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April 2011
Moonlight Towers unveil new CD tonight at Antone’s
The rock band is dead. That’s what we heard at the end of last year when not a single guitar/guitar/bass/drums album landed on Billboard’s list of the 25 best-selling albums of 2010. But James Stevens of Moonlight Towers is not buying the doom talk. “Everyone I know is into rock ’n’ roll,” said the Austin band’s singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer. Moonlight Towers’ new album “Day is the New Night” is definite proof that rock’s not even under the weather.
Two previous, critically acclaimed albums make this one the end of a trilogy, so Stevens, drummer/harmony singer Richard Galloway, guitarist/ keyboardist Jacob Schulze and bassist Jason Daniels paint their power pop in grander strokes. Occasional horns, as on steamroller opening track “Heat Lightning,” and impassioned female vocals (“Distant Wheels,” “Easy Way Out”) give the record a Memphis feel. But if the band didn’t name itself after an Austin thing, you might think they’re from New Jersey or Philadelphia. At times they sound like the Smithereens if their singer were Jon Bon Jovi. (Bet that line doesn’t make the press kit.)
The four members of Moonlight Towers — all original — have day jobs and new families, so they don’t play out as often as they want to, though a recent tour with Blind Melon (Stevens’ brother’s band) recharged their road readiness.
“Day Is the New Night” came together in bits and pieces, though it sounds like it was bashed out in a barn over a long weekend. Since Stevens co-owns the East Austin Recording studio, the Towers were able to get their ideas down during unoccupied blocks of time. “We made the record in about 10 hours, spread out over a year,” said Stevens, raised in the same small Mississippi town where Howlin’ Wolf was born. “Our enthusiasm for playing music hasn’t changed at all, even though we have other responsibilities,” Stevens said. “I felt the same way making this record as when I was 16 going to Memphis to make a demo. The whole band is like that. This is what we do.” Sales might be slow, but the love for pure danceable rock ’n’ roll will stay strong if Moonlight Towers have anything to say about it. And on the new record they do.
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Austin Psych Fest review: Crystal Stilts
When asked last week what counted as psychedelic music, Alex Maas of the Black Angels said that the category was ridiculously broad and that almost anything, including old ladies playing the banjo, was psychedelic if the listener judged it as such.
This year’s Psych Fest lineup puts that philosophy into practice, with Friday night purveyors of Brooklyn-based post-punk Crystal Stilts offering not one but several definitions of the genre, ranging from their version of traditional late ’60s style psych to darker, more contemporary fare. Whether lead singer Brad Hargett and the rest of the band like it or not, his detached, brooding vocals layered atop punchy rhythms do sound as though they borrow a bit from Joy Division. They can hardly be considered a knockoff, though, with all of the other sounds the band throws at its listeners. On “Invisible City” from the band’s 2011 release “In Love With Oblivion,” keyboardist Kyle Forester’s twisted surf rock organ added an extra layer of creepy behind Hargett’s already disturbing chorus: “we know what happened at death, but I don’t have to say why.”
On stage, Forester played the animated foil to the reserved Hargett, who stuck close to the mic stand. Elsewhere guitarist JB Townsend and bassist Andy Adler focus on their instruments and drummer Keegan Cooke. The three plotted gunshot intros, exploding into blazing, guitar-forward rock numbers that lit up the cavernous interior of the Seaholm Power Plant. At other points, they toned it down a bit, leaning more toward jangly garage pop, guitars and keys in delightfully messy conversation, but the energy remained. By the end of the set, that momentum boiled over into a wall of noise on “Prometheus at Large;” chaos lives at the heart of their psych.
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Comedy review: Craig Ferguson @ the Paramount Friday
As a stand-up comedian, “Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson has great material and flawless delivery. Or at least his delivery was flawless at the early show at the Paramount Theater Friday night. But what makes him stand apart from other comedians is that his stage persona seems a genuine reflection of his personality: generally upbeat, self-aware and more than willing to make himself the butt of the joke.
He joked about his own accent, his clumsy attempt to do a British accent and how people in Scotland couldn’t understand what in the world James Doohan was saying on “Star Trek.” “We thought he was Pakistani,” Ferguson said. He also mused on the break he got on the “Drew Carey Show,” whose star his manager pitched as “a fat guy from Cleveland.”
“Fat is where comedy is stored!” Ferguson said.
Of course Ferguson said he was pleased to be in Texas but claimed the string of dates was mainly because he’d just had a baby and wanted to stay in hotels, watch porn and order room service.
Ferguson frequently talks about his nearly two decades as a raging alcoholic, drug user and general miscreant, but said he wasn’t as bad as some such as, well, Mel Gibson.
“I was a blackout alcoholic for 15 years but I never turned into a (bleeping) Nazi,” Ferguson said.
Take that, Mel.
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Curran undergoes surgery; benefits at Antone’s, Continental
Guitar great Nick Curran, diagnosed with cancer days before the release of his critically-acclaimed “Reform School Girl” LP, underwent 10 hours of surgery Tuesday to remove a new spot of cancer on his tongue. Through Dianne Scott of the Continental, Curran’s mother Carole-Ann reports, “He was sitting up when I got here this morning, and they are in the process of weaning him off the ventilator. His docs are very happy with his progress. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We can feel the love, and it means a lot.”
To help with medical bills, there are a couple of benefits concerts in Austin, May 3 at Antone’s with Jimmie Vaughan and his big band, plus others, then May 29 at the Continental.
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N.O. Jazz Fest says Y.E.S. to webcast
Jazz Fest organizers today announced that highlights from the next two weekends of music in New Orleans will be broadcast on RollingStone.com on May 7 and 8. Beginning at 6 p.m. CST each night, the high definition broadcast will about four hours of performances andinterviews with such acts as Arcade Fire, Wilco, Jeff Beck, the Neville Brothers and Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band.
Other acts participating:
Better Than Ezra
Allen Toussaint
Galactic
Irma Thomas
Cowboy Mouth
Marcia Ball
The Dixie Cups
George Porter Jr. & Runnin’ Pardners
Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars
Wayne Toups & Zydecajun
The Soul Rebels
Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes
Fredy Omar con su Banda
Vivaz!
We Landed on the Moon!
Gov’t Majik the Dirty South Afro-Beat Arkestra
Renard Poche
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Tony Benett leaves with Austin’s hearts
Please pardon that bad play on words, but Mr. Bennett put on an amazing show Wednesday night at ACL Live. From Michael Barnes’ review:
Bennett dances a little, gestures a lot, giving quick salutes for the cheers, applause and multiple standing ovations that erupted before, during and after his 90-minute Wednesday concert to a packed house. He still sings like a god. It seems impossible, but he may sound better now that at any time in his 62-year career. Never maudlin, never sentimental, his supple tenor still carries a potent emotional charge.
Read the rest and see more photos here.
(Photo by Kelly West/AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF.)
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Wildfire benefit with Patty, Shawn at Jo’s May 6
West Texas is very dear to Liz Lambert of the Hotel San Jose/ Jo’s Coffee, so she and others have put together a benefit in the parking lot behind Jo’s Friday May 6 from 6- 10 p.m. Among the performers are Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Erika Wennerstrom, Amy Cook & David Garza and the Moonlight Towers.
There is no cover, but donations will be asked. All money raised goes to wildfire relief efforts.
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New free music series at the Bullock Sundays in May
The Austin Federation of Musicians and the Liberty School Winery are teaming up to present a five-concert series at the Lone Star Plaza of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, every Sunday evening in May. The shows start at 6 p.m. and are free.
