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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
SXSW meet the bands — Little Freddie King
Meet Little Freddie King of New Orleans. He’s part of the Ponderosa Stomp showcase at 10 p.m. March 14 at the Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress Ave.
Describe your sound for someone who has not heard your music before.
King: It ain’t rocket science; it’s the blues from the backwoods of my Delta birthplace and the common law marriage of my ass to the urban, street sounds of New Orleans black community. “Messin’ Around Tha House” (2008 release) is just me drinking and thinking about all the bad women in my life.
Name five albums you could not live without.
Being poor and a sharecropper’s son, I didn’t buy albums. I had a few 45 rpms of Muddy and “The Wolf” — I listened a little to the radio and liked Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Reed. I can live without albums, but not my guitar.
Name five acts you want to see at SXSW.
I don’t even know who’s playing. They’re probably young enough to be my grandchildren. I was playing my guitar before most of them were born.
What’s the story behind your name?
My name came from Big Freddy (King). I knew him back when he used to come over to New Orleans. I played bass guitar on a couple of gigs when I was a youngster and knew all his songs. When Big Freddy left town and I would play the juke joints the people would call me Little Freddie King. I just call the band Little Freddie King band.
What is the one thing you want everyone to know about your band?
Very dependable and keep me in the groove with my jump timing.
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Fire marshal to party planners: You need a permit. You have always needed a permit
Assistant Fire Marshal Don Smith, on behalf of the members of the Public Assembly Code Enforcement (PACE) task force, would like to make something as clear as possible:
If you are having a party during SXSW at place that does not feature live music the other 51 weeks a year, you need a permit.
Not sure if you need a permit? Look here for a list of permit-related questions.
“I think that was some of the confusion last year,” Smith said Wednesday. “There has always been a fire code a requirement for a permit for a temporary change of use.”
For example, if you are changing from a store or warehouse to public assembly (i.e., a party/day show/ night show/ etc.), you need a temporary change of use permit.
Smith has said the department has received about 50 requests for permits.
“It’s the process by which the city of Austin can look at your facility and say, for example, ‘You can have a capacity of 200 people if you move this set of display racks’ or ‘We can’t allow people to use a second floor if there’s just one exit.’”
Investigations during SXSW are complaint-driven. Complaints can range from a neighbor calling about noise or car blocking a driveway.
“The main two objectives are to keep the people safe and maintain the quality of life,” Smith said.
A PACE team will be out during the festival as well as a complement of fire inspectors.
Smith said that complaints came from both the neighborhoods and SXSW. “South By Southwest were complying with the requirements and other people were not,” Smith said.
Lists of day parties are easy to find on the Web including at Austin360.
The bottom line is this: If you are holding a day or night party during SXSW, there is no reason to think that you won’t get a visit from PACE or fire marshals. Make sure your permits are in order and that you know what they mean.
If you have any questions, Smith says to email pace@ci.austin.tx.us, where one of 63 city experts on the various codes and laws will give you an answer
In the immortal words of Public Enemy on the opening of “It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” “consider yourself….WARNED!”
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More free SXSW shows
John Conquest and 3rd Coast Music takes over Opal Divine’s Penn Field March 13-15. All shows are free and open to the public.
THURSDAY MARCH 13 11 a.m. Chip Taylor noon Sally Spring 1 p.m. Jo Carol Pierce 2 p.m. Jitterbug Vipers 3 p.m. Jenny Reynolds 4 p.m. Freddie Steady 5 w/Jenny Wolfe 5 p.m. Michael Weston King 6 p.m. Leslie Anne & Her Juke Jointers 7 p.m. James Hand 8 p.m. Mary Cutrufello & the Havoline Supremes 9 p.m. Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles
FRIDAY MARCH 14 11 a.m. Rod Picott 11:35 a.m. Mary Battiata 12:10 p.m. Ronny Elliott 12:45 p.m. Troy Campbell 1:20 p.m. Michael Weston King 2 p.m. Gurf Morlix & Sam Baker 3 p.m. Dave Insley & the Careless Smokers 4 p.m. The Rizdales 5 p.m. The Swindles 6 p.m. Larry Lange & His Lonely Knights 7 p.m. Rick Broussard’s Two Hoots & A Holler 8 p.m. Sally Spring 9 p.m. Bill Kirchen & friends
SATURDAY MARCH 15 11 a.m. Ed Pettersen 11:30 p.m. Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus noon Chip Dolan 12:30 p.m. Will T. Massey 1 p.m. Band of Heathens 2 p.m. Erin Harpe 3 p.m. Jim Stringer & the AM Band w/Ruby Jane 4 p.m. David Serby 5 p.m. Jaimi Shuey 6 p.m. Demolition String Band 7 p.m. Dave Insley & the Careless Smokers 8 p.m. Jesse Dayton & Brennen Leigh 9 p.m. Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles
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Catching up with Willie before the rodeo
In an impromptu interview with Willie Nelson before his Texas Star and Rodeo show Tuesday, we learned ….
