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February 2008
Review: Michael Bublé at the Erwin Center
Wednesday’s Michael Bublé concert, which played to a sold-out Erwin Center audience of more than 6,800, delivered for fans of the Canadian crooner. In a few smooth adult-contemp high points (“Mrs. Jones,” “Call Me Irresponsible,” “Feeling Good”), some tearful audience members were more than willing to melt into puddles of their own woozy.
Even in a suit and tie, the young Bublé still looks like a guy trying to upsell you insurance at the airport rental car kiosk. But he’s quick and funny: his on-stage banter, even the obviously scripted bits with his band members, is generous and playful. The guy has charisma to spare and knows how to work a room with self-effacing comedy and a flawless production.
Vegas theatrics aside, the well-dressed audience was there for Bublé’s smooth, dirty martini voice. It sounded strong and steady, whether it was soaring through or caressing a varied set list. For every over-the-top cover (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “Y.M.C.A.”), there was something lovely, such as Bublé’s sincere take on Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always on My Mind.”
Bublé, known for his jazzy, slick reworkings of Rat Pack-era music, said “You Were Always on My Mind” isn’t considered a standard yet, “But I promise you it will be.” A montage of Austin landmarks shown during his hit “Home,” with Bublé sporting a black cowboy hat, was bright orange processed cheddar. But there’s no denying his voice was in full form, especially on another original hit, “Lost,” or on a rousing “That’s Life,” enriched with a gospel chorus provided in part by stellar opening a cappella act Naturally 7.
No one seemed to mind Bublé’s mix of goofy and risque chats with members of the audience. Early in the show, Bublé told Austin Mayor Will Wynn (who was snuggling with a comely blonde date) and hundreds of men in the audience who’d been “dragged to the show” that in a few hours, they’d all be smoking in bed, thanking Bublé for the sexy effect the show would soon have on the ladies.
Who knows whether it worked for Mayor Wynn, but Bublé left enough of a warm glow by the end of the performance to make it a lucky night for many of those gents.
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Camp Lo cancels SXSW gig
Camp Lo will not be appearing at this year’s SXSW. No word on why.
So, yeah, you will not be able to get you copy of “Uptown Saturday Night” autographed.
Well, I guess you still could. It just won’t be signed by them.
Actually, it would be totally excellent if you got your copy signed by, say, Vampire Weekend or Torche or Bun B.
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Coplin’s Big Six-O on March 30
Longtime Austin music supporter Nancy Coplin, who currently books the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport stage, is celebrating her 60th birthday with a star-studded benefit for Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM) on March 30 at Antone’s.
Headlined by Delbert McClinton, the 6 p.m. show will also feature Marcia Ball, Shelley King, Wendy Colonna, Sunny Sweeney, Rick Trevino, Ruben Ramos and Max Baca. Individual tickets are $15; reserved tables for four are $1,000.
CD reviews: Aimee Bobruk, Bob Schneider, Caroline Herring
Aimee Bobruk - ‘The Safety Match Journal’
(self-released)
This album has a few of the danger signs of wispy singer-songwriter music. The spelling of the first name. The word “journal” in the title. The “Chicks with Picks” song sessions this Huntsville native has hosted since moving to Austin a couple years ago. The album cover shows Bobruk with the body of a bird.
But “The Safety Match Journal,” so texturized with unique musical ideas, finds Bobruk and producer Darwin Smith veering from Lilithian expectations. With “Fools For Love” bringing “vo-de-oh-doe” to modern times, “Dulcinea” dripping in dreamy lust, and shards of guitar scratching the melody of “First Move,” the album gets a little close to the edge of too-weird.
But the stunning, ready-for-radio “Losing the Magic,” the most singer-songwriterly song on the album, ties all the loose ends together.
With the slow-strumming “Precious Jesus” and LP closer “Shores of Gold” other highlights, Bobruk’s at her best when she’s like everyone else, only more open and with an atmospheric voice made for both cello and feedback.
Join this 26-year-old to celebrate the release of an album that sounds like it took several months to produce, Tuesday at the Cactus Cafe. You just might find the magic. — Michael Corcoran
(Photo from myspace.com/aimeebobruk.)
Bob Schneider - ‘When the Sun Breaks Down on the Moon’
(Shokorama)
Bob Schneider’s latest, “When the Sun Breaks Down on the Moon,” might not be the best place for a potential Schneider fan to start, but for the longtime fan, it’s a great departure from his everyday sound.
“Moon” is a laid-back, 12-song collection that has Schneider moving further away from big-band party-rocker and closer to daring, solo experimentalist.
In fact, Schneider made the record at his Austin home and played every instrument, including the ukulele, banjo, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, piano, drums, keyboards, mandolin, steel drums, melodic and harmonica.
He also charged himself with the engineering, mixing and mastering, which as it turns out is one of the album’s few shortfalls because of some odd volume changes and less-than-perfectly sharp sounds.
Aside from the easy-to-get-over production flaws, the album is charming in its minimalism and can’t be compared to Schneider’s popular, big studio-powered releases “Lonelyland” or “I’m Good Now.”
As for the songs, the album’s title track is brief but powerful — “I feel about as useful as a blind man’s bike/down at the bottom of the lake in me/God has made a big mistake you see.”
The album’s first quarter is dark and gloomy, but it moves quickly into happier, catchy pieces such as “The Way We Roll” and “The Stick Up,” where Schneider eerily sings cheerfully about a violent robbery.
The depressing, inspiring sadness returns with “Blue Mountain,” a downtrodden-but-moving song where Schneider sounds as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
Then the good times are back on “Confessor,” a funky jam featuring Schneider engaged in a toe-tapping a cappella with himself.
Sadly missing from “Moon” is Schneider’s trademark horn line, which on other albums has added that extra “oomph” and catchy harmony that gets stuck in your head.
Even so, this album is a welcome detour from Schneider’s usual sound and it’s exciting to peek in while he experiments with new sounds.
Recommended: “Blue Mountain,” “Confessor” — Ryan Poulos
Caroline Herring - ‘Lantana’
(Signature Sounds)
The sour certainty of a lover’s infidelity often slips a murder ballad’s trigger. Caroline Herring chooses to measure unconditional love’s disintegration instead. “I confessed that, for love’s sake, I drowned my children in John D. Long Lake,” the Atlanta-based songwriter sings on “Paper Gown.” “They’re with Jesus, looking down at me in this paper gown.” True story: That’s Susan Smith deteriorating underneath the weight of a malevolent Carolina moon.
Herring flawlessly reports the grisly material. Presented with corresponding degrees of damnation and empathy, her watertight assessment of the 1994 American tragedy would be a crowning achievement for most artists. On “Lantana” — an embarrassment of riches drawing the straightest line between tradition and transition this side of Adrienne Young — it only rates halfway up the chart.
More treasured moments — coming-of-age bookends “Heartbreak Tonight” and “Fair and Tender Ladies,” say, or the closing “Song for Fay” — celebrate women and strength in vulnerability. Every attempt pierces its mark. In fact, few folk albums since Young’s 2005 hallmark “The Art of Virtue” have proved a more thorough success. Herring’s endearing maternal memorandum “Lover Girl” — “Even now we’re dancing, longing for a place to know,” she sings — alone suggests its undying resilience.
Now, grab hold of a sturdy beam before spinning “Midnight on the Water.” Talk about the hollow aftermath of faded love. Echoing like a cannon in a cockpit, Herring distills the traditional fiddle tune into arguably the purest representation of heartache since “Goodnight Irene.”
“The scenes were there as in a mirror made by the moon upon the water and our love was never stronger,” she gently warbles. “The picture was broken by the waves we left behind at midnight on the water, once upon a time.” Even decades of scratching, of course, won’t remove the deepest stains of regret.
Recommended: “Paper Gown,” “Midnight on the Water,” “Song for Fay” — Brian T. Atkinson
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Weekend picks: Giant guitar epics, death-obsessed hardcore and the return of GLO
Friday: World Burns to Death at Beerland. Austin’s premier hardcore band, death-obsessed, black-clad, and the only band of guys in Austin that can make black eyeliner work. With Dwell Within, Laughing Dogs, Doom Siren and Black Jesus. — Joe Gross
Friday: Ghostland Observatory at the Austin Music Hall. Synth-pop’s dynamic duo from Austin, Texas drops their latest joint to an exuberant hometown crowd. Yes, this show is sold out. More on Ghostland.
Friday: NOFX at Stubb’s BBQ. Yes, these pop-punk veterans really have released a combined 25 LPs and EPs, have sold six million albums entirely on independent labels and have been around since 1983. This show is sold out. With No Use For a Name and Flatliners. — J.G.
Saturday: Jucifer at Room 710. This duo has lived in an RV for most of the 21st century, hauling giant amps around the country, playing some of the fiercest and most detailed two-person hard rock around. With the Roller, the Devil and the Sea, Canyon of the Skull. — J.G.
Saturday: Marilyn Manson at the Austin Music Hall.Original bassist Twiggy Ramirez is with the band again, yet tickets remain available. $39. — J.G.
Sunday: Built to Spill at Stubb’s BBQ. If you’re in the mood for giant guitar epics, boy howdy is this Boise, Idaho, band for you. With Austin’s own Meat Puppets and Helvetia. $20. — J.G.
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Mess With Texas lineup
It’s a fest within a fest and it’s free and open to the public. The Breeders, White Denim, Simian Mobile Disco, NOFX, Kimya “Juno” Dawson and Janeane Garofalo are just a few of the 50 or so artists signed on to appear at Waterloo Park March 15 at Mess With Texas fest. The show will be produced by Transmission Entertainment and others. Most of the acts are also playing official SXSW showcases.
Other musical acts scheduled for MWT, the biggest day party in SXSW history, include Islands, Two Gallants, Lucero, Jay Reatard, No Age, Neon Neon and Atlas Sound. Comedians include Brian Posehn from “The Sarah Silverman Show” and Eugene Mirman. Go here for more details.
Last year’s maiden MWT Fest was held at the Red 7 nightclub. Gates open March 15 at noon and the fest goes until 10 p.m.
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Review: Maceo Parker at Antone’s
It’s only February so it’s much too early to call it the show of the year, but topping Maceo Parker’s set at Antone’s on Tuesday night is going to be a tall order. Watching the 65-year-old Parker dance and shimmy across the stage like man half his age, it’s hard to imagine that he cut his teeth as part of James Brown’s band more than 40 years ago. But after a sweaty, bombastic set that lasted nearly four hours, Parker proved that he is not only still nimble on his feet, but even more so on his horn.
Parker has been making it funky since 1964, but his sound was more than a mere amalgam of the sounds he helped create as a side-man with Brown, George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. He and his band, comprised of former P-Funk, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, and SOS Band members, laid down some brilliant funk that had all of the bounce and strut of the Meters but with a glossy, R&B sheen over the top. Added to that was the occasional hip-hop flow from son and backup singer Corey Parker (who sounds a bit like Redman on the mic) and what emerged was a sophisticated strain of funk that had evolved rather than been cobbled together.
After a brief band introduction, Parker made his way onstage for “Funky Fiesta,” a possible homage to Texas, a state that has been kind to him over the years.
“We’ve been playing at Antone’s since I started this band,” Parker told the crowd, acknowledging it as one of his favorite venues. “This place really feels like home.”
The band, which formed in 1991, has an incredibly tight sound that Parker conducts with a precision he obviously learned from his days backing the godfather of soul. Pivoting around to face the drummer, one punch in the air was all it took to bring the band from full-tilt boogie to a dead stop midway through the set. One blast from his horn and the entire band dropped back in like a bomb. It was impossible not to dance.
Parker’s rapport with the crowd elicited raucous call-and-response sections during shout choruses in “Pass the Piece” and “Off the Hook.” It was easy to see how Parker can pack Antone’s nearly to capacity on a Tuesday night.
Time hasn’t diminished Parker’s tone or agility on the horn, rather made him a more selective player. He wove in and out of the groove, augmenting the horn section’s lines with punchy, rhythmic motives that filled in every little empty space. Everything fit neatly into place without feeling too orchestrated.
And like any great band leader, Parker made time to feature just about everyone in the band at least once during the evening including backup singer and Martha High who brought down the house with the “baby” parts during “Night Time Is the Right Time.” Parker, who just completed a tribute album to Ray Charles, turned out a smoking version of this classic during a lengthy encore that capped an incredible performance.
Parker wouldn’t be courted for an encore easily, though. Chants of, “MA-CE-O,” lasted for nearly five minutes before he re-emerged from the wings. After more than 40 years in show business, papa still don’t take no mess.
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Review: Daniel Johnston tribute show and video premiere
There’s no doubt that Austin loves its eccentric musicians. And even though vulnerable singer/songwriter Daniel Johnston isn’t technically an Austinite (he’s a Wallerian), 13 or so variations of local bands plus or minus a member here or there came out Tuesday night to the Parish to show their respect by playing different versions of Johnston’s songs.
Johnston didn’t attend, but his visage was present in the form of the world premiere of the new Danny and the Nightmares video for “Death of Satan.” The video was directed by ME Television’s J.J. Castillo, who also introduced each act.
Each band had only mere minutes to perform one or two Johnston’s songs before the next group took the stage, but the crowd, consisting mainly of musicians and a few ardent fans of Johnston’s, didn’t seem bothered by the quick transitions. The lineup jostled around between keyboard pop, indie acoustics and clamoring rock ‘n’ roll.
Monster Girl started the night with “Funeral Girl” in all its bleak vocals and throbbing keys. Michael Frazier of the intense experimental group Transmography sat down at a keyboard and rhymed his way through “Never Relaxed,” which he heard for the first time only two days before. Recent Austin musical migrant from the Big Apple Ladyfingers played a lengthy “King Kong” with a gritty, bluesy acoustic guitar as he stood on a wooden platform stomping out the bass with his foot. Shortly after, the night ended at its climax with a burst of brilliant rock ‘n’ roll with Golden Bear’s hearty version of “Impossible Love.”
The night ended just under four hours after it began and the fact that everyone had just seen performances from Nurtured by Love, Three Sons, Chris Brecht, the Come Latelys, Southern Drama, Mr. and Mrs. Mays, Bourbon Legends, Aimee Bobruk, Belaire, as well as those mentioned above and a music video world premiere seemed almost impossible.
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More $139 SXSW wristbands go on sale tomorrow
South by Southwest (SXSW) is putting more $139 wristbands on sale at http://wristband.sxsw.com for one day only.
Starting at noon Feb. 28, until 7 p.m. or until they sell out, whichever comes first.
These will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. It is not a drawing to win, as was the initial offering.
“We think the wristband drawing method we used was very effective,”SXSW managing director Roland Swenson said in a statement. “All of the eligible people who wanted a wristband got one. We avoided people needing to stand in line for hours. However, it was complicated, and the drawing aspect of it made it even harder. We chose the random drawing method because we were worried about what would happen if hundreds of people hit the website at once trying to buy wristbands, and it caused a crash. But after seeing our new online purchase system handle over two hundred transactions in the first hour, we feel confident it will hold up under heavy traffic.”
At least 600 additional wristbands will be available. The same conditions will apply.
Only Austin area residents with a credit card that has a billing address in the Greater Austin area are eligible. Purchasers can buy up to two wristbands. The cardholder must be the recipient of one of the wristbands, the name and email of the second person must be entered at the time of purchase. There are no name transfers or refunds after purchase.
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Buddy Miles 1947- 2008
Drummer Buddy Miles, who recorded with Jimi Hendrix as Band of Gypsys in 1970 and had a career revival in 1986 as singer in the California Raisins claymation commercials, died Tuesday night in Austin of congestive heart failure. He was 60.
Although he was born in Omaha, Neb., and lived for many years in Chicago, where he co-founded Electric Flag in 1967, Miles had moved to Austin after suffering a stroke in 2005. “He wanted to get back to music,” stepdaughter Chealsea Shahan said. “He moved to Austin for peace and harmony.” Backed by the New Orleans Social Club, Miles performed “Them Changes” at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Sept. 2006. He also played at La Zona Rosa in October with an all-star Austin blues band.
“He was a real strong guy who overcame a lot,” said local blues guitarist Randy Pavlock, who said Miles “was like a father to me.” Pavlock was playing a club on Sixth Street two years ago when he looked up and saw Miles in the audience. “Band of Gypsys” was probably my favorite record when I was a kid,” said Pavlock, who said he felt “a friendship bond” that first night. Miles relished the role as a mentor.
A child prodigy, whose father had a jazz band, Miles was playing with Wilson Pickett in the ’60s when guitarist Mike Bloomfield asked him to form Electric Flag, a band that would fuse soul, rock and blues. Originally known for his powerhouse drumming, Miles also became known as a soulful rock singer on a million-selling 1972 live album recorded with Carlos Santana.
An enduring classic, “Them Changes” was performed Monday and Tuesday at Madison Square Garden by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. The former Blind Faith frontmen are expected to play the song again tonight with a special dedication to their old friend.
Miles is survived by spouse Sherrilae Chambers-Miles. A memorial concert will take place March 30 at Threadgill’s on Riverside Drive.
Why Willie still matters: 1997 XL cover story
As inconceivable as it seemed in the late ’70s and ’80s, when he bestrode the musical world like a chicken-fried colossus, Willie Nelson has become something of a trivia question to many of the inhabitants of the world of ’90s country music. Not in Austin, mind you, where In Willie We Trust'' might as well be engraved on the municipal letterhead, and mystics occasionally report the mysterious appearance of his beatific visage on fresh-baked tortillas. Nor in Texas as a whole, a state with an enduring taste for eccentrics with a twinkle in their eye.
But there are younger country music fans in the hinterlands and not-so-young executives on Music Row in Nashville who are apt to shrugWillie who?” when the outlaw patriarch’s name is brought up.
To the casual observer, the skeptics make a good case: Having lost his berth at Columbia Records in 1993, Nelson has seemingly drifted at whim, recording marginally selling albums for a variety of smaller labels. His latest (his third for Justice Records, the Houston-based indie label) is a re-release of his 1971 concept album, Yesterday's Wine.''
His songs are nowhere to be found on the mainstreamHot Young Country” radio formats, and at 64 (he is old enough to recall the birth of Social Security; next year he will be eligible to collect it), Nelson is deemed hopelessly inaccessible to the demographic tail that wags the dog of the radio and record industries these days.
His Fourth of July Picnic, once a unique, Lone Star-waving gathering of the tribes, has shrunk to a vestigial ritual that keeps regenerating itself for no particularly compelling reason (the latest edition — the 25th anniversary Picnic, by rough count — will be held tomorrow in Luckenbach). The Picnic, featuring a graying cohort of Nelson familiars, pales in scope and charisma next to 100,000-strong bacchanalias Nelson used to assemble on Independence Day (a far cry from the bloated, corporate-sponsored mega-festivals, like last month’s CountryFest up near Dallas, which are the fashion today).
His concert set, as this listener of 20-plus years will attest, has not changed in essence in decades.
The skeptics will tell you there is less and less reason to pay attention to Willie Nelson: Ain’t it funny, they’ll tell you (before moving on to anoint the next Flavor of the Month), how time slips away?
Well, the skeptics are full of sheep dip.
Willie Nelson still matters, in ways that Soundscan sales charts and radio Arbitron ratings can’t measure. (I would have been happy to address questions of his ongoing relevance to Willie his ownself, except that he was away in Hawaii and on the road; efforts to cross paths with him by phone proved unsuccessful).
If he doesn’t put hits in the Top 10 like he once did, he remains one of the last repositories of iconoclastic vision and unfettered imagination to which country music has access.
Texas has conjured up such prodigies in the past, in many musical disciplines — Scott Joplin, Ornette Coleman, Bob Wills, T-Bone Walker and Janis Joplin all achieved renown by breaking down barriers and forcing listeners to confront music on the artist’s terms.
This has been Willie’s particular genius as well. Listen to him for any length of time and his music — filtered as it is through the lenses of blues, country, jazz, American pop standards, folk and gospel — emerges as a clear and cogent creative vision informed by all these influences but constrained by none. Suddenly, the listener is viewing the musical landscape through Willie’s panoramic perspective.
Consider his last major-label album, 1993’s wonderful Across the Borderline,'' an ostensiblycountry” album which blends songs by Paul Simon, Willie Dixon, Ry Cooder, Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Nelson himself.
Coming from almost any other artist, this shotgun wedding of genres and tunesmiths would have come across as a mishmash born of unchecked egotism. But Willie weaves the disparate strands into a coherent tapestry, which engages the listener with a sort of organic inevitability that is immensely satisfying. It's always time to stretch,'' said Nelson modestly at the time of the album's release, hardly needing to add that stretching has been a way of life with him.
Spirit,” his understated 1996 album on Island Records, achieved much the same effect in a more low-key fashion, folding flamenco and mariachi textures into a suite of songs that glow with luminous spirituality. We are told that Nelson has a blues album and even — Gawd! — a reggae album in the can awaiting the light of day. Well, why not?
It’s harder and harder to find anyone in Nashville (or even on the self-consciously left-of-center Americana chart) who will roll the creative dice with the same aplomb that Nelson has displayed for at least a couple of musical epochs.
But that effortless eclecticism is only half the story. At an age when many artists have entombed their work in CD box sets (funny how much those things look like coffins …) and content themselves with collecting royalty checks, Nelson still displays an energy, an imagination and a restless curiosity that is the envy of musicians half his age.
Hey, don’t take my word for it; let’s go to the tale of the tape, as the boxing writers used to say.
