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Friday, May 1, 2009
May is Latino Music Month!
May is Latino Music Month in Austin and the festivities kick off 7 p.m. tonight at the Gibson Guitar Showroom with the “Austin Music Mezcla” CD Release Party.
Expect live sets from Vallejo and Los Bad Apples. A $15 donation gets you entry, a CD and refreshments. Space is limited, so RSVP to AustinLatinoMusic@gmail.com.
Artists on the CD include Terremoto, Brownout, A.J. Castillo, Los Bad Apples, Alejandro Escovedo, Tortilla Factory and more. The CD should be available soon at Waterloo Records, Resistencia Bookstore & cdfuse.com.
There’s also a Cinco De Mayo Celebration 7 p.m. at Fiesta Gardens with AT Boyz, Da Crazy Pimps and Gary Hobbs, as well as gigs all over town.
That is, of course, the point of Latino Music Month. Austin is full of live Latin music every night of the week; this is a chance to highlight it. Go to the Austin Latino Music Association page for more information.
The month closes out, of course, with the Pachanga Latin Music Festival on May 30
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Review: Sugarland at Erwin Center
(Jennifer Nettles (left) and Kristian Bush of Sugarland perform Thursday at Frank Erwin Center. Photo by Thao Nguyen/AMERICAN-STATESMAN.)
Multi-instrumentalist Kristian Bush’s fedora foretold Thursday evening’s fortunes: Sugarland brought a different kind of hat act to the Frank Erwin Center. Call it thinking man’s mainstream country.
While other radio stars tap kegs for hits, the best moments on this Grammy-winning duo’s latest, “Love on the Inside” — nominated for a fistful of honors at next month’s CMT music awards — spike narrative arcs with unexpected turns. “The whole thing seems like Einstein’s dreams,” Jennifer Nettles sang, as the seven-piece band formed an intimate crescent moon for “Genevieve.” “See the smoke start to shiver. I’d do anything just to forget her.” Easily imagine credentialed folkies like the Indigo Girls, minus the spit-shined “na, na, na, na” refrains, turning that out.
“As a songwriter, you’ve gotta work three times as hard so it doesn’t come out like a (bad) country song,” Bush told us last week. “Sometimes you have to choose the writer-like reference — literary, pop culture, whatever — that not everybody’s gonna get.” Of course, shaking snake oil and roses and a fortuneteller’s son off a coffee-stained page (“We Run”) won’t jangle an arena’s rafters.
Explosive covers will. Sugarland’s spot-on reading of Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” and the ebullient encore B-52’s “Love Shack” — not to mention quick-takes on R.E.M.’s Nightswimming” and Madonna’s “Holiday” — provided easy highlights. (Let’s forgive Nettles’ hokey Kate Pierson impersonation.) Approval greeting the band’s own “Something More” nearly imploded the stage, thanks to a background video swooshing past local landmarks like Artz’s and the Horseshoe Lounge.
Shame they cut the scripted set at 90 minutes flat. It was far too short. Consider: There was no pinch-hitter for Eric Hutchinson, who dropped off the three-band bill on Wednesday. Exiting fans grumbled that Billy Currington, whose deeply soulful cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” killed, wasn’t enough. Next time, Sugarland, at least throw in that cover of “Life in a Northern Town” for good measure.
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Seeking Seeger: This fan is your fan
In a couple hours O. Henry 7th grader Richard Swafford will be off to New York City to attend Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden Sunday. A Seeger documentary by Swafford took second place in a regional youth competition and the budding filmmaker will be bringing his video camera to NY with the hopes of getting more interviews before the state contest.
Richard’s proud papa Robert, who’ll be also on the trip to NY, said his son has already interviewed Joan Baez, plus Emmylou Harris will sit for an interview Saturday. Who knows, maybe young Swafford will luck into an interview with the birthday “boy” himself.
Such Seeger fans as Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder will perform at the 90th birthday concert.
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Review: Peter Brotzmann at the Victory Grill
Epistrophy Arts, the Austin jazz and improvisational music production outfit, used to sell a t-shirt with Albert Ayler on it. The late legend of avant-garde jazz, who blended almost folky riffs with truly out there playing, was a symbol of the sort of music, spirit and energy the company wanted to bring to the River City.
But their real mascot, of you will, has been Peter Brotzmann, the German saxophonst who was one of the first post-Ayler players in Europe. Brotzmann, now 68, has played in Austin several times over Epistrophy Arts’ 11 year run. His wildly energetic style has traditionally emphasized power and abstraction, his timbre a withering honk with a muscular, signature vibrato.
This time around, Thursday night at Victory Grill, the don of European free jazz was paired with New York drummer Nasheet Waits and Texas bassist Eric Revis, the latter a frequent Branford Marsalis collaborator.
Starting on alto sax, Brotzmann opened with an aggressive flurry of notes, surging and pushing as Waits and Revis crashed into the piece.Victory Grill is an underrated room, the heavy curtain and wooden frame contain and almost massage the sound coming form the stage - the entire band lit it up. Waits’ drumming started frantic, a complex array of cymbal, snare and tom interaction; Revis was also responsive and pulsing, his runs finding purchase between the beats.
When Brotzmann would hit a more lyrical passage, it still sounded raw and umkempt, a grizzled sound that he would build up to a faster run. Waits’ drums would occasionally take a slightly martial cast, his rapid snare leading the section’s charge.
I have always been as fond of Brotzmann’s clarinet work as his sax playing. While it retains the energy of his signature instrument, the clarinet, with its Eastern European feel and association with klezmer, brings out Brotzmann’s more pastoral (and, lets’ face it, accessible) side.
His switch to clarinet kep his vibrator intact while introducing almost Middle Eastern tones. He still hit furious flurries, but these were smaller sounds al lthree player were making, tiny notes that, rushing together, almost recalled the complicated European electronic music of Autechre or Aphex Twin.
But Waits was able to find the tonal sweet spot between John Bonham thump and lighter fare, moving back and forth between brushes and mallets to find a rolling groove that emphasized the waves Brotzmann and Revis trafficked in. Revis seems like an unassuming player, which made the almost distorted energy of his bowed work a distinct surprise. It was an evening of clear, complicated communication between the old world and the new and - with Epistrophy Arts organizer Pedro Moreno taking the next year off to reorganize - a find close to E.A.’s season.
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