The schedule is:
May 1st: James Polk’s Centerpeace, and John Mills Times Ten
May 8th: Redd Volkaert, and Texas Swing Kings
May 15th: Ian McLagan and the Bump Band, and Ernie Durawa Band
May 22nd: RoTel and the Hot Tomatoes, and Beto y los Fairlanes
May 29th: Marcia Ball, and Matt Wilson Band
Bring a chair if you want to sit. A cash bar will be available. Free parking is available across the street and in the museum garage.
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Weekend Pics for April 29- May 1
Friday
Austin Psych Fest 4 at Seaholm Power Plant For the fourth year of this celebration of psychedelic rock, the Austin Psych Fest is throwing its shindig at the Seaholm Power Plant, one of Austin’s most imposing-looking buildings. Perfect. Headliners for this first night include Omar A. Rodriquez, A Place to Bury Strangers, Crystal Stilts, This Will Destroy You and Tobacco. Doors at 5 p.m. today , 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Weekend passes for the three-day concert are $100; day passes are $40. 214 West Ave. www.austinpsychfest.com.
Also recommended:
- T-Model Ford at Emo’s
- Blue October at ACL Live
- Golden Boys
- Crack Pipes at the Legendary White Swan
- High Tension Wires
- Flesh Lights at Red 7
- Grape Street at Beerland
- The Great Nostalgic
- Marmalakes at the Mohawk
- Young Girls album release at the Spiderhouse Ballroom
- Sounds Under Radio CD release at ND
- Love Culture
- Rescue Mission at the Scoot Inn
Saturday
Hex Dispensers at Beerland. Veteran Austin musicians offer high energy, stripped-down garage rock. With Doomtown. 9 p.m. $6. 711 Red River St., www.beerlandtexas.com.
Also recommended:
- Austin Pysch Fest at Seaholm
- These are Words at Club 1808
- Willie Nelson at the Backyard
- Marriage at Trailer Space
- Decemberists at Stubb’s (technically sold out)
- Chuck Ragan at Red 7
- Moonlight Towers CD release party at Antone’s
- Whalers at Club Deville
- Will Taylor and Strings Attached at Continental Club
Sunday
Lauryn Hill at Stubb’s. Yes, that Lauryn Hill, she of the Fugees and “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” one of the defining R&B/hip-hop albums of the 1990s (which means one of the defining albums of the 1990s) and nearly vanishing soon after. She of strange reclusiveness and erratic performances over the next 10 years. She received good notices at a recent Coachella gig. What sort of show will she deliver? 7 p.m. This show is technically sold out. 801 Red River St. 480-8341. www.stubbsaustin.com
Also recommended:
- Austin Psych Fest at Seaholm
- Myka Relocate at Red 7
- Foot Patrol CD release at Playland Skate Center
- The Low Lows at the Hole in the Wall
- The Art Institute at the Red Eyed Fly
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Fun Fun Fun Fest moves to Auditorium Shores
Fun Fun Fun Fest, the annual fall event that focuses on alternative and independent music and comedy, will take place Nov. 5-6 at Auditorium Shores, festival producers Transmission Entertainment announced today. This year’s festival will be the first time since it began in 2006 that it won’t be in Waterloo Park, a move meant to accommodate more people and larger acts, according to James Moody of Transmission.
Moving the festival allows producers to sell more tickets. Last year’s festival sold out Waterloo Park’s capacity of 10,000; Auditorium Shores can accommodate more than 20,000. In addition to music,this year’s festival will include an expanded comedy lineup, more local vendors and possibly a farmer’s market, Moody said.
“This will be a bigger fest,” Moody said. “The reason we’re moving is so we can grow, but with the way that we book, we like to grow into our space. I don’t know that anyone would disagree that we got better and better every year at Waterloo because we got more comfortable there.”
Moody added that because the festival isn’t a free show, they don’t expect the crowding problems the park experienced when the Strokes played a free show during South by Southwest, but that they were working with the city to make sure the event runs smoothly. The move to Auditorium Shores also gets the festival away from any construction related to the Waller Creek Tunnel project, which could begin later this year.
“We’re going to encourage bikes, we’re going to do shuttling, we’re going to encourage pedestrian activity and carpooling,” he said.
In past years, Fun Fun Fun has announced its lineup sometime in August. Past bands include MGMT, Bad Brains, the New Pornographers and the National. Early bird tickets go on sale in late May. Visit funfunfunfest.com for more information.
Ami Shalev of Monotonix performs at Fun Fun Fun Fest Saturday, November 6, 2010. - David Weaver FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Tonight: Release party for Robyn Ludwick’s “Out of These Blues”
If the cover of Robyn Ludwick’s new CD “Out of These Blues” looks familiar that’s because it’s an ode to Jackson Browne’s 1974 classic “Late for the Sky.” Ludwick got the idea to copy the lettering of “Late” when cover artist Tom Betts returned a painting of a truck-stop motel that had the same tone and feel of Browne’s cover art. “That album was so influential to me,” said Ludwick, who grew up in Bandera. “Every song was so strong and so full of meaning. It got me thinking about writing songs myself.”
Writing about Ludwick without mentioning her older brothers Charlie and Bruce Robison is like holding your breath underwater — eventually what Ludwick calls “a blessing and a curse” has got to come up.
“It’s never easy to follow in someone’s footsteps and I think because of Charlie (eight years her senior) and Bruce (six years older), I might have tried too hard to break into
the Texas country scene,” Rudwick said.
Her two previous LPs “Too Much Desire” (2008) and “For So Long” (2005) aimed at the same Texas Americana charts as her brothers. “But with the Gurf (producer Morlix) element, I think we’ve made a record that goes in my own direction.”
“Out of These Blues” moves at a deliberate pace to tell the stories of everyday people, the sad faces of “I Am,” the truck-stop migrants of the title track. Ludwick sings from a male point of view on three songs, art giving access to all emotions.
Her penetrating voice on the standout “Fight Song” is a perfect match for guitarist Morlix’s “slightadelic” flurry of notes. “Hillbilly” is another song more “Late for the Sky” than “Robison sister.” She’ll get compared to Morlix’s old boss Lucinda Williams, who also empathizes with the rough-edged of society, but Ludwick’s singing is less affected, more direct.
This is a terrific album from start to finish. Ludwick, whose work as a structural engineer has her under houses by day, has created a strong foundation for a career just now finding its own way.
Robin Ludwick and her band celebrate the release of “Out of These Blues” tonight at 10 at the Continental Club (1315 S. Congress Ave.) $7.
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Tonight’s picks: HAAM Corporate Battle of the Bands/Black and White Years, Quiet Company, Peelander-Z, more
HAAM Corporate Battle of the Bands/Black and White Years at Antone’s. Fourth annual competition of company-sponsored bands to raise money for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, followed by a performance from Black and White Years. 6 p.m. $5 before 10 p.m.; $10 after 10 p.m. 213 W. Fifth St. www.antones.net - Peter Mongillo
Also recommended:
- Unplugged at the Grove with Quiet Company
- Peelander-Z with Anamanguchi at the Parish
- Black Lips with Vivian Girls and John Wesley Coleman at Emo’s
- Yelawolf at Mohawk; Dirty Heads at Red 7
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Willie’s Fourth of July Picnic will be in Fort Worth
After a flirtation with Luckenbach that didn’t work out, Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic has returned to the embrace of a rival: the Fort Worth Stockyards.
The not-quite-annual Picnic will be held on Monday, July 4, at Billy Bob’s Texas, with headliners performing on a main stage outside and other artists performing inside the venue that bills itself as “the world’s largest honky-tonk.”
The Picnic was held in Fort Worth from 2004 through 2006, but this year will be combined with Willie’s Country Throwdown Tour, meaning the event will feature Jamey Johnson, Randy House, Lee Brice and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, in addition to Picnic mainstays such as Ray Price, David Allan Coe, Leon Russell and Johnny Bush.