There are the classics he has authored — from Crazy'' toNight Life,” Hello Walls,''Funny How Time Slips Away,” Three Days,''Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” and a score of others — songs whose blues-inflected phrasing (a Nelson signature) and dark and stately lyricism would enthrall singers from Patsy Cline to the Supersuckers over the course of the years.
The aforementioned Yesterday's Wine'' was but the first of four concept albums that examined everything from a crumbling marriage to spiritual redemption and reincarnation. The most celebrated of that quartet,Red Headed Stranger,” boasts a permanent place in any Top 10 Country Albums of All Time list.
Almost as an afterthought, Nelson created an album of standards, 1978’s Stardust,'' which has become a standard unto itself. He has recorded with everyone from Faron Young to U2's Bono. His ongoing Farm Aid concert series endures as a populist-based Middle American landmark.
But the resume doesn't tell the whole story.
Resumes are ossified, static; Willie is anything but.I can be moving or can be still,” he once sang, But still is still movin' to me.''
The most challenging thing,” he once said, “would be to come up with something entirely different that I haven’t thought of yet, and do it before I have a chance to think about it, and back out.”
Kris Kristofferson once said that Willie’s face belongs on stamps and money. His point, in part, is that Nelson embodies the best of everything that an artist should bring to the table: vision, chops, commitment, imagination, compassion, restless energy, fresh perspectives and a joie de vivre thatfinds its fullest expression in the creative process.
For those reasons, and for many others, Willie still matters, and always will.
So even if you’re not at Luckenbach tomorrow, pour a tequila shot and hoist a toast to Willie Nelson. They ain’t making any more of him.
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Willie has heroes,too: Johnny Gimble
American-Statesman profile from 2002:
Somebody semi-notable once observed that half of life was just showing up. To which Johnny Gimble might add, “… and being lucky.”
Luck, to hear Gimble tell it, accounts for his status as a much-decorated elder statesman and teacher in a field of endeavor where virtuosos are as common as clay.
To put it briefly, when it comes to country and western swing fiddle, Gimble is The Man. If he were a jazz player, he would be mentioned in the same breath as Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti; were he a classical musician, Itzhak Perlman would be his obvious peer. But Gimble blew out of his hometown of Tyler in the late ’30s and stepped into one of the most fertile music scenes in the country, western swing. “Somebody said a few years ago, if you can learn to fake sincerity and humility, you’ve got it made in show business,” said Gimble earlier this week with typical sly wit. “But I always told young musicians, the secret is to play every time you get a chance and be real lucky; be at the right place at the right time.” The only thing Gimble knew growing up was that the right place did not include the cotton patch. He grew up on a cotton farm near Tyler, and he loved it not at all. “Dad paid us a dollar for every hundred pounds of cotton we picked,” he recalled. “I never made over a dollar; I couldn’t pick cotton worth a (hoot). When I found out that we could make two dollars a man to play in a band, well, that was it for me.” At that time, country and western swing bands sponsored by flour and seed companies were all the rage, following the success of Burrus Mills’ Light Crust Doughboys. One milling company represent- ative from the Dennison area would pick up Johnny and his brother at 5 a.m. and drive them through East Texas. “The guy had a ‘36 Ford with big horn speakers on the roof,” Gimble recalled. “We’d pull into town and crawl up on a flatbed truck and start playing music and ballyhooing the flour.” Gimble stayed on the road, venturing into Louisiana to play in Gov. Jimmie (“You Are My Sunshine”) Davis’ campaign band and returning to Texas at the proverbial right time and place in 1946. “We were playing in Corpus Christi in a big club when they booked Bob Wills in there,” Gimble said of the leader of the archetypal western swing band the Texas Playboys. “Our band was going to open. I was playing electric mandolin when Tiny (Moore, Wills’ mandolin player) walked in and teased me. He said, ‘I’ll have to kill you.’ Jesse Ashlock was their fiddler, and Tiny told me that he might be leaving, and asked if I would be interested in joining the Playboys. I said, ‘If I was playing sandlot ball, and the Yankees asked me if I’d be interested in playing for them, what do you think?’ ” Gimble became a Playboy in 1949 and spent the next several years with Wills. He later told Wills’ biographer Charles R. Townsend that while most Nashville musicians wanted note-for-note reproductions of their music every time it was performed, Wills never played a song the same way twice. “The thing I liked about playing for Bob,” he said, “was that I was freer than in any other band I ever played in.” “Like Bob, he’s got his own style,” said Asleep At the Wheel’s Ray Benson, who has known Gimble since the Wheel’s first Nashville session in 1972. “He plays a five-string fiddle for one thing, and that first string adds a low note that gives him another dimension. To me it’s like a clarinet, his sound has that kind of richness, and that low string gives him licks nobody else has.” That freewheeling virtuosity led to Gimble’s big-dog status among Nashville session players. When he played a hot solo and a long fade on Connie Smith’s 1972 hit “If It Ain’t Love (Let’s Leave It Alone),” Smith took the trouble to include a note in every radio copy of the record citing Gimble by name, which made him a hot brand in Music City. In his Nashville years, and after his return to Texas, he knocked off awards like so many clay pigeons; five Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year, eight Academy of Country Music Fiddler of the Year honors, three Grammy nominations (and one win, in 1995, for his work on the Asleep At the Wheel instrumental “Hightower”). In 1994, he was accorded what he calls “as nice a thing as ever happened”— he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A small stroke in 1999 left Gimble what he calls “mumbly and fumbly,” but his phenomenal memory can still conjure up a cafe he stopped at on the road in 1951—and the kind of pie they served for dessert. His wife Barbara “says I remember every old song and old joke, but I can’t remember to put the milk back in the refrigerator,” he said with a smile. “I wish half the artists we’ve had on the show were as pleasant and self-effacing, and had as much pure, raw talent as Johnny,” said “Austin City Limits” producer Terry Lickona, who reckons Gimble has been “ACL’s” most prolific guest musician over the years. The lineup of the Texas Folklife Resources’ “Tribute to Johnny Gimble” at the Paramount Theatre (which may also include visits from Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson) is only a small indicator of the esteem in which Gimble is held. Of course, Johnny Gimble would say he is just lucky.
Luck gave Johnny Gimble big breaks with Bob Wills and Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis, but his talent proved he had staying power. // Gimble’s performance with Asleep At the Wheel won a 1995 Grammy for his collaboration on ‘Hightower.’
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SXSW: Meet the bands - The Whip
During SXSW this year Austin will be thoroughly infiltrated with band’s from Britain. Today, we’re profiling 3 British bands beginning with a Q&A from Manchester, UK’s the Whip.
Music Source: Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
The Whip: We make a sound that makes you want to move your feet but keep your eyes wide open at the same time. We’re pretty electronic but have human stuff too, a bit like Robocop but without the law.
Name five albums you could not live without.
Sonic Youth - “Goo”
My Bloody Valentine - “Loveless”
Daft Punk - “Homework”
Beach Boys - “Friends”
Kraftwerk - “Man Machine”
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
We just toured Europe with Simian Mobile Disco, so it will be nice to see them, and we played a fair bit with Does It Offend You, Yeah? They beef it up live. The Bloody Beetroots did two remixes for us, so we’ll be partying to their set. Thurston Moore (legend), Mstrkrft will be a good laugh too. It’s all about Wing though.
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
We just thought it sounded snappy. We were Teenage Whip for a day, but that sounded wrong.
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
We want to dance!
(Photo from myspace.com/thewhipmanchester)
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SXSW: Meet the bands — Dokkebi Q
Dokkebi Q are actually Japanese, but they’re based out of London (and we suspect that they’ve likely consumed fish ‘n’ chips and bangers ‘n’ mash or at least shared a pint or two with a mate in their time) and therefore qualified to be included in our British invasion Q&As.
Music Source: Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
Dokkebi Q: Avent-Dubbist, Dokkebi Q are a London-based Japanese duo. They skew dub sounds into hyper-extreme hybrids with heavy bass, glitch and chaotic psychedelia, which they call DEATH DUB.
Name five albums you could not live without.
Full Contact - “Dry & Heavy”
Pantera - “The Great Southern Trendkill”
Bordomes - “Super Ae”
Square Pusher - “Big Loada”
Jimi Tenor - “Intervision”
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
Hecuba
DJ Donna Summer
DJ Scotch Egg
White Mice
The Bug
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
We play death dub. Death does not mean the death. We meant the death as a resurrection. “Dokkebi” is a mythical being taken from Korean folklore, mischievous in nature and with the power to wield and travel in the form of fire. They are the judgment of nature, death and alive. Dokkebi was born of society’s hunger for manufactured commodities. In the form of their street style pop songs Dokkebi Q bring the real world illumination of the beast to the human race. Fire!!!!
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
Listen our live set. We play real spacy live dub. You will know what we really meant by DEATH DUB.
(Photo from myspace.com/kikihitomi.)
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SXSW: Meet the bands — The People’s Revolutionary Choir
One more Q&A with a British band, this time it’s the People’s Revolutionary Choir from London.
Music Source: Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
The People’s Revolutionary Choir: Thunderous guitars, fizzy keyboards, relentless drums, melodic bass, epic Vox.
Name five albums you could not live without.
The Small Faces - “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake”
Bob Dylan - “Blonde on Blonde”
The Rolling Stones - “Beggars Banquet”
The Velvet Underground - “The Velvet Underground”
The Flying Burrito Brothers - “The Gilded Palace of Sin”
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
British Sea Power
The Duke Spirit
The Raveonettes
Dolly Parton
The Kills
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
At the time we were trying to revive music that we weren’t hearing. This music had been really important to us. So we took a kind of evangelical crusade type approach to playing and sharing this sound with people who weren’t familiar with it. I’d had a name for a fictitious band (The People’s Revolutionary Choir) a while back and that seemed to fit. It worked with what we were about and what we wanted to do, so …
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
It’s - The People’s Revolutionary Choir.
(Photo from myspace.com/thepeoplesrevolutionarychoir)
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Willie’s Place at Carl’s Corner
Great video from “Honeysuckle Rose”
Work had been suspended on the new Willie’s Place at Carl’s Corner, 50 miles south of Dallas, but additional financing has apparently been lined up and the whole nightclub/biodeisel/restaurant complex is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Here are some photos of the work in progress.
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Where in the world is SXSW band-iego?
Check out the map here. Thanks to AYC for the heads-up.
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Grupo Fantasma to play free concert at Long Center opening
Powerhouse cumbia-funk band Grupo Fantasma will play a free concert March 9 at the new Long Center for the Performing Arts to cap off the center’s opening weekend festivities.
Grupo Fantasma goes on at 8:15 p.m. at the Long Center’s 2,400-seat Dell Hall. Click here for more information.
(Photo by Ralph Barrera AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Pandora and the future of music in a post-record label world
(Notes from the Pandora meet up held at the Alamo Drafthouse on Monday.)
As the theater at the Alamo Drafthouse filled to capacity and rows were shuffled to create room for late arriving Pandora fans, I felt a growing sense of amazement. This was, after all, a Monday night meet up to discuss a Web site. A Web site. Austin’s well-known for being a high-tech Mecca, but could there really be that many nerdy code pilots like myself, ever intrigued by growing Internet trends, or was this about something else entirely? As the crowd continued to pour in, I began to strongly suspect the latter.
For those who have yet to discover it, Pandora is a free online listening service, built around an ingenious, totally unique model. Essentially, Pandora users can create radio stations built around artists or songs that they like. For example, I have a Pandora station called “John Legend radio.” The station plays some John Legend tracks, but it also plays tracks which share similar characteristics to the songs in Legend’s catalog, potentially giving me hours of neo-soul crooning both from established stars and up-and-comers. As founder Tim Westergren, a musician himself, explained on Monday night, Pandora was developed to help customers discover new music.
On the surface, Pandora’s structure seems similar to the Amazon.com “Customers who bought this, also bought this” model, but it’s actually significantly more complex. At the root of Pandora is the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project strives to “capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level” by breaking it down based on an extensive list of musical characteristics. At Pandora central 50 analysts, themselves musicians, listen to music all day, cataloging roughly 400 traits of each song that comes across their desks. The traits in question cover everything from tempo (the most heavily weighted trait) to how many notes in the alto sax solo. It takes 15 to 45 minutes per song to perform this analysis, but when it’s done the massive amount of data collected allows the Pandora data engine to place each song alongside its musical neighbors, songs that share many characteristics.
Also — and this is important — Pandora’s system puts no weight on a song’s popularity or an artist’s commercial success, and instead analyzes tracks entirely on musical data. According to Westergren, a whopping 70 percent of artists featured on Pandora are unsigned. Westergren also claims that 40 percent of Pandora listeners say that they started buying more music after discovering Pandora. (Pandora users can click through to Amazon or iTunes to purchase tracks or albums while listening.) Westergren says he regularly hears success stories from indie musicians who notice a spike in their iTunes sales after their music was added to Pandora.
And therein, I suspect, is the explanation for the huge crowd at the Alamo. Pandora is not yet a profitable venture, but the company is now stable and potential new revenue streams are starting to look good. Like most of us who are excited about the potential of streaming Internet radio, Pandora founders are eagerly awaiting the day when broadband streams are ubiquitous enough to make Web radio mobile. The day when devices that allow you to stream on the go and, for example, plug Pandora into your car stereo, become commonplace, the entire equation of FM/AM/satellite radio changes. Pandora already has 11 million registered users and between 22,000-23,000 listeners a day. They are striving to become a leading global radio network at a time when FM radio has become frustratingly homogenized and record labels are sputtering. In the post-big record label world, a service like Pandora could become a force to be reckoned with, and the early adopters who crowded the Alamo seemed eager to be part of the movement.
To add your band’s music to Pandora send a copy of your CD to Pandora’s main office at:
360 22nd Street Suite 440 Oakland CA 94612
According to Westergren, about 30 percent of music received by Pandora actually makes it into the player and it takes about 6-8 weeks for the Pandora analysts to process the music that they do accept.
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Willie at Stubb’s: 2003
Ambrose Bierce called habit “a shackle for the free.” Is that what keeps folks coming back to Willie Nelson’s shows? There they were again, thronging the amphitheater at Stubb’s on Wednesday night for the first of the newly minted septuagenarian’s three nights of shows.
This bunch, like every audience before, willingly shackled themselves to the Texas icon’s carefully honed half-century of hits, his indefatigably cheerful (and somehow healing) presence and the seemingly immutable rock in a turbulent world that is the Willie and Family set list. Forget about putting Willie on Mount Rushmore; he has become Mount Rushmore.
We know why Willie keeps showing up; as Willie Sutton famously replied when asked why he kept knocking over banks, “That’s where the money is.” Additionally, performance defines who Willie is. And besides, who wouldn’t want to be Willie Nelson for a couple of hours every night? But even if they’ve seen the set dozens or even scores of times before (Your humble correspondent caught his first chorus of “Night Life” 30 years ago), fans of all ages flock back for yet another fix, as faithful as Capistrano’s swallows. There’s a comforting ritual about the whole thing, with rites as strictly observed as High Mass. Eighty-five percent of Nelson’s set Wednesday was represented on the “Willie and Family Live” album from 1978 (and not a little bit of it could have derived from his 1966 concert recording at Panther Hall in Fort Worth). So those there for the music, as opposed to those content to simply bask in Willie’s beatific glow, had to content themselves with seeking out nuance without expecting novelty. OK, then. There were (as there are in every Nelson performance) some unique moments in this particular two-hour-and-10-minute, 41-song set: a down-and-dirty extended blues workout that wound its way into “Milkcow Blues”; an especially elegant guitar solo that gilded the mournfully gorgeous ballad “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground”; a particularly impassioned take on Irving Berlin’s vintage “Blue Skies”; a fresh boogie-woogie treatment of Hank Williams’ “Move It On Over”; the flamenco-style guitar solos that bracketed “The Great Divide” and the Django Reinhardt instrumental “Nuages” (Nelson’s guitar work is, as always, a fluid and supple marvel). Any other astute listener could come up with his or her own inventory of revelatory moments. Those little moments, as much as the ritual, and the chance to see an American original plying his craft, are what keep me coming back to Willie Nelson shows. We, like him I suppose, will keep wearing those shackles a good while longer, and will be happy to do so.
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SXSW meet the bands — Bellafea
Now meet Bellafea, aka Heather McEntire (guitar, vox); Nathan Buchanan (drums) and Eddie Sanchez (bass). The band, which plays at midnight March 13 at Habana Calle 6 (709 E 6th St), answered our five questions by e-mail.
Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
Post-punk. North Carolina. Dischord. Dissonance. Angular. Jagged. Urgent. A cooled tea kettle catching fever, release.
Name five albums you could not live without.
Eddie: Swervedriver “Raise”; Sun Kil Moon “Ghosts of the Great Highway”; Broken Social Scene “You Forgot it in People”; Ween “The Mollusk”; and LCD Soundsystem “Sound of Silver.”
Nathan: Thunderlip “The Prophecy”; Ume “Urgent Sea”; Zegota “Reclaim Ampere/Sinaloa” split LP; Hope and Anchor “Geography.”
Heather: Neil Young “Decade”; Sleater-Kinney “Dig Me Out”; Leonard Cohen “Best of” (released 1975); Aislers Set “Terrible Things Happen”; Townes Van Zant “Be Here to Love Me.”
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
Heather: I had bought a bunch of old French and Italian records from the thrift store, trying to learn how to speak the languages. It’s pretty simple; I just put two words together that seemed to fit the music I was writing; a linguistic contradiction that sonically expressed the duality of our dynamics.
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
Heather: We love the south.
Nathan: I have a photo I keep in my wallet. Stop me on the street and I’ll show you.
Eddie: Come see a show!
(Photo from myspace.com/bellafea)
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SXSW meet the bands — Blue Mountain
Another of our e-mail interviews with a SXSW showcase band. Now up: Blue Mountain, who play at midnight March 12 at Pangaea, 409 Colorado St.
Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
Our sound reflects our Mississippi and Louisiana background, featuring original songs that combine influences of country, blues and ’70s rock.
Name five albums you could not live without.
“Astral Weeks,” Van Morrison; the Robert Johnson recordings; “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles; “Decade” by Niel Young; “Exile on Main St.” by the Rolling Stones.
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
Haven’t looked at the list yet, but I hope Billy Joe Shaver is playing it again, I saw him last year and it was pure inspirado.
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
We were looking at a map of Mississippi when we were living in LA, and it looked cool… it’s a small town in North MS.
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
We are releasing two records this year, a record of the best songs from our back catalog re-recorded in Oxford, and an album of new songs that we are working on now in Dallas.
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SXSW: Meet the bands — Bun B of UGK
As part of our continuing coverage of all things SXSW, we sent questions via e-mail to many of the bands performing official showcases. Look for the responses here leading up to the music festival, which is March 12-16.
First up: Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, one half of the pioneering Houston hip-hop duo UGK. Bun B’s musical partner, Chad “Pimp C” Butler, died in December at age 33. For more of our coverage of Pimp C’s life and death, go here.
Bun B performs at midnight March 12 at Fuze, 505 Neches St.
Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
My album sound is Southern hospitality mixed with some down-home realness and good ol’-fashion truth, like mama used to make.
Name five albums you could not live without.
Isley Brothers greatest hits; Maze, “Live in New Orleans”; Radiohead, “OK Computer”; Ice Cube’s “America’s Most Wanted”; and Geto Boys “We Can’t Be Stopped.”
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
Dizzee Rascal, Bavu Blakes, Wale, BOB and the Body of War Collective with Kimya and Serj.
What’s the story behind your band’s name?
Bun B is short for bunny, my older family’s nickname for me as a child (call me bunny and you’re not my family, you got trouble).
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
That my brother, the co-founder of UGK (Pimp C), was one of the most prolific producers in hip-hop.
(Photo by Ricardo Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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SXSW shocker! Wristbands didn’t sell out
The good news: everyone who entered the SXSW wristband lottery, which closed today at 9 a.m., got one. SXSW director Roland Swenson estimated that 3,500 of the 4,000 allotment were sold. The other 500 will go into the pool of wristbands which will go on sale a couple days before the music fest starts March 12. The price then will be $180 each, up from the advance price of $139.
“Maybe we made it too hard,” Swenson said. “Every time we try something new, it takes a little while to catch on.” He also thinks that maybe folks were scared off by what looked to be a much greater demand. “It’s like the Tony Bennett show,” he said in reference to a SXSW showcase that was poorly attended because everyone assumed that there would be zero chance of getting in.
The lottery system, which requires a photo ID that matches the credit card order at pickup, was put in place to discourage ticket brokers.
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Waterloo’s SXSW instores
WATERLOO RECORDS SXSW 2008 IN-STORE PERFORMANCES
THURSDAY, MARCH 13th
2pm SARA BAREILLES 3pm RUBY SUNS 4pm INGRID MICHAELSON 5pm CADENCE WEAPON 6pm DIE!DIE!DIE!
FRIDAY, MARCH 14th
2pm SHELBY LYNNE 3pm SEA WOLF 4pm DIVISION DAY 5pm ELF POWER 6pm KIMYA DAWSON
SATURDAY, MARCH 15th
2pm SAVIOURS 3pm TIMES NEW VIKING 4pm OLA PODRIDA 5pm CARBON/ SILICON 6pm HALF JAPANESE
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Review: Brand Nubian
It was the first free Scion hip-hop party I had been to in a hot minute and I was pleased when I didn’t encounter a daunting line outside the club. Instead, my husband and I strolled in casually with just a flash of IDs. Inside the club at about 10:45 p.m. it already felt like a party. The crowd was rapidly filling out and DJ Cosmo Baker was throwing down hard, quick-mixing hip-hop classics and old school funk breaks.
