money Waters, V-Zilla from Houston, San Antonio’s Mojoe.
Once again, I know I’m not exactly your target demographic, and I think y’all are doing a bang-up job with this fest, but perhaps you could add just a little more flava? Please?
pz,
ds
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KOOP Radio: Back from the ashes
Here’s a sneak peak at the new KOOP Radio studio. The new space is part of a commercial complex owned by Brooks Construction, located at the southeast corner of Airport Boulevard and 38th Street in East Austin. As you might remember, KOOP Radio fell victim to not one but two fires in the early part of this year. Since then, KOOP has been broadcasting out of classical station KMFA’s spare studio.
KOOP’s new headquarters will be much larger and more modern than the old space, a downtown warehouse complex with a faulty a/c system, terrifying bathrooms and a diligent crew of cockroaches who even worked the day shift. The main studio will be a whopping 400 square feet, ample space to host large group discussions. There will also be a second studio that might be used for live performances as well as a large central area, a conference room and two small production rooms in the back.
KOOP hopes to be broadcasting from the new space by early September. Most of the moving will likely happen in advance, but as the station is receiving all new equipment (funded both by insurance and a federal grant) and there will be some lag time while DJs are trained.
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Mos Def, ‘The Cosby Show’ and more bands on bikes
I’ve been hunting around the Web trying to find info on Mos Def in “The Cosby Show.” I’d heard that like Adam Sandler, Mos started his career doing bit parts as one of Theo’s friends back in the ’80s. He actually launched his career starring alongside Bill Cosby in the short-lived “Cosby Mysteries” in 1994.
I knew that Mos came out of an arts magnet school, but I didn’t realize that his acting and music careers developed simultaneously. That he was an actor/rapper from the jump. And a trained thespian to boot. Which makes his incomprehensibly annoying performance in “16 Blocks” even more difficult to understand. My boy and I made the mistake of renting this movie last weekend. Convict Mos Def with aging cop Bruce Willis sounded like a shoot ‘em up good time. Sheesh, was I ever wrong. An hour into the flick I was rooting for the bad guy crooked cops to take everyone out just so we could skip the sappy ending and drop in our other film selection, the fantastic b-ball documentary “Through the Fire”.
In other Mos news, he and his wife of 10 years, Maria Yepes-Smith, have been going through divorce proceedings. At the end of last month an exasperated Brooklyn judge told Mos and his estranged lady to work out their dispute over his court-ordered $10,000 a month child support payments between themselves. Mos has been dropping $8,000 a month to support the couple’s two young girls and says any more would cut into funds he needs to support his other three kids. Wow, there’s some high-budget baby mama drama.
And in completely unrelated news, Sachi DeCou hit me up to let me know that like the Bikerachi folks her group Cycle Circus Austin also enjoys the combination of bands and bikes. Here’s a picture of a cellist riding on a gigantic pedal-powered preying mantis at the city’s New Year’s Eve celebration back in December. There are more great bike parade pics at bikesacrossborders.org.
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‘Scientific Nigerian’
I dropped by Global’s CD release at the Emo’s Lounge (the corner spot) last Thursday, and his new joint “Scientific Nigerian” has been in heavy rotation in my truck ever since. An East Coast kid who did stints in the U.K. and Nigeria before settling in Texas, Global comes with a rugged intelligence. His style is rich, informed by literary theory and Scriptures, punctuated with a bass drum rumble and capoeira kicks, and driven by a palpably earnest quest for truth.
The production on the joint is pretty lush. It’s the kind of piece you can throw on in the background and there’s a lot on there that will keep your head bobbin’, but when you listen, the man really is dropping science.
My favorite Global track is number 12, “his-STORY”, which uses the metaphor of conflicting accounts of a b-boy battle to sketch out the premise that written history is arbitrary. He expands the idea to take on Columbus “discovering” America. All of this is done over a bangin’ beat, with a catchy hook that will get under your skin and stick with you for days. Check the sample:
Global - “his-STORY”
Another thing I like about this platter is that my girl Flow, easily the most slept-on female MC in the city, makes appearances on 3 separate tracks. Watch out ATX, she’s back in the mix!
Pedicabs + Mariachi = Bikerachi
Bikerachi multimedia
It was Jennifer Acosta, violinist from Mariachi Revolución who hipped me to the concept of Bikerachi. Bikerachi, the brainchild of Alan Burrows, who first produced the event for his own birthday, is essentially a group pedicab excursion through Austin with a 4-piece mariachi band escort. The mariachi plays throughout the ride, and also will follow party-goers into bars and stop for curbside serenades. Because a Bikerachi party consists of ten or more pedicabs riding together, the event takes on the feel of a private parade throughout the city.