Last year’s picnic was at the then-new Backyard in Austin.
The past three Picnics in Fort Worth were held in the North Forty field near Billy Bob’s, with crowds reaching up to 20,000. This year, the outdoor portion will be in the Rodeo Plaza and tickets ($30, on sale May 2) will be limited. Organizers say they expect a sellout. Find more at www.willienelson.com or www.williespicnic.com.
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If you missed ‘The Voice’ you can watch it here
Last night’s premiere of NBC’s new singing competition “The Voice” won its time slot last night against “Glee” and “Dancing With the Stars.”
You can watch the show here. Four Austinites are competing, but only Rebecca Loebe (pronounced “low-bee”) and Tje (“tie”) Austin auditioned in the first episode. Nakia Reynoso and Curtis Crimes compete next Tuesday.
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Tonight’s picks: Tony Bennett, Hairy Apes BMX, Flogging Molly, more
Wednesday Tony Bennett at ACL Live.Austin’s best-sounding new room is a perfect stage for the 84-year-old legend and singer of standards. 8 p.m. $39.50 to $149.50. 310 W. Second St. acl-live.com.
Also recommended:
- The Wonder Years, Rooney at Emo’s
- Flogging Molly at Stubb’s
- Bad Dream at Red 7
- Hairy Apes BMX, McTuff at the Ghost Room
- the Mau Mau Chaplains at Flamingo Cantina
- Citizen Cope (solo/acoustic) at the Cactus Cafe
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Live review: Mumford et al at 4th and Waller
Photos: Railroad Revival Tour
The love affair between Mumford and Sons and Austin has become so strong that the city built a venue for the folk-skiffle-gospel minstrels from England and then tore it down after they and their Railroad Revival Tour cohorts Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and the Old Crow Medicine Show got on their trains and headed to New Orleans.
The four hour show in front of 5,000 fans at the Capital Metro bus parking lot just east of the freeway had the taste of an ACL Fest appetizer, with the yuppie aunt and uncle demographic drinking $7 beers against a backdrop of downtown Austin and going crazy when the bands played songs they knew from the radio.
Marcus Mumford (looking like a young Kyle “Coach Taylor” Chandler)) and his band of percussive pluckers and the more spiritually quirky ES&MZs were perfect co-headliners, turning that field of rocks into “Itchycoo Park” for a night. These charmers knew they were part of a special concept- this train tour from the Pacific Coast to the birthplace of American music - and so they joined each other on stage at times and ended with an all hands invocation of Woody Guthrie’s “This Train Is Bound For Glory.”
Neither act was especially interesting musically- Mumford songs tend to sound the same, with slow-building dynamics and four-part harmonies leading to hillbilly stomps, while the Sharpe-tones of “Home” fame are modern vaudeville. But they created such a organic vibe together, which M&S lacked the night before when they taped an episode of “Austin City Limits.” (The new space, by the way, needs those bleachers.)
Discovered by the U.S. at SXSW and selling out 2,000-capacity clubs here before anywhere else, Mumford & Sons hold Austin in high regard (Marcus kept saying). They made the most of their two days here, with Monday’s schedule including a benefit at the Austin Music Hall, followed by the “ACL” taping. Tuesday was spent filming a video at Austin High with the school marching band (and a shave-headed Jake Gyllenhaal), then inviting those “new friends we made today” onstage to strut on the bridge of “Dancing Machine” before backing the Mummies on “The Cave.”
It was a special night.
And those left without tickets when the show sold out in two minutes could get their fill, too, as stage views were available for no charge on the perimeter. Folks were, literally dancing in the streets on Mumford’s “Little Lion Man” (“The Cave” with the F word) and the Woody encore.
That could be the only concert ever held on that tract, which was rocky and dusty. But it’s now forever a place where music made magic, if only for that one night.
UPDATE: This story originally had Mumford & Sons playing ACL Fest. They haven’t yet.
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Brooke Fraser cancels ACL Live
“Due to scheduling conflicts,” New Zealand singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser has postponed until next year the last leg of her American tour, including a June date at ACL Live. Refunds will be made available at point of purchase.
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Another new a.m. addition at KVET-FM
“The KVET Morning Show,” helmed by veteran Austin broadcaster Bob Cole, morphs into “Bob & Bender in the Morning” next week with the addition of new sidekick Chris Bender.
Bender, a native Houstonian, brings a “comical take on pop culture and sense of adventure” to the show, according to the station’s announcement. He arrives from Reno, Nev., and has also spent time in Lubbock and Jackson, Miss.
On KVET-FM, he’ll join Cole and Jamie Ivey, who recently landed a gig on the show after winning an online competition.
“Bob & Bender in the Morning” debuts Monday, running from 6 to 10 a.m. on KVET, 98.1 FM.
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Ticket giveaway: Decemberists at Stubb’s
(The Decemberists at ACL Fest 2009. Jack Plunkett ASSOCIATED PRESS)
We have a pair of tickets to give away to Saturday night’s sold out Decemberists show at Stubb’s. Make your case for why you deserve to go in the comments below before Thursday at noon and we will pick a winner.
UPDATE: The contest is now closed. Congrats to winner Stacey Knupple.
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Grammy museum to be built in the Delta
A $10 million museum honoring the contributions of Mississippi Delta musicians, including Pinetop Perkins, will be built in Cleveland, Miss.. Bob Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, made the announcement last week during the annual meeting of the Mississippi Economic Council.
A construction timetable has not been set for the museum.
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If you’re going to Railroad Revival Tour…
… here are some essential deets:
There’s parking only for bicycles, but your ticket is good for a free Cap Metro bus ride. The concert at 4th and Waller is, after all, on Cap Metro property. I checked out the site yesterday and the crack C3 production team has done an incredible job building a huge outdoor music venue in about 9 hours. But be forewarned that the ground is covered with pecan-sized rocks and gravel. Treat your feet like you’re going hiking.
Note also that there are no ATMs on site and credit cards not accepted. Bring cash, just like in the good ol’ days this tour commemorates. Also, if you see the actress Carey Mulligan, so fantastic in “An Education,” don’t ask what she’s doing here. Her boyfriend is Marcus Mumford, reportedly.
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Live review: Okkervil River at the Scoot Inn
(John Pesina FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
- Photos: Okkervil River at the Scoot Inn
Okkervil River releases a new album in a couple weeks, after a year or two off recording “True Love Cast Out All Evil” with Roky Erikson and playing some shows with the psych rock pioneer. The new material doesn’t always match up to the band’s best stuff on “The Stage Names” or maybe even “Black Sheep Boy,” but a lot of it is strong. Lead Okkervilian Will Sheff has pulled off the task of writing a solid set of songs that doesn’t sound like a rehash of his other material, which isn’t an easy feat for a group that has been around for more than a decade.
They’re about to take this new stuff out on the road, and so as a warmup, the group played a last-minute show in the cozy confines of the Scoot Inn on Monday night. After a couple old tunes, “For Real” and “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe”, Sheff announced that the band would play the entire new album, and that it would be the first time they played about 70 percent of the songs. Playing an album in order is a practice that can be boring, so at that point the show was kind of up in the air.
Okkervil has never been super-consistent in a live setting anyway, and as they kicked into the first few songs, “The Valley,” “Piratess” and “Rider,” Sheff was a bit out of key. He noticed it, too, and asked for more monitor so that he could hear himself. They stopped after side A and broke into more older tunes, including “John Allyn Smith Sails,” the band’s kind of corny, kind of great number that makes its way into “Sloop John B”/”The John B Sails”. It was good move that breathed some energy into the set. After that it was back into the new with “White Shadow Waltz,” one of the stronger new songs. Like other good Okkervil material, there is an appealing tension present between structure and chaos that sounds like Sheff is on the brink of going mad. Next was “We Need A Myth,” another of the more powerful new songs, but it lacked the power of the studio version, which lays on the strings pretty thick. Despite drummer Cully Syminton’s best efforts, the song needed something to fill it out, and the lone violin wasn’t doing the job.