Around 11 p.m. the Keystones, a tight seven-piece instrumental ensemble reminiscent of the Dap Kings, took the stage. Like the Dap Kings (backers of Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse) the Keystones are predominantly white cats who have probably spent a whole lot of time in dimly lit rooms poring over dusty old soul 45s. They build their funk with a snappy rhythmic interplay between percussion and guitar laid underneath tightly laced melodic horn lines. It’s good stuff. A cinematic soundscape that seems designed to support intelligent rhyme styles. (I’m starting to wonder if these instrumental ensembles, Dap Kings, El Michels Affair, Keystones, et al, represent some sort of trend, the older hip-hop generation’s soul revival rejection of the Casio groove simplicity of modern tracks like “Laffy Taffy” and “Soulja Boy.”)
Halfway through the Keystones’ set, the musicians were joined by the lovely Connie Price who, continuing the unavoidable Dap Kings comparison, projected a smooth “California cool” soul sound which marks a sharp contrast to Sharon Jones’ deep Southern grit. It concluded a nice set. The audience was feeling it; multiple young men professed undying love for Price and when the band introduced Brand Nubian a roar went through the crowd. But the enthusiasm was rapidly dampened as rappers Lord Jamar and Sadat X announced that the group’s third rapper, arguably the main attraction, Grand Puba would not be at the show. Sadat X and Lord Jamar put on a solid performance, and the backing band helped to fill in the gaps, but as the group ran through its underground hits, there was undeniably something missing. As the rappers concluded their set, the crowd cheered enthusiastically, but there was no raucous call for an encore. Instead, Cosmo Baker took back the wheels and while half the crowd streamed out of the club, the other half resumed the dance party.
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Waterloo Top 10 for the week ending Feb. 23
Vampire Weekend, ‘s/t’ (XL)
Jack Johnson, “Sleep Through the Static” (Brushfire)
Original Soundtrack: “Juno,” (Rhino)
Bob Schneider, “When the Sun Breaks Down on the Moon” (Shokorama)
Radiohead, ‘In Rainbows’ (ATO)
Carolyn Wonderland, “Miss Understood” (Mri Associated)
Willie Nelson, ‘Moment of Forever’ (Lost Highway)
Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black” (Republic)
Cat Power, ‘Jukebox,” (Matador)
Herbie Hancock, “River: The Joni Letters”(Verve)
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Did you get a wristband?
We detailed how the new SXSW online wristband drawing works here.
The drawing closed at 9 a.m. this morning, at which point an automated system was to begin randomly drawing entries and charging credit cards. Let us know if your entry was drawn and how you feel about the new SXSW wristband system in the comments below.
(Pictured: Times New Viking at SXSW 2007 AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Musicmania Top 10 for the week ending Feb.
Jim Jones ‘Harlem’s American Gangster’ (Koch)
Keyshia Cole ‘Just Like You’ (Geffen)
Lil’ Flip & Mr. Capone ‘Still Connected’ (Koch)
Wendell B ‘Love Life & Relationships’ (Smoothway Music)
The-Dream ‘LoveHate’ (Def Jam)
Birdman ‘5 Stunna’ (Cash Money)
Mary J Blige ‘Growing Pains’ (Geffen)
UGK ‘Underground Kingz’ (Jive)
Scarface ‘M.A.D.E. Screwed & Chopped’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Alicia Keys ‘As I Am’ (J Records)
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SXSW Spin party lineup includes X, Vampire Weekend and the Raveonettes
Los Angeles punk pioneers X will headline the Spin party at SXSW this year. Also featured will be mega-buzz band Vampire Weekend, the Raveonettes, the Whigs, Ben Jelen, Switches and deejay sets from Diplo and Pandemonium Jones.
The invitation-only event will be from 12:30 to 6 p.m. Friday, March 14, at Stubb’s. For a chance at two free passes, write 100 words or fewer on the SXSW act you’re most looking forward to seeing (post our entry in our comments section). We’ll pick the winner in two weeks.
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Review: The Black Lips
Just last October, Atlanta’s self-described “flower punk” group, the Black Lips, played Emo’s inside and packed the house for a night full of dance-inducing vintage rock ‘n’ roll and antics. Five months later, on Saturday night, the rowdy garage rock foursome were upgraded to the outside stage and filled the venue again.
From the bass riff jump-off on “O Katrina!,” a sing-along tune about the hurricane full of guitar distortion and squeal, fans flung their bodies into any open spot they could down front and the dancing began. Songs like this one off their latest release, “Good Bad Not Evil,” as well as plenty of older favorites had everyone shaking their hands in the air within the blast radius in front of the stage. But the intensity seemed to dissipate as it reached the outskirts of the crowd. The jangling guitar strings, bouncing beat and riotous old school rock ‘n’ roll on “Cold Hands” would have been better bounding around an indoor venue. Instead the brunt of it unraveled as it approached the fringes.
When the band reached the cover of French singer Jacques Dutronc’s “Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah,” the crowd reached back with hands grabbing at the gritty ’60s rock sound. Then, without a single bit of vomiting, nudity or urination (unlike past shows by the Black Lips), the band finished their set, leaving those expecting a solid rock show satiated and those hoping for novelty disappointed.
Also on the bill: Local rockers on the rise White Denim commanded attention, and the Strange Boys opened the show with a sound very similar to the Black Lips.
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Willie’s new video, Ellen appearance
The video for Willie Nelson’s star-studded video for “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore” premiered on MTV Saturday. That’s Willie’s stage manager Poodie Locke, by the way, in dragat the end, hitting on Owen Wilson.
In case you missed it Thursday morning, here’s Willie performing “Get Over You” with his sons’ band 40 Points.
Lukas and Micah Nelson, both still in their teens, play with their father whenever they can get over from Maui.
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Best Austin album of all time
- “RED-HEADED STRANGER” BY WILLIE NELSON (COLUMBIA) 1975
Although he wrote neither the title track nor the breakout smash single Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain,'' Willie Nelson's masterpiece is rightfully considered to be this country opera about stolen love and retribution, salvation and sin. Recorded for $20,000 at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland,Red Headed Stranger” came out in the midst of the Austin-based outlaw country'' movement, when Willie's Fourth of July Picnics drew close to 100,000 hippies and rednecks to Dripping Springs each year. But even as he had recharged creatively with 1973'sShotgun Willie” and ‘74’s “Phases & Stages,” Nelson had failed to make much noise nationally.
That all changed with Red Headed Stranger,'' which was built on a song of the same title that Willie first heard in his early '50s deejay days. On a long drive from Colorado to Texas, Willie and his third wife Connie, conceived the project, which brought contemporary observations to Old West themes like gunfights, saloon girls and that thin line between preachers and outlaws. They started thinking of songs that would fit with the concept and Willie rememberedBlue Eyes Crying In the Rain,” an obscure Roy Acuff number written by Fred Rose in 1945. As a redhead with blue eyes, Willie backed those covers physically, but it was his spiritual kinship to the tunes that really shows up in the recording.
Stranger'' was Nelson's first album of a newcreative control” deal with Columbia, and when the label heads received the finished album, they reportedly wondered out loud why Willie would send them a demo. The spare backing, mournful bray and Texas gypsy guitar playing have all become part of Willie’s musical persona as happy hour singer at the honky tonk of regret. But in 1975, at a time when Mickey Gilley and Crystal Gayle dominated the airwaves and, therefore, the country charts, label heads were aghast at this moralistic mood piece. Just as when Dylan released the stripped down John Wesley Harding'' at a time ofPurple Haze” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Satanic Request,” Nelson slowed it down and wringed it out when the world expected its outlaws to be wired to the gills.
At least with Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain,'' Nelson had given his label one song with commercial potential. He gave country radio a ballad to break up the stream of hillbilly show tunes and in the end,Blue Eyes” was the No. 1 country song of 1975 and everybody wanted to know about this dope-smoking hippie redneck whose hero was Frank Sinatra.
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Sister Bobbie and Brother Willie
From Sept. 29, 2007 Austin American Statesman:
She had done whatever it took to raise three sons alone after their father died in an automobile accident in 1961. She demonstrated organs for Hammond, taught at J.R. Reed Music on Congress Avenue and at night played elegant solo piano at local lounges and restaurants.
But what Bobbie Nelson really hungered for, especially after her boys had grown up and moved out by the early 1970s, was to play again with her brother Willie. The pair had forged an undeniable musical bond since she was 6 and Willie was 4 and their grandparents showed them the chords to “The Great Speckled Bird.”
Continue reading here
And to see Willie interview “Lil’ Sister,” click here.
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Ten people even Willie wouldn’t cut a duet with
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Obama Girl
Napoleon Dynamite
Anyone from “American Idol”
Helen Mirren
Lou Dobbs
Javier Bardem’s character in “No Country For Old Men”
Quentin Tarantino
Kim Jong Il
The Geico lizard
Tell us: What’s your fave Willie duet?
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We can see ‘Doug Sahm Hill’ from here
The naming subcommittee for the new Town Lake Park next to Long Center, Thursday recommended that the park’s knoll be named Doug Sahm Hill. Suitably, the hill is the highest place in the park, and has a spiral pathway up to the top where a Texas map is located. There is also an opportunity to place a plaque at the promontory.
The recommendation goes to the Austin Parks & Recreation board next week and then to the City Council. As far as we know, this would mark the first time something in the city will be named after its most representative musician.
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Any Dylan sightings?
Dianne Scott of the Continental Club reports here that Bob Dylan was in town for a few days rehearsing for his upcoming South American tour. Scott says Bob was seen working out at a local gym, without naming the joint. So, were you sweatin’ with the oldie? Or did you encounter the living legend elsewhere? We gotsta know. .
Kanye tix on sale March 1
Tix to Kanye West’s “Glow In the Dark” concert, co-starring Rihanna, N.E.R.D and Lupe Fiasco, the Erwin Center Wednesday, April 30 range from $42.50 to $104 and go on sale Saturday, March 1 at 10 a.m. at all Texas Box Office Outlets (includes select H-E-B stores in the area.
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Review: The Outlaw Trail
History and music arrived at a crossroads on the Paramount Theatre stage Wednesday night with the presentation of “The Outlaw Trail,” an ensemble country/rock concert that was being filmed for broadcast (first on the HDNet channel, later on PBS and still later available on home video) at the historic downtown venue.
Taking their cue from the historic Outlaw Trail — the chain of byways and hideouts that chased the Continental Divide from Montana to Mexico in the 19th century — the show’s producers assembled a cast whose music, they thought, embodied the same rebellious spirit as the renegades, gunslingers and lawmen who made the West so wild.
That conceit proved elastic enough to include a diverse host of musical talent that ranged from stalwarts of the Austin and Nashville scenes to some up-and-comers and a few genuinely left-of-center choices.
Thus, concert-goers were treated to juxtapositions like hometown Latino rockers Del Castillo sharing the stage with “Nashville Star” winner Buddy Jewell, cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell, Muzik Mafia rapper Cowboy Troy and Mavericks heartthrob Raul Malo.
Joe Ely, Rodney Crowell, Asleep at the Wheel, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Jessi Colter lent a shot of gravitas from the original “outlaw” musical heyday of a quarter-century ago, and younger performers like fiddler Megan Mullins and Holly Williams (Hank’s granddaughter) dovetailed well with a house band of all-star Austin players helmed by veteran drummer (Eric Clapton, Bob Seger) and musical director Jamie Oldaker.
Utilizing Western-themed songs by Bob Dylan, Poco, the Eagles, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Marty Robbins, and laced with original material, the three-hour performance traced an emotional arc from the high-flying hubris of pistoleros riding a wide-open range (“Wanted Man,” “Big Iron,” “Rose of Cimarron”) to the elegiac ballads that evoked the closing of the frontier (“Pancho and Lefty,” “Desperados Waiting For A Train,” “Slow-Movin’ Outlaw”).
The performances were exemplary as a rule, and there were a handful of genuinely thrilling moments: Joe Ely’s “Me and Billy the Kid,” jump-started the crowd early on; Raul Malo’s two diverse turns (on Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” and that soundtrack-‘o-the-70s rocker “Bad Company”) elicited cheers (“Don’t put me on after Raul!” pleaded Suzy Bogguss); Lee Roy Parnell downright lit up the joint with a fiery, slide guitar-laced rocker about crossing the river to Mexico; Jessi Colter made two quietly moving appearances at center stage and Asleep At the Wheel’s Ray Benson (with a distaff chorus that included Colter, Williams, Bogguss and Carlene Carter) even made the old warhorse “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” seem fresh and moving.
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Review: Tim Finn at the Cactus Cafe
As the happy crowd slowly filed out of the Cactus Cafe late Tuesday night, a fan with a British accent remarked that he’d been surprised to find the club was so small. In the U.K, he said, you’d have seen Tim Finn in a much larger venue.
The same goes for Australia and Finn’s native New Zealand. There, Finn achieved iconic status with Split Enz, which he founded in the early ‘70s, and his later solo career. In the United States, however, Finn is known to a relative few, largely for a brief stint in his brother Neil’s band, Crowded House, and his collaboration with Neil as the Finn Brothers.
But while Tim Finn is still building his audience in the U.S., he has decades of top-flight material to do it with — not to mention loads of natural charisma. It’s not just his leonine good looks and ready grin. Whenever he put down his acoustic guitar at the Cactus to play upright piano, he had to turn his back to the audience, but never lost their rapt attention. (Although he did leave his terrific guitarist-backing vocalist, Brett Adams, looking slightly uncomfortable to be facing the packed room alone.) Finn’s voice has gotten lower and warmer over the years. His soaring melodies sometimes taxed the upper end of his range Tuesday, but he so fully inhabited everything from Split Enz’s wacky “Shark Attack” to the gorgeous ballad “Persuasion” (written with Richard Thompson) that a little thinning on the high notes didn’t much matter.
Finn and Adams also brought splendid musical rapport that made “It’s Only Natural” and “Weather With You” sound as full as the lavishly arranged recorded versions by Crowded House. Adams’ deft rockabilly runs helped Finn transform Split Enz’s new wave rave-up “I See Red” into something earthier, and Adams’ unusually subtle use of the whammy bar on “Winter Light” heightened the ethereal mood Finn created.
Finn sometimes played percussion and guitar simultaneously, sitting on a chair behind a kick drum and a snare turned on its side. The snare, he said, was the idea of the late Split Enz/Crowded House drummer Paul Hester, to whom he dedicated the pensive “Salt to the Sea,” from Finn’s last release, “Imaginary Kingdom.” He introduced another melancholy song from that album, “Unsinkable,” as inspired by his young son, who was so fascinated by the Titanic he exclaimed “Dad, let’s all go down together!” (Amusingly, that song followed on Split Enz’s “Six Months in a Leaky Boat.”)
Finn said he’ll be recording again in April, and the two brand new songs he played, “Driving Blind” and the sardonic “Saw and the Tree,” were among the best of the night. He jested about his “35 years in show biz,” but he’s plainly continuing to develop his craft as well as his name recognition.
Opening act Eileen Rose has a lovely, powerful alto, and was funny and engaging as she chatted in a thick Boston accent with the audience and the nephew who accompanied her on guitar and piano. However, her use of backing tracks was jarring indeed.
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Weekend Picks: Classic hip-hop, New Wave-style pop and hair metal ballads
Friday: Evil Army, Iron Age, Hatred Surge, Warwulf and Breadth at Broken Neck. Thrash, thrash, thrash and more thrash at this cool warehouse space. I’ve never been to a show here that got going before 11 p.m., but maybe this one will be earlier. No presale tickets. Broken Neck, 4701 Red Bluff Road. No phone. — Joe Gross
Friday: Tribal Nation at Flamingo Cantina. Mayor Will Wynn declared last Thursday, Valentine’s Day appropriately enough, D Madness day in Austin. As a longtime friend and fan, I was thrilled to see him receive the honor. You can catch D and his mind-boggling rhythmic dexterity as he works the drum kit for this excellent veteran reggae ensemble. — Deborah Sengupta Stith
Friday: Black and White Years at Stubb’s. Coming off a well-received set at the MIDEM music conference in France, these New Wave-style Austinites celebrate the release of their new CD. $8 advance, $10 at the door. With Ume. — J.G.
Friday: Love Bites: The Power Ballad Sing-Along. I have a confession. While most people in Austin know me as an urban music fanatic, I spent a good part of my misguided youth as a hair metal chick. (Hey, I grew up in rural Ohio in the ’80s, what’s a girl to do?) Consequently, there’s something about tossing on a pair of ripped jeans and standing in a room full of fellow metal-heads and belting out my best “Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone” sounds downright exhilarating. Get your lighters ready. $12. — D.S.S.
Saturday: Jad Fair, Aliens at End of an Ear. A free in-store performance from the founder of the seminal proto-punk band Half Japanese and his latest collaborators. 6 p.m. — J.G.
Saturday: Brand Nubian at the Parish. I vote we end the ’80s revival (which has been dragging on for the better part of a decade) right now so we can move ahead to reliving the ’90s. Ah, the ’90s, that golden era when hip-hop was full of jazzy beats and witty wordplay. This group, which includes rappers Sadat X and Grand Puba, had a string of underground hits in the ’90s including the 1998 classic “Don’t Let It Go To Your Head.” Free, RSVP here. — D.S.S.
Saturday: Dean & Britta at the Cactus Cafe. Dean Wareham and Britta Philips, a romantic couple, were in the final incarnation of Warham’s long running indie rock band Luna, which now and then were producing some of the best chilled-out, interlocking-guitar rock New York had seen in many a moon. These days, their music seems even mellower. With Keran Ann. Shows at 7 and 10 p.m. — J.G.
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Write and Win: Spin party passes
Win two badges to the Spin Party, an annual highlight of SXSW, where such acts as the Killers, New York Dolls, Hives, Kings of Leon and Pete Townshend (with the Fratellis) have played in recent years. This year Vampire Weekend (next month’s Spin coverboys) and others, to be announced Monday, will perform the afternoon of Friday, March 14, at Stubb’s.
Enter simply by writing 100 words or less about the act you’re most looking forward to seeing at this year’s SXSW. Former and current Spin writers Michael Corcoran and Joe Gross will pick the winner, who will not only receive two VIP passes to the party (with free food and drinks), but will get to hang out with Spin editor Douglas Brod and other Spinsters.
Just post your entry to the comments section. Winners younger than 21 must burn their “plus one” by taking a parent.
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A Willie fave: RIP Calvin Owens
A Texas trumpet giant nicknamed “The Maestro” has passed away. Calvin Owens, a former staff producer and studio musician for legendary Peacock Records in Houston, died early Thursday of kidney failure. He was 78.
Best known as B.B. King’s original band leader, the prolific Owens also recorded in the 1940s with Lightnin’ Hopkins. His credits include work with Otis Clay, Archie Bell, Arnett Cobb, David “Fathead” Newman and Barbara Lynn.
His final session was in November 2007, when he backed Willie Nelson, Johnny Bush and Ray Price on an album expected to come out later this year on Nelson’s Pedernales Records. Nelson has been a fan of Owens. The trumpet player added his bluesy tones to Joe Hinton’s 1960s version of Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away.”
“Calvin played incredibly behind the beat,” said Houston producer Andy Bradley. “His phrasing on the trumpet was truly unique. He was a blues player, not a jazz player.”
Owens’ only Grammy award, ironically, came in the Best Jazz Album category for a 1984 album he arranged for B.B. King. He was also named best horn player in Living Blues magazine’s critic’s poll in the ’80s.
At Owens’ request, there will be no funeral, but a memorial concert is being planned.
Can’t imagine a better way to remember Owens than to hear his friend play this great swan song.
(Pictured: Calvin Owens in the studio with Barbara Lynn. Courtesy of Sugar Hill Recordings)
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The SXSW grid is up
Check it out here.
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Aboard the “Obama Train”
Austin throwback soul singer Larry Shannon Hargrove, the man who brought us “Leave Bill Clinton Alone” in the wake of the late ’90s Monica Lewinsky scandal, has written, recorded and released a tribute to Barack Obama this past week. “I’m fired up and I’m on the Obama train,” Hargrove sings, like the ghost of Little Milton. “It’s the train of hope/ and the train of change.”
Hargrove said the song came to him in the middle of the night on Monday. “I had been watching the news earlier and I woke up my wife, saying ‘I’ve got the song,’” says Hargrove, who rounded up his R&B band the next day to lay down the funky groove. Hargrove left a copy of the CD at Obama’s Austin headquarters Wednesday.
“I’ve always wondered if the stars and moon would align themselves and give us a strong black candidate in my lifetime,” says Hargrove, who runs a limousine company when not playing music. “I think an Obama presidency would be a good thing for America. We’re always getting involved in wars on human rights issues, which has made us look hypocritical because we’ve got human rights issues right at home.”
The Black Angels host psychedelic rock fest
The Black Angels are hosting a festival of psychedelic rock March 8 from noon to 1 .a.m at the the Red Barn (6701 Burnet Road, north of RM 2222/Koenig, south of Justin Lane and Burnet Road)
Performers include
1 p.m. Cavedweller
2 p.m. The Astronaut Suit
3 p.m. The Tunnels
4 p.m. Horse + Donkey
5 p.m. Ringo Deathstarr
6 p.m. The Upsidedown
7 p.m. The Quarter After
8 p.m. Acid Tomb
9 p.m. The Strange Boys
10 p.m. Spindrift
11 p.m. The Black Angels
Tickets are $10 at the door, online at LiveMusicCapitol.com, or at Antone’s Record Shop, End of An Ear, Encore Records, & Waterloo Records.
Seriously, guys, next year? How about doing this in April or May rather than mere days before SXSW?
