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Thursday, October 8, 2009
An array of Fun Fun Fun aftershows
Here’s what Transmission has going on before and after the Fun Fun Fun Fest:
Free shows kick off the festival on Friday, Nov. 6:
The simultaneous kickoff shows at Mohawk and Club DeVille are all local bands, including Indian Indian Jewels, Black Before Red, International Waters, TV Torso, Beautiful Supermachines, Distant Seconds, Air Traffic Controllers, the Authors, Watch out for Rockets, Silent Land Time Machine, Low Lows, Manikin, Minor Mishap Marching Band and more.
Over at the Beauty Bar, Yeasayer is doing a DJ set w/ Leaning Secrets, Best Fwends and Totally Michael.
At Beerland, check out Broken Gold, December Boys, Failures Union and Cheap Girls.
(Expletive) Up is doing a DJ set in the Red 7 rec room while Fu Manchu, ASG and It’s Casual play the only Transmission show that night with a cover.
On Nov. 7 (these shows have covers):
Jazzus Lizard and the Coathangers play Mohawk inside, while Voxtrot, Octopus Project and Twin Tigers play outside.
John Reis (Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Night Marchers) plays a DJ set inside at Red 7 while Negative Approach, Christ On Parade and Trash Talk plays otuside.
Club DeVille hosts the Soul Clap Dance Party DJ set from New York DJ Jonathan Toubin and Ian Svenonius (ex-NOU, -Make Up, etc.) with a live set by Brownout!
The Beauty Bar hosts a DJ set from Cool Kids.
Jack Oblivian, John Paul Keith and the 145s, Lovvers and the Flesh Lights play Beerland.
Over at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, M.C. Chris hosts a screening of “Gremlins”
On Nov. 8:
And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead play with Dark Meat and An Albatross outdoors at Mohawk. Free Moral Agents, which features members of Mars Volta, plays inside.
Toys That Kill and Forgetters (ex-Jawbreaker, Jets To Brazil and Against Me!) play Red 7. Ex-Sepultura drummer Igor Cavalera spins under the name Mixhell insdie.
Black Tusk, Evil Claw, Easy Action and a special guest all play Beerland.
Over at the Alamo Ritz, Mission of Burma host a screening of “Not a Photograph: The Mission of Burma story” and Youth Brigade host a screening of “Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records.”
OK, then.
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C3 pays city $12,000, plus $1 per ticket to rent Zilker for ACL
As the Austin City Limits Music Festival grew from a fledgling two-day event in 2002 into one of the biggest music festivals in the country, the fees the city has charged organizers for use of Zilker Park have not changed.
This year, organizer C3 Presents paid the City of Austin $12,000, plus $1 per ticket sold, to rent Zilker Park on Oct. 1-4, according to the company’s contract with the city. Those rates have remained constant, even as ticket prices have increased substantially.
The Austin-based company has donated $1.4 million over the past three years to the Austin Parks Foundation and will pay another $2.5 million to reimburse the city for new sod and irrigation systems at Zilker. And the ACL Festival pumps at least $27 million into Austin’s economy, according to the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“They give us everything we need and require, and on top of that, they give so much to the Parks Foundation,” said Jason Maurer, events manager at the parks department. “You have to look at the benefits holistically.”
City Council Member Sheryl Cole said the city should probably take a fresh look at its special event fees for parks but consider them in the context of other benefits offered by groups like C3.
“We need to consider that they bring other things to the entire city, including the donations they’ve made to the Parks Foundation, Zilker Park and the benefits to our economy,” Cole said.
This year, C3 paid the City of Austin $20,000 to rent Zilker Park for 19 days before, during and after the festival, including time to set up and dismantle equipment. It also paid a $2,000 damage deposit, $1,000 to cover all utility costs, $1,500 to use Republic Square as a shuttle site and $2,500 apiece to the Zilker Zephyr train and the Barton Springs Pool concession stand for business lost during the festival.
C3 paid for all road closure fees during ACL and all police, fire and emergency services expenses, costs that many other event organizers ask the city to waive, Maurer said.
“C3 is committed to the communities where we work, and we are proud of the contributions we have made,” C3 spokeswoman Shelby Meade said.
By comparison, C3 appears to pay more to put on Lollapalooza, a slightly larger three-day music festival in Chicago. However, a precise tally of ACL expenses is not available because C3 donates an undisclosed percentage of ticket sales to a nonprofit that works to improve city parks.
Chicago’s parks department does not charge C3 to rent Grant Park for Lollapalooza, which draws 75,000 people per day for three days in August.
However, C3 pays 10.25 percent of gross revenue and 8.5 percent of sponsorship revenue to the Parkways Foundation, the Chicago parks department’s fundraising arm. The total payout for 2009 will be $1.9 million. This year, the price was $205 for a three-day pass.
In Austin, C3 has paid the Austin Parks Foundation a percentage of ticket sales since 2006. Neither C3 nor the foundation would disclose the percentage, which is written into a private contract.
But foundation Executive Director Charlie McCabe said the money, over the past three years, has paid for $1 million in improvements to 50 city parks. It also has covered $400,000 to add water lines and improve a lake water intake system at Zilker in 2007 and 2008. And it will reimburse the city $500,000 a year over the next five years for a new sprinkler system and sod the city installed at Zilker in April.