A highlight of the last section of songs was the emotional “Your Past Life As A Blast,” which, like some of the other numbers, was kind of raw. After “Wake and Be Fine” and “The Rise” the band left the stage but hurried back on for a quick encore, “Unless It’s Kicks,” which of course killed, before the live music curfew forced them off stage. Looking back, it was probably more fun to see the band working out these songs for the first time than it would have been if everything was perfectly polished. On a humid Monday night with the smell of cigarettes and booze in the air, a not-perfect but still pretty good Okkervil felt just right with the surprisingly small crowd and Scoot Inn’s outdoorsy stage.
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Okkervil River to play Cactus tomorrow with KUT live stream
What’s next, Friday at the Hole In the Wall?
Okkervil River, the Austin/ Brooklyn band that played the Scoot Inn last night, will also play the Cactus Cafe Wednesday at 6 p.m., with live audio and video streaming at KUT.org and NPRmusic.org.
A limited number of tickets will be made available through on-air giveaways on KUT and through the station’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
“Performances like this—which more broadly share the Austin music and the Cactus Cafe experience beyond the campus and our community—are one of the reasons KUT partnered with the Cactus last year,” said KUT general manager Stewart Vanderwilt.
Okkervil will be playing songs from the new album “I Am Very Far,” which comes out May 10. If they follow the format of Scoot Inn set, they’ll also mix in old faves like “For Real” and “John Allyn Smith Sails.” After tomorrow’s show, Okkervil’s set will be available for viewing online at KUT.org as part of NPR Music’s “First Listen Live” series.
Okkervil’s set will not interfere with the sold-out Citizen Cope show previously scheduled for 8 p.m., April 27.
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Tonight’s picks: Raekwon, Mumford and Sons, Citizen Cope, more
Tuesday
Raekwon at Red 7.His solo albums have been mixed: The first, “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx,” is a stone classic of dense, paranoid 1990s hip-hop and one of the RZA’s all-time best productions. The rest? Not so much. Still, he’s one of the all-time great MCs, a crucial member of the Wu-Tang Clan, and respect is always due. With Dubb Sicks, Crew 54 and League of Extraordinary Gz. 9 p.m. $17 advance, $20 door. 611 E. Seventh St. red7austin.com.
Also recommended:
- Mumford and Sons; Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at Fourth and Waller streets
- Ron Pope at Emo’s
- Aesthetic Perfection at Elysium
- Citizen Cope at Antones
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Lollapalooza 2011 lineup
The lineup for the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza, booked and co-owned by Austin’s C3 Presents, was released today and as expected Eminem, Foo Fighters and Muse are headliners. Joining that long-leaked trio in the top tier are Coldplay, My Morning Jacket , deadmau5, Cee Lo Green and the Cars. The fest takes place in Chicago’s Grant Park Aug. 5- 7.
Although the somewhat reclusive Eminem is as big a headliner as Lolla’s ever had, the strength of the lineup is in the middle tiers, as bookers Charles Attal and Amy Corbin have assembled a “deep bench.”
Austin will be represented by Explosions In the Sky, as well as teenaged fiddler Ruby Jane, who is managed by C3.Three-day passes to Lollapalooza are $215.
C3 will announce the lineup for ACL Fest May 17. The 10th annual ACL takes place at Zilker Park Sept. 16- 18 and usually has a smattering of Lolla acts, though rarely in the headlining spots.
Full Lollapalooza 2011 lineup after the jump.
Eminem
Foo Fighters
Coldplay
Muse
My Morning Jacket
A Perfect Circle
The Cars
Cee Lo Green
Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
Arctic Monkeys
The Mountain Goats
An Horse
Sleigh Bells
Young The Giant
Manchester Orchestra
Beats Antique
Tennis
Los Bunkers
Smith Westerns
Imelda May
deadmau5
Death From Above 1979
Best Coast
Grouplove
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Wye Oak
The Drums
The Joy Formidable
Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley & Nas
Black Lips
Lord Huron
Fitz & The Tantrums
Ween
Two Door Cinema Club
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Gold Motel
Bright Eyes
City and Colour
Iration
Cults
Ryan Leslie
Big Audio Dynamite
TAB the Band
Deftones
Noah & The Whale
Skylar Grey
Beirut
Sam Adams
Christina Perri
Explosions in the Sky
J. Roddy Walston And The Business
Black Cards
Tinie Tempah
The Pretty Reckless
Ratatat
Lissie
Disappears
Boy & Bear
Crystal Castles
Dom
Patrick Stump
Flogging Molly
The Vaccines
Kids These Days
Atmosphere
Foster the People
Young Man
Cold War Kids
Titus Andronicus
The Kingston Springs
Lykke Li
Mayer Hawthorne & the County
Lia Ices
Cage the Elephant
Chico Trujillo
The Chain Gang of 1974
OK Go
The Naked and Famous
Ximena Sari&ntild;ana
Local Natives
Phantogram
Typhoon
The Kills
Rival Schools
Electric Touch
White Lies
Friendly Fires
Kerli
Portugal. The Man
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Ruby Jane
Reptar
Julia Easterlin
Ellie Goulding
Maps & Atlases
DJ Mel
Delta Spirit
Fences
Playing at Perry’s
Girl Talk
The Glitch Mob
Jackmaster
Pretty Lights
Busy P
Collie Buddz
KiD CuDi
Joachim Garraud
Savoy
The Bloody Beetroots
Death Crew 77
Super Mash Bros.
Kyle Lucas & Captain Midnite
Afrojack
Jay Electronica
Ana Tijoux
Modeselektor
12th Planet
Midnight Conspiracy
Skrillex
Daedulus
L1ght
PerryEtty vs Chris Cox
Feed Me
Lady D
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Invisible Children benefit with Mumford & Sons moves to Austin Music Hall
Doors at 4:30 p.m. today (Monday), programming starts at 6 p.m. RSVP required, details at the web site.
Mumford & Sons have a busy two days in Austin, with tonight’s benefit at AMH, then an “Austin City Limits” taping at ACL Live (scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.), and finally the Railroad Revival Tour on Tuesday.
(Hat tip to Andy Langer on Twitter, where we also read that the trains are running a little late for the railroad tour.)
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Matt & Kim to play Georgetown festival
Brooklyn duo Matt & Kim headline Friday’s Clusterfest at Southwestern University in Georgetown on Friday. Also on the bill are Octopus Project, Mexican Institute of Sound, Bright Light Social Hour, Del the Funky Homosapien and Black and White Years. Only $20. Go here for tix and more info.
M&K will also play Stubb’s June 11.
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Big Squeeze finalists to play Saturday at Bullock
Texas Folklife has announced the names of the eight young accordion players who will play the fifth annual Big Squeeze accordion contest Saturday at the Bob Bullock Museum. They are Malcom Rossyion (age 19) from Houston, Isaiah Tellez (12) Houston, Rito Peña (12) San Antonio, Ignacio Morales (15) Dallas, Joseph Garcia (14) Victoria, Omar Garza (16) Mission, Ernesto Villansana (16) Mission and Rogelio Garcia (17) San Benito.
These kids will perform before a panel of judges on the Lone Star Plaza in front of the museum from 2-5:30 p.m. Also playing Saturday are Debra Peters & The Love Saints, Keyun and the Zydeco Masters, featuring Keyun Dickson, last year’s Big Squeeze winner and Conjunto Rio Jordan with Esteban Jr. & Ricardo Jordan, carrying of for their father, the late, great Steve Jordan. It’s free and open to the public. And you can be sure there will be dancing.
