Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > November > 09
Monday, November 9, 2009
File under: Danzig, ashes, extreme fandom gone awry
This communique and photo from Transmission Entertainment honcho Graham Williams, fresh from this weekend’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, gets today’s Needs No Setup or Intro award. Take it away, sir:
Hello my friends…. This was too unreal and kinda hilarious to keep on my computer as wallpaper, so here is the photographic evidence, but last night at the end of Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, some girl definitely DID run up to the stage and pour her dead friend’s ashes on the spot where Glen Danzig was standing on stage, as “this was her last dying wish.” No disrespect to any of the awesome bands that played my festival, but I didn’t see anyone do that when Kevin Barnes left the Of Montreal stage. I’m just saying…some people have a special kind of fan. I think I DID see a dreadlock fly by GZA during “Liquid Swords,” but I digress….
Weirder still is that it’s probably an even money bet that this type of thing has happened to Danzig more than once before. Incredible. I don’t know whether I’d high-five the guy if I saw him on the street or make like a Looney Tunes character and bust through a brick wall going the other way.
No matter, the above happened and that’s about 29 kinds of awesome. Though if anyone’s keeping track I’m officially putting Chuck D, Eddie Vedder and John Turturo (during a staged reading of “The Big Lebowski”) as the top three on my Ash Bucket List.
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Metal fans say ‘Aye!’ to alter ego
Jesse Dayton has plenty of stories about the weird things that happen to a musician who finds late-career success under the wing of hard rocker Rob Zombie, a good bit of which couldn’t get published in a daily newspaper.
But the 40-year-old - known for years in Central Texas for country and honky-tonk consistency but is now popular worldwide as his psychobilly alter ego Captain Clegg - shares a recent encounter with his teenage son’s principal as one of the more surreal.
“I was over at Hill Country Middle School to pick up my son and his principal was out there,” Dayton said by phone recently from Denver while on tour with Zombie. “He came up to me to say, ‘Hey, congratulations on the stuff you’re doing with Rob Zombie. That’s really great.’ If you’d have told me years ago that my kid’s principal would be congratulating me on doing something with a guy like Rob Zombie, there’s no way I’d have believed you.”
It’s been that kind of year for Dayton, who returns to Austin tonight when Zombie’s tour visits the Austin Music Hall. Old fans who come to the show will see something far different from Dayton’s straight-up country gigs every Thursday at the Broken Spoke on South Lamar Boulevard.
What they’ll get is a horror movie costumed, quasi-evangelical rocker drawing from the Cramps, Johnny Cash, Otis Redding and whatever muse Dayton and his band mates (doing business as the Night Creatures) feel like working into the mix.
It’s a whimsical but successful career turn that started when a mutual friend approached Dayton to let him know Zombie was looking to create a fictional band to make music for his slasher film “The Devil’s Rejects.” Dayton got the gig and wowed Zombie, who approached him with the Captain Clegg idea as a musical component of this year’s “H2” movie, a part of the “Halloween” horror franchise.
Both turns yielded the highest sales of Dayton’s career (especially for the Captain Clegg full length that was released with the “H2” movie) and have led to more movie work. He’s just about secured a part in a high-profile film he can’t say much about (“the ink isn’t on the paper yet, but it’s happening”) and he has funding to film “Zombex,” a Russ Meyer-style B-grade zombie horror movie that’s going to shoot in New Orleans in February using a host of Austin filmmakers and actors.
To say he’s over the moon with the direction his career has taken is an understatement. “I get to play in front of 3,000 metal kids every night and they love it, even though there’s no way any record company exec would’ve thought this would work in a million years,” he said. “I go out to the merch table after shows and kids are saying, `Wow, you guys are like Rev. Horton Heat crossed with Black Sabbath and it’s awesome.’ At this point seeing how far we can take this whole idea is part of the fun.”
Which isn’t to say he’s about to give up on his tip jar-playing roots. He’s flying home twice during the tour to make his Broken Spoke residency, which is a lot more packed since his film endeavors have taken off.
“It’s not like I’m done with the honky-tonks and beer joints because I love doing that stuff and always will,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun but that’s a hard way to make a living, which is why I appreciate what I’ve got right now so much.”