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Musicmania Top 10 for the week Ending Feb. 17
Keyshia Cole ‘Just Like You’ (Geffen)
Mary J Blige ‘Growing Pains’ (Geffen)
Scarface ‘M.A.D.E.’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Plies ‘Real Testament’ (Slip-N-Slide)
Alicia Keys ‘As I Am’ (J Records)
Scarface ‘M.A.D.E. Screwed & Chopped’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Wendell B ‘Love Life &Relationships’ (Smoothway Music)
K-Rino ‘Triple Darness’ (Black Book)
UGK ‘Underground Kingz’ (Jive)
Trae ‘Life Goes On Screwed & Chopped’ (Rap-A-Lot)
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In the clubs with the Viet Minh
The Viet Minh (the Austin band, not the Vietnamese political organization) started, Minh member Christian Bland says, out of a distinct lack of something to do.
“About a year ago, there was a period of time when (Black Angels drummer) Stephanie (Bailey) had to work a lot and the rest of us in the Black Angels had nothing to do,” Bland says.
The bored Angels —- Bland, Alex Maas and Nate Ryan —- started jamming, drawing much of their inspiration from Red Krayola’s album “Parable of Arable Land,” a classic of Texas psychedelic rock (or, as some would contend, a classic of Texas goofing off).
“The Viet Minh songs are more free-form freak outs,” Bland says, making a reference to the interstitial bits on “Parable.” “It’s very improvisational.”
Bland is quick to note that this does not mean Black Angels are on a hiatus. The band’s second full-length album is due May 13 on Light in the Attic Records, and the band already has started recording its third. “Viet Minh is just another avenue for us to create,” Bland says. “In fact, sometimes Viet Minh songs will become Black Angels songs. It’s like a kind of think tank for the Black Angels.”
Viet Minh songs, however, can only be heard live, though Bland mentions perhaps recording some Viet Minh material in the spring. Of course, being in an experimental band means that the experiments don’t work sometimes.
“The original idea with the Viet Minh was that we would play behind a sheet and have these huge strobe lights projecting onto sheets,” Bland says. “That didn’t work too well. We tried it one time at the Beauty Bar, and I don’t think people realized a band was playing. Folks were going to the DJ booth and saying, ‘This is really cool; what are you playing?’?”
The Viet Minh plays Saturday with Spectrum and All in the Golden Afternoon. 10 p.m. $8 advance, $10 at the door. The Mohawk, 912 Red River St. 482-8404.
(Photo by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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The Austin360 SXSW side party list is back!
We at Austin360 understand that a good part of the fun of SXSW happens not at the festival itself, but at the myriad of splinter events where industry types mingle with musicians and badgeless masses and the free booze flows, well, freely. Consequently, we’ve once again compiled a list of SXSW day parties and side events. Our list, which already contains more than 200 listings, is comprised of both official and unofficial parties and culled from a variety of sources including official SXSW announcements, press releases from promoters and Web sightings. (Special thanks to Free YR Radio and the always amazing showlistaustin.com.)
We’ve marked parties that require badges or wristbands as such, and we’ve tried to include as much information as possible about who’s playing and whether or not parties include free libations. (You know, the important stuff.) We’ll be updating this list daily through the end of the fest. If you spot incorrect information, or if you’d like to add your own party, hit us up.
The URL to bookmark is http://www.austin360.com/sxswside. Happy party hunting!
(Photo by David Weaver FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Willie and Alex Jones, Pt. 2
The www.stillisstillmoving.com site, probably the best fan site of them all, has the followup to Willie’s goofy 9/11 conspiracy interview with Alex Jones that had Bill O’Reilly call Willie a pinhead. This new interview runs about 30 minutes and touches on all sorts of stuff. You’ve gotta stroll down a little to find it.
You’ve gotta love Willie’s bravery to speak his mind without fear of consequences. He doesn’t know how to spin.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Willie Nelson
Concert notes
Let’s look beyond SXSW. Joe Jackson and Kris Kristofferson will be playing the Paramount Theatre in the coming months. No, not together. Jackson headlines April 28, while Kris plays the venue May 17, according to Pollstar.
Other shows that popped up: Ray Romano and Brad Garrett will be milking the success of “Everybody Loves Raymond” by doing standup at the Austin Music Hall April 8. Panic at the Disco, Motor City Soundtrack and more will be with the Honda Civic tour, which stops to refuel at Stubb’s April 19. My Chemical Romance hits Stubb’s April 28.
Interestingly, even though Pollstar, the touring industry bible, and Kanye West’s web site confirm an April 30 show at the Erwin Center, the venue has yet to put the show on its calendar. A sign that negotiations are ongoing.
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Best Willie homages
“Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me” (Billy Joe Shaver)
“What Would Willie Do” (Bruce Robison)
“Willie, Waylon and Me” (David Allan Coe)
“Don’t Touch My Willie” (Kevin Fowler)
“Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” (George Jones)
“I’ll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again” (Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick)
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“My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”
Click here for a cool video.
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CD review: Ghostland Observatory - ‘Robotique Majestique’
‘Robotique Majestique’
(Trashy Moped)
For its first album after becoming overnight sensations at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2006, the band has jettisoned the last remaining vestiges of that most indestructible of rock tropes, the electric guitar. This is electronic music made without computers; analog synths, banging drum machines and Aaron Behrens’ voice, getting stronger and more Freddie Mercury-esque by the minute.
But they’re still writing songs that work better while Behrens is hurling himself around the stage, laser lights flashing, braids jumping, Thomas Turner and his cape hitting buttons, flipping switches, setting sequencers to run out their patterns.
After a soundtrack-like, lead-off track, ‘Heavy Heart’ is the clear single, some of the most ‘digital’-sounding music Thomas has recorded, a snare thump steady under clipped, bouncing synth flickers and Behrens’ bazooka bray, so reminiscent in spots of the Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala. (Note: This is not a knock.)
‘Dancing on My Grave’ demands just such an act, while on the blipping title track, straight out of 1982 in feel, Behrens, all id, confronts machine-life and demands it dance with him (which is sort of the story of this band). ‘The Band Marches On’ is track seven out of 10, but with its light pop melody and slamming beat, might be the album’s best structured track. ‘Holy Ghost White Noise’ is both an instrumental and the album’s funkiest moment. ‘HFM’ is almost late ’80s industrial, while the ‘Club Soda’ is proggy in its epic, instrumental feel.
Not too bad, but I can’t wait for the show.
- SoundCheck: Listen to Ghostland Observatory
- Photos: The rise of Ghostland Observatory
- The A-List: Ghostland Observatory at Emo’s, 06.20.07
- Ghostland: population 2
- Synth duos: Two against the world
(Pictured: Ghostland Observatory at ACL Fest 2007. Photo by Brian K. Diggs AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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SXSW (officially) goes East
Our interview with SXSW director Roland Swenson continues:
American-Statesman: One of the things that makes SXSW work is that the clubs are all pretty much in walking distance to each other. But with the incredible crush downtown, why doesn’t the fest expand to East Austin, which hasn’t had an official venue since Victory Grill in the ’90s?
Swenson: We are using Red’s Scoot Inn for shows this year, as well as several events at the Carver Center. We have ongoing discussions with other Eastside clubs that aren’t working with us yet, for various reasons. In some cases there are noise or capacity issues. I believe that East Austin is the obvious place for the club district to expand, assuming the neighborhood wants it.
American Statesman: Why aren’t there official venues far south to, say, Hill’s Cafe? Also, the Hole In the Wall, once a favorite SXSW venue, hasn’t been used in recent years. Why is that?
Swenson: We’ve had to accept the fact that it’s a losing battle to get our industry audience to travel further than walking distance at night from downtown hotels. Often, we just couldn’t get enough registrants to go to the outlying clubs to satisfy the artists who travel here primarily for industry exposure.
Some big problems include parking and the shortage of cabs. Ten years ago, you could find a cab or hop in a rental car, drive to catch a set at the Hole in the Wall or Broken Spoke, make it back downtown and still get to another show within an hour. That’s very difficult to do now. We spent a lot of money over the years on shuttle vehicles, without much success. During SXSW, waiting 20 minutes for a shuttle feels like an eternity.
But the biggest obstacle to SXSW spreading out from downtown Austin is that it’s just too easy for people to stay downtown and walk from club to club. If, and when, light rail is expanded north and south, it should be easier to make SXSW work for more clubs.
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More confirmations for Chaos in Tejas
Hardcore punk promoter Timmy Hefner’s Chaos in Tejas festival has confirmed reunion sets from Los Crudos and Leatherface.
Los Crudos are considered by many to be one of, if not the, best hardcore band of the 1990s. There aren’t too many contemporary hardcore bands they didn’t influence.
Leatherface were British and bridged the gap between crust punk’s roar, straight ahead pop-punk and what eventually became nth-wave emo in really clever ways. Bands such as Hot Water Music clearly have a few Leatherface albums in their collections.
End of No Depression
The influential No Depression magazine, started by former Austin American Statesman staffer Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden of Seattle, will fold after publishing its May-June issue. Named after Uncle Tupelo’s first album, No Depression was a great supporter of such Austin acts as Alejandro Escovedo (named “Artist of the Decade” in 1999), Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Patty Griffin, Kelly Willis and the like. The magazine always had its heart in the right place and treated its writers well. It will be greatly missed.
Here’s the statement:
Dear Friends:
Barring the intercession of unknown angels, you hold in your hands the next-to-the-last edition of No Depression we will publish. It is difficult even to type those words, so please know that we have not come lightly to this decision.
In the thirteen years since we began plotting and publishing No Depression, we have taken pride not only in the quality of the work we were able to offer our readers, but in the way we insisted upon doing business. We have never inflated our numbers; we have always paid our bills (and, especially, our freelancers) on time. And we have always tried our best to tell the truth.
First things, then: If you have a subscription to ND, please know that we will do our very best to take care of you. We will be negotiating with a handful of magazines who may be interested in fulfulling your subscription. That is the best we can do under the circumstances.Those circumstances are both complicated and painfully simple. The simple answer is that advertising revenue in this issue is 64% of what it was for our March- April issue just two years ago. We expect that number to continue to decline.
The longer answer involves not simply the well-documented and industrywide reduction in print advertising, but the precipitous fall of the music industry. As a niche publication, ND is well insulated from reductions in, say, GM’s print advertising budget; our size meant they weren’t going to buy space in our pages, regardless.
On the other hand, because we’re a niche title we are dependent upon advertisers who have a specific reason to reach our audience. That is: record labels. We, like many of our friends and competitors, are dependent upon advertising from the community we serve.
That community is, as they say, in transition. In this evolving downloadable world, what a record label is and does is all up to question. What is irrefutable is that their advertising budgets are drastically reduced, for reasons we well understand. It seems clear at this point that whatever businesses evolve to replace (or transform) record labels will have much less need to advertise in print.
The decline of brick and mortar music retail means we have fewer newsstands on which to sell our magazine, and small labels have fewer venues that might embrace and hand-sell their music. Ditto for independent bookstores. Paper manufacturers have consolidated and begun closing mills to cut production; we’ve been told to expect three price increases in 2008. Last year there was a shift in postal regulations, written by and for big publishers, which shifted costs down to smaller publishers whose economies of scale are unable to take advantage of advanced sorting techniques.
Then there’s the economy…
The cumulative toll of those forces makes it increasingly difficult for all small magazines to survive. Whatever the potentials of the web, it cannot be good for our democracy to see independent voices further marginalized. But that’s what’s happening. The big money on the web is being made, not surprisingly, primarily by big businesses.
ND has never been a big business. It was started with a $2,000 loan from Peter’s savings account (the only monetary investment ever provided, or sought by, the magazine). We have five more or less full-time employees, including we three who own the magazine. We have always worked from spare bedrooms and drawn what seemed modest salaries.
What makes this especially painful and particularly frustrating is that our readership has not significantly declined, our newsstand sell-through remains among the best in our portion of the industry, and our passion for and pleasure in the music has in no way diminished. We still have shelves full of first-rate music we’d love to tell you about.
And we have taken great pride in being one of the last bastions of the long-form article, despite the received wisdom throughout publishing that shorter is better. We were particularly gratified to be nominated for our third Utne award last year.
Our cards are now on the table.
Though we will do this at greater length next issue, we should like particularly to thank the advertisers who have stuck with us these many years; the writers, illustrators, and photographers who have worked for far less than they’re worth; and our readers: You.
Thank you all. It has been our great joy to serve you.
GRANT ALDEN
PETER BLACKSTOCK
KYLA FAIRCHILD
Real pirate party at SXSW
When your company is called Yarr! PR (out of Detroit), it’s only natural to have a proudly pirate party. The third annual Pirate Elvis Party will be at Flamingo Cantina on Wednesday March 12 from 2- 6 p.m. Featured are the Future Kings of Nowhere, Heligoats, Minmae, Southerly and Chase Frank, plus a swashbuckling Elvis theme.
Also, we just got the info on Yep Rock Records’ day party. It’s Friday March 14 at the Dirty Dog, beginning at noon, with such acts as the Iguanas, Chuck Prophet, Liam Finn, the Sadies, th’ Legendary Shack Shakers, American Princes and Reckless Kelly.
Check with Austin Music Source, which is updated often, for more party info. And we’ll be giving away VIP passes to some of the hottest ones, including the Spin party at Stubb’s March 14.
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Van Morrison to play SXSW one day after March 11 Austin Music Hall show
For the first time ever, Van Morrison will perform a set at South By Southwest.
Van the Man plays La Zona Rosa March 12, the day after his gig at Austin Music Hall.
His new album, “Keep It Simple,” is due out April 1 on Lost Highway Records.
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Old Settler’s lineup released
The 21st annual Old Settler’s music fest, to be held April 17- 20 at Salt Lick Pavilion, will feature Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys. David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, Todd Snider and many more. Other acts in the partial lineup released Monday include the Waybacks, Bettye LaVette, Todd Snider, Eliza Gilkyson, New Monsoon, Charlie Musselwhite, Peter Rowan & Friends, Brave Combo, Martin Sexton, Terri Hendrix, Infamous Stringdusters, JD Crowe & The New South, Cadillac Sky, Beatlegras, Green Mountain Grass, Bearfoot, Pieta Brown, Flounders without Eyes, Slim Richey’s Jazz Grass, Sarah Jarosz, Bluegrass Believers, Belleville Outfit, Jitterbug Vipers and youth competition winner Emily Elbert.
Advance tickets are $75 for three days but go as high as $120 with camping. That price goes up March 1.
Go here to order or for more info.
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The Eighth Annual Yeast by Sweet Beast Experimental Music Fest
Here is the line-up for the Yeast by Sweet Beast Festival of experimental and improvisational music.
No word yet on ticket prices.
March 9
Plush (617 Red River, 478-0099)
7:30 to 8 pm………Book of Shadows
8:15 to 8:45 pm……Low Red Center
9 to 9:30 pm………..Venison Whirled
9:45 to 10:15 pm…..Harry J. Anslinger
10:30 to 11 pm……..Doug Ferguson
11:15 to 11:45 pm….Muzak John (Houston)
12 mid to 12:30 pm…A Pink Cloud (Houston)
12:45 to 1:15 pm……Carlos Villarreal (Table of the Elements)
March 10
Plush (617 Red River, 478-0099)
7:30 to 8 pm………Clear Spot
8:15 to 8:45 pm…… Steve Marsh
9 to 9:30 pm……….. Bright Duplex
9:45 to 10:15 pm….. Like Dogs
10:30 to 11 pm……..Xathax
11:15 to 11:45 pm….Mystery Band
12 mid to 12:30 pm…Ralph White
12:45 to 1:15 pm…… Aurora Plastics Company
March 11
Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2803 Manor Rd., 474-7886)
Alex Keller sound installation throughout evening in outer gallery.
7:30 to 8 pm………Night Viking
8:15 to 8:45 pm……Jacob Green
9 to 9:30 pm………..7 Inch Stitch
9:45 to 10:15 pm…..Josh Ronsen & Mari
10:30 to 11 pm……..ECFA
11:15 to 11:45 pm….Blood on Tape
12 mid to 12:30 pm…Headdress
12:45 to 1:15 pm……Omar Tamez (Mexico) & Gustavo Lorenzatti (Argentina)
Waterloo Top 10 for the week ending Feb. 16
Jack Johnson, “Sleep Through the Static” (Brushfire)
Herbie Hancock, “River: The Joni Letters”(Verve)
Vampire Weekend, ‘s/t’ (XL)
Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black” (Republic)
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, ‘Raising Sand’ (Rounder)
Radiohead, ‘In Rainbows’ (ATO)
Original Soundtrack: “Juno,” (Rhino)
Cat Power, ‘Jukebox,” (Matador)
Carolyn Wonderland, “Miss Understood” (Mri Associated)
Bob Schneider, “When the Sun Breaks Down on the Moon” (Shokorama)
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Updated Outlaw Trail Concert performers
The lineup for Wednesday’s Outlaw Trail Concert, presented by Charlie Boy Multi Media LLC and Timeless Media Group, at the Paramount Theater (ticket information here):
Asleep at the Wheel
Ray Benson
Suzy Bogguss
John Bohlinger
Carlene Carter
Del Castillo
Jessi Colter
Rodney Crowell
Buddy Jewell
Raul Malo
Waddie Mitchell
Megan Mullins
Lee Roy Parnell
Ray Scott
Danny Shirley
Russell Smith
Cowboy Troy
Holly Williams
A great Willie turn
Willie Nelson is music personified. Here’s proof if you need some. Unbelievable.
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Willie boxed set coming April 1
Legacy Recordings, the reissue arm of Sony, is getting into the “Willie 75” spirit with a four-disc set of 100 Willie Nelson recordings, going back as far as 1954. “One Hell of a Ride,” which comes out April 1, will be followed four weeks later by a single disc entitled “Number Ones,” which includes every one of Willie’s chart topping singles.
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Willie on DeGeneres show Thursday
Willie Nelson and Larry the Cable Guy are guests on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Thursday at 9 a.m. on KVUE. Willie’s web site also has him appearing on NBC’s “Today Show” the next morning.
To tide you over, here’s a great video of Willie from 1982.
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Ten essential Willie Nelson songs
“Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain” (1975) Willie’s first number one single and the reason why “The Red Headed Stranger” is often considered his masterpiece.
“Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground” (1980) Perhaps the great one’s greatest lyrics, this live staple (from “Honeysuckle Rose”) also inspires his most expressionist guitar playing. This is the song that made Amy Irving fall for Willie.
“Georgia On My Mind” (1978) Only Willie would take this kind of chance- recording an album of standards when he’s finally climbed to the top of country music. And only Willie would come out of it with his best-selling album ever. “Georgia” was a smash from “Stardust.”
“Always On My Mind” (1982) Nelson wraps a red bandanna around this song and makes it his own.
“On the Road Again” (1980) Willie’s philosophy set to music.
“Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” (1977) In a coin flip with “Good-Hearted Woman” from Willie’s mid-70s heyday.
“In God’s Eyes” (1973) Representing both Willie’s spiritual side and the brilliant concept LP “Yesterday’s Wine,” the precursor to “Red Headed Stranger.”
“The Party’s Over” (1967) Immortalized as Don Meredith’s version of “Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye” during the glory years of “Monday Night Football.”
“You Don’t Know Me” (2004) The standout track of Willie’s Cindy Walker tribute album also pays homage to his old friend Ray Charles.
“Night Life” (1965) Ray Price did the definitive version of Willie’s cowboy blues classic (which bombed on the charts), but it’s always great to hear it from the man who wrote it.
TELL US: Which Willie Nelson songs can you not live without?
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Willie and Faron Young: “Hello Walls”
Faron Young was one of the biggest stars in country music when he recorded Willie’s song “Hello Walls” in 1961. When Willie, a near-penniless unknown, got his first royalty check for $20,000 he ran into Young and …. well, let’s let Ol’ Faron tell the story on this priceless video filmed for Nelson’s 60th birthday tribute.
Your source for all things Willie is our 75 days section.
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Jimmy Day: Willie’s last steel player
From the American-Statesman, July 2007:
“Steel legend Buddy Emmons, the Magic Johnson to Jimmy Day’s Larry Bird in Nashville session iconography, once said that Day was the only steel guitar player he’d ever heard who was impossible to copy because his playing captured his feelings at the moment. When Day left Willie’s band in 1971, after clashing with drummer/road manager Paul English, Nelson retired the steel guitar position because, as Nelson’s nephew Freddy Fletcher says, “After Jimmy Day, who are you gonna get?”
Read the whole story here.
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New video to premiere on MTV
The video for Willie Nelson’s “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore,” featuring Jessica “Yoko Romo” Simpson, Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Dan Rather and others in a ridin’ lawn mower race, is expected to debut when the “Jackass” crew takes over MTV for 24 hours, starting 11 a.m. Saturday Feb. 23. The song is from Willie’s “Moment of Forever” CD, which was reviewed here last month.
Bad Boy Mowers has posted a photo gallery here. from the video shoot.
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R.E.M. to tape Austin City Limits
R.E.M. will kick off the 34th season of tapings at “Austin City Limits” on March 13 during South By Southwest. The Georgia band has never played the KLRU-produced TV show before but they’re in full promotion mode for “Accelerate,” due in stores April 1.
Ticket info is forthcoming. The platinum-selling band will also play an official SXSW showcase for the first time.
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Swenson interview, part 4
Our e-mail conversation with SXSW director Roland Swenson continues.
American-Statesman: With 1,750 acts this year, more than double the old plateau of 800 or so, doesn’t it become harder for acts to be noticed?