The money from C3 “has allowed us to expand our mission and fund a lot of projects that we wouldn’t have been able to do through our normal fundraising activities,” McCabe said.
Meade, the C3 spokeswoman, said C3 estimates that, once it makes its payment to the Parks Foundation for 2009, it will have donated $2.6 million total since 2006.
The company pays the city $1 per ticket sold, counting $185 three-day passes as one ticket. Last year, the total was $66,923. The amount hasn’t been calculated for this year and won’t come due for a few weeks. The daily festival capacity is 65,000 paid entrants.
ACL’s ticket prices have risen from $25 a day in 2002 to $85 a day this year. The $1-per-ticket fee is the same rate charged to any other event that draws more than 1,000 people, closes off a city park and charges admission, Maurer said.
C3 also reimburses the city for any staff time that parks and Austin Energy workers spend on the event. Last year, that total was $29,921, including pay for four Austin Energy workers to be on site at all times, Maurer said.
The contract also requires C3 to pay for any damage to Zilker. The sod installed in April became a muddy mess after last weekend’s rains, and C3 crews began hosing it off this week in the hopes that healthy grass is alive beneath it. The parks department has no estimate of how much any sod repairs might cost.
C3 has already agreed to rent out more time at Zilker — through Oct. 16 — to dismantle equipment and work to restore the grass. The parks department will seek payment for any days the park might have to be closed beyond that, Maurer said.
Roughly 100 groups rent Austin park space for events each year. Parks staffers don’t haggle over the fees to rent park space because those fees are set by the City Council, Maurer said.
“We, as staff, cannot just change them on an ad hoc, discretionary basis, depending on the event,” Maurer said.
That means the organizers of a 2006 Rolling Stones concert paid the same rates, though the band kicked in an extra $300,000 for parks improvements.
The city charges slightly different rental rates for other parks. For example, it charges $5,000 a day to rent Auditorium Shores, $2,500 a day to rent Fiesta Gardens and $3,500 a day to rent Waterloo Park, regardless of whether the event is free to the public. The rates are the same for nonprofit and for-profit groups because the wear and tear on the park space is the same regardless of the organizers’ financial status, Maurer said.
There is no specific fee for Zilker, however. It defaults to a more generic $3,000-a-day rental fee for special events that was set before the ACL Festival began, Maurer said. Back then, there were only three big events held at Zilker — the Trail of Lights, the Blues on the Green concert series and the kite festival. The trail pays no fees because it is a city-run event, Maurer said. Blues on the Green organizer KGSR does not pay fees because it produces free concerts at no cost to the city and provides its own equipment, security and cleanup crews, Maurer said. And the kite festival does not pay city fees because the organizer, the nonprofit Exchange Club, provides a free, family-oriented event, Maurer said.
Contract to rent Zilker Park for ACL Fest
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Buy some Bob Schneider art
For years, rocker Bob Schneider has been working with the master printers at Austin’s Flatbed Press — Katherine Brimberry and Tracy Mayrello — to create limited-edition fine art etchings.
Schneider takes a prepared copper plate to his home, to the recording studio and even on tour and inscribes his imagery on it with a steel needle. He brings the plate back to Flatbed where it is etched and proofed. Each impression is signed and numbered by Schneider.
Schneider’s entire inventory of etchings is available at Flatbed Press. See what’s available here.
Image:
Bob Schneider
‘Today You Are Alive, Tomorrow You Are Dead’
2008
Etching with chine colle
52” x 38 3/8”
$1,500
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Weekend picks: Electronic buzz, noirish punk and ultraloud shoegaze
Pictured: A Place to Bury Strangers at SXSW 2008. Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
FRIDAY
Dan Deacon at Emo’s. An electronic musician whose buzz keeps building, Deacon blends a surprisingly sophisticated ear for complicated composition with an often surreal sense of the dance floor. With the excellently named Nuclear Power Pants. 9 p.m. $12.
Also recommended:
- Muhamadali at Trailer Space (7 p.m.)
- Black Lips at the Mohawk
- Golden Boys at the Mohawk
- Ignitor at Red 7
- Ringo Deathstarr at the Ghost Room
- Chant at Elysium
- the Sounds at La Zona Rosa
- Whitman at the Parish
- Amplified Heat at the Hole in the Wall
- T-Bird and the Breaks at the Continental Club
- Rhett Miller Band at Antones
SATURDAY
Murder City Devils at the Mohawk. A thrilling, dynamic and sometimes kind of scary live act, the Murder City Devils blended the organ-thrum of vintage garage rock with ’80s bellowers such as Poison Idea and Negative Approach, the mannered, somewhat arch and yet incredibly physical punk rock of ’90s progenitors the Nation of Ulysses, and a rainy, noirish vibe. No wonder their fans are very, very devout. Should be a spectacular show. $20 advance, $22 door. 9 p.m.