Rob Zombie with Nekromantix and Captain Clegg & The Night Creatures perform at 7:30 p.m. at the Austin Music Hall, 208 Nueces St. Tickets: $35., austinmusichall.com.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest update: Riverboat Gamblers
Riverboat Gamblers guitarist Ian Mcdougall had to sit out the punk trio’s performance on Sunday after being struck by a car on his bicycle Oct. 17. The band’s Mike Wiebe said they would extend a two-month hiatus to three months, during which Wiebe’s side project Ghost Knife would record an album.
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Remembering !!! drummer Jerry Fuchs
Jerry Fuchs was a beast.
The drummer for 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival performers !!! and Maserati was a graduate from the “bang them as hard as you can” school of drumming, a brilliant player who paired note-perfect pounding with animal fury. He died early Sunday morning after falling down an elevator shaft in Brooklyn. He was 34.
The Village Voice has an excellent remembrance posted that’s worth your time. Maserati already lost original drummer Mikel Gius to a car accident in 2005.
Fuchs was a legendarily relentless presence on stage, and nothing demonstrates that better than a short film by Fred Weaver currently making the rounds online. In it, Fuchs pulls a Rick Allen, nailing a towering fill with clockwork precision with only one arm — and at five separate shows, no less. All five performances glimpsed in the two-minute video were filmed in March of this year — and two were shot right here in Austin, at End of an Ear Records and the Side Bar.
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Slew of Austin musicians team up to help the homeless
Longtime local luminaries David Garza, Sara Hickman, and Abra Moore will join with new(ish) kids on the block, smooth-as-silk jazz singer Kat Edmonson and pianist Kevin Lovejoy Nov. 17 at the Cactus Cafe for a benefit for House the Homeless. The all-volunteer nonprofit provides services and aid to the homeless community and also spearheads education and advocacy initiatives.
The shindig is the brainchild of award-winning Austin music photographer Todd V. Wolfson. Though known primarily for his shutterbug skills, Wolfson describes himself as an “okay percussionist” and will join the lineup on stage for an informal jam.
“I have all these great friends that I’ve played with. I’ve played with David for about 10 years and sat in with Kat at the Elephant Room. So we’re all like family and I thought it’d be cool to get all these friends together,” says Wolfson. “It’s not going to be like one after the other. We’re all going to be on stage together just having a freaky good time. We’re going to sing on each others’ stuff, come up with some jams, just whatever. It’s going to be like walking into my living room basically.”
For Wolfson, it’s a way of paying back the community that came to his aid with a benefit concert after a career-threatening bicycle crash this summer. Though he “has a lot of metal inside of (him)” Wolfson says he’s recovering steadily.
“I wanted to do something to give back a little,” says Wolfson. “I was thinking of the holiday period and I wanted to say thank you for how good people were to me when I had my accident.”
The show is free, but organizers request that attendees bring along donations for House the Homeless in lieu of a cover charge.
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John Mayer headed to Erwin Center
He’ll be joined March 8 by Michael Franti & Spearhead. His new record, “Battle Studies,” is scheduled for release Nov. 17.
Tickets — $46 and $66 — go on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 21 through Texas Box Office Outlets (includes select H-E-B stores in Austin, Bastrop, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Kyle, Leander, Pflugerville, Round Rock, San Marcos, Temple; Ft. Hood ITR and Renaissance Records in Killeen). By phone at 512-477-6060 or 1-800-982-2386, and online at TexasBoxOffice.com.
Or go to Mayer’s site and pre-order his record through Tuesday (Nov. 10) and you’ll have access to a tour pre-sale.
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Review: Doug Sahm Birthday Tribute at Antone’s
According to Shawn Sahm, who is probably in a good position to know, his dad was probably up in heaven, smiling down on the stage at Antone’s on Friday night—and talking up the World Series. But truth be told, for Doug Sahm — peripatetic musical genius (and baseball superfan) — heaven would have been center stage at Antone’s, talking a blue streak and mixing it up with the myriad musicians come to honor him on what would have been his 68th birthday.
And some birthday party it was, starring Greezy Wheels, the Lucky Tomblin Band, Jimmie Vaughan, son Shawn, Augie Meyers and members of the revitalized Texas Tornados, members of the San Antonio band the Krayolas, and a rare reunion of Paul Ray and the Cobras, featuring ex-Bob Dylan guitarist (and Antone’s hall-of-famer) Denny Freeman.