WILLIE AND WYNTON: Nelson used some time before the show on Tuesday to show some guests on the bus a rough cut of the forthcoming DVD (and album) project featuring himself and Wynton Marsalis live at Lincoln Center. The duo, accompanied by Family Band member Mickey Raphael on harmonica, along with Marsalis’ quintet, recorded four performances at Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Allen Room on Jan. 12 and 13. The album/DVD project is scheduled for a fall release. Watching the video, Nelson sang along softly to “Basin St. Blues” and “Bright Lights, Big City” as the performances played onscreen.
Here’s a link to Sony Legacy, which is planning a huge Willie box set for release on April 1, the kick-off to a year-long celebration by the label.
A PEACEFUL SOLUTION: Nelson has a new Web site dedicated to the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute, an entity dating back to at least April 2007 (see site for archives). The site seems to be a clearinghouse and forum for political and ecological activists — as well as for Willie himself of course. Their mission statement describes WNPRI as believing “in the promise of Peace on Earth in our lifetime as the birthright of our global human family.”
Nelson has written a song, “Peaceful Solution,” which is posted on the site, along with an invitation for anyone to download and/or record their own version of the tune — even rewrite it as they see fit. So far, he noted on the bus, upwards of 150 people have either recorded the song or filmed videos, including his 6-year-old great-grandson Zack, who sang the song as a school project. Zack joined Willie and the band onstage at the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo Tuesday night to sing along on the tune, the closing number of the set.
Nelson said he and his daughter Amy wrote the song at 3 in the morning on board Nelson’s bus on the way to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (and when was the last time you heard a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame say, “…and we were on our way to Coachella”?!).
END OF AN ERA, GUITAR-STRAP WISE: For the first time in my experience (except for when Trigger was in hiding after the IRS seizures of Willie’s property), Nelson wasn’t wearing his famous woven red-white-and-blue guitar strap on stage. The distinctive item — for decades as much a part of his persona as his bandana or long hair — looped around his neck, rather than over the shoulder as most straps do.
But Tuesday night, he was playing Trigger with a plain leather strap. Poodie Locke, Nelson’s longtime stage manager, said the woven strap had begun hurting his neck. “We had to buy him the softest (new) strap we could find,” Locke said.
(Photo by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Review: Willie Nelson at the Texas Fair and Rodeo
Rodeos agree with Willie Nelson.
There is something about the quality of his crisp, twangy, slightly mournful voice that goes hand-in-hand with the smells of the chutes and the working stock, the roughhewn textures of the rigging and the saddles and the dust of the arena that hangs in the air after the last bull has thrown the last cowboy.
Acoustically, the Travis County Expo Center, where Nelson performed at the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo on Tuesday, is, let’s say, a light year or two from Lincoln Center. (On his bus, prior to the show, Nelson proudly screened a forthcoming DVD of he and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis performing at that very venue).
And, as with most rodeo concerts, the musical part of the program was truncated, just an hour long — barely more than a soundcheck by the marathon standards Nelson sets onstage.
But for an audience replete with barbecue, beer and bareback bronc riding, a Willie Nelson concert full of sad songs, waltzes and honky-tonk standards was the perfect nightcap to the festivities.
Nelson seems to have recovered completely from the carpal tunnel surgery he underwent a couple of years ago (he’s opening shows with the demanding “Whiskey River” again, rather than easing into his set) and his playing has regained seemingly all of its fluidity and power.
During the medley of “Funny How Time Slips Away/Crazy/Night Life,” which he has been playing since just after the Red Sea parted, he found new ways into the venerable music by alternately hammering the strings and coaxing out silvery filigrees of melody. As much as his set seems carved in stone, Nelson still finds a way to eke out something fresh and unexpected in every performance, even at a rodeo gig that lesser performers might have phoned in.
Along with the mandatory hits — “Good-Hearted Woman,” “Me and Paul,” “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In the Rain” (which segued neatly into Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”) — Nelson also essayed some more recent material, including the tongue-in-cheek “Superman” and “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore” and his meltingly lovely cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Moment of Forever.”
The evening ended with Nelson joined onstage by his 6-year-old great-grandson Zack Thomas, who joined the him in singing “Peaceful Solution,” a new Nelsonian plea for personal and political renewal and reconciliation.
(Photo by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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