Finalists will be awarded $300 each as well as having their hotel stay paid in Houston to compete before a large, enthusiastic audience of accordion fans at the Accordion Kings & Queens Festival on June 4. There, the grand-prize-winner will receive a prize package valued at $4500, including a $1000 in cash.
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Shearwater signs with Sub Pop
Austin-based indie rock group Shearwater had a busy week. After releasing its last two albums on the Matador label, the band has signed with Sub Pop and plans to release an album in 2012. “We were at the end of our contract with Matador, so we thought it would be good to make a change,” Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg said of the move. “There’s no bad blood with Matador, though - they’re awesome, and I feel very lucky to have been able to work with them.”
In other news, Shearwater released excerpts of its three-album “Island Arc” performance, which took place January at the Central Presbyterian Church. Listen to the ten-track album over at Shearwater’s bandcamp site. It’s available to download for $8. Meiburg also released a two-track experimental recording, “Why I Love My Home (Songs for Charles Burchfield),” written for an exhibition of Burchfield’s art at the Whitney Museum. That’s available for listening/download at bandcamp as well.
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Live review: Bruce Hornsby and The Noisemakers at Hill Country Conservancy benefit
Following an impassioned, unsettling, darkly humorous and inspiring speech by environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Friday night, Bruce Hornsby and The Noisemakers took the stage at ACL Live to provide a bit of musical release from the stark realities laid out by Kennedy at the Hill Country Conservancy’s Earth Day benefit.
Hornsby kicked off his set with the brooding and booming “Cyclone,” a song replete with references to the natural world that he co-wrote with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Though he acknowledged his second song, “This Too Shall Pass,” had nothing to do with the environment, it did express a hopeful note while highlighting the band’s soaring harmonies and drummer Sonny Emory’s incredible ease and unbelievable rhythm on the kit.
As a nod to the Lone Star State, Hornsby brought out Shawn Colvin for a duet of “The End of the Innocence.” Though the rendition of the song he co-wrote with Texas native Don Henley came off a bit choppy and unrehearsed, like the rest of the evening, it felt honest and vulnerable, with Hornsby communicating openly with Colvin on stage, unembarrassed by a missed line here or there.
The Virginia native chatted with the audience - split between HCC donors at tables on the first floor and loud, sloshy Hornsby fanatics in the balcony - throughout the 90-minute performance, as he bounced around his catalogue displaying his versatility with slashes of colorful zydeco, flourishes of classical and straight-ahead pop phrasing. The charming pro even went to his songbook to indulge a fan’s request for “Jacob’s Ladder” —
The set was heavy with anticipation, as it seemed many in the audience wanted to hear one of their favorite Hornsby hits from the 80s or a Grateful Dead tune (Hornsby served as the legendary group’s keyboardist for a time). Late in the show, the energetic band leader pierced the bubble of expectation with a spare, Latin jazz version of “The Way It Is” and a quiet-then-soaring cover of the Dead’s underappreciated “Standing on the Moon,” a song of love that evokes images of the planet, a fitting coda for the night.
Image of Hornsby not taken from Friday’s performance.
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Arctic Monkeys coming to Stubb’s
Tickets for the Aug. 2 show go on sale Friday.
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Tonight’s picks: Hard-gigging fiddler Ruby Jane, Family Force 5, more
(Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Monday
Ruby Jane at Momo’s.She’s one of Austin’s hardest-gigging musicians, and she’s still too young to vote. Ruby Jane’s fiddle could be (and can be) heard all over place this month and next, from Stubb’s to Old Settler’s to Gruene Hall to the Cedar Park farmers market. This is a nice room for her, and she goes on at 8 p.m. With Ryan DeSiato and Jo Hell. $5. 618 W. Sixth St. www.momosclub.com.
Also recommended:
- Family Force 5 at the Parish
- Jane Idol, the Ugly Beats at the Continental Club
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Bob Schneider king of Waterloo
Bob Schneider’s new “A Perfect Day” CD sold a whopping 512 copies at Waterloo Records for the week of April 23. Runner-up Adele sold 73 copies, while Black Joe Lewis and the Foo Fighters tied for third with 57 sold.
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Live shots and review: Sleigh Bells, CSS and Bosco Delray at La Zona Rosa
(Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
The stage at La Zona Rosa on Saturday night offered up a visual clue for what was in store before Sleigh Bells members Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss stepped one foot outside their dressing room.
Two microphone stands, six giant Marshall guitar amplifiers and nothing else. The starkest of sound elements blown up to ludicrous proportions.
That’s been the duo’s M.O. since pretty much falling blindly into music with each other three years ago, when Miller was creating abrasive soundscapes on drum machines and synths after leaving the hardcore punk band Poison The Well and Krauss was working as a scratch studio vocalist after the demise of her pop group Rubyblue.
What they’ve created together pushes at the boundaries of what can justifiably be called rock or pop music but is clearly still both; drum tracks and other backing instruments recorded, compressed and amplified over and over, Miller attacking with one or two guitar riffs and little else per song and Krauss making it all as pretty as she can with a blend of ethereal and haunting vocals.
In concert the duo doesn’t stray from last year’s bracing debut album, “Treats,” making everything as loud and in your face as possible while violent strobe lights created a feeling of audio terrorism that didn’t do much to dampen the hand waving and dancing of the sold-out crowd.
Part of that familiarity comes from the fact that everything but Krauss’ vocals and Miller’s guitar come via a backing track, which means they’re pretty much locked into a pre-determined set each night, with the only noticeable difference from the record coming on the title track “Treats”, with Miller throwing in some extra guitar riffs and Krauss adding some restrained screams.
Otherwise, the barely 40 minute set was “Treats” writ large; the bomp and sway of “Crown On The Ground” kicking the night off, Krauss inviting sing-alongs on “Riot Rhythm” and Miller leaving her solo for the plainly beautiful “Rill Rill,” which would be the climactic prom scene song if Spike Jonze decides to ever venture into John Hughes waters.
So it was short, yes, and lovable Brazilian dance rockers CSS played a triumphant set before the headliners that was longer by at least 20 minutes and showed they could take top billing in the same room on their own without much worry.
But on a night that belonged to Sleigh Bells the duo showed why folks as big-time as M.I.A. have pushed them forward and given them fairytale opportunities pretty much from the moment they started making music together.
Their catalog might be small, but what’s there is provocative as well as promising. There’s no telling what they’ll sound like even two years down the road - Saturday night certainly offered no peeks into what’s ahead - but for now they’re a flat-out thrilling band playing with the uncertain intensity similar to that of newlyweds who found themselves married after an out-of-control weekend in Vegas.
They’re still figuring this whole thing out, but every minute of that still-new partnership is worth hearing and seeing.
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First SXSW keynoter Meaux dead at 82
Huey P. Meaux, “the Crazy Cajun” whose legendary career producing Sir Douglas Quintet, Freddy Fender and many more was tarnished irrevocably by sex crime convictions, died this morning. He was 82.
Meaux was born in Louisiana, but after a stint in the Army he opened a barber shop in Winnie, Texas. He produced the swamp pop classic “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” by Jivin’ Gene (Bourgeois) in his barber shop. Meaux also discovered Barbara Lynn and produced “You’ll Lose a Good Thing.”
Singer Roy Head called him “a metal detector in the business,” according to the Houston Chronicle. “If it weren’t for Huey Meaux, you wouldn’t have heard of many of the Texas singers you know. If you were in Amarillo, he’d find you. If you had any talent at all he’d find you.”
During the Beatles-led British Invasion, Meaux reportedly locked himself in a motel room listening to that music and dissecting the sound. Then he convinced a San Antonio kid named Doug Sahm to pretend he was British. “She’s About a Mover” was a big hit in 1965, but the ruse was up when the SDQ showed up on TV with three Hispanic members.
