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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The story behind … Hayes Carll’s ‘She Left Me for Jesus’
‘(Co-writer) Brian Keene brought that initially. I thought the idea about beating up Jesus - just the idea without anything behind it - was a little heavy handed. So, we went about finding the context of the (narrator) mistaking his girlfriend’s newfound religion for her having an affair. We came up with some of the mistakes that can be made when a red-blooded country boy sees a longhaired, sandal wearing, pacifist Jew walking around. We thought about what his reaction would be if he thought (that guy) was sleeping with his girlfriend.
‘I did get a lot of grief over it. But I was always of the mindset that if people didn’t get what I was trying to say, there wasn’t much hope for them and me anyway. So, it didn’t bother me too much. It did bother me when people thought I was anti-Semitic or anti-Christian because of the lyrics. I thought it was pretty clear that I wasn’t poking fun at the religion but at the redneck who had a problem with these things. I looked at it like if (those listeners) didn’t get it, I wasn’t going to be able to explain it to them. I thought I did a fairly good job of breaking it down in the first place.
‘It was nice to get the (Americana Music Association) award, but it’s weird. You write a bunch of songs and really put your heart into them and have a really emotional connection to the stuff. Then a tongue-in-cheek satire you write in an hour and a half is the one you get the most recognition and notoriety for. It got a second wind when we cut that record, but I never thought it’d get the life that it did. It was cool, though, because I was in the UK and listened to the award show online. That was fun. Got a nice little plaque for it.’
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Texas Tornados to release new album March 2
Legendary Tex-Mex supergroup the Texas Tornados will release “Esta Bueno” (“It’s Good,” in English, though any Austinite should know that already) on March 2 on Bismeaux Records, the label of Asleep at the Wheel front man Ray Benson.
The lineup will include original members Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez, as well as Shawn Sahm, the son of legendary Texas musician Doug Sahm, who was one of the founding members of the group. The album will also contain five previously unreleased vocal takes from another founding member, Freddy Fender — the Tejano country and rock and roll musician who died of lung cancer in 2006.
The band will be performing at Benson’s birthday celebration on March 16 and will also make an appearance at the South By Southwest Music Festival.
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10 years of Austin music memories: John T. Davis
Our writers are sharing just some of their personal highlights as we look back at the first decade of the 2000s. Tell us yours in the comments section.
ACL Fest 2009. Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
The advent of 2010 will mark the start of my fifth decade following the ups and downs of Austin music, often as a chronicler, always as a fan. (Now, this would ordinarily be where a codger of my vintage would launch into the obligatory Old Coot diatribe about how things were Better Back Then in the distant epoch of the ’70s … but, hey, it’s Christmas.)
I would venture a revisionist argument that this, at least as much as the ’70s, is something of a golden age of music in Austin. There are more musicians, more stylistic diversity and more active venues than at any time I can recall.
Today’s young musicians, some of whom were in kindergarten when the decade began, seem (to these aging eyes, at least) more technically savvy, more entrepreneurial, more creatively agile and more focused than any in my experience. Austin music, creatively at least, is in good hands.
Herewith are five signature watersheds that have set the Aughts (what the hell did we wind up calling the past 10 years?) apart, as regards music in Austin:
DIY: Never before have the means of production, promotion and distribution of music been so firmly in the hands of the artist. In the past decade, technology became smaller, cheaper and more user-friendly and at the same time more sophisticated, turning every living room into a studio. Social networking sites let musicians interact directly with fans in promoting their product and shows. The emergence of iTunes and the iPod, downloadable music and streaming music online, and wi-fi ubiquity put major record labels on the endangered-species list and shifted control and creative power to the artist.
Neighborhoods: Red River. Downtown/Second Street. South Congress. The East Side. North Loop … Funky and/or fashionable districts exploded across town in the past 10 years. And while the proliferation of distinct enclaves with their own characters didn’t automatically translate into a net increase in live music venues per se (RIP, Liberty Lunch), music is an integral part of the restless creative ferment going on in the newly-minted neighborhoods that have flourished in the past decade.
ACL: The advent of the Austin City Limits Festival in 2002 plugged a gaping hole in the city’s musical fabric, namely, the absence of a signature annual event to brand the city and its music to a nationwide audience (South By Southwest, which fulfilled something of the same function, had always been marketed as in industry-centric event which also happened to appeal to the public). The eclectic line-up, the state-of-the-art production (floods and dust storms notwithstanding), the stunning backdrop of Zilker Park and the city skyline and the Austin-specific Groover’s Paradise vibe made the three-day festival an instant destination event. Not coincidentally, it also catapulted C3 Presents, the event’s producers, into the top rank of national producers and promoters.
The Long Haul: They do it for the love, but they’re not above the money. Reviewing my gig books (diaries of a sort) from 2000 on, many of the same names that popped up in that year recur in this. Ten years on, these folks are still making vital, passionate music and remain an integral part of the self-renewing phenomenon that is Austin music. This list is personal and necessarily incomplete, but it’s reflective of a community that is making work to stand the test of time: Bob Schneider, Alejandro Escovedo, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Joe Ely, (and the Flatlanders), Marcia Ball, Shawn Colvin, Eliza Gilkyson, Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, the Gourds, Patrice Pike, Jon Dee Graham, Robert Earl Keen, Asleep At the Wheel, Jimmie Vaughan, Terri Hendrix, Grupo Fantasma, James McMurtry, Spoon and many more. (And vaya con dios to Doug Sahm and Stephen Bruton, two friends and extraordinary musicians whose passings bookended the decade.)
Willie Nelson: And speaking of the long haul, the insanely prolific 76-year-old godfather of Austin music spent the past decade in a whirlwind of activity that would shame musicians a third of his age. According to allmusic.com, Nelson released something like two dozen albums in the past decade, including a children’s album, a reggae collection, a blues album, a new installment of his American songbook series, collaborations with alt-rocker Ryan Adams, Ray Price and Merle Haggard, jazzman Wynton Marsalis and Asleep At the Wheel and at least six live albums. May he still be making music 10 years from now.
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10 years of Austin music memories: Patrick Beach
Our writers are sharing just some of their personal highlights as we look back at the first decade of the 2000s. Tell us yours in the comments section.
Pearl Jam at ACL Fest 2009. Photo by Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN.
Three bands I never thought I’d see:
Rocket from the Tombs at Emo’s in December 2003. When somebody hit David Thomas with a beer on the first song I thought it was going to be over before it started. But they left the stage, took a mulligan and roared. How many punk bands were inspired by this one? Only all of the good ones.
Scratch Acid, also at Emo’s, September 2006. I lived almost a thousand miles away when these guys were terrorizing Austin and elsewhere. David Yow is still insane and the band was as raw, dangerous and unlike anyone else as they were back in the day.
The Pogues, Stubb’s, Oct. 28, 2009. OK, how is it that Shane MacGowan is even semi-coherent? I have been smitten with these guys for so long and it was a perfect night: A light rain simply enhanced the atmosphere.
And that show segues nicely into my final memory: 2009 was the best Rocktober ever, with a killer ACL Fest (Pearl Jam still rules), the aforementioned micks, Wilco in Cedar Park, Buddy Guy ripping at Stubb’s, and the Drive-By Truckers at Stubb’s.