Also recommended:
- Mayer Hawthorne’s Lonely Hearts Club Tour at Red 7
- Wavves at Emo’s
- Coma in Algiers at the Scoot Inn
- Fatback Circus at Flamingo Cantina
SUNDAY
A Place to Bury Strangers at the Mohawk. A New York trio determined to revive the ultra-loud, ultra-swirly guitar rock called ‘shoegaze,’ the Strangers’ new album ‘Exploding Head’ is pedal-stomping, in-the-red bliss-out when it’s not putting you through a wall. With Darker My Love and All the Saints. $10 advance, $12 door. 8 p.m.
Also recommended:
- Ghostface Killah at Emo’s
- Head Panic at Red 7
- Twang Dang Doodle at Cedar Street Courtyard, Antone’s and Threadgill’s
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Interview: Mayer Hawthorne
Doug Coombe
Mayer Hawthorne’s “A Strange Arrangement” is one of the most unlikely albums of the year. Hawthorne, a 29-year-old white guy (birth name: Andrew Mayer Cohen) from Ann Arbor, Michigan, decided to goof around in the studio and record a couple of songs in the style of the vintage late ’60s/early ’70s soul he was raised on. A presence in the midwest hiphop underground, he did pretty much everything: wrote the music and lyrics, sang, played all the instruments. Encouraged by Stone’s Throw label head Peanut Butter Wolf, who signed him on the basis of that pair of songs, Hawthorne recorded an entire album in a similar vein. The result is an addictively listenable record that sounds at once retro and timeless. For instance: Hawthorne’s “I Wish It Would Rain” has nothing to do with the 1968 Temptations song of the same title. But it sounds as if it could have been recorded the same year, not four decades later.
Mayer answered some questions via e-mail from Orlando, Florida, where he was performing Wednesday night.
Austin American-Statesman: So, perhaps in ignorance, I don’t think of Ann Arbor as a big hiphop or R&B scene. Can you tell me a little about your background?
Mayer Hawthorne: Ann Arbor is a big everything scene. It’s a great place to grow up - very diverse and very free and forward thinking. It’s only about 25 miles west of Detroit so the music scene is pretty much the same. I used to DJ in Detroit every week, and groups from the D would come to Ann Arbor to perform all the time. I’ve been playing in bands since I was in high school. Rock bands, funk bands, hip-hop…whatever. My dad taught me to play bass guitar when I was 6 years old and I used to sit in with his band sometimes. I took a few lessons, but I picked up drums and piano mostly on my own. I got really into hip-hop around ‘94. I saved up and bought a pair of 1200s and a Gemini mixer and taught myself how to DJ. For the past 10+ years I’ve been DJing and producing hip-hop.
How did you get into all this ’60s and ’70s soul and R&B that you draw on for this record?
Some of it came from my parents. They introduced me to a lot of oldies and Motown. And some of it came from digging for the original samples to my favorite hip-hop tracks.
I hear bits and pieces of different songs, styles and singers on your album, but “The Ills” is the only one where it’s clear to me — though correct me if I’m wrong — what your model is: The arrangement, the vocals and the lyrics all seem like a tribute to (and update of) Curtis Mayfield’s 1970 remake of “Move On Up.” Do I have that right?
Curtis Mayfield is obviously a huge influence, but there are a million similar songs from that era. “The Ills” was the last song I wrote for the album. I had a lot of songs about love and heartbreak, and I felt like I needed something positive and uplifting to balance out the album. The danceable tempo, heavy percussion and triumphant horns give it that feel.
What is your working method? Do you sit around with these old records and think, ‘Hey. I’m gonna take a piece from this Delfonics song and a piece from this Al Green track and a piece from this Stylistics song”? Or are you so deep into this stuff that you barely even think about your influences?
It’s definitely more of a subconscious thing. I’ve been collecting records since I was a little kid - all genres too, not just soul music. I listen to just as much rock, jazz and hip-hop as I do soul. I think that clearly comes out in my music. I’m a modern artist living in 2010 and I’m not out to create “throwback” or “retro” (stuff). I just focus on good songwriting and having fun, not how to sound like Al Green.
Did you actually set out to make an album of this music? Or was it just a goof that turned into something bigger?
I never planned on writing or recording a full album. It was just something I was doing for fun, internally. I’m a serious student of music though, and a perfectionist in the studio. I take the music very seriously with anything I record, but I don’t take myself so seriously as a person that I can’t have fun with it. I think it’s the fun factor that’s been drawing a lot of people to the project.
In this past Sunday’s New York Times, Ghosface talks about how much he likes your music, and he said, “You would think he was a black guy, to have the soul that he’s bringing to the table like that, but to find out no, it’s even more incredible.” Isn’t it a little late in the game to express incredulity that white people can play “black music” convincingly?
Blah, blah - who cares anymore? Good music is good music, whether your skin is black, white or neon purple.
Ghostface said you want to work with him. What do you have in mind?
I wanted him to rap over one of my tracks, but then he was like, “Why don’t we just do a whole album?” Ghost is a legend and a true innovator. I don’t know exactly what we’re gonna do, but It’s exciting and totally surreal to have the chance to work with him.
Last question: Whose “I Wish It Would Rain” is better — yours, or the Temptations’?
The Temps is a classic but I like mine better because it’s new.
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