Through Sahm, Meaux connected with Fender and had his greatest success in 1974 with Fender’s huge crossover hits “Before the Last Teardrop Falls” and “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” In 1987, Meaux was the maiden keynote speaker at SXSW. His heavy Cajun accent and funny music biz war stories regaled the crowd.
But there was a darker side to Meaux. In 1996, a police raid of the producer’s Sugar Hill studio in Houston turned up evidence of child pornography and Polaroids of sex with underage females.
After skipping bail and being apprehended in Mexico, Meaux plead guilty to sexual assault of a child and possession of child pornography, as well as a drug charge, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to the Houston Chronicle, he was released in 2007 and lived in Winnie in failing health.
His contribution to Texas music, American music cannot be denied, however. Uncontrollable urges got the best of Meaux, but so did fans of real music.
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Okkervil River to play Scoot Inn Monday
UPDATE: At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday tickets for this show were still available at Waterloo Records. $13 cash only, limit of six per person.
In a surprise announcement today, Okkervil River are playing the Scoot Inn on Monday. That’s right, two days from now. You can corral some OK tix, if you’re lucky, today at noon at Waterloo Records. $12 plus service charge. It’s a limited number that should last until about 12:07 p.m.
The band’s wonderfully sprawling “I Am Very Far” album comes out May 10.
Opening will be Dana Falconberry. Okkervil’s set is from 8:40 pm - 10 pm.
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San Antonio offers to take SXSW off our hands
In the wake of overcrowded and rowdy conditions at the recent 25th anniversary of South by Southwest, San Antonio City Councilman John Clamp told the San Antonio Business Journal that SXSW organizers should consider moving their event to the Alamo City..
This is not an April Fool’s joke three weeks late. In fact, one gullible TV station (see video below) even did a segment on San Antonio vying for Southby. Apparently they have a bunch of empty hotel rooms. Shocker.
I got to tweeting about the report at @michaelcorcoran, on ways SXSW would be different if it was held 70 miles south.
SXSW in SA
“Thousands of fans storm the walls of the Levi’s Alamo during a surprise Melvins reunion.”
After fest organizers give San Antonio fire marshals a list of all the cool fringe parties with free booze, they all call in sick.
The fest loses money for the first time ever, which makes Louis Black’s defensive Page Two rants easier to take.
Hundreds of homeless alcoholics show up in the back of Yard Dog anyway.
“Please welcome our keynote speaker, Vicki Carr!”
“Attention Sea World patrons, no Shamu today. One of the guys who used to be in the Mekons threw up in the whale tank.”
Killer ‘ritas on the Riverwalk lead to the first 360 deal for a strolling mariachi band.
Surprisingly well-attended panel: How to get your crappy metal band gigs at clubs on military bases.
Logistical problems continue to plague SXSW in SA: How can 2,000 bands play the city’s three live music clubs?
On the plus side, it’s refreshing to hear “we don’t need no stinking badges” said the right way for a change.
Even SA TV has picked up on this idiotic notion from Councilman Brain Cramp. Roland Swenson will be asked to join Menudo before SXSW leaves Austin.
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ACL Fest to announce lineup May 17
That’s the word from C3 Prsents, which will announce its Lollapalooza lineup Tuesday at 12:01 a.m.
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KUT wins 6 prestigious Murrow awards
KUT, Austin’s NPR affiliate, is the recipient of six Edward R. Murrow Awards — more than any other radio station in Texas.
The awards, announced today, are presented annually by the Radio Television Digital News Association and honor excellence in broadcast journalism.
KUT’s six awards:
Continuing Coverage and Hard News: “Doctors on Healthcare,” Nathan Bernier. Listen
Documentary: “Where I’m From, a KUT News Special Report with Texas Monthly,” Emily Donahue. Listen
News Series: “NASA: End of the Space Shuttle,” KUT News. Listen
Use of Sound: “NASA Shuttle Montage,” Nathan Bernier. Listen
Writing: “Texas Topics Writing Samples 2010,” Matt Largey. Listen
The Murrows also are presented to TV news outlets, but Austin stations were shut out this year in Region 6, which includes Oklahoma and Texas.
View the full list of winners here.
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Saadiq, Adele, Florence/Machines, Miranda to tape ‘ACL’ in June, July
Tapings continue for Austin City Limits’ inaugural season at the new ACL Live at The Moody Theater venue in downtown Austin. We’re excited to announce the following artists will be taping the show in the next few months. June is going to be a crazy month at ACL Live. Besides a host of regular shows (Bootsy, EWF etc.), the 2,750-capacity venue will be curtained off for 800 lucky fans as the TV show will tape Raphael Saadiq June 9, Adele June 13, Florence and the Machine (16), Black Joe Lewis with the Relatives (20). Meanwhile, country star Miranda Lambert will tape ‘ACL’ July 20.
For tickets:
“Any announcements regarding ticket availability and giveaways for the public will be posted on the ACL blog at austincitylimits.org approximately one week before each taping.”
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Jennifer Hudson, Emmylou Harris to play ACL Live
Country music legend Emmylou Harris will play ACL Live on Tuesday, June 21. Tickets for the show go on sale Friday, April 29.
Later that month on Tuesday June 28, former-‘Idol’ oust-ee, Weight Watchers spokeswoman, actress and all-around funky gal, Jennifer Hudson will take the stage. Tickets for that show are also on sale Friday, April 29.
Updated: To correct the date for the Emmylou Harris show.
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Wayne Coyne and his Gummy skulls at Waterloo Records tonight
From the Twitters:
@waynecoyne Gonna be at WaterlooRecords in Austin at 7:00!! Gonna bring 10 Gummy skulls!! twitpic.com/4nmpq5.
According to Chip Crowley who handles promotions for Waterloo Records, Coyne is not going to perform at the store tonight, but instead he will be in town to hock the aforementioned Gummy skulls which are packaged with four unreleased Flaming Lips tracks and will set you back about $150 a pop. Crowley also suspects that Coyne, who is also putting in an appearance at a record store in Dallas today, is likely to get sidetracked and might be dropping by significantly later than the 7 p.m. tweet time. Follow @waynecoyne on twitter for up-to-the-minute information on the location of the artist and his Gummy skulls.
Hat Tip @Andylanger
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Video: Heavenly States featuring Britt Daniel of Spoon
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Watch 12-minute preview of NBC’s ‘The Voice’
This is the show that has four Austinites- Tje Austin, Rebecca Loebe, Nakia Reynosa and Curtis Grimes- in competition for a recording contract and a bunch of other stuff. The twist of this “American Idol” spawn is that the four celebrity “coaches,” not judges, also have to sell themselves to their favorite singers in the competition. And with Cee Lo Green, Christina guilera, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine of Maroon 5 performing “Crazy” in the first segment, this show seems to focus more on the singing stars than the hopefuls. But we shall see.
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Weekend picks: Hot NOLA rhymes, country-rock mope and calm, cathartic songwriting
- Photos: This week’s picks
Friday Curren$y at Emo’s.This New Orleans rhymer is one of the hottest rappers in the game. Curren$y’s new mixtape, “Covert Coup,” produced from front to back by often-brilliant producer the Alchemist, just hit stores. 9 p.m. $20 advance, $25 door. 603 Red River St. emosaustin.com.