Roland Swenson: The primary benefit for many SXSW acts will be hometown press and bragging rights for being invited. Make no mistake, that is quite valuable. The acts that see the best results at SXSW are the ones who arrive having done their homework, and having made advance contact with press and industry people to promote their showcase. It only takes one influential person in the audience to make a difference in an artist’s career.
In 1987 we had 200 acts and 700 music registrants. That’s an average of 3.5 industry people for every act. This year we’ll have 1750 acts and close to 12,000 registrants, which averages to 6.8 industry people for every act. So you can argue that acts have a better chance of being seen by someone who can help their career now than when we began.
The number of acts we present is driven by the number of venues needed to make room for the people who are attending SXSW. When you count the 79 SXSW stages, multiply it by 6 slots a night (8 p.m. to 1 a.m.), and multiply by 4 nights, it’s a big number.
American-Statesman: This might be a good time to lay out how much SXSW pays the bands or how they are otherwise compensated.
Swenson: Acts that perform at SXSW are offered a cash payment. Bands get $225 and solo/duo acts get $65 for their 40-minute set. Instead of cash, some acts choose to be paid with a package of passes that includes one badge and wristbands for each musician in the act. Typically, it’s worth over $1,000.
Weekend Picks: Spanglish hip-hop, power pop, and the future of post-punk
Friday: Pitbull at Paradox. This Miami-based, Cuban American rapper blew up the clubs a few years back with an ubiquitous hit featuring Lil Jon. He’s been in steady rotation on commercial radio ever since, churning out Spanglish-flavored Dirty South hits such as “Ay Chico,” “Bojangles” and “Go Girl.” $20. —-Deborah Sengupta Stith
Friday: Grant Hart, Grand Champeen, Service Industry at the Mohawk. A whole mess of power popish rock, headlined by one of the guys who brought the stuff — kicking and mostly screaming — into the post-punk years. Hart was the other songwriter in Husker Du, not to mention the band’s monster drummer. I have a weird fondness for ‘Evergreen Memorial Drive’ by his old band Nova Mob, as are many others. No pre-sale tickets. —-Joe Gross
Friday: When Roots Attack KVRX benefit at Ruta Maya. Get your irie vibe on and support College radio in Austin at this reggae party featuring Contra Coup, McPullish & Judge, DJ Dubbist and Paul Baker’s Vision System. $7 —-D.S.S.
Saturday: Liars, No Age at the Mohawk.The future of post-punk. Liars’ self-titled fourth album is the excellent follow-up to the band’s first album it probably should have released back in ‘03, instead of releasing two increasingly weird experimental albums right in a row. With Los Angeles oddballs No Age. $10. — J.G.
Saturday: Noche Cubana at the Victory Grill. In a completely different vein than the aforementioned Pitbull, Las Crudas is a trio of Cuban female rappers who throw down in Spanish with a strong political bent. Also on the bill for this show is a solo appearance from Ocote Soul Sounds (aka Antibalas’ Martin Perna) and the “Cuban Conga” ensemble Buscando-el-Monte. $7 —-D.S.S.
Saturday: Rodrigo y Gabriela at La Zona Rosa. Finally! They missed last year’s South by Southwest because of visa problems and the Austin City Limits Festival because of health issues. A little bit flamenco (sort of), a little bit metal (sort of), all acoustic and instrumental. This show is sold out. —J.G.
Saturday: Dan Dyer at Momo’s. Soul singer Dan Dyer, whose new self-titled album is the closest anyone in Austin has gotten to Stevie Wonder, has progressed light years since his days in Breedlove. After relocating to Miami, where he moved in with Lenny Kravitz, who produced Dyer’s 2004 debut “Of What Lies Beneath” for Roxie/Warner Brothers, Dyer is back in town, virtually starting over. His smooth falsetto stokes an undeniable groove on “Play On Little Children,” but its also a soothing instrument on “Sorry, Baby.” Catch this re-rising star at Momo’s, which has become the coolest hangout in town, Saturday at 10 p.m., and chances are you’ll walk away with the record (produced by David Boyle of the Scabs.) —-Michael Corcoran
Saturday: Swoll at the Beauty Bar. Sweaty hipsters rejoice as DJ Mel’s booty-centric dance party returns to the Beauty Bar once again. Show up early if you want to make it through the door. —-D.S.S.
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Kanye is Erwin Center bound
Kanye West and his ego, fresh from the Grammys, are headed our way. The “Glow In the Dark” tour comes to the Erwin Center on April 30, West’s label announced Thursday. Also on the bill are Rihanna, N.E.R.D., Lupe Fiasco and Herbie Hancock. (Just kidding on that last one.)
The show has not yet been added to the Erwin Center Web site. No word yet when tickets will go on sale.
(Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Win a pair of SXSW Platinum Passes
UPDATE 2.21.08: The A-List code words have changed. Even if you entered the contest last week, you are now eligible to enter again using the new keywords. Check out our ten most recent galleries to find the new keywords.
The Austin360 A-List scavenger hunt is back! Check out the 10 most recent photo galleries on our A-List page. Buried inside are five SXSW-themed code words. Collect the code words and email them to austin360contests@statesman.com along with your name and phone number. The contest will run for three weeks and we’ll change the code words each Thursday which means you have three chances to enter. The contest will end at 11:59 p.m. CST on March 5, 2008 and the lucky winner will be contacted via telephone. Good luck and happy hunting!
Full contest rules available here.
To clarify: In order to enter this contest you must email the answers to austin360contests@statesman.com. Answers left in the comments section will not be approved and commenters will not be entered in the contest.
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The iconic, the indispensible and the totally dispensible
THE FOUR ICONIC WILLIE NELSON ALBUMS
“Red-Headed Stranger”
“Stardust”
“Willie & Family Live”
“Shotgun Willie”
TEN MORE INDISPENSABLE WILLIE ALBUMS
“…And Then I Wrote”
“Yesterday’s Wine”
“Me and Paul”
“The Troublemaker”
“Phases & Stages”
“Teatro”
“Across the Borderline”
“Angel Eyes”
“The Promiseland”
“The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories”
SEVEN TOTALLY DISPENSABLE WILLIE ALBUMS
“Countryman”
“Willie Nelson & Friends: Live and Kickiin’”
“Seashores of Old Mexico”
“Without A Song”
“Take It To the Limit”
“Songbird”
“Outlaws and Angels”
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Best Willie homages
“Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me” (Billy Joe Shaver)
“What Would Willie Do” (Bruce Robison)
“Willie, Waylon and Me” (David Allan Coe)
“Don’t Touch My Willie” (Kevin Fowler)
“Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” (George Jones)
“I’ll Never Smoke Weed With Willie Again” (Toby Keith and Scotty Emerick)
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St. Willie: 1997 XL cover story
orld of ’90s country music. Not in Austin, mind you, where In Willie We Trust'' might as well be engraved on the municipal letterhead, and mystics occasionally report the mysterious appearance of his beatific visage on fresh-baked tortillas. Nor in Texas as a whole, a state with an enduring taste for eccentrics with a twinkle in their eye.
But there are younger country music fans in the hinterlands and not-so-young executives on Music Row in Nashville who are apt to shrugWillie who?” when the outlaw patriarch’s name is brought up.
To the casual observer, the skeptics make a good case: Having lost his berth at Columbia Records in 1993, Nelson has seemingly drifted at whim, recording marginally selling albums for a variety of smaller labels. His latest (his third for Justice Records, the Houston-based indie label) is a re-release of his 1971 concept album, Yesterday's Wine.''
His songs are nowhere to be found on the mainstreamHot Young Country” radio formats, and at 64 (he is old enough to recall the birth of Social Security; next year he will be eligible to collect it), Nelson is deemed hopelessly inaccessible to the demographic tail that wags the dog of the radio and record industries these days.
His Fourth of July Picnic, once a unique, Lone Star-waving gathering of the tribes, has shrunk to a vestigial ritual that keeps regenerating itself for no particularly compelling reason (the latest edition — the 25th anniversary Picnic, by rough count — will be held tomorrow in Luckenbach). The Picnic, featuring a graying cohort of Nelson familiars, pales in scope and charisma next to 100,000-strong bacchanalias Nelson used to assemble on Independence Day (a far cry from the bloated, corporate-sponsored mega-festivals, like last month’s CountryFest up near Dallas, which are the fashion today).
His concert set, as this listener of 20-plus years will attest, has not changed in essence in decades.
The skeptics will tell you there is less and less reason to pay attention to Willie Nelson: Ain’t it funny, they’ll tell you (before moving on to anoint the next Flavor of the Month), how time slips away?
Well, the skeptics are full of sheep dip.
Willie Nelson still matters, in ways that Soundscan sales charts and radio Arbitron ratings can’t measure. (I would have been happy to address questions of his ongoing relevance to Willie his ownself, except that he was away in Hawaii and on the road; efforts to cross paths with him by phone proved unsuccessful).
If he doesn’t put hits in the Top 10 like he once did, he remains one of the last repositories of iconoclastic vision and unfettered imagination to which country music has access.
Texas has conjured up such prodigies in the past, in many musical disciplines — Scott Joplin, Ornette Coleman, Bob Wills, T-Bone Walker and Janis Joplin all achieved renown by breaking down barriers and forcing listeners to confront music on the artist’s terms.
This has been Willie’s particular genius as well. Listen to him for any length of time and his music — filtered as it is through the lenses of blues, country, jazz, American pop standards, folk and gospel — emerges as a clear and cogent creative vision informed by all these influences but constrained by none. Suddenly, the listener is viewing the musical landscape through Willie’s panoramic perspective.
Consider his last major-label album, 1993’s wonderful Across the Borderline,'' an ostensiblycountry” album which blends songs by Paul Simon, Willie Dixon, Ry Cooder, Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Nelson himself.
Coming from almost any other artist, this shotgun wedding of genres and tunesmiths would have come across as a mishmash born of unchecked egotism. But Willie weaves the disparate strands into a coherent tapestry, which engages the listener with a sort of organic inevitability that is immensely satisfying. It's always time to stretch,'' said Nelson modestly at the time of the album's release, hardly needing to add that stretching has been a way of life with him.
Spirit,” his understated 1996 album on Island Records, achieved much the same effect in a more low-key fashion, folding flamenco and mariachi textures into a suite of songs that glow with luminous spirituality. We are told that Nelson has a blues album and even — Gawd! — a reggae album in the can awaiting the light of day. Well, why not?
It’s harder and harder to find anyone in Nashville (or even on the self-consciously left-of-center Americana chart) who will roll the creative dice with the same aplomb that Nelson has displayed for at least a couple of musical epochs.
But that effortless eclecticism is only half the story. At an age when many artists have entombed their work in CD box sets (funny how much those things look like coffins …) and content themselves with collecting royalty checks, Nelson still displays an energy, an imagination and a restless curiosity that is the envy of musicians half his age.
Hey, don’t take my word for it; let’s go to the tale of the tape, as the boxing writers used to say.
There are the classics he has authored — from Crazy'' toNight Life,” Hello Walls,''Funny How Time Slips Away,” Three Days,''Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” and a score of others — songs whose blues-inflected phrasing (a Nelson signature) and dark and stately lyricism would enthrall singers from Patsy Cline to the Supersuckers over the course of the years.
The aforementioned Yesterday's Wine'' was but the first of four concept albums that examined everything from a crumbling marriage to spiritual redemption and reincarnation. The most celebrated of that quartet,Red Headed Stranger,” boasts a permanent place in any Top 10 Country Albums of All Time list.
Almost as an afterthought, Nelson created an album of standards, 1978’s Stardust,'' which has become a standard unto itself. He has recorded with everyone from Faron Young to U2's Bono. His ongoing Farm Aid concert series endures as a populist-based Middle American landmark.
But the resume doesn't tell the whole story.
Resumes are ossified, static; Willie is anything but.I can be moving or can be still,” he once sang, But still is still movin' to me.''
The most challenging thing,” he once said, “would be to come up with something entirely different that I haven’t thought of yet, and do it before I have a chance to think about it, and back out.”
Kris Kristofferson once said that Willie’s face belongs on stamps and money. His point, in part, is that Nelson embodies the best of everything that an artist should bring to the table: vision, chops, commitment, imagination, compassion, restless energy, fresh perspectives and a joie de vivre thatfinds its fullest expression in the creative process.
For those reasons, and for many others, Willie still matters, and always will.
So even if you’re not at Luckenbach tomorrow, pour a tequila shot and hoist a toast to Willie Nelson. They ain’t making any more of him.
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Willie at Stubb’s: 2003
Ambrose Bierce called habit “a shackle for the free.” Is that what keeps folks coming back to Willie Nelson’s shows? There they were again, thronging the amphitheater at Stubb’s on Wednesday night for the first of the newly minted septuagenarian’s three nights of shows.
This bunch, like every audience before, willingly shackled themselves to the Texas icon’s carefully honed half-century of hits, his indefatigably cheerful (and somehow healing) presence and the seemingly immutable rock in a turbulent world that is the Willie and Family set list. Forget about putting Willie on Mount Rushmore; he has become Mount Rushmore.
We know why Willie keeps showing up; as Willie Sutton famously replied when asked why he kept knocking over banks, “That’s where the money is.” Additionally, performance defines who Willie is. And besides, who wouldn’t want to be Willie Nelson for a couple of hours every night?
But even if they’ve seen the set dozens or even scores of times before (Your humble correspondent caught his first chorus of “Night Life” 30 years ago), fans of all ages flock back for yet another fix, as faithful as Capistrano’s swallows.
There’s a comforting ritual about the whole thing, with rites as strictly observed as High Mass. Eighty-five percent of Nelson’s set Wednesday was represented on the “Willie and Family Live” album from 1978 (and not a little bit of it could have derived from his 1966 concert recording at Panther Hall in Fort Worth).
So those there for the music, as opposed to those content to simply bask in Willie’s beatific glow, had to content themselves with seeking out nuance without expecting novelty.
OK, then. There were (as there are in every Nelson performance) some unique moments in this particular two-hour-and-10-minute, 41-song set: a down-and-dirty extended blues workout that wound its way into “Milkcow Blues”; an especially elegant guitar solo that gilded the mournfully gorgeous ballad “Angel Flying Too Close To the Ground”; a particularly impassioned take on Irving Berlin’s vintage “Blue Skies”; a fresh boogie-woogie treatment of Hank Williams’ “Move It On Over”; the flamenco-style guitar solos that bracketed “The Great Divide” and the Django Reinhardt instrumental “Nuages” (Nelson’s guitar work is, as always, a fluid and supple marvel). Any other astute listener could come up with his or her own inventory of revelatory moments.
Those little moments, as much as the ritual, and the chance to see an American original plying his craft, are what keep me coming back to Willie Nelson shows. We, like him I suppose, will keep wearing those shackles a good while longer, and will be happy to do so.
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SXSW wristbands for sale soon (sort of)
Details are out on the local sale of South by Southwest wristbands.
The only advance wristband sale is via an online drawing for area residents. Four thousand wristbands will be sold at the discounted price of $139, which includes tax and service charge, from 9 a.m. Feb. 21 to 9 a.m. Feb. 25. (There’s no advantage to entering early.)
All entries must use a credit card with a local billing address, and the name on the card must match the name of the wristband recipient. Each entrant may purchase up to two wristbands but must provide the companion’s name at the time of entry. Submitting an order enters you into the drawing but does not guarantee eligibility to purchase wristbands.
Entries will be drawn at random until orders for 4,000 wristbands have been filled. Credit cards will be billed at the time of the drawing, and entrants will be notified if their order cannot be filled.
Each person picking up a wristband at SXSW must provide photo ID; wristbands cannot be picked up for friends. This will be the only advance sale; a small number of wristbands will go on sale the week of the event for $180.
Check out wristbands.sxsw.com for more, and get full SXSW coverage at austin360.com/sxsw.
Also, enter our contest for a chance to win a pair of Platinum Passes courtesy of your good friends at Austin360.com.
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Vampire Weekend to play Spin party
Annually one of the highlights of SXSW, the Spin party, to be held at Stubb’s the afternoon of Friday March 14, will feature NYC’s “Graceland”-influenced college rock band Vampire Weekend. Other acts will be named later.
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In the clubs with Weird Weeds
Most rock bands are composed of peers —- friends, members of the same musical generation, that sort of thing. Jazz bands, orchestras, certain kinds of country acts and session groups sometimes contain musicians of wildly varying ages, but your average club-haunting rock acts don’t really go in for age diversity. That’s kind of a shame.
Weird Weeds, on the other hand, have a good two and a half musical generations playing together. Aaron Russell is a 38-year-old indie-rock veteran. Drummer Nick Hennies, 28, comes from a music school/experimental/new music background. Guitarist Sandy Ewan, 23, is just about to age out of being the improvisational guitar wunderkind she’s been since she exploded on the Austin avant-garde scene back in 2003.
The band’s third album “I Miss This,” is due March 4 on Autobus Records. “We spent a lot longer making this one,” Hennies said. ” ‘Miss This’ took about seven months as a opposed to the couple of days we spent on the other two.”
Only half the album was written prior to recording. “The last album (‘Weird Feelings’) we recorded right after a tour, so we had spent weeks playing every song. For ‘Miss This,’ in a lot of cases, we were writing the songs as we recorded them,” Hennies says. “But I think that gave us a lot more variety on this album, more louder music and more acoustic music.”
Ewan, an architecture student at UT, was studying elsewhere for much of the past year. “We’re going to tour in June and we’re playing a few times before our South by Southwest show, but because Sandy was out of town, we’ve had to actually learn to play about half the album we just recorded,” Hennies said.
In the clubs: Weird Weeds plays the first night of the No Idea Festival 2008 with NAFTA and more at the Austin Figurative Gallery, 301 Chicon St. tenpoundstothesound@yahoo.com. $10.
(Pictured Aaron Russell of Weird Weeds. Photo by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Matt’s Obama song
Matt the Electrician says he’s not a political songwriter, but “the song game” doesn’t care. And now his most requested tune is a song about Barack Obama called “Don’t You Know Obama.” You can watch Matt perform it here recently at Flipnotic’s in the Triangle.
The song game is a challenge in which audience members throw out a title and Matt Sever, who bills himself as his day job, has to come back the next week with a corresponding song. The game is played whenever Sever gigs with Southpaw Jones.
“I based it on ‘Hey There Delilah,’ by Plain White T’s,” Sever says of his sweet and simple Obama ode. “I didn’t think I’d ever play the song besides that first time, but the response has been extremely positive.” How’s this for great gig timing? Matt will be back at Flip’s on the night of the big Obama/ Clinton debate in town. Yo, debate afterparty at the Triangle!
While we’re on Obama tribute songs, here’s the most famous new one.
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Welcome home, Pinetop.
Pinetop Perkins is playing a “Welcome Home from the Grammy’s!” gig tonight at Antone’s.
The Eric Tessmer Band plays a late set.
Tickets are $10. Doors are at 8 p.m.
The 94-year old Perkins shared a traditional blues album Grammy with David “Honeyboy” Edwards, 92, Henry James Townsend and Robert Lockwood Jr., for “Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas.”
The latter two artists died in 2006.
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Radiohead, C3 and you.
So, here’s what we know:
Radiohead is coming to Houston and Dallas, but not Austin.
Chicago Sun-Times pop critic Jim DeRogatis broke the news this afternoon that the Chicago Park District board of commissioners is about to approve a five-year, $50-million deal allowing Austin-based C3 Presents and national venue managers SMG to manage Soldier Field.
Radiohead says on their site that a Chicago date is in the offing, but no word if they are headlining Lollapalooza (also a C3 product) or, say, playing Soldier Field.
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Willie not exactly playing DemCon
The Denver Post reports that Willie Nelson will play in Denver on opening night of the Democratic Convention, but the venue is a private corporate party, not the convention, where his recent 9/11 conspiracy comments might have embarassed the Dems.
Willie Nelson and Family are also playing a show at Red Rocks, right outside of Denver, on Aug. 26, the day after the convention opens.
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Roland Swenson interview, part 3
Our ongoing e-mail dialogue with South By Southwest co-founder Roland Swenson continues:
American-Statesman: We always see fans complaining about SXSW straying from its intended purpose. “It started out just as a way for unsigned bands to get record deals,” is one variation often seen in the blogosphere. Is this true or a misconception?
Roland Swenson: We designed SXSW Music to be a promotional tool for bands, and the business people who work with them, to develop media contacts. I keep a copy of the first brochure from 1987 on my desk, and it doesn’t say anything about unsigned acts finding record deals anywhere in it. The description of SXSW reads ” An opportunity for people in the music business and alternative media in this region and nationally to meet and share ideas.”
Before SXSW began, when I worked with bands and labels here in Austin, I worked for several acts that had major label deals. I knew that just because an act had been signed, it didn’t mean that they had “made it.” I also knew that just because an act was successful, that there was no guarantee they would stay successful. So SXSW was certainly designed to serve signed and unsigned acts, as well as known and unknown acts.
Whatever the perception of the bands playing at SXSW may be, the proportions haven’t changed much over the years. A third or more of the acts that are booked are completely unsigned, or at most have put out their own record. Half of the acts booked have some kind of indie label deal, usually with a small label. The rest have some major label affiliation.
Certainly, SXSW attracts a greater number of well-known acts than it did in the first four or five years, and the event has expanded its scope to include an international clientele. To make room for the growing demand from bands, delegates and fans, we’ve continued to add more venues. To find an audience for these shows, we have to book acts that have a draw to support the acts that don’t.