Besides the celebration, the event also served as a benefit to raise funds for a marker on Doug Sahm Hill, in Butler Park across from Auditorium Shores. Such a memorial would honor the San Antonio native’s contributions to all the genres of Texas music of which he was a master (which is pretty much everything between Van Cliburn and the Geto Boys), and his ceaseless celebration of Austin and its musical community. (For more information on the project, go to http://www.dougsahmhill.com">www.dougsahmhill.com).
With his mane of hair, wire-rimmed glasses and effervescence to burn, Shawn Sahm is the very picture of his dad, and he looked right at home onstage with Doug’s peers, including guitarist Louie Ortega, drummer Ernie Durawa, bassist Speedy Sparks, guest star Joe “King” Carrasco and, of course, keyboardist Augie Meyers, the Pancho to Doug’s Cisco Kid.
Mixing blues, Tex-Mex, horn-driven R&B, country and rock in a characteristically Sahm-ian fashion, the big ensemble romped through hits from the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados, the two bands which bookended Doug’s career — “Is Anybody Going To San Antone,” “Nuevo Laredo,” “It’s Gonna Be Easy,” “Groover’s Paradise,” “Hey, Baby, Kep Pa So” and others.
Despite all the other great music purveyed onstage that night, the emotional core of the evening resided in that exuberant set of music that could have had only one wellspring — Doug himself. And, in that sense, Doug never left us at all.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: Danzig
Glenn Danzig is know for his voice, a punk rock bellow that’s part Elvis and part Crypt Keeper. It powered such influential bands as the Misfits, Samhain and the self-titled Danzig, all of which inspired serious rock ‘n’ roll devotion.
He is known for long black hair and a fondness for evil and horror and comics and fantasy images that ends up more cartoonish than scary. He is known for pounding heavy metal and one of the very best skull logos of all time (lifted from the cover of the otherwise-not-very-interesting comic book “The Saga of Crystar” #8, since everyone should know that).
For all of this, his fans adore him. Which they did Sunday night at Fun Fun Fun, which Dazing and his band closed out.
However, it seems astonishing that his between-song banter has not been anthologized. Oh, sure, it was great hearing pounders such as “Skincarver” and “Am I Demon?” and the “Her Black Wings” in all their loud, Black Sabbathian glory.
But that’s little compared to “I heard you guys were having a drought so I brought the Danzig Black Clouds Of Rain with me. Hope you appreciate it.” Um, thanks?
Or how about “(This is) a tender little ditty called ‘Do You Wear the Mark’?” And oh, was it tender indeed. Fist-pumping, sing-alongish and, OK, fine, not very tender.
But folks loved him liked they loved their first punk rock record, first R-rated movie and first leather jacket, monk-level bald spot and all. No demonspawn would let a mane of evil like Danzig’s thin out — maybe he’s human after all.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: Mission of Burma
Mission of Burma
Here is the coolest thing about Mission of Burma: The 21st century Burma reunion has lasted nearly twice as long as the band’s original 1979-1983 run, (The band reunited in 2002.) This is a weird, weird miracle. Even stranger is how strong their three 21st century albums are, top flight art-punk from guys whose kids, if they have them, could be college-aged. These guys know how to roll the hard eight.
The odds were not exactly in Mission of Burma’s favor Sunday night. It had been raining pretty much all day and it was getting old. But in yet another triumph of the veteran rocker - everyone in Burma, save for soundman/tape manipulator Bob Weston, who is in his 40s, everyone in Burma is north of 50 years old - the gents rose to the occasion, playing a rock solid set in often-increasingly horizontal rain.
Drawing on material from the brand new “The Sound The Speed The Light” and from throughout their weird career, hard-leaping guitarist Roger Miller, reserved, melodic bassist Clint Conley and hard-screaming drummer Peter Prescott again and again battled the elements. The gnarlier it got, the harder they played, especially Miller and Prescott.
By the end, by the classic “Academy Fight Song,” they looked a little sick of maybe getting electrocuted out there. But their luck hasn’t run out yet and it didn’t then. Perhaps they can return later this year, or next, under drier circumstances.