The whole thing sounded like an insane amount of fun, so I conned Alan into allowing me to ride along on his final trial run before packaging the party for the public. To fully capture the experience Statesman videographer Jorge Sanjueza-Lyon and photographer Kelly West rode with us.
Without further ado, I give you the Almost Urban blow-by-blow report of two and a half hours of Bikerachi madness that took place on June 29, 2006.
9 p.m. The gathering begins at Alan’s spot in a warehouse on East Fourth Street. This space used to be the Austin Daze magazine compound. I’ve been to parties here. Pedicabs drift through the front gates while the band tunes inside. Alan stocked the fridge with a couple 12 packs of beer before the shindig started and folks amble about the expansive front porch drinking cans of Tecate and chatting.
I bump into Jennifer. She chopped off her traditional full-length skirt a couple hours earlier to debut her mariachi mini-skirt tonight. Hemmed by a friend’s girlfriend in a spontaneous fit of fashion ingenuity, she’s still getting used to it.
“I felt naked leaving the house,” she tells me, furtively glancing over her shoulder, “like people might think I’m the mariachi ho.”
With go-go boots and an ample amount of leg on display, she actually looks fabulous.
9:45 p.m. The party was scheduled to leave at 9, but no one seems terribly concerned that we’re still at the warehouse. The band plays, standing against a corrugated tin wall draped with honeysuckle and strands of white lights, while Alan runs around coordinating the pedicabs. Couples on the porch sway in time with the soaring harmonies. It’s nice.
10 p.m. After brief deliberation about the mariachis’ specific pedicab needs we load up and we’re off. We ride through East Austin double file with the two pedicabs carrying the mariachis leading the excursion. It really does feel like a parade. Our party claps along to the music and people on the streets shout and wave.
“I’m not too heavy for you?” asks first the female and then her male companion in the cab next to me.
“You are both light like butterflies,” quips their driver.
10:15 p.m. We descend on the 2nd Street restaurant district, pedicabs swarming the sidewalk. The mariachis disembark and serenade diners at Crú, who pile into the street to investigate the commotion. Everyone is cheering and jovial.
10:30 p.m. We round the corner to head down Congress Avenue, with the mariachis playing at the lead of our caravan. A girl in a Chevy rolls down her window. “Y’all rock! This is awesome!” she calls out.
The trumpet player brings the song to a shimmering finish and a kid standing at the bus stop at Seventh Street and Congress Avenue calls out for an encore in Spanish — “Otra!”.
We pause at the State Capitol. Couples get out and dance on the sidewalk while a Capitol police officer eyeballs us dubiously.
10:45 p.m. Alan wants to see if we can convince a DJ to work the mariachis into a set so we pull up to Hi-Lo (the nightclub formerly known as Oslo) and bum-rush Underground Transmissions, a weekly electronic music event. DJ Manny is working the wheels and he’s game to play along.
“Uh, this is the first time I’ve jammed with a mariachi,” he warns the crowd. The mariachis start up a song, playing against an electronic beat. Halfway through Manny adds a tentative scratch pattern. It never quite jells but no one seems to care.
11 p.m. One of the pedicabs suffers a broken chain on the way out of Hi-Lo. His passengers are forced to climb out and squeeze into other cabs. It’s the first and only Bikerachi casualty of the evening.
11:15 p.m. We loiter around the patio of Little Woodrow’s on West Sixth street where the manager was kind enough to move a barricade in the front so our pedicabs could park. In all of Alan’s Bikerachi experiences club owners have proved to be very accommodating, and tonight has been no exception. With the pervasive influence of Latino culture, highly centralized entertainment district and passionate embrace of all things weird, Austin is perhaps the best city in America for this sort of an event.
Over frosty brews Alan and a friend toss out a series of Bikerachi slogans I could include in this piece:
“This is how we roll” (the official Bikerachi tagline) “Tonight we ride” “Alan is a god among men” (Alan’s favorite)
11:30 p.m. With a full day of work ahead of me and a ridiculous amount of fun under my belt, I decide to hop off the Bikerachi train and take a cab back to the warehouse. The Bikerachi pulls out heading for Tambaleo with a scheduled stop at Club DeVille on the return trip still in the works. I can hear the band playing and passengers clapping as they pull off into the distance, creating a merry commotion on Nueces Street as they go. That’s just the way they roll.
All photos by Kelly West/AMERICAN-STATESMAN.
For more Bikerachi info, visit Bikerachi.com.