SXSW has never just been about recording contracts; it works on a lot of different levels. A lot of the business conducted revolves around acts finding publishers, managers, agents, attorneys, and publicists. It also is a place for acts to be seen by bookers from clubs and festivals, and music directors from film/TV. It’s also a way for acts to receive all types of media coverage.
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C3 picks up wins at Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
C3 principal Charles Attal and C3 talent buyer Amy Corbin both won awards at the 19th annual Pollstar Concert Industry Awards, which took place Feb. 6t at Nokia Theater L.A. Live.
Attal picked up independant promoter of the year, while Corbin won nightclub talent buyer of the year.
Corbin is the first woman to win the award.
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Willie at 70: A look back
Willie understood. When Frank Sinatra kept touring well into his 70s, reading the words of his classic songs off giant TelePrompTers, critics and fans wondered why he didn’t retire. How much money did he need? But Willie Nelson knew that concert receipts had nothing to do with his friend and idol’s busy schedule. “When you sing for people and they throw back all that love and energy,” he says, “it’s just the best medicine in the world.”
With Nelson’s 70th birthday coming Wednesday, the eternal red-headed rascal has been inundated with tributes, including a celebrity-heavy affair in New York earlier this month that will be shown on the USA Network on May 26, Memorial Day.
The phases and stages of Willie’s career have found him evolving from the honkytonk sideman to the hit Nashville songwriter, from progressive country pioneer to crooner of standards. And now the iconoclast has become the icon, with Willie achieving American folk hero status.
This pot-smoking Zen redneck in pigtails, who sings Gershwin through his nose and plays a guitar that looks like he picked it up at a garage sale, transcends music and has come to personify the individual, the rectangular peg to the round hole of corporatization.
Willie’s the one producers called to sing “America the Beautiful” at the moving finale of the televised “A Tribute To Heroes” show after the Sept. 11 attacks. He’s played for worldwide audiences at former President Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. And he can have his bacon and eggs at any greasy spoon in the country and feel right at home.
Meanwhile, the journalists keep leading with the same questions about what keeps him going at the pace of a much younger man. Willie and the band he calls the Family are scheduled to play almost 180 dates this year, and the shows are two-and-a-half-hour affairs.
“I’ve been trying to take it easy for years, but this is what I love to do,” he says. “When I go home to rest, I get a little stir-crazy after a few days.”
Here’s a man whose office in Luck, the Western town he built near his “Willie World” complex of golf courses, condos and recording studios on Lake Travis, carries a plaque that reads, “He who lives by the song, dies by the road.” True to that motto, one of Roger Miller’s favorite sayings, Willie’s been home in the Hill Country a total of only two weeks this year.
It’s no wonder that “On the Road Again” is the easiest song Willie’s ever written. The producers of the 1980 film “Honeysuckle Rose” were looking for a theme song about vagabond musicians, and their star wrote the first words that popped into his mind: “The life I love is making music with my friends/ I can’t wait to get on the road again.” It’s a simple existence made all the more comfortable because Willie is surrounded by people who’ve been with him for decades. Bassist Bee Spears has lived 35 of his 53 years in Willie’s band, which also features the barrelhouse piano of Willie’s 72-year-old sister, Bobbie, and Willie’s legendary running buddy, 71-year-old Paul English, on drums. Percussionist Billy English, Paul’s brother, is the new guy, having joined just 19 years ago. Harmonica player Mickey Raphael and guitarist Jody Payne are also relative newcomers, both joining the ragtag caravan 30 years ago.
“You can’t get out of this band even if you die,” Willie says with a laugh. “I’ve told the guys that we’ll just have ‘em stuffed and put back up on that stage.”
Willie’s circle of fiercely loyal lifers include roadies (78-year-old Ben Dorcy has been with Willie since the early ’60s), sound engineers and managers. Meanwhile, his oldest daughter, Lana, travels with Willie and keeps up the willienelson.com Web site. “We all act like we can’t wait to get off the road and catch a break from each other,” says stage manager Randall “Poodie” Locke, who joined up in 1975. “But after three or four days, we’re looking for excuses to call each other. Everybody’s wives or girlfriends are going, ‘Uh, Honey, don’t you got any gigs comin’ up?’ ” Where’s Willie?
On the road again, they just couldn’t wait to get on the road that takes them to the Lone Star Park horse racing track near Dallas on a crisp recent evening. Some of the fans come early, looking for Willie’s bus, the one that has “Honeysuckle Rose” and an American Indian figure painted on the side.
A group of giddy grandmas stand outside the band’s business bus before the one with the “Ladies Love Outlaws” T-shirt gets up the courage to knock on the door. “Where’s Willie?” she asks the driver, who answers that he won’t arrive until showtime. When the women leave, Poodie says, “Willie makes every fan feel like they’re his friend. Because they are.”
With piercing brown eyes that seem to have the ability to make eye contact with thousands simultaneously and a world class smile that’s both frisky and comforting, Nelson turns concerts into lovefests and makes fans feel like they grew up next door to him.
To gaze at the social makeup of the line waiting outside the horse race track is to marvel at the range of Nelson’s appeal. There are older couples dressed in tight, rounded jeans and multicolored western shirts, who look like they used to see a pre-bearded Willie at the old Big G’s dance hall in Round Rock or the Broken Spoke. There are tons of college kids in ballcaps and straw Resistol hats, plus truck-driver types, budding socialites, bikers and hipsters with their neck tattoos.
But there are also many who just came to play the ponies and don’t even know Willie’s booked to sing after the night’s final race. When a young man with gold front teeth and a Tampa Bay Buccaneers hat worn sideways approaches the turnstile, the ticket taker jokes, “Are you here to see Willie Nelson?” A few Willie fans giggle as the man shakes his head and says, nah, he’s here to bet on horses. Then, as he passes, he leans back and says, “But I do like Willie Nelson.”
As long as he’s healthy and the people keep coming out. That’s how long Willie says he’ll keep this carnival, which commands upwards of $50,000 per show (and $100,000 for private parties), out on the road. Meanwhile, the 70th birthday peg has led to renewed interest in Nelson’s recorded legacy, with Sony reissuing an “Essential Willie Nelson” double disc and the Sugar Hill label getting critical raves for the recently unearthed “Crazy: the Demo Sessions” from the early ’60s. A recently remastered version of the 6 million-selling “Stardust,” Willie’s best-selling album, is turning a whole new audience onto the songs of Hoagie Carmichael and Irving Berlin, just as it did in 1978.
Although last year’s “The Great Divide,” an attempt to duplicate the “Supernatural” success of Carlos Santana by dueting with such hitmakers as Sheryl Crow and Rob Thomas, sold a relatively disappointing 361,000 copies, Willie and the Family are playing to some of their biggest crowds since the mid-’70s glory days of “Good Hearted Woman” and “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” Now that Waylon, the Butch Cassidy to Willie’s Sundance Kid, has passed away, it’s up to Nelson to keep the outlaw country bus a-churnin’ down the highway. And with his role as the vortex of Texas singer-songwriting assured, Willie has picked up the younger high school and college crowd that goes batty for the likes of Pat Green and Robert Earl Keen.
Informed that a band member said, “It’s like 1975 all over again,” Willie lets out a laugh. “If he can remember 1975, he wasn’t in my band. But it does seem that the girls are getting younger and prettier. And they know all the words! I hear a thousands kids singing along to ‘Bloody Mary Morning’ and I think, ‘Y’all weren’t even born when that one was written.’ It just makes me feel great to know that these old songs are clicking with a whole new crowd.”
As with the Grateful Dead, Nelson’s spike in popularity so late in his career comes partly because he and the band promote a free-spirited lifestyle. But where the Dead (whose surviving members will join Willie at this year’s Fourth of July Picnic at the new Two River Canyon venue, just down the highway from Willie World) became synonymous with extended jams and mind-expanding drugs, the Willie way is built around short songs and long drives, a cowboy/ Indian fashion mix and tear-in-your-beer roadhouses. Above all, the band’s escapist bent is intensified with instinctive musicianship, a play-it-as-we-feel-it attitude that extends beyond the stage. “Playing with Willie is tricky business,” bassist Spears says of the frontman who never met a beat he couldn’t tease. “If you try to follow him too close, he’ll lead you down to the river and drown you. You have to keep one eye on him and one eye on your part. Just play your part and trust that he’s going to come back and meet you at some point.”
Willie says the musical kinship between him and sister Bobbie, who ride the bus together, is almost telepathic. “Sometimes, she seems to know what I’m going to play before I do. I’ve played music with my sister almost every night of my life. There’s just this intense connection that really gets the whole ball rolling.” Raphael says that if someone should die, the members of the Family have decided to carry on in missing man formation, as fighter pilots do after a comrade crashes. “But if anything happens to Trigger,” he says of the acoustic guitar that Willie’s picked a hole through, “that could be the show.”
The Martin classical guitar, which he bought sight-unseen for $750 in 1969, is Nelson’s most precious possession. That he lets friends, about 40 so far, carve their names into the guitar says as much about Willie Nelson, the unmaterialistic scamp, as the way he plays it with gypsy fingers and a jazzman’s curiosity.
“God bless ‘em,” singer Marty Robbins once said of country music fans. “They’ll do anything for you but leave you alone.”
But no country star has ever handled the demand from fans to touch, to talk to, to have a picture made better than Willie. He spent the first part of his career trying to become successful and the rest proving that success hasn’t changed him a whit. He’s got a bunch of burly guys, including a former Hell’s Angel named L.G., working for him, but Willie doesn’t allow them to lead him through crowds, even when about 3,000 people stand between him and the stage, as they did at the Lone Star Park show.
When the crowd lets out a roar because they’ve seen Willie in their midst, Mickey Raphael walks up to the window of the band bus, peers out at his boss signing autographs in the sea of hats and says, “Looks like we’ve got about 45 minutes,” then goes back to telling a reporter how he came to run away with this circus.
“My first exposure to the group was the cover of that (1971) ‘Willie Nelson and Family’ record. They were the freakiest looking country band I’d ever seen. Paul looked like the devil and was wearing a cape; Bee had on some furry diapers. I said, ‘Now, what do these guys sound like?’ ” After sitting in with Willie and the Family at a firefighter’s benefit in Waxahachie, Raphael starting playing at all the band’s dates in the Dallas area.
“Willie asked me one night, ‘Hey, Paul, what are we paying that kid?’ ” says English, the infamous raconteur immortalized in Willie’s song “Me and Paul.” The pistol-toting English has handled band biz on the road since 1966, when Willie enticed him to leave his business supplying call girls to Houston businessmen. “I said we weren’t paying Mickey anything, and Willie said, ‘Then double his salary.’ “
Bee Spears, who joined the Family in 1968 when original bassist David Zettner was drafted into the Army, talks about his first Christmas out on the road with Willie: “We tried to make a snowman out of shaving cream, and we drew pictures of the presents we would give each other when we made it big. Willie had us believing that it wouldn’t be ‘if’ we made it, but ‘when.’ He knew that eventually someone was going to figure him out.”
Austin understood. It was here in the early ’70s that Willie Nelson found a kindred musical attitude. Even though he spends more of his time off the road these days in Maui, where his fourth and current wife, Annie, and their boys Luke, 14, and Micah, 13, live, he remains Austin’s spiritual adviser and greatest musical ambassador. “Willie loves it in Maui, but he considers Austin his home,” says Lisa Fletcher, who’s married to Bobbie’s son Freddy Fletcher. “He’s got six children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, and they almost all live around Austin, so he gets down here every chance he can.”
Austin and Willie go together in the minds of the masses, like Elvis in Memphis, but where Presley lived a fortressed life, Willie doesn’t think anything about jamming for hours at Poodie’s Hilltop Grill near his Lake Travis compound or popping in at Momo’s on Sixth Street to see his favorite local band, Los Lonely Boys. “The town’s grown so much,” Nelson says, “but I still like the vibe there. It’s still a music town.” Watch the movies he made here in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and you’ll see that so many old landmarks are gone, including the Armadillo World Headquarters, where Willie mapped out the common ground between hippies and the rednecks. Also torn down was the Villa Capri motel, the scene for so many guitar-picking parties hosted by Willie’s buddy Texas Coach Darrell Royal. But Willie’s still Willie, and his set starts out the same way it has since 1971.
There’s the four or five guitar strums and Mickey’s snaky harp lines and then the unmistabkable nasal twang: “Whiskey river, take my mind/ Don’t let her memory torture me.” It’s a holistic hoedown as “Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)” follows, and then come patchwork versions of the early ’60s hits “Crazy,” “Hello Walls” and “Night Life.”
Ain’t it funny how much time hasn’t seemed to slip away?
There’s a scene in “Honeysuckle Rose” when Amy Irving asks Willie if he ever gets tired of being everybody’s hero. His silence makes the question rhetorical, but after watching Willie hold court on his bus a few months ago outside Gruene Hall, with person after person telling him how much his music has meant to them and their recently deceased mother, it’s a question worth re-asking. Does Willie ever get tired of being everybody’s hero?
“I think when that line came up in the movie, the reason I didn’t say anything was because I was probably thinking, ‘That’s about the dumbest question I’ve ever been asked,’ ” he says with a huge Willie laugh.
What a stupid question. Who wouldn’t want to be loved by millions simply by being themselves? Who wouldn’t want to be paid handsomely to do the thing they’d do for free? He’s on the road again and again, playing, in the words of Mickey Raphael, “Carnegie Hall one night and some dump in Odessa the next.”
And so when Willie hits the big 7-0, it won’t be a star-studded affair at a huge Texas amphitheater, complete with fireworks. That would make too much sense. Instead, his bus, his home, is rolling towards Wednesday’s gig at the Horseshoe Casino in Bossier City, La.
That’s so Willie.
On the road, he’s Willie Nelson, an American treasure and hero of the common folk. Now, who wouldn’t want to be that as often as possible?
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Willie to play Bonnaroo
Willie Nelson has been added to the Bonnaroo lineup in Manchester, Tenn. on June 13. For Willie’s current tour itinerary, click here.
Still no confirmation on whether Willie will, indeed, bring his annual Fourth of July Picnic to San Antonio this year. Perhaps because Nelson and Family have so many local shows in March, they’re waiting until April to officially announce the Picnic.
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Worst Willie Nelson campaign songs
Willie Nelson was responsible for one of the most appropriate presidential campaign songs when H. Ross Perot adopted “Crazy” for the 1992 race. But these are some Willie songs that would not work as well:
“If You’ve Got the Money (I’ve Got the Time)”
“I Gotta Get Drunk”
“Wake Me When It’s Over”
“I Never Cared For You”
“Me and Ron Paul”
Also, candidates will sometimes use a song based on the title, without really listening to the words. Hence, Ronald Reagan misappropriated Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In the USA,” whose subtle lyrics expressed anti-Vietnam War sentiments. Hopefully, Hillary Clinton won’t make an even bigger mistake and adopt Willie’s “Good Hearted Woman” for the March 4 Texas primary. I can see her crowd getting pumped up with “Well, she’s a good hearted woman,” then going silent with the next line, “in love with a good-timin’ man.”
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$X$W report coming
Angelou Economics, which was commissioned by SXSW to do an economic impact study, will reveal its results at a press conference at City Hall on Feb. 27 at 9:30 a.m.
Using the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau’s convention formula, which estimates that visitors spend $264 a day, SXSW organizers figured that the music, film and interactive conferences brought in $43.5 million to the city of Austin in 2007. That figure doesn’t include the money spent on badges and wristbands.
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Wesley meets Willie
Actor Wesley Snipes recently visited Willie Nelson on his tour bus in Florida. Hmmm, wonder what they talked about? Here’s an account from daughter Lana Nelson.
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Goodbye, Dolly at SXSW
Citing a back problem, Dolly Parton has postponed her U.S. tour, which was to kick off Feb. 28 in Minnesota and included at stop at this year’s South By Southwest. The singer’s publicist said doctors advised Parton to take 6 to 8 weeks off to recover from the unspecified ailment.
“I know I have been breaking my neck and bending over backwards trying to get my new ‘Backwoods Barbie’ CD and world tour together,” the 62-year-old Parton said in a statement, “but I didn’t mean to hurt myself doing it.” The tour will be rescheduled for late April through May.
According to Billboard, Parton was scheduled to appear March 14 at the Austin Music Hall during SXSW.
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Willie Nelson to play DNC?
The political blog at the Denver Post, Politics West, is reporting that Texas legend Willie Nelson is likely to perform at the opening night ceremonies of the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Aug. 25.
Considering his recent comments to Alex Jones about the veracity of the government’s claim regarding the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Willie’s performance would be an interesting call. Nelson will also be ‘honored’ with a roast on Comedy Central to be taped in April and air in June.
On a related note: Willie Nelson is notoriously gracious when it comes to “gettin’ a picture made” with his fans. We know there are possibly thousands of pictures out there of you and the redhead who’s not a stranger to many. We’d love to see them. Use this upload form to share your pictures with other Austin360 readers.
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Review: The Reivers at the Parish
Saturday and Sunday evenings’ sold-out Reivers reunion shows at the Parish Room were a straight-up time machine trip back to Austin’s adolescence, circa the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Back then, inexpensive Shiner Bock and Lone Star flowed in the bars and on the streets, the greenbelt buckled full of water, traffic was rare, high-rise condos nonexistent and the music scene was anointed “the next Athens” before the Seattle scene was dubbed “the next Austin.” And the high octane indie rock band band the Reivers were one of the tightest, largest and most rockin’ draws in town.
Austin is now mockingly referred to as “little L.A.” by the old guard. California license plates litter the gridlock on I-35. Austin institutions such Liberty Lunch and Les Amis succumbed to corporate entities. And a music scene once so focused on perfect pop songs now grapples with sound ordinances and rehashed disco beats and new wave revivalism.
Yet for all the years and rose-hued shades between old Austin and nouveau Austin, you’d never know that the Reivers — vocalist/guitarist John Croslin, vocalist/guitarist Kim Longacre, bassist Cindy Toth and drummer Garrett Williams — had ever given up the rock ’n’ roll ghost. The only telltale signs of the passing years’ wear were a few gray hairs and a slight decrease in the beats-per-minute during their songs.
During Saturday’s show, the audience seemed to be made up of of fans from out of town and old-school Austinites who apparently don’t get out to shows much anymore judging from the way they greeted each other with the astonished joy of long-lost friends. The only audience members younger than 30 seemed to be the Reivers’ young children, who watched the reunion regalia in amazement, absorbing the overwhelming knowledge that their humble parents are slumbering rock stars.
The first few songs — “Ragamuffin Man” and “Electra” — had their fair share of dropped drumsticks, off-key notes and guitar clambakes. But by the fourth song, “Lazy Afternoon,” Longacre found a comfortable grip on the reigns of her ever-booming voice, arguably the most powerful weapon in the band’s arsenal. When her singing emanated from her stomach and her diaphragm, when her mouth hollowed wide on her unique “Ohhhhhhs” and “Wooooos” — she returned to the incomparable form of her youth.
Longacre was always the band’s resident rocker, and Saturday proved some things don’t change; it’s no accident that she stands center stage. Longacre hadn’t lost a step in her rock moves and guitar slinging.
For Croslin’s parts, his playing didn’t appear loose and free until a quarter-way through the set as the band raced through “Araby,” his allegro second act to the James Joyce short story.
The Reivers’ poetic lyrics were even more poignant as Croslin’s “you got bigger” line from “Ragamuffin Man” and the entirety of “Things Don’t Change” became more on-the-nose instead of tongue-in-cheek.
Drummer Williams and bassist Toth appeared to not have lost any steps in their skills, despite the fact that Williams hasn’t been seen playing drums around town since the Reivers disbanded.
All of the visual and sonic elements that made the band a standout of “the New Sincerity” music scene from back-in-the-day were still tangible: Toth and Longacre’s synchronized dancing during “Lazy Afternoon”; Longacre’s hurried arms flying back and forth during “Without My Sight”; and Croslin and Longacre’s dual-lead vocals propelled by their spot-on harmonies and counter melodies throughout.
The audience was all euphoric smiles the entire show. Yet, the most telling smiles of the evening emanated from Longacre as she looked at Croslin with the warmth of a little league tyke eying his parents after a home run. The connection between their two souls was palpable, and the gravitas and fragility of life and love — lyrical themes in the Reivers songs — was exponentially abundant. Longacre’s smile expressed the complexity of emotions the audience’s collective consciousness was telepathically communicating back to the band.
Set highlights included: “Wait for Time,” “Star Telegram,” “Once In A While,” “Freight Train Rain,” “Baby,” and “Legendary Man.” During “Once In A While,” Longacre sang off-mic to herself during Croslin’s verses only the way that someone who’s deeply, soulfully feeling and loving what they are doing can.
The band’s first encore was requisite: “Without My Sight” and “Translate Slowly” nearly brought Toth to tears as the audience sang every word. The second encore was humbling and appeared off-the-cuff: the Peanuts’ theme song “Linus and Lucy” complete with Toth’s walking bass skills while the final song of the evening — Thin Lizzy’s “The Cowboy Song” - gave Croslin a moment to have as much fun as the audience interpreting a song that he self-admittedly loves.
Opening act the Rite Flyers proved that they are one of the most underappreciated bands in Austin, mining a heavy Beatles influence to produce perfectly golden pop songs overflowing with catchy hooks and sonic craft.
Personal to the Reivers: Kim and John, this weekend was more evidence that your songs make a whole lot of people feel happy to be alive. The business model of the music business that did your band a disservice is now a dinosaur sinking in its own primordial fecal waste. Please use the new distribution business model and release a new record with at least four songs that have the tempo of “Araby” and/or “Wait for Time”.