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Fun Fun Fun fest review: (Expletive) Buttons
(Expletive) Buttons are an experimental electronic duo from Bristol, England. Their music alternates between aggressive, hellacious noise and more pastoral passages that suggest the contours of a drug trip. This is not all that surprising, given the famously druggy nature of their city and its scene (See also Massive Attack, Tricky, Flying Saucer Attack and all three seasons of the BBC series “Skins.”)
While both of their albums (“Street Horrrsing,” the new “Tarot Spot”) are excellent, the music works far, far better live than it has any right to. Of course, most of the time Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power look as if threy are checking their email while standing and vigorously dancing in place, the time-tested visual of electronic acts performing live.
But the music which concentrated on drones rather than abraisive textures, felt anthemic and lovely rather than irritating. (Peace to the often-stellar band Growing, who have a similar format and played earlier in the day, but 12:30 p.m. was a little early for their face-punching digital hiccups.)
These were misty mountain hops played for an appriciative field of flatlanders who were starting to looked bummed out by the weather. And not a lot goes well with steady, increasingly unpleasant rain; this stuff sure did.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Of Montreal
There aren’t a lot of bands that can close their set by thanking their ninjas and Santa Claus, but that’s Of Montreal for you.
The Athens, Ga.-based art rockers are famous for blending a basic respect for the conventions of pop — catchy melodies and memorable choruses — with a smattering of influences ranging from glam rock to vaudeville to afrobeat. But they’re even more famous for the live shows, with bizarre outfits and guest appearances by dancers in black leotards, centaur costumes, elf costumes and a raft of other odd uniforms. Throw in a projection screen with trippy imagery — including multicolored images of Captain America and frequent appearances by flashing cats — and you have a spectacle few contemporary bands can top.
Front man Kevin Barnes took to the stage with a peppy and fun rendition of “Mingusings,” a track off last year’s “Skeletal Lampings” before transitioning into that album’s “Id Engager,” which also brought the first appearance of leotard and gold-mask clad dancers.
Those dancers disappeared for dance anthem “For Our Elegant Case” — after firing a volley of streamers into the crowd — but it wasn’t the last appearance of ludicrous on-stage antics. Dancers in pig costumes, chicken masks, a Santa Claus outfit and a surprisingly elaborate centaur get-up all appeared in later songs.
And while the spectacle of such flights of fancy might be a kick, Of Montreal have the songwriting and chops to make such events a little distracting. Barnes is a skilled guitarist and front man, and each member of the band has the technical savvy to play excellent pop rock tunes, occasionally making you wish they’d dial down the antics and focus more on the music.
When Of Montreal abandons their obligation to silliness, as with a straightforward but energetic take on Bat For Lashes’ “Daniel,” the band truly gets a chance to shine. They wouldn’t be Of Montreal without a touch of the bizarre, but a little bit less insanity might actually go a long way toward affirming the band’s equally accomplished musical compositions and instrumental skills, and not merely their affinity for performers in elf costumes.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Crystal Castles
Frankly, Crystal Castles front woman Alice Glass is a little terrifying.
It isn’t the layers of black eye shadow that give her gaze a naturally sinister gleam that does it. It’s not her goth-influenced black outfits. It isn’t her “Behind the Music”-ready story as a teenage-runaway-turned-indie-princess. It’s not even her madcap stage antics that make her such an intimidating presence.
No, it’s that otherworldly howl — a high-pitched guttural screeching that’s less singing and more vocalizing —that makes Glass so scary. As one-half of dance music duo Crystal Castles — alongside synth player and chief songwriter Ethan Kath — Glass is an electric force to be reckoned with, a consummate performer taken to climbing on gear and performing whilst crowd-surfing.
She was on top form Sunday night, generally performing as close to the edge of the stage as possible, taking advantage of the festival’s nearly non-existent photo pits to bend herself over the audience. A well-timed light show kept to the beat, illuminating the light droplets of rain as the duo tore though songs from their self-titled 2008 debut.
As you’d expect from a band whose name is a reference to girl-power cartoon “She-Ra: Princess of Power,” Crystal Castles take more than a bit of inspiration from the ’80s. Kath’s beats are inspired more by the bleeps and bloops of an 8-bit Nintendo than they are by the conventional electronica or techno of any era. Pair that driving but simple aesthetic with Glass’ furious but frequently indecipherable singing, and you’re left with a band that can get a bit tedious in large bursts.
