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Friday, July 18, 2008
Enchanted Forest to close?
Most famously known for epic Halloween events, the Enchanted Forest looks to be boarding up. When not used during the Halloween season, the ramshackle area has played host to an array of events, from SXSW parties to Art Outside events and KOOP benefits. The rather modest appointments of the place have always seemed a bit out of place in developing Austin. A snapshot of the surroundings reveals a place that looks more at home in the South Austin of the 1960s than modern day.
According to an e-mail from the owner and information on the Web site, the Forest has been the target of a complaint by a few people who contacted the City of Austin’s Public Assembly Code Enforcement task force. The Forest apparently doesn’t have to shut down completely, but it cannot hold events with more than 49 people, due to lack of permits.
Here is the note from the owner Albert that we received in an e-mail:
well my friends, the powers to be have voiced themselves and have come to the determination that the forest is to be banned to you. there is a complaint driven group in the city called p.a.c.e. that i have been told a hand full, that is 4 to 5 people, have made it a regular practice to call and complain every time the forest gates are open. it is these few people that have bent the ear of the city to close the forest due to a few obscure code issues that the messenger from the city did not know what it meant. i will be finding out the details and fighting the closing of the forest but will need your help. as of today though, i have been banned to have more than 49 people at any one time on my commercially zoned property. if you know who and how to contact the right people in the city to let them know you would like to see the forest reopen please, please, let me know. thank you everyone for your continued support through the years that has made the forest one of the most unique attractions in austin,in texas, in the u.s. in the world. long live the right for free expression!! albert,steward of the forest
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Heartless Bastards recording in Austin
The great Cincinnati band Heartless Bastards are holed up in the studio with ace producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin) for the next Fat Possum LP. Look for lotsa new material when songwriter Erika Wennerstrom and company play the Continental Club August 14 and 21. The band also plays the ACL Fest in September and why not: they’re handled by C3’s Fourth Floor Management division.
You may have seen Wennerstrom- a dead ringer for actress Chloe Sevigny - around town. She moved to Austin last year and is reportedly looking for a new backing band for live gigs.
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Review: Eve and the Exiles at the Continental Club
Eve and the Exiles occupy a gap between the Temptations and Sha Na Na on the stage-presence spectrum. For their CD-release show Thursday at the Continental Club, everyone in the five-piece, save for drummer Mike Buck, began the set with their backs to the crowd. One by one they turned around and eased into a blues-rock instrumental with Dick Dale accents. Guitarist Homer Henderson and maracas player Donna Pearl took turns repeating the name of the band until the song was over and Eve Monsees, her hair jet black and her guitar snow white, was primed to get it on with the new ones from “Blow Your Mind,” a smokin’ album of three-minute ditties about love lost and found.
Songs like “Key to My Door” and “Honey I Need” were derived from ’50s-style rock in the vein of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, but had traces of the blitzkrieg bop born of the Ramones, whom Monsees and fellow guitar-slinger Gary Clark Jr., her running buddy since third grade, listened to when they weren’t poring over the blues masters. Nowadays, Henderson is Monsees’ Clark. It’s an odd pairing, what with Henderson old enough to be the 25-year-old’s father, but as the Stones have shown, rock knows no age limits. Indeed, Henderson scored big complementing Monsees on guitar, and he gave a macho rendition of his lone song, “Night of the Phantom.”
The crowd, small in number and deafeningly silent, was probably nothing like the crowd at the blues festival in Finland the band just played (Monsees was skeptical of the invitation, figuring the message on her machine was for a festival in Midland, not Finland). But that changed when the band went into attack formation, wherein their synchronized walk-like-an-Egyptian maneuvers elicited hoots and hollers. Clifford Antone sure knew what was up when he invited Monsees onto the Antone’s stage for the first time when she was 15.
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Review: Tilly & the Wall at Emo’s
Tilly & the Wall shows are like being invited to a children’s birthday party; there are balloons, streamers, and lots of songs with clapping. The Omaha, Neb., fivesome’s exuberant stage show Thursday at Emo’s was missing only the cake.
Tilly’s tendency to fall into semi-saccharine nostalgia — a lot of the set featured the-kids-are-all-right anthems like “Let Us Be Free” — was saved from hokiness by impressive musicianship. Singers Kianna Alarid and Neely Jo Jenkins bring big, brassy voices to bolster the band’s child-like ballads. The combination of Nick White on synthesizer and Derek Pressnall’s acoustic guitar make for interesting dissonance. And I know how indier-than-thou it sounds, but Jamie Pressnall, whose tap-dancing provides a lot of the band’s percussion, is seriously impressive.
Amid the flower garlands wrapped around microphones, glow-in-the-dark mini-dresses and sometimes-choreography, it can be hard to remember how much range this band has. They can do perfect pop, like the dance-party single “Beat Control” whose sing-song vocals and straightforward back-beat whiffed of the Jackson 5. They can do lively laments with layers of synth and flamenco taps, like “Rainbows in the Dark.” In “Pot Kettle Black” their sound was more urgent, much harsher than their usual happy-go-lucky choruses.
More than anything, Tilly’s energy and enthusiasm are infectious. True, cheesy folk ballads like “Tall Grass’s” attempts at haunting loss felt affected, and some of the pleasant-pop got monotonous. But at the end of the day, a grinning Jamie Pressnall tap-danced for an hour straight, and her bandmates projected an ABBA-like joy without making anyone listen to “Dancing Queen.” The finale, a huge sing-a-long to “Nights of the Living Dead,” got the crowd screaming promises to “bring that (expletive) noise.” They’d do anything for this charismatic fivesome.
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The James Brown Collection at Christie’s
I am very seriously considering dropping the money for a catalog of this set.
