Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > September > 20
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Friday night funk: The Big Fat Reds and Living Colour
Friday evening, funk and rock hybrid music permeated Austin both east and west of Congress Avenue during inspired performances by Austin’s the Big Fat Reds and New York City’s Living Colour.
Funk music (yeah, I said the four letter word): the feral, slinky, sexual sounds that make one of your eyes squint while your upper lip curls, rising up at a diagonal when the sounds seep into your ears.
A promising new local act named the Big Fat Reds pricked up ears at Momo’s during a well-attended early evening gig that had audience members moving their extremities (and their collective gluteus maximus). For nearly an hour, frontman Motolove (a.k.a. Eric Scott) belted out power-to-the-people anthems that would have made Public Enemy’s Chuck D feel like a proud progenitor.
With an inspired rhythm section, creative guitar work and a charismatic frontman who can spit miles of verse without a blink, look for the Big Fat Reds to coalesce into a mighty, mighty, fight-the-power, force to be reckoned with in Austin’s highly competitive music scene.
After the Big Fat Reds show, I navigated past the pre-UT vs. Texas Tech crowds, through the Red River District’s grit and grime, right into Emo’s to have my ears and face blasted off by the jackhammer funk-rock sounds of 1990s rock stars Living Colour.
Living Colour - vocalist Corey Glover, guitarist Vernon Reid, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish - virtually obliterated the Emo’s main stage with their genre-busting hybrid music, infused with deviations into almost every musical genre associated with the African Diaspora. The band’s Emo’s show was their first return to Austin in more than 15 years since their heyday when they played the Union Ballroom and Liberty Lunch.
When the band raced through the dizzying speed metal of their sophomore album’s title track “Time’s Up,” you were reminded that, much like with Metallica’s music, there are only a handful of musicians in the world who have the dexterity and endurance to play songs at that speed, back-to-back, for two hours straight.
A cursory listen might have you believe Reid and crew were jazz giants slumming in rock ‘n’ roll, but that would belittle the fact that after 20 years, Living Colour are absolutely dedicated to their genre, as evidenced by the killer tracks they played from the adventurous new album “The Chair In The Doorway,” which showed growth while remaining in line with their oeuvre. (And the band has always paid homage to its lineage: The show’s lone cover was Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic.”)
Glover and Reid wisely dosed the audience with more than an hour of hits before they ventured into tracks from “The Chair In The Doorway,” with “DecaDance” standing out as a highlight. They played nearly all their radio hits from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s including “Love Rears Its Ugly Head,” “Type,” “Middle Man” and their monstrous signature track (recently re-recorded for Guitar Hero III), “Cult of Personality.”
“This song is dedicated to Joe Wilson,” Vernon Reid said before launching into a venomous version of “Funny Vibe,” closing out a blistering three song encore.
Living Colour are back, and they’re as raw, hungry (and funky) as they ever were.
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Rock around the clock to benefit HAAM
The fourth annual HAAM Benefit Day, which last year collected $150,000 for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, will be a 20-hour affair Tuesday . The live music starts with Wimberley new addition Kevin Welch at 6 a.m. at presenting sponsor Whole Foods Market on North Lamar and goes until 2 a.m. at participating nightclubs.
Businesses will donate 5 percent of their sales on Tuesday to HAAM.
Highlights include Terri Hendrix at Whole Foods (9 a.m., free), the Dennis Ludiker Trio at Time Warner Cable’s North MoPac office (11:30 a.m., free), Uncle Lucius at GSD&M Idea City (4:30 p.m., free), Suzanna Choffel at Phil’s Icehouse (5 p.m., free), Toni Price at the Continental Club (6:30 p.m., $7), Band of Heathens at Whole Foods (6:45 p.m., free) and Pinetop Perkins at Antone’s (7 p.m., $8 )
The complete HAAM Benefit Day music schedule (some bands, such as Uncle Lucius, who also will hit the Saxon Pub at 10 p.m., are playing more than once) and list of participating businesses is available at healthallianceforaustinmusicians.org.
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Live’s Kowalczyk jams with WideAwake
The audience at La Zona Rosa got a thrill Friday night when singer Ed Kowalczyk jumped onstage with WideAwake to sing “Lightning Crashes,” a big hit he had with Live. Kowalczyk is in town recording his debut solo album with producer C.J. Eiriksson. Some of the members of WideAwake, plus the amazing local drummer Ramy Antoun, have been playing on the sessions.
More studio notes: Willie Nelson has been up in Nashville working on an album of country standards with producer T-Bone Burnett … Austin’s Razor’s Edge recording studio picked up a couple of nods last week. Joel Guzman & Sarah Fox’s “Conjuntazzo,” recorded there, was nominated for a Latin Grammy award for Best Tejano Album. Another R.E. recording, “Buried Cold,” by Rose Jericho has been picked to be in an upcoming Rock Band video game.