Also recommended:
- Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO at Red 7
- Elvis (record release) at Trailer Space
- Tony Offender Cancer Benefit with the Chumps at Emo’s
- Cut Copy at Stubb’s
- Bruce Hornsby at ACL Live
- Dixie Witch, Amplified Heat at the Scoot Inn
- Yelle at the Mohawk
- Western Ghost House at Beerland
- Learning Secrets at the Beauty Bar
- Slow Train at the Continental Club
Saturday
Jessica Lea Mayfield at Emo’s.Discovered at the tender age of 16 by Black Key Dan Auerbach, Mayfield is only 21, but her country-rock mope can sound decades older — a tour with her and fellow old-soul-at-21 Adele would be amazing. And like Adele, her second album, “Tell Me” is one emotionally gnarly breakup record, except Mayfield is the dumper rather than the dumpee (and Mayfield hasn’t sold four million albums). With Nathaniel Rateliff. 9 p.m. $10 advance, $12 door. 603 Red River St. emosaustin.com.
Also recommended:
- Those Darlins at the Mohawk
- James Taylor at Bass Concert Hall
- Sleigh Bells at La Zona Rosa
- Modok at the Carousel Lounge
- the Meatmen, the Bulemics at Red 7
- Thou, Massgrave at the Broken Neck
- Migas at the Beauty Bar
- Dimitri’s Ascent at Flamingo Cantina
- King Corduroy at Skinny’s Ballroom
- Billy Joe Shaver at Antone’s
- Music 4 Life Festival at ACL Live
Sunday
William Fitzsimmons at Stubb’s.This Pittsburgh songwriter came to fame the old-fashioned way: A few of his songs went viral after showing up on “Grey’s Anatomy.” His new album, “Gold in the Shadow,” sounds like the calm catharsis after a serious trauma. And like Sam Beam of Iron and Wine, his beard really is something else. With Slow Runner. 9 p.m. $15. 801 Red River St. stubbsaustin.com.
Also recommended:
- Karma to Burn; Honky at Emo’s
- the Low Lows at the Hole in the Wall
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Tonight’s picks: Country-fuzz mania from John Wesley Coleman, Titus Andronicus, Cut Copy, more
(James Brosher AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Austin Pets Alive! Benefit at the Ghost Room. Of the many excellent shows going on tonight, this is the one with top flight Austin bands that also benefits a hardworking Austin nonprofit. With the always-excellent country-fuzz mania of Goner recording artist John Wesley Coleman, Horse Plus Donkey, No Mas Bodas and Bad Blood. 8 p.m., $10. 304 W. Fourth St. www.theghostroom.com.
Also recommended:
- Jonny Lang, George Thorogood at ACL Live
- Lightning Bolt at the Mohawk
- Interpol at the Austin Music Hall
- Titus Andronicus, the Midgetmen, Milk Thistle at Emo’s
- Cut Copy, Holy Ghost! at Stubb’s
- Foals at La Zona Rosa
- Manifesto at Elysium
- Deserts of Mars at Flamingo Cantina
- the Service Industry at the Continental Club
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Bands added to the Pachanga lineup
Celso Piña, Toy Selectah, Rian C (Austin), Mariachi Las Alteñas (San Antonio), Dahebegebees (Austin) and Conjunto Romo (Kyle) have been added to the 2011 Pachanga Festival, which takes place May 21 at Fiesta Gardens.
Tickets are on sale at pachangafest.com, Waterloo Records and all Front Gate Tickets outlets, including frontgatetickets.com. A portion of all proceeds will benefit the FuturoFund Austin.
Full lineup after the jump.
Ozomatli (Los Angeles, CA)
Celso Piña (Monterrey, MX)
Toy Selectah (Monterrey, MX)
The Echocentrics (Austin/NYC/Rio de Janeiro)
Chingo Bling (Houston, TX)
Chico Mann (Jersey City, NJ)
Los Skarnales (Houston, TX)
Maneja Beto (Austin, TX)
Chicanoson (Los Angeles, CA)
Master Blaster Sound System (Corpus Christi, TX)
Mexicans with Guns (San Antonio, TX)
Este Vato (Austin, TX)
La Guerrilla (Austin, TX)
Dahebegebees (Austin, TX)
Mariachi Las Alteñas (San Antonio, TX)
Gina Chavez (Austin, TX)
Son de Rey (Austin, TX)
Peligrosa All-Stars (Austin, TX)
Ozokids (Los Angeles, CA)
Rian C (Austin, TX)
Conjunto Romo (Austin, TX)
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ATX dissed! RS names Nashville nation’s best music scene
First UT slips to the middle of the pack in both the nation’s party school rankings and now comes this bit of vinegar in the eye; in its April 28 “Best of Rock” issue the old grey lady glossy acid burnout of rock writing appoints Nashville, Tenn. as the city with the nation’s best music scene.
Deep-book online content at RS is subscription only these days, but the fine bunch over at the Nashville Tennessean’s Nashville Cream blog copped a scan of their home city’s spread with a pretty decent rundown of how the honor was decided.
What do we learn from this? Mainly that having Jack White claiming a city as his home ups its cultural cache by orders of magnitude - sorry ‘bout that Detroit. The guy just hosted a Jerry Lee Lewis concert outside his Third Man Records HQ as part of Record Store Day, for God’s sake.
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Neighborhood to ask for no-parking zones during ACL Fest
The Zilker Neighborhood Association plans to ask the city to implement restricted parking zones on six streets during this year’s festival, according to a report in the ZNA newsletter. Although parking in the neighborhoods during ACL is discouraged, it’s not against the law. Last year, a temporary no parking zone was designated on Kinney Avenue near the fire station.
The restricted parking issue will be discussed at the next neighborhood meeting Monday at Zilker Elementary.
The newsletter also states that C3 Presents is working to create a no-fly zone over Zilker Park during ACL to block aerial banner advertisers.
Zilker will host its 10th annual ACL Fest Sept. 16- 18.
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Manager confirms that the Ghost Room to close
Austin is losing an intimate live music venue with great sound. Bar manager Carly Miller confirmed Tuesday that the club in the original 304 W. 4th St. location of the Gingerman will close its doors June 5. On the weekend of July 9 and 10, the club will reopen for shows by Sarah Jaffe and Centromatic, then presumably close for good, although there’s been talk of “restructuring”.after the news broke.
Miller said the Ghost Room is owned by Christy Zirnheld and Steven Schiff of Dallas, who own all Gingerman locations in Texas. The Austin Gingerman moved from 304 W. 4th. after the block was bought by Gables Residential, which planned to build condominiums there. When that project was put on hold, the Ghost Room opened in September 2009.
Here’s the club web site. Miller said more shows are expected to be added on Mondays and Tuesdays as the club nears its run. T-Bird and the Breaks are playing the June 4 swan song.
The 275-capacity room, with former Parish sound engineer Chris Payeur at the board, was loved by musicians and fans, but that didn’t translate into big liquor sales. In December 2010, a month sampled for an Austin 360 story on the Hole In the Wall, the Ghost Room did just $19,000 at the bar all month.
To see how other live music clubs did during that period, go to the jump:
Top ten live original music clubs (without restaurants or cocktail lounges as a priority)
Continental Club $124,100
Antone’s $101,173
Saxon Pub $96,954
Hole In the Wall $88,043
Midnight Rodeo $85,872
Broken Spoke $67,626
Elephant Room $57,626
Scoot Inn $46,931
Parish $38,434
Momo’s $31,423
(Other live music club totals for December: Beerland $17,385, Beauty Bar $17,842, Emo’s $23,594, Red Eyed Fly $31,016, Red 7 (November) $33,272, the Ghost Room $19,135)
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Video: White Denim - “Drug”
“Drug” is from White Denim’s new album, “D” out May 24.
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CD review: The Midgetmen “Loud Enough.”
