Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > October > 14
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
We want to hear your Backyard concert memories!
Are you going to miss the Backyard?
Do you have a favorite concert or three from the 15 years its been opened?
The Statesman wants to hear from you!
Please email your thoughts about your favorite concerts at the Backyard to jgross@statesman.com with the subject line FAVORITE BACKYARD CONCERTS.
We will compile our favorite comments and publish them on-line and in a future issue of XL.
Thanks!
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment
Crawdaddies cancelled
The Save Our Springs Alliance’s full moon party at Barton Springs Pool tonight featuring The Onion Creek Crawdaddies has been cancelled due to inclement weather. No show has been rescheduled at this time.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Music
Pumpkin Moon Party: A benefit for Jon Dee Graham
James McMurtry, Mojo Nixon and others play the Pumpkin Moon Party, this benefit for Jon Dee Graham, who was in a serious car accident in July, at Continental Club Oct. 20.
Here are some set times:
9 p.m.: Dale Watson
10 p.m.: Reckless Kelly
11 p.m.: Steve Poltz
Midnight: Mojo Nixon
1 a.m.: James McMurtry
Doors at 8:30. $20.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Review: The Cardinals Featuring Ryan Adams
Wildly prolific, alt-country whiz Ryan Adams went from starving for attention to not wanting any attention at all. Were it his decision, he’d file “Cardinology,” his new album out Oct. 28, under “Cardinals,” the handle for his four-piece backing band, instead of “Ryan Adams.” But the idea of ditching his brand name was apparently nixed by his label, leaving the marquis last night at the Paramount to read “The Cardinals Featuring Ryan Adams.”
Adams’ newfound appreciation for humility was probably a response to the bad rep he’s gotten for his verbal jarring. He walked the straight-and-narrow at the Paramount by letting the music speak for itself for most of the first set of a muscular, two-and-a-half-hour, two-set show. In between instantly intriguing “Cardinology” numbers including “Fix It,” “Magick,” and “Cobwebs,” wherein he and fellow guitarist Neal Casal harmonized “If I fall, will you catch me?,” Adams blew his nose and bit his lip through a barrage of playful catcalls and unsolicited song requests.
Eventually the urge to banter became too much. Adams ribbed Casal about Casal’s new guitar, which Adams had anointed “Sparrowmyth.”
“Only this guy could come up with that,” Casal confided to the audience.
“It’s a play on Aerosmith,” Adams countered.
A repartee about Joe Perry, coke, and barbecue sauce ensued between the two. It was so quick and witty, it was either rehearsed or Adams and Casal are two totally synced-in dudes. The second set didn’t nullify the former, but it definitely affirmed the latter.
Under a backdrop of two entrancing, blue neon roses, Adams and Casal — augmented by Chris Feinstein on bass, Jon Graboff on pedal steel, and Brad Pemberton on drums — let it ride with “Off Broadway” and “Two,” from last year’s “Easy Tiger,” and “Cold Roses” and “Easy Plateau,” from the double-disc “Cold Roses.” And then the show, tainted only by a limp cover of Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” came to a resounding end when, for the first time all night, Pemberton banged on the gong behind his drum kit.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: In The Clubs, Reviews
Review: Kal at the Cactus Cafe
The Balkans came to campus Monday night, as Belgrade’s Romani band Kal made its way to the Cactus Cafe fresh from a weekend at San Antonio’s International Accordion Fest. Tour manager and Roma activist Sani Rifati provided a long introduction, warning an obviously savvy audience not to expect the “bandanas, hoop earrings, and gold teeth” that are clichés of “gypsy” music, a label rejected by many Roma.
Instead, listeners saw a muscular hybrid band that (taking cues from the border-free world music of Manu Chao) fused traditional sounds with rock and various other influences, often playing at furious speeds but never veering toward punk or noise, as Gogol Bordello does. Adding dual accordions, a violinist and percussionist — who occasionally stood up for solo vocalizations suggesting an Eastern European human beatbox — to a four-piece rock lineup, the group never lacked for activity, but bandleader Dragan Ristic, on guitar and vocals, provided a charismatic focal point.
Ristic tossed off acerbic jokes about misperceptions his people have endured, encouraged audience participation, and even made a convincing substitute for Montenegran rapper “Rambo Amadeus” on “Komedija,” a track from the band’s self-titled debut CD. But he didn’t have to do anything to encourage dancing: Even before the show’s organizers offered extra room in front of the stage, what open floor space could be found was filled with more self-made means of bodily expression than the Cactus has probably seen in years.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: In The Clubs, Reviews