But when Glass leaps into the crowd and spends an entire song surfing, or climbs onto the drum kit, turning into little more than a writhing silhouette surrounded by ample fog from the stage’s machines, it’s hard not to be impressed. When a show has that much vigor, it’s hard to fault it for being too one-note.
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Fun Fun Fun Fest scene report: Bankrupt and the Borrowers
It’d be easy to walk away from Bankrupt and the Borrowers’ impassioned blast of blues rock on Sunday afternoon with the impression that the band had a host of demons to exorcise. Denis O’Donnel from The Bread, Tyler Hautala of the Bridge Farmers, Pete Brown of Watching the Moon and Blake Van Buren of The Van Buren Boys joined in for what was said to be the band’s last performance in the wake of the Oct. 9 death of multi-instrumentalist band mate Jon “Baggage” Pettis in an East Austin house fire. The assembled group belted out gritty roadhouse blues with the kind of fervor that suggested they were still reeling from a painful loss.
But then, that would have been par for the course for Bankrupt and the Borrowers, even had the band not tragically lost Pettis early last month, another sad casualty in what has turned out to be a sobering year for the Austin music community. The local quartet had built a reputation on rocking out, with furious, animated jams and shouted harmonies. That’s the spirit that dominated Sunday’s show. After starting by piping one of Pettis’ acoustic songs over the PA, Bankrupt and the Borrowers and guests launched into a blistering half-hour set that doubtless would have made their departed band mate proud.
There were signs that it was no ordinary show for the band, though. Tearful hugs abounded, both backstage and in the audience, and as several in the crowd locked arms and sang along, it was clear that the powerful experience marked the passing of a bright light in the Austin music scene.
“It was an extremely emotional experience for the band, friends, family, everybody, but it was something that needed to be done and I’m glad they decided to go ahead and do this show today,” said Gene Griffin, 27, the band’s manager. “He would have wanted us to do this, absolutely. So it was kind of a no-brainer. It wasn’t up to us. We had to do this for Jon.”
The band is still raising money through private donations online to help start a Jon Pettis memorial scholarship in his hometown of Westford, Mass., as well as a crisis fund for other musicians in need. Donations have already helped secure a new home for the fire’s survivors and helped Pettis’ fiancée to get back on her feet. You can visit the band’s home page to donate. A benefit show will take place Dec. 6 at the Hole in the Wall.
Although the performance was announced last week as the band’s last, the future remains ambiguous. The band members have no immediate plans as they put the pieces back together and figure out their next steps.
“It may be a while and it may not be ever, but I can honestly say that I could see these musicians playing together again,” said Griffin. “They have a strong bond. I have a feeling these guys are going to do something again. It might be two weeks from now, it might be a month from now, it might be a year from now but I think they’ll continue to play together one way or another.”
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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: Harlem
Not often will you find a band that can make a better case than Harlem does for making “sloppy” a creative objective.
Who knows if the Austin three piece actively works at futzing up its devil-may-care Kinks/Kingsmen/pick a “Nuggets”-era band brand of rock, but if that’s the case then “Bravo!” on them for carrying it off like they did Sunday at Fun Fun Fun Fest.
From the fearsome start of “Witch Greens” on, Harlemites Michael Coomers and Curtis O’Mara (co-vocalists who switch between guitars and drums at the half-show point) and bassist Jose Boyer carried a loose but measured swing through their distorted almost-punk that suggests there’s a firm foundation underneath it all. Boyer’s recent addition seems to have helped considerably, as evidenced by the fact that they hardly ever have to start a song two or three times anymore before they get it right.
That certainty let the band focus on showcasing its subtler charms, namely Commers’ lax sense of humor that was no doubt helped by an abundance of beer and liquor up on stage and the Valium he claimed to have swallowed earlier in the day. Whatever was at play, it all worked to plan or at least as much as these three can be bothered to put one together.
“What’ll the bloggers say about this?” Coomers sarcastically asked early on, in a nod to Harlem’s indie-as-hell Web-friendly archetype. Well Michael, this one thought it all sounded pretty freakin’ great.
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