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Friday, October 9, 2009
Rusty Wier 1944- 2009
Hearing was Rusty Wier’s last sense to go, so although he was almost unresponsive when surrounded by relatives and friends, including Jerry Jeff Walker, at his son Coby’s house in Driftwood on Thursday night, Wier tried to raise up his head when the group sang “Amazing Grace.”
By the next morning, the Austin musician, who had a hit when Bonnie Raitt covered his “Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance” on the soundtrack to “Urban Cowboy,” was dead after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 65.
“There’s this myth about the hippies and the rednecks meeting at the Armadillo (World Headquarters) and passing joints and Lone Stars to each other,” Austin musician John Inmon said. “But the rednecks and hippies were the same people. That was Rusty. He was a redneck son of Central Texas, but he was also a hippie.”
Although Wier got his own chapter in Jan Reid’s book “The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock,” which chronicled Austin’s “cosmic cowboy” scene of the early 1970s, Wier’s contribution to Austin music goes back to the mid-1960s. As a student at Southwest Texas State, the Manchaca-raised Wier was recruited to play drums in the Wig. He later played drums and sang in the Lavender Hill Express, a country/rock cover band.
But Wier wanted to step out front.
“One day he just gave up the drums and started woodshedding on guitar,” said Inmon, who played with Wier in the trio of Rusty, Layton and John. “He locked himself in a room and practiced and practiced. He was a natural entertainer, so he could get his music across, but it took him awhile to get good.”
He established himself in the early 1970s as a folk singer with rock ‘n’ roll eyes and an ever-present, low-crowned black hat. Wier’s first three albums — Stoned, Slow, Rugged in 1974, Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance in 1975, and Black Hat Saloon in 1976 — came out on three different major labels.
But it was in the clubs that he made his money.
“Bartenders loved Rusty,” musician Bob Livingston said. “He had this thing during his show where he’d hold up a shot of tequila and everybody would go to the bar to buy their shots. Bar business was always good when Rusty played.”
Wier played the Saxon Pub every Thursday for nearly 15 years, almost never missing a gig, owner Joe Ables said.
“He played the Saxon one last time in March,” Ables said. “He was so sick I had to carry him to his wheelchair, but he was in a great mood. People had come from all over to see him. He truly got to find out that he was loved.”
A memorial service will probably take place at the Saxon, Ables said, though details are still being worked out with Wier’s family.
Wier is survived by four children from four different wives, Inmon said.
Rodolfo Gonzalez photo
- Photos: Rusty Wier through the years
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Lollapalooza 2009’s gift to Chicago parks: $1.9 million
The Parkways Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Chicago Parks District, will collect a license fee of $1.9 million from the most recent Lollapalooza in Grant Park.
Austin-based C3 Presents does not pay a rental fee to use Grant Park, said Parkways spokesperson Alison Krzys. Instead, the contract with the Chicago Parks District calls for the promoters to pay 10.25 % of gross ticket sales and 8.5% of sponsorship revenue to Parkways, which produces the annual event in conjunction with C3.
Last year, C3 paid Parkways $1.6 million. The contract to produce Lollapalooza at Grant Park runs until 2018.
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Earlybird ACL 2010 tix go on sale Tuesday
Let the Radiohead rumors begin! The $50 “souvenir” passes to ACL 2010 sold out in a jiff, but a limited number of $145 three-day passes go on sale Tuesday at 10 a.m. at www.frontgatetickets.com.
The price jumps to $165 for three-day passes in the spring and when they sell out the third and final tier will be $185. Next year’s ACL Fest will be held at Zilker Park Oct. 8- 10.
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Review: Wilco at the Cedar Park Center
Guitarist Nels Cline was the highlight of Wilco’s powerful but at times strange debut at the 8,000-seat Cedar Park Center on Thursday night. Cline was particularly dominant on material from later in the prolific band’s career, including a soaring solo on “Impossible Germany,” from the 2007 release “Sky Blue Sky,” which served as a reminder of his ability to complement Jeff Tweedy & Co., while at the same time standing out as an exceptional musician in his own right.
The guitarist also shined on “Bull Black Nova,” from this year’s “Wilco (the Album).” The band’s ability to seamlessly weave this and other new songs, including “Wilco (the Song)” and “You Never Know,” into the set served as a reminder that the most recent lineup, which has been in place for a while, has come into its own in recent years. Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt hold court as the band’s veteran members, while keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, drummer Glenn Kotche and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone operate under the radar until exploding into well-orchestrated cacophony. While they can still play the heck out of the alt-country and classic rock of the albums that preceded 2002’s game-changing “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”—a funk breakdown in the middle of “Can’t Stand It” stood out as a high point—the subtleties of songs such as “At Least That’s What You Said” from 2004’s “A Ghost Is Born,” and “Hate It Here” made the band’s live experience particularly special.
Some of the set’s odd feel came on account of the venue, which Tweedy himself noted a few times, at one point early on jokingly noting, “we’re just hanging out, playing some music in a hockey arena;” he also stated later that he preferred two nights in Austin, implying that he’d rather be at Stubb’s. If you’re planning on attending a show there in the future, be prepared to stand in the will-call line for an excessive amount of time, and be warned that some of the seats off the floor have less leg room than an airplane. Sound-wise, it was a bit muddy from the right of the stage (although people elsewhere in the room said it sounded great), and at times it was difficult to hear various parts of the mix, including when openers Liam Finn and Eliza-Jane Barnes joined the band for a just-okay “California Stars.”
Tweedy also took some of the band’s momentum away as his stage banter increased toward the end. It’s become something to expect at a Wilco show, but it doesn’t do the them any favors. Their practice of two five-song encores has become standard too, but in a more positive way, especially with an energized “Heavy Metal Drummer” and closer “Hoodoo Voodoo,” where Cline and a fired up Pat Sansone lit up the stage with their dueling guitars.
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