Personal to South by Southwest organizers: Among the bands that are cherry-picked for showcases, the Reivers have to be the most deserving. Please do Austin and SXSW attendees a solid and organize a special showcase for the Reivers; nothing would be sweeter, or more appropriate, than to have them open for R.E.M.
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Live Blogging the Grammys
The 50th annual Grammy awards are here.
- Photos: Red carpet arrivals | Winners and performers
- List of winners | Grammy fashion | Quick quotes
6:54 p.m.: Austin’s own 94-year old bluesman Pinetop Perkins beat himself in traditional blues album category this afternoon. “Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas,” Perkins’ album with Henry James Townsend, Robert Lockwood Jr. and David “Honeyboy” Edwards, beat our Perkins’ own ” Pinetop Perkins On The 88’s - Live In Chicago.”
Willie Nelson beat out fellow Texans Steve Earle and Kelly Clarkson for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, for “Lost Highway,” his duet with Ray Price from “Last of the Breed.”
But Earle took Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for “Washington Square Serenade.”
7 p.m.: Hey, it’s Frank Sinatra! Is he up for anything this year? No, wait, it’s just a clip from the first Grammys, first held (and broadcast) 50 years ago.
7:01 p.m.: Oh, dear. Alicia Keys is dueting with what looks like a hologram of Sinatra on “Learning the Blues.” Is it going to be that kind of night? Quite a dress, however.
7:06 p.m.: Carrie Underwood seems to be dueting with an off-brand version of Stomp on “Before He Cheats.” I smell remix!
Not sure why a junkyard was chosen for this set, but maybe I haven’t been listening to the lyrics hard enough. Her hair would look better at Grammys ‘68 than Grammys ‘08, which wouldn’t be all that bad (Amy Winehouse made Grammys ‘63 hair work) except Underwood’s ‘do makes her look like a worn-out 40. Probably not what she was going for.
7:10: Hey, Prince made a funny! “Boy, Frank Sinatra looked good for 150, didn’t he?” People forget he’s funny. Mostly because you can no longer tell that from his albums.
Then he gave Alicia Keys a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. First speech of the night and the band has to play her off. Ouch.
7:18: So far, we’ve got some killer mash-ups going.
First Carrie Underwood and the off-brand Stomp. (Or is it the real Stomp? Anyone know?)
Now we’ve got the Time doing “Jungle Love” blending in with Rihanna doing a chorus of “Umbrella” and “Don’t Stop the Music.” Man, I love the Time. Don’t you think they would make the greatest wedding band of all time? You couldn’t top that wedding. Everyone else’s wedding would be called off.
7:23: Does Tom Hanks know that none of the Band fought in World War II? Or the Civil War, for that matter?
7:25: Based on Tom Hanks’ intro to the Beatles tribute, I can completely believe that no Hollywood writers worked on this program.
7:28: I was recently told by a high school teacher and mother of a 15-year-old that the 13- to 15-year-old demographic was responsible for the success of the Julie Taymor movie “Across the Universe,” which inspired this tribute. (UPDATE: Actually, this was a tribute to the Cirque De Soliel show “LOVE.”) After seeing the exploding car on stage and the gospel choir on “Let It Be,” I believe it.
Has anyone ever heard the Sesame Street song “Letter B”? So, so much better than the weirdly overrated “Let It Be.” Seriously, check it out on YouTube.
7:34: God bless Cyndi Lauper. Seriously, that accent hasn’t budged an inch in 25 years.
Amy Winehouse wins best new artist; Lauper almost pulls something she’s so excited. She also says Winehouse is performing live “on a satellite.” Please tell me that’s a drug joke, because then Cyndi would rule even more than she already does.
7:39: While Jason Bateman is talking, let’s chat some more about Pinetop Perkins.
Perkins sounded pleased, but a little reticent about his win.
“Well, my mother always told me not to play on Sunday, so I try not to do that,” Perkins said. (He performed earlier in the day with Koko Taylor.) “But I also always try to do my best.”
“About 15 years ago, he decided that he wasn’t going to play on Sunday,” Perlins’ manager Pat Morgan said. “Frankly, I think he thought he was going to go soon and that he should stop playing music on Sundays, along with playing cards and fishing, which are the three things he loves to do. So it really bothers him when he plays on Sunday, so today he plays and he wins a Grammy.”
Morgan declined to speculate on the theological implications.
7:46 p.m. Kanye, dressed not unlike he should be fighting crime, busts out a surprisingly entertaining “Stronger” with Draft Punk, who looked liked extras from “Tron.”
(And I’m serious about the superhero thing. Go Google the costume for the modern version of the DC character the Ray.)
7:49 p.m. Now Kanye’s singing about his mother and he’s sounding like he’s gonna lose it right there on stage. He actually seems like he’s having trouble looking at the crowd. His singing isn’t any better than it’s ever been, but it’s a fairly affecting performance. Gets a standing ovation for it, as well.
Then we get Fergie and John Legend. Ah, showbusiness.
7:57 p.m.: George Martin is still alive. I know this isn’t news, but I’m just impressed.
8:04 p.m.: Beyonce just used the phrase “historical women,” but nobody cares, because everyone is staring at her green hot pants.
Man, how must Beyonce feel that Tina Tuner’s legs look better than hers? Then again, Tina Turner’s legs are historical. (And 68 years old. No kidding.)
Hey, if I was dancing like that in high heels since the Eisenhower administration, my legs would be historical as well.
Also, they’re both killing on “Proud Mary.”
8:12 p.m.: Grammy timing is nothing if not unfortunate. Beyonce and Tina, then Andy Williams.
Williams also just said that Burt Bacharach is the world’s greatest living composer. Does John Adams know about this? Does John Williams?
Amy Winehouse gets the Song of the Year award. “We’ll make sure she gets her Grammy,” says Nelly Furtado. Good for them for not making the joke, “We’ll also make sure she doesn’t sell it for a fix.”
8:35 p.m.: A weirdly cranky Jason Bateman introduced the Foo Fighters (with Pat Smear!), who tore it up playing “The Pretender.” Then George Lopez just told a Dave Chapelle joke, something about getting a Mexican vice-president and introduced Brad Paisley, who was totally professional.
8:42 p.m.: Kayne won Best Rap Album, rambled about how awesome he is for a bit and got the producers to stop playing him off while he talked about his mom. “It would be in good taste to stop the music then,” he said in the middle of his speech and holy cow, they did it.
Good for him, but if there’s one thing awards shows are not about, it’s good taste, as Kayne also reminded us with his jacket.
8:50 p.m.: Bebe Winans, Aretha Franklin and a whole mess of gospel nominees perform. Pinetop’s ethics have made me feel guilty; I decline to make a joke here. Perhaps the Grammy folks also feel weird; the gospel performance gets nearly nine minutes of airtime.
8:59 p.m. Feist plays “1,2,3,4.” It’s in good taste. Kanye would approve.
9:02 p.m.: Keely Smith is dueting with Kid Rock. His transition into the 21st century version of David Lee Roth circa “Just a Gigolo” is complete.
9:05 p.m.: Foo Fighters just took best rock album for “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace.” Has Taylor Hawkins ever actually proved he’s not a clone of Dave Grohl grown in a vat somewhere? They’re looking more alike by the year.
9:11 p.m. - Hey, it’s 25-time Grammy winner Stevie Wonder, telling us about Berry Gordy, who gets this year’s Industry Icon award. Then he hits the harmonica (or is it pitch pipe) and belts out a few notes of “No One” before introducing Alicia Keys’ epic version of same. A duet between those two on that song suddenly seems like a no brainer; something tells me there are Grammy producers kicking themselves this very minute.
9:17 p.m.: In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “I’ve been thinking about Alicia Keys.” Man, was subbing her name for Ma Ranye’s on “Thunder on the Mountain” a good call on his part or what?
Notice that Bob did not include John Mayer in his lyric about Alicia Keys. Why is Alicia including him here?
9:18 p.m.: Speaking of clones, do Ringo Starr and Dave Stewart realize they look exactly alike?
Then they give the country album of the year award to Vince Gill, who gets in the joke of the night: “I just got an award given to my by a Beatle. Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?”
OH, SNAP. Better, faster, stronger, indeed.
9:26 p.m.: Herbie Hancock and pianist Lang Lang are performing “Rhapsody in Blue.” You can hear the viewers flipping channels. It would be in good taste to pay attention to the music, but it ain’t happening.
9:33 p.m.: “Umbrella” (Rihanna featuring Jay-Z) takes Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, to the shock of absolutely nobody. Jay is “translating” her comments and it should probably annoy Beyonce that Rihanna actually gets him to shut up.
9:42 p.m.: Amy Winehouse looks shaky, but much better than a lot of us thought she was going to. Her beehive is black, not blonde, which seems a good sign. She cranks (hah! sorry) through “You Know I’m No Good” and “Rehab,” irony flashing in and out of her voice. She may have just saved her career.
9:46 p.m.: Winehouse looks shocked, seriously, no-kidding shocked, to win Record of the Year. The stage explodes for joy. She half-dives into the band for a hug. She gives a big hug to her mom, who joins her on stage. It’s nearly 4 a.m. in London, so maybe she’s tired, but it’s a hypnotic moment.
“Uh, thank you to everyone at Island Records,.” She sounds a little shaky, then better. “To my Mom and Dad….to my Blake incarcerated.”
Jeeze, did she just freestyle that? Where’s Jay-Z?
“This is for London!,” she shouts.
I am now completely convinced she saved her career, am taking back all the mean jokes I made about her and am looking forward to spinning through “Back to Black” as soon as the awards are over. Without a doubt the moment of the evening.
10 p.m.: People who died montage. Ike Turner gets, like, two people applauding. Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban sing, sing SING for Pavarotti. Don’t laugh, Groban sold three million albums last year. Of a Christmas album, no less. Recognize!
10:15 p.m.: John Fogerty, looking somewhat lifelike, is playing with Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. How on Earth did lyrics like “Good golly Miss Molly/ sure likes to ball” make it on to the air in the 50s?
10: 24 p.m.: Will.i.am is rapping about the Grammys, which seems weirdly perfect. He is the Billy Crystal of hip-hop.
10:28 p.m.: Quincy Jones and Usher are out to wrap this up, we hope. Mark Ronson won non-classical producer for “Back to Black,” which is almost another win for Winehouse. “There are no losers in this category, Kanye,” Usher says.
10:30 p.m.: GREAT MERCIFUL UPSET! Herbie Hancock, in a huge, Giants-vs-Patriots win, takes Album of the Year. He thanks everyone for giving the award to a jazz album, which apparently hasn’t happened in 43 years. No reaction shots from Winehouse or West, which probably just means the directors and producers were just as shocked as the rest of us.
That’s it, folks. Good night!
(All photos: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
- Photos: Red carpet arrivals | Winners and performers
- List of winners | Grammy fashion | Quick quotes
Chesney headed our way
Kenny Chesney’s “Poets & Pirates Tour,” with special guest LeAnn Rimes, is coming to the Erwin Center May 1. Tickets, priced at $69.50 and $59.50 plus service charges, go on sale Saturday Feb. 16 at 10 a.m. at most area HEB locations and the Erwin Center box office. You can also order by phone at 477-6060.
Chesney is the reigning Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year.
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Dale Watson on MTV?!
That’s right, folks. The hardcore honkytonker will be part of the “Jackass” takeover of MTV, which was originally scheduled for this weekend, but has been pushed back two weeks for unspecified reasons. Hope Dale wears a cup. Also, expect Willie Nelson, who’s tight with Johnny Knoxville (who produced Watson’s “Hollywood Hillbilly” video) to premiere a song from “Moment of Forever.”
In other news from hill to Dale, Watson’s video for “Justice For All” is up for a CMT Music Award nomination. Well, it’s not really for Dale, but his pal James Denton (“Desperate Housewives” in the category of best supporting actor. Vote for the Watson video here. And watch the vid here.
One thing that is happening this weekend as planned is the Reivers reunion. Get ready for these photos from the last night of the Pratz/ Ward Continental Club in Aug. 1987. Pics by Casey Monahan.
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Weekend Picks: Melodramatic pop, Arabic dance, downtempo soul and more
Friday: Alex Cuervo’s birthday party at Beerland. A celebration of the leader of the Hex Dispensers’ birth. Expect the grimiest in local garage rock with Wax Museums, Maaster Gaiden, the Young, Pepperonis at Beerland. —-Joe Gross
Friday: An Arabian Night at the Red Fez. Arabic Bazaar owner Zein Al-Jundi works the wheels at the hottest Middle Eastern dance party in Austin. Expect Arabic club music and pop, belly dancing and more. Show up early to snag a seat, rent a sheesha (hookah) and snack on complimentary Arabic appetizers. 8-11 p.m., Free. —-Deborah Sengupta Stith
Friday: Rossi Mission at Club DeVille. This ‘melodramatic popular song’ band (according to its MySpace page) celebrates the release of its new album. Cool, distant guitar in the post-punk style mixes with whispered vocals and spare power. With Bronze Age and Sad Like Crazy. —- J.G.
Saturday: Misprint Magazine’s second annual Beard and Moustache Competition at Club DeVille. By the time you see this, one hopes that your entry is full and ready for Austin’s ‘Miss America’ of facial hair. With Horse + Donkey. $3. —- J.G.
Saturday: Sonido Boombox 2-year anniversary at Flamingo Cantina. The always relevant, bilingual METV show dedicated to all genres of Latin music celebrates 2 years of local showcases at Flamingo Cantina. Headlining the event is Radio la Chusma from El Paso, described by Sonido as “freaky hot Chicano reggae.” Also on the bill are Montoya, Boca Abajo and El Tule. $5-$7 —-D.S.S.
Saturday: Beta Player, TMC at Plush. A new instrumental downtempo/hip-hop ensemble featuring sublime vocals from the lovely and talented Ms. Yadira Brown opens for the consistently dangerous Table Manners Crew DJs in their regular residency gig at Plush. Free before 11 p.m. —-D.S.S.
Sunday: Black Mountain/The Viet Minh at Emo’s. This is one of those great outside/inside bills. Dead Meadow headlines outdoors, but Black Mountain’s ‘In the Future’ is one of this year’s most buzzed-about psychedelic rock albums. Blood on the Wall opens. Inside, three Austin acts — the Viet Mihn, Ringo Deathstarr and Strange Attractors — provide a different kind of psychedelic guitar frenzy. Separate covers. — J.G.
The Bravery braved nothing at Emo’s
When The Bravery took the outside stageTuesday at Emo’s, the band easily could have been mistaken for the canceled opening act. Frontman Sam Endicott’s voice seemed as breathless and off key as the laryngitis-ridden singer for Your Vegas, which was unable to perform. Unfortunately, a lack of cough drops was the least of The Bravery’s problems.
Endicott and company are promoting their newest full-length release, “The Sun and the Moon,” which has spent five weeks on Billboard’s top 200 albums chart. During the hourlong performance, the outfit jumped back and forth between a two-album repertoire of songs that differ little sonically and lyrically from one another. With a weak precedent from the beginning of the set, the entire show appeared doomed to mediocrity.
The band did not assert themselves on stage, and their presence was as ignorable as a younger sibling. They looked like they would rather have been somewhere else (perhaps with the sizable entourage of young women whisked through the door between sets by one of the night’s earlier performers).
The band made their initial splash when dance-rock was the thing to do, and their New Wave-esque vocals sound convincing on record. At this show, however, Endicott sounded like a bad imitation of Morrissey without the aid of a studio. A sub-par PA system did not help the band’s case, either. The signature electronic components of The Bravery’s sound were dulled to obscurity in the mix, the synths often barely audible. At times, dance-friendly bass lines outshined the rest of the group.
The bottom line: The Bravery has generated a lot of hype to live up to. On Jan. 29, MTV named them “Artist of the Week.” They had a couple of energetic moments on Tuesday while playing their anthems “Public Service Announcement” and especially “An Honest Mistake.” But unless they make considerable changes, they will not survive among the industry’s elite.
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Full South by Southwest 2008 band list released
South by Southwest has released its full band list. It can be found here.
Here are some highlights of the nearly 1,600 act/ 79 stage festival:
R.E.M. (whose new album “Accelerate” hits stores April 1)
Dolly Parton (whose new album “Backwoods Barbie” should hit stores Feb. 26)
High on Fire
Vampire Weekend (whose self-titled album sold 27,000 copies in its first week)
“Viking metal” band Enslaved
Thurston Moore’s solo band, including the great guitarist Chris Brokaw
Genghis Tron
Shoegazer revival band A Place To Bury Strangers
My Morning Jacket
Hard rock founding fathers Blue Cheer
Garage titans the Bad Trips
Naked Raygun (a reunion show)
Psych rockers Black Mountain
Destroyer (whose new album “Trouble in Dreams” hits stores March 18)
Chevu
The Vines
Carbon/Silicon (ex-Clash/B.A.D. guitarist Mick Jones’ new band)
The Black & White Years (whose recent set at the MIDEM conference was a huge hit)
And, well, about 1,600 more.
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Willie questions Sept. 11 story on Alex Jones show
Willie Nelson did an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Feb. 4. When a starstruck A.J. finally stops gushing, Willie lets loose with a few conspiracy theories of his own concerning Sept. 11, 2001.
On the World Trade Center buildings, Nelson said: “I saw one fall and it was just so symmetrical, I said wait a minute I just saw that last week at the casino in Las Vegas and you see these implosions all the time and the next one fell and I said hell there’s another one — and they’re trying to tell me that an airplane did it and I can’t go along with that.”
Too much Willie Weed or too much Alex Jones, who Nelson said he listens to all the time? You decide.
At any rate, comics at the upcoming “Willie Nelson Comedy Central Roast,” which will be taped April 17 in Los Angeles, will have more fodder to go with all the pot jokes. The roast will air in June.
Read more on the conspiracy story here
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In the clubs with Ume
- Photos: In the clubs 2008
- Photos: 360 readers in the clubs | Share your pics
The visual is pretty striking: Ume singer/guitarist Lauren Larson, wailing away on her Fender Duo-Sonic, her husband, bassist Eric Larson, holding down the low end with drummer Jeff Barrera. Larson looks as in-the-moment as any musician in Austin, swells of guitar distortion wailing around her.
The whole band is just on the sunny side of 30, but Lauren Larson doesn’t quite look old enough to drive, though she’s inching ever closer to a doctorate in philosophy from Penn State.
“I’d love to teach,” she says, “but not if it means more relocation. Austin was really the only place I wanted to come back to.”
The band has its roots in Houston’s club scene. “We met Jeff at an Unwound show in Houston in 2001,” Lauren Larson says, which seems fitting given the debt Ume (say it “Ooo-may”) owes to Unwound’s years as a progressive punk trio.
The Larsons started playing in Houston, then spent four years in Pennsylvania, while Barrera stayed in Houston. The band’s first album, “Urgent Sea” (ouch!) arrived in 2005. The Larsons moved here in ‘06, and Barrera followed last year, making the whole band Austinites for the first time.
There was some talk of finishing new recordings in time for the South by Southwest Music Festival next month, but Lauren Larson says that’s unlikely to happen: “We have a ton of new material, but we just need to record it.”
Although their sound is reminiscent of pedal hopping bands such as Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and the aforementioned Unwound, Lauren Larson says the new stuff is more melodically detailed than earlier material.
“A lot of the newer stuff is just played through the clean and distortion channels on the amp,” she says. “This time around, I’m much more meticulous, spending a lot more time with vocal melodies and trying to improve that a lot.”
But at Ume’s Friday show at Emo’s, don’t be surprised if Larson’s voice is just another instrument in the din.
In the clubs: Ume plays Emo’s inside, 603 Red River St., at 10 p.m. Friday with Haunting Oboe Music, Camp X-Ray and Prayer For Animals. 477-3667, emosaustin.com
Out in the clubs? We’d like to thank 360 reader Stacy Algiers for sharing pictures of Coma in Algiers at the Scoot Inn. If you’ve got 2008 Austin club shots of bands you’ve seen (or your own band), use this form to share them with Austin360 readers.
(Photos by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Willie and me: Share your photos and stories of interactions with Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson is notoriously gracious when it comes to “gettin’ a picture made” with his fans. We know there are possibly thousands of pictures out there of you and the redhead who’s not a stranger to many. We’d love to see them. Use this upload form to share your pictures with other Austin360 readers.
Also, in honor of Willie’s 75th birthday we’re collecting reader stories about concert experiences and personal interactions with the legendary musician. Feel free to share yours in the comments below.
(Pictured: Hanne Raffnsøe from Dybdølsgade, Denmark with Willie Nelson outside Gruene Hall in August 2002. Photo by Michael Corcoran.)
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Video: Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars played to packed house Friday night at Flamingo Cantina. In a testament to the amazing resiliency of the human spirit, this group, formed in a refugee camp after fleeing a brutal conflict in Sierra Leone, radiated with positivity throughout the upbeat performance, which mixed elements of reggae, soca and dancehall with traditional African sounds.
“There is power in love,” lead singer Reuben Koroma explained, “enormous power.” And as the group jubilantly sang and danced, it was love that filled the club.
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Fight for control at SXSW
UPDATE: Swenson speaks on piggybackers below
Piggybackers. Pirates. Parasites. Since about the second year of the South by Southwest music festival, which heads for its 22nd campaign March 12-16, organizers have complained about fringe entities that are not sanctioned by SXSW, yet benefit from its sizzle. There’s no question that SXSW has become a youth market phenomenon, turning Austin, for four days, into the trendiest city on the planet. It’s a brand corporations are increasingly trying to attach themselves to, either in an official capacity or with big, splashy parties they do on their own.
The peripheral events add to the glamour of SXSW — even Perez Hilton came last year, and he didn’t need a badge or wristband to party around the clock. Still, SXSW fights hard to keep as much control of its moveable beast as possible. In recent years, they’ve even formed a “parasite crew” to seek out entities improperly using the SXSW name or trying to compete with sanctioned venues, the house of cards that SXSW is built upon. A few years back, SXSW even revoked the badges of Revolver magazine principals, refunding more than $4,000, because the magazine flew in the Cult to play a private party. Is SXSW being paranoid or protective?
Last year, organizers took heat for providing the fire marshal with a list of unofficial SXSW parties. Co-founder Roland Swenson’s reasoning was that if the fire marshal was going to enforce its safety codes and permits at official SXSW venues, they should do the same at other events in town. After all, if a deadly fire breaks out at a pirate party, the headline’s still going to read “Seven die at SXSW.” Subsequently, parties at the Blue Genie Theater, Factory People and the Gibson Guitar showroom, which each cost organizers tens of thousands of dollars, were shut down because party planners did not know about recent changes in the permit process and didn’t have their paperwork in order.
Did SXSW go too far? Or, having watched the demise of NYC’s New Music Seminar, the model for SXSW, are organizers just fighting to keep their baby from meeting a similar end? In an e-mail interview, we let Swenson tell his side of the control issue.
American-Statesman: Why does SXSW care if private party organizers fly in acts that aren’t part of the official SXSW lineup?
Swenson: There are three main reasons. First, we have an obligation to deliver the best shows we can find to the Austin clubs who work with us. When private party organizers use corporate sponsorships to bring in exclusive talent, build a temporary venue and give away alcohol, it impacts SXSW and our client venues in a very negative way. Corporate parties never book an unknown act; they only want headliners. The way that SXSW booked over 350 unsigned, relatively unknown acts last year was by using headliners to support those shows, and every known act we lost to a corporate party hurt.
Second, these corporations are using our name, our work, our reputation and our event to further their own business goals at our expense, and never acknowledge they are doing so. Last week I saw a proposal from a corporate sponsorship marketing company soliciting $150,000 for a “SXSW Show” that had nothing to do with us. If these entities are putting on these free parties to “help” artists and fans, there are 51 other weeks of the year that need it a lot more than during our event.
Finally, we sincerely believe that this is the trend most likely to eventually put SXSW out of business. We never take it for granted that SXSW will keep happening every year. We’ve watched huge events like ours collapse when they had once seemed invulnerable. Nothing in those cities has successfully replaced the events that collapsed. Despite what some people seem to think, artists and music fans from around the world won’t continue to flock to Austin every March if SXSW isn’t around to do what it does.
The once almighty New Music Seminar went out of business, in part, because they lost control of the clubs, many of which decided to book their own acts and run the door. What are some of the other events that have collapsed?
Besides New Music Seminar, the other big example is Popkomm, which was held in Cologne, Germany. For several years it was the largest music industry event in the world, attracting 15,000 registrants. The reasons for their collapse are complex and not totally comparable to SXSW. Probably their biggest problem was their dependence on government funding. But like the Seminar, they lost control of their festival booking to outside promoters. Because Popkomm was unable to book enough developing acts to maintain their music industry base, companies stopped attending the conference en masse, and it was over three years or so after their peak.
Subsequently, a group in Berlin bought the rights to the Popkomm name and have been presenting it there for the past five years or so. It’s a great event which I attend, but it has never approached what the Cologne event was at its peak.
Events like CMJ in New York and the Winter Music Conference in Miami are also struggling from being undermined by fringe events, and their influence has been diminished. But unlike SXSW, their events aren’t their primary businesses. CMJ is an industry trade magazine and Winter Music is a dance club promotion agency. Neither event has a comparable impact on their cities as SXSW and Austin.
How has SXSW operations been influenced by those failures?
Knowing that our continued existence is far from guaranteed makes us willing to fight (when we can) what we see as damaging to SXSW. The struggle is over who is ultimately going to control SXSW, our organization or guerrilla marketers backed by corporate interests. If SXSW loses, then SXSW eventually disappears. SXSW exists only because more entities choose to pursue a symbiotic relationship with us rather than a parasitic one. However, every year more marketing groups representing huge multinational corporations and their local proxies choose to feed off of us.
But every big event is going to have fringe elements. Do you think the NFL had a problem with corporate Super Bowl parties taking place in the Phoenix area to coincide with the recent Super Bowl? How is SXSW different?
There was no chance that Eli Manning was going to go play another game down the street from the stadium instead of playing for the Giants.
This is the first part in an ongoing dialogue with SXSW director Roland Swenson.
UPDATE: More from Roland Swenson
American-Statesman: Does SXSW consider all day parties to be piggybackers, or do you think some add to the event? If so, where do you draw the line?
Swenson: I’ve always said that the day parties at SXSW are part of what makes the event fun and useful. In 2007, SXSW sponsored 64 official day parties. All of the groups that put on those parties (and numerous other nonofficial parties, too) worked with us in a cooperative manner, and we helped many of them organize and promote their parties. Where we draw the line is when party organizers want to bring in artists that aren’t going to also make themselves available for a public, official SXSW Festival show.
One of the frustrating things the music festival has to often deal with is that many of the buzz bands’ handlers want their acts to play in a small venue where a lot of people won’t be able get in to see them. Causing a line of people waiting in line down the street, unable to get in is what they think looks successful.
Our protocol is to always get the people with badges in first, the people with wristbands next, and the “VIPs” wait along with everyone else. With parties, the “VIP” list is always first.
If SXSW turns into an event where the hottest acts only play private parties, where the sponsors control who gets into the show, SXSW won’t be the same event anymore, and we won’t last for long.
Definitely, there are a number of events that we consider to be parasites or as piggybacking on our event. Particularly damaging are the ones that go out and sell sponsorships to consumer products, telling them they are buying a “SXSW show” when they have no connection to us.
The whole “guerrilla marketing” trend is built on latching onto an existing event and draining off its resources by selling sub-events to sponsors, blurring the line to suggest they are part of the main event. We think that’s misleading and unfair competition.
We’re usually willing to come to some accommodation with corporate sponsors if they are willing to help us underwrite SXSW activities, but in some cases they just want to pose as the “rebels” while casting us as the “man.” How billion-dollar corporations can get so many people to believe that is a mystery to me.
The other phenomenon we’re seeing develop with the corporate sponsored private parties is that if you don’t fit the “target demographic” of the sponsor, you don’t get in to the party whether you have a badge or a wristband or no pass at all.
- Photos: SXSW music preview
- More SXSW
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Review: The Bangles and the Go-Go’s
The Go-Go’s Antone’s, Feb. 4
The Bangles La Zona Rosa, Jan. 31
Twenty-seven years after “Beauty and the Beat” became the first No. 1 album written and performed entirely by an all-woman rock band, the Go-Go’s’ unique place in history remains as untouched as the 1972 Dolphins’ perfect NFL season. There’s been scads of formidable female artists before and after the Go-Go’s heyday, but even here in 2008, with a woman gunning for the presidency, the self-contained, all-girl band remains a very rare beast in the rock mainstream. So much so, that having both the Go-Go’s and their immediate heirs to the ’80s pop charts, the Bangles, hit town in the same week was bound to feel like a nostalgia fest (or overload) to the casually curious, or a veritable battle of the bands (girl fight!) to die-hard fans.
Not that there ever was such a rivalry — the bands’ original chart runs never overlapped, and members of both acts have collaborated on side projects for years. But if this had been a showdown, the Go-Go’s walked in with one hand tied behind their back. Minutes before showtime, Austin’s own prodigal Go-Go Kathy Valentine (bass) took the stage to break the news to the sold-out crowd that guitarist Jane Wiedlin had just left the tour upon hearing that her mother was terminally ill. In her place — with a day to learn the set — was 24-year-old local blues guitar phenom Eve Monsees. No stranger to playing with legends on the Antone’s stage, Monsees was shy but held her own, winning encouraging grins from Valentine and lead guitarist/keyboardist Charlotte Caffey.
But Wiedlin’s absence was still palpable; she was missed both vocally and for her role as frontwoman Belinda Carlisle’s main foil for flirty, catty stage banter. That put the onus on the rest of the band to raise their game while working out a few kinks (most notably, Carlisle and Valentine debating mid-song over who would sing Wiedlin’s bridge on “Our Lips Our Sealed” — with Valentine reluctantly putting on her best pixie voice). The 18-song set was heavy on hits like “Vacation,” “Head Over Heels” and even Carlisle’s solo debut, “Mad About You,” but also featured choice album tracks like “Fading Fast” and later day gems like 2001’s “Unforgiven” and 1994’s “The Whole World Lost It’s Head.” All in all, an imperfect but invigorating performance — far from the firing-on-all-cylinders set the Go-Go’s delivered at Stubb’s two years ago, but characterized by a scrappy tenacity closer in spirit to their pure punk roots than any other show they’ve played in years.
By contrast, the Bangles’ performance Thursday at La Zona Rosa was a model of precision — a veritable Electric Light Orchestra to the Go-Go’s’ Sex Pistols. They were missing a key original member, too, with singer-songwriter Abby Travis standing in for retired bassist Michael Steele. They also had a male keyboard player, key to the instrumental mix but tucked discreetly back in the corner to leave the spotlight on sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson (lead guitar and drums, respectively) and Susanna Hoffs (rhythm guitar). All three took turns on lead vocals; Hoffs, never the frontwoman so much as the one who sang most of the catchiest singles (or in the case of “Walk Like an Egyptian,” the funnest verse), left most of the talking to Vicki. “You can’t love her,” Peterson playfully chided one outspoken Hoffs admirer, “because her name isn’t Susan!”
With 20 songs picked evenly from across the band’s four-album catalog (including several from 2003’s spotty reunion effort, “Doll Revolution”), the Bangles offered fans a lot of blissfully harmonized bang for their buck. But apart from the encore — a romp through the Seeds’ garage rock classic “Pushing Too Hard” — surprises were few. To wit: autographed copies of the set list were hawked at the merch table even before showtime. Sorry gals — that’s just eternally lame.
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Unreleased Bob Wills recording discovered
A previously unknown recording of Western Swing legend Bob Wills telling his life story has been discovered.
Austin resident Dwight Adair, owner of www.bobwills.com, learned of the recording’s existence through an e-mail sent to him by a Bob Wills fan and former musician Gary Frietag of Florida.
Frietag told Adair that the recording was made on a reel-to-reel tape deck by a musician friend, Ray Riggs, also of Florida.
Riggs made the recording in a hotel in Fresno, Calif., in 1949 or 1950. Wills and the Texas Playboys were appearing there. Riggs has kept the tape.
“I tried to contact the Wills estate but never heard back from them,” Riggs said in a press release. “So I just kept it, hoping that someday it would see the light of day.”
Adair says the recording is of Wills talking about his career. “It’s about half an hour long and it is certainly Bob Wills’s voice, answering questions asked by Ray Riggs and elaborating about his feelings for the music he created.”
The recording is available for download here.
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New Austinite wins Super Bowl contest
Kina Grannis, who moved to Austin in May after graduating from USC, has received a record contract from Interscope after winning the “Crash the Super Bowl” music challenge sponsored by Doritos. Fox aired a 60-second video of Grannis’ song “Message From Your Heart,” during the Super Bowl telecast. Click here to see the clip.
“This entire experience has been so surreal and nothing short of amazing,” the 22-year-old Grannis said in a press release. “I can’t believe that just months ago I was working at a coffee house and playing music in my spare time; now I’ve been in my own music video during the Super Bowl! I am so thankful to Doritos and especially to everyone who voted for me.”
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Pimp C’s death ruled accidental
From the AP report:
“Captain Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office says Monday that 33-year-old Chad Butler suffered from sleep apnea and his condition reacted badly with codeine-containing cough medicine he took. Butler’s body was found in a West Hollywood hotel room in December.
Winter says the levels of promethazine and codeine cough syrup in the rapper’s system ‘were not that of an overdose.’”
MORE ON PIMP C
- Hip-hop power put Texas rap on radars
- Photos: Pimp C at SXSW 2007
- Photos: Pimp C’s funeral
(Photo by Ricardo Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Photos: Live from Austin, Texas 2008
Only one month into 2008, we’ve already got a great collection of live shots, both from big road shows passing through town and local bands in smaller club settings. We’ll be collecting photos all year long, and we’d like to invite you to share your own.
If you’ve got live shots from touring shows you’d like to share, please upload them using this form. If you’d like to share pictures of your favorite (or your own) local band playing in Austin please use this form.
We’ll be posting updates to this blog when we add new photos to our staff galleries or receive reader photos we really like.
- Photos: Roadshows: Live from Austin, Texas
- Share your own roadshow pics.
- Photos: Local bands: In the clubs
- Share your own local bands pics
“Willie was so stoned …”
Willie Nelson intends to celebrate his 75th birthday by being the butt of more pot, IRS, age and bandanna jokes than you can imagine. In an interview with spinner.com Willie says his Comedy Central roast will air on his April 30 birthday.
A spokesperson for Comedy Central says the Willie roast hasn’t officially been announced. More info is forthcoming.
Willie and Family will be in Europe for about a month starting April 21. It’s not yet known when the roast will take place.
Meanwhile, here is a cool story about a NASA astronaut who, inadvertently, ended up in Willie’s video for “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore.” That’s Poodie Locke, by the way, in drag with Owen Wilson.
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Lance Armstrong vs. La Zona Rosa backstage doorman Sean Higgins
Our own Matthew Odam witnessed one of Austin’s favorite sons at the Band of Horses show.
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Waterloo Top 10 for the week ending Feb. 2
Vampire Weekend, ‘s/t’ (XL)
The Mars Volta, ‘The Bedlam in Goiliath,’ (Strummer/Universal)
Various Artists, ‘KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 15’ (KGSR)
Radiohead, ‘In Rainbows’ (ATO)
Cat Power, ‘Jukebox,” (Matador)
Various Artists, ‘Juno’ Original Soundtrack (Rhino)
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, ‘Raising Sand’ (Rounder)
Shelby Lynne, ‘Just A Little Lovin” (Lost Hoghway)
Iron & Wine, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ (Sub Pop)
Drive By Truckers, ‘Brighter Than Creation’s Dark’ (New West)
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Outlaw Trail stops at Paramount
Joe Ely, Jessi Colter, Rodney Crowell, Carlene Carter and Tanya Tucker are among the acts playing the “Outlaw Trail Concert,” Feb. 20 at the Paramount Theatre, which will be filmed for possible commercial release. Ray Benson will host the two-hour show, with cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell narrating.
The house band, with John Inman, Jeff Plankenhorn, Gene Elders, Tommy Spurlock, Glen Shuets, Bukka Allen and Jamie Oldaker, is thick with Austinites.
Tickets will go on sale soon. Here’s a link with more info.
Musicmania Top 10 for the week ending Feb. 3
Keyshia Cole ‘Just Like You’ (Geffen)
Mary J Blige “Growing Pains’ (Geffen)
Birdman ‘5 Star Stunna’ (Cash Money)
Jaheim ‘Making Of A Man’ (Atlantic)
Scarface ‘M.A.D.E.’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Willie Clayton ‘My Time (Malaco)
Trae ‘Life Goes On’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Trae ‘Life Goes On Screwed &Chopped’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Plies ‘Real Testament’ (Slip-N-Slide)
Alicia Keys ‘As I Am’ (J Records)
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MySpace tour kicks off in Austin
There’s more to Austin in March than SXSW. As a precursor, the MySpace Music Tour, featuring a trio of French electronic acts, comes to Stubb’s on March 3. Headlining is dance duo Justice, with DJ Mehdi and Fancy also on the bill.
Go here for more info.
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Irish fest lands Altan
A strong lineup just got stronger. The 26th Annual North Texas Irish Festival, to be held Feb. 29-March 2 at Fair Park in Dallas, has just confirmed the addition of Celtic superstars Altan. Also on the bill are Battlefield Band, Brock McGuire Band, Brother, Celtic Spring, Austin’s own, Ed Miller, and many more. The fest’s Web site has all the details.
This festival, which also includes an exhibition hall selling all things Irish, is one of the biggest of its kind in the country. Attendance last year was 45,000 over three days. Tickets are only $15 a day or $30 for all three.
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An interview with Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s
( The Go-Go’s play Monday at Antone’s, 213 W. Fifth St. Doors at 8 p.m., show at 9, with Fastball opening. $35-$37. antones.net and frontgatetickets.com.)
As highlights in the life of a Go-Go go, it’s tough to beat that night on tour with the Police, when Sting himself informed the opening band that their debut album had just gone to No. 1. But for bassist Kathy Valentine, tonight’s little Go-Go’s gig at Antone’s could be a contender. And not just because it gives the native Austinite — who moved back here with her husband and young daughter in 2006 after nearly 25 years in Los Angeles — a chance to check her mail.
“We had a day off between New Orleans and Dallas, and I basically begged the agent to book us in Austin, and I specifically wanted it to be at Antone’s,” she said via phone from a Chicago airport. “I decided to become a musician from my early days living in Austin and going to Antone’s, so to have gone off and found the kind of success that the Go-Go’s have had, and now to get to bring that special band to play there 28 years later is really cool for me. It’s like tying a little bow on the package.”
Coming after the Go-Go’s Saturday night performance at the Superdome in New Orleans, the Austin blues joint (it was in a different place back then) where a teenage Valentine used to catch the Fabulous Thunderbirds should feel like a homecoming for the rest of the band, too — a chance to revisit their club roots. And judging from the sizable crowd the Go-Go’s played to at Stubb’s their last time in Austin — as part of a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of 1981’s landmark “Beauty and the Beat” — squeezing all that energy indoors probably won’t allow much wiggle room.
“Wiggle Room,” for those not tuned in to daytime TV, is the name of the sassy jingle the band did last year for a Jell-O commercial. That, along with a romp through the “Parent Trap”/Haley Mills tune “Let’s Get Together” featured on the “Disneymania 5” compilation, is the only thing Valentine and her bandmates Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey and Gina Schock have recorded together since their comeback bid “God Bless the Go-Go’s” in 2001. Despite several successful tours since reuniting in the early ’90s, the women have for the most part focused on side and solo projects — the most recent being Valentine’s 2006 solo debut, “Light Years,” and Carlisle’s 2007 collection of French pop songs, “Voila” (she’s lived in Cannes since 1994).
“We did write a bunch of songs for this Disney project, where we were producing a band of young girls that we helped put together, but Disney decided to go a different direction,” Valentine said. “So we’ve talked about maybe doing something with those songs ourselves, because they sound like Go-Go’s songs. And I think if we wanted the Go-Go’s to be what our life was about right now, then we would make it happen. But we’ve all got full lives of our own, and I think we’re kind of happy with the way things are.”
For Valentine, that means playing local gigs with both her blues sisters project, the Bluebonnets, and her “solo” band, the Impossible, featuring Johnny Goudie, Rachel Loy and Tony Scalzo (Scalzo’s Fastball will open tonight’s Antone’s show). She’s also been producing an album for Austin’s Adrian and the Sickness. “I’ve always had a pull to working with women,” she said, “I’d really like to see more women enjoy the kind of success we’ve all had with the Go-Go’s, because it still seems like there’s been painfully few.”
Apart, of course, from the Bangles, whom Valentine regretted having to miss when they passed through town last week. Because the Bangles hit their stride right after the Go-Go’s’ original breakup in 1985, Valentine insists that there’s never been an element of competition between the two.
She even got a kick out of the episode of “The Office” in which the terminally unhip Michael Scott quoted a line from “Our Lips Are Sealed” and credited it to the Bangles. “I loved that,” Valentine laughed. “It just showed his cluelessness.”
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Love Austin Music Everybody
Did you know Mayor Will Wynn has declared February “Love Austin Music Month” in conjunction with the Austin Music Foundation. Go here for more info on what LAMM is all about.
One event worth attending is the Austin Music Mixer Tuesday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Randall and Donya Stockton’s Rio Rita Cafe y Cantina at 1308 E. Sixth Street. Besides the chance to schmooze and badmouth SXSW, Tim Kerr’s Old Timey Music Collective will perform at 8 p.m. The former Big Boy and mates are gonna party like it’s 1899.
BoDeans playing SXSW
The BoDeans, featuring co-founder Kurt Neumann of Dripping Springs and sideman Bukka Allen of Buda, will be promoting their new album “Still” at SXSW in March. The LP, produced in town by T-Bone Burnett, comes out March 4 on the band’s He & He label.
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Black Crowes are no longer playing SXSW
According to the band’s spokesman at MSO PR, the Black Crowes have canceled their SXSW appearance.
“There has been a change of schedule and the group will not be performing there this year,” publicist Todd Brodginski said Friday. No further information was provided.
The band’s new album “Warpaint” arrives in stores March 4. It’s the group’s first for its boutique label Silver Arrow Records, which will be distributed through Megaforce/Sony Red BMG.
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Rush at the Erwin Center.
Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Feb. 9 for Canadian prog-rock trio Rush, live at the Frank Erwin Center April 23.
Tickets are $45, $65 and $95. There is an eight ticket limit on the first day of ticket sales.
Tickets will be available at all Texas Box Office Outlets (includes H-E-B stores in Austin, Bastrop, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Kyle, Leander, Pflugerville, Round Rock, San Marcos and Temple; Ft. Hood ITR and Renaissance Records in Killeen).
One can also charge-by-phone at (512) 477-6060 or (800) 982-2386. One can also order online at TexasBoxOffice.com.
For more information, visit uterwincenter.com.
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