People say that the Midgetmen, the nine-year-old rock/punk quartet of Jon Loyens, Alex Victoria, Marc Perlman and Justin Petro, are “loud enough,” so that’s what they named their fourth album, available now. And they are loud enough. Choosing that name for the album also reflects the band’s lighthearted approach. There is really not a whole lot of anger floating around their music. Humor is more their thing. Not that this is some kind of novelty band — the Midgetmen take their fun very seriously, with a bunch of guitars and some good songs. Like their previous outings, “Loud Enough” is pretty solid rock and roll from beginning to end, with some moments that stand out from the others. The guitars (but not the vocals) on opener “Beer’s Gone” (“when the beer’s gone, we’re gone”) might remind listeners of Dinosaur Jr.’s “Feel the Pain.” “Race to the Bottom” has a catchy, 90’s-ish guitar hook too. And the sax on the slower barroom anthem “King Kong” is a nice touch that adds some depth in the latter part of the song. “Fly High Fly Low” ends in a blast of screaming metal. This is a band that takes a good amount of care in making music that’s meant to be kind of messy, and it shows.
The Midgetmen open for Titus Andronicus Thursday at Emo’s. Their CD Release party is May 20 at Mohawk.
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Earle to sign new book, CD at Waterloo May 4
Produced by T-Bone Burnett, “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive” is Steve Earle’s first album of new material in four years. It’s also the title of a new work of fiction by Earle, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book is about the doctor who gave Hank Williams his final dose of morphine.
A brief summary from the publisher:
“In 1963, ten years after Hank’s death, Doc himself is wracked by addiction. Having lost his license to practice medicine, his morphine habit isn’t as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound. But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighborhood in search of Doc’s services, miraculous things begin to happen.”
San Antonio native Earle returns to Austin July 7 to play the Paramount Theatre. Tix go on sale Friday at 10 a.m..
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Explosions In the Sky to play ACL Live in June
If you weren’t lucky enough to get through to buy a ticket to Arcade Fire’s May 3 show at the Backyard, you’ll have a second chance to catch opener Explosions In the Sky. The Austin-based wordless freaks are playing ACL Live June 17. Tix go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at www.acl-live.com.
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Video: Mumford & Sons at Coachella yesterday
This should get you in the mood for April 26 at Fourth and Waller.
Go here for more highlights of the past weekend in Indio. I don’t know about you, but next time I have a choice of gum, I’m going to look for 5 Gum, which sponsored the webcast.
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Photos: Lone Star Jam at Waterloo Park
(J. Dennis Thomas FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
- Photos: Lone Star Jam at Waterloo Park
More than 6,000 fans turned out for the Lone Star Jam Saturday. That’s 1,000 more than last year, when Eli Young Band also headlined. Other acts to play in Saturday’s perfect weather included Kevin Fowler (above), the Casey Donahew Band and Josh Abbott Band.
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Photos: Scenes from Old Settler’s Fest
(Elliot Brood performs on Saturday. Ashley Landis FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
- Photos: Scenes from Old Settler’s Fest
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Tje Austin another local performer on NBC’s “The Voice”
R&B singer Tje (pronounced “Tye”) Austin, who recently recorded this ode to his hometown of A-U-S-T-I-N is among the 70 singers trying to be named “the Voice” in the NBC singing contest show that premieres Tuesday April 26.
Soul man Nakia and country singer Curtis Grimes are also in the running, as is Rebecca Loebe, the Georgia singer-songwriter who recently moved to Austin.
Folla @michaelcorcoran
Curtis Grimes does “Hillbilly Bone” in front of Blake Shelton:
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Op-ed debate about SXSW goes around the Horn
It started when Prototype Vintage clothing owner Audrie San Miguel, posted this opinion editorial on the Horn web site.
In response, SXSW director Roland Swenson fired off this op-ed column.
San Miguel is the wife of Graham Williams of Transmission Entertainment, which books the Mohawk, Club DeVille, Red 7 and other downtown clubs. Williams also organizes the Mess With Texas Fest, a free-and-open-to-the-public event that used to be held at Waterloo Park during SXSW until 2010, when SXSW got the park for artist hospitality and overflow bus parking. MWT subsequently moved to the East Side Drive-In, where it was held again last month.
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Rockabilly Revival Fest coming downtown May 28
After a couple years at the Nutty Brown Cafe on the outskirts of town, the former Rockabilly Revival Fest, now just called Revival Festival, is headed to a lot on the corner of East 7th and Trinity Streets downtown.
Although “Rockabilly” has been dropped from the name, it defines the lineup, which includes Reverend Horton Heat, Hank Williams III, Lee Rocker, the Chop Tops and more. Tix are $30 and available at www.revivalfest.com or at Waterloo Records.
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Keep it on the Download: ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’ by Gatemouth Brown
T-Bone Walker was a big influence on Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown of Orange, Texas. But the great T-Bone couldn’t play as nasty as this. I don’t even know why this jumpin’ instrumental is my all-time favorite blues track, but it could be that Brown isn’t playing tricks or going for flash, he’s nailing the lowdown feeling of someone escaping hard times for a night of pure musical joy. The wild horns make the relentless guitar lead even more expressive.
Go to the iTunes store and spend the best 99 cents you’ll spend all day. The classic version from 1954 is the one that’s 2:33.
(“Keep it on the Download” is a new occasional online series inspired by this era of instant access.)
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10 great music docs you can watch instantly on Netflix
“Hype.” What happened in Seattle when grunge went platinum?
“You’re Gonna Miss Me.” Keven McAlester’s intense look into the life of Roky Erickson, the greatest musician Austin’s ever produced. (Sorry, Teddy Wilson.)
“Rolling Stones: Stones In Exile.” Behind the scenes in the making of “Exile On Main Street.”
“Soul Power.” When Muhammad Ali and George Foreman had their “Rumble In the Jungle” in Zaire, the fight was proceeded by an concert featuring such soul greats as James Brown.
“Who Is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talking About Him)?” It is possible to have number one hits, be the Beatles’ favorite artist AND be underrated.
“No Direction Home.” An obvious choice. Martin Scorsese’s riveting look at the times of Bob Dylan is much more satisfying than “I’m Not There.”
“Ken Burns’ ‘Jazz.’” Fascinating history, even for a non-jazz fan like myself.
“New York Dolls: All Dolled Up.” In which the question of “who invented punk rock” is answered in lipstick.
“LoudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies.” This is the Wilco movie with better music. David Lovering in the Jay Bennett role.
“Kurt Cobain: About a Son.” Not for lunkheads, this visualization of Cobain audio interviews is powerfully meditative.
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Bootsy Collins to funk up ACL Live on Juneteenth
The Bootzilla is headed our way. Funk bass legend Bootsy Collins of James Brown’s original J.B.’s and George Clinton’s Parliament- Funkadelic, is set to play ACL Live on June 19, according to Pollstar.
Collins’ new album is called “The Funk Capital of the World.”
Tickets to Bootsy go on sale Friday 4/22 at 10 a.m., same time as tix to Earth, Wind & Fire’s Saturday, June 11 show.
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Saturday, retailers invite you to give vinyl another spin
What do the White Stripes, AC/DC and Foo Fighters have in common with grindcore legends Discordance Axis, crooner Antony and the Johnsons and punks Trash Talk?
All will be releasing limited edition records, as in vinyl, today on Record Store Day.
Inspired by Free Comic Book Day, Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 by a small coalition of independent record stores looking to promote themselves to a customer base that is increasingly turning to online retail and digital downloads for their music needs. The first Record Store Day was April 19, 2008, for which labels produced about 10 special releases, including a 10-inch EP from Stephen Malkmus and a seven-inch single from Vampire Weekend.
Four years later, the special releases have grown exponentially - the Record Store Day website lists more than 200.
The Foo Fighters are releasing an LP of covers. The first two White Stripes singles are being re-pressed. Live versions of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Gotta Get the Feeling” and “Racing in the Street” are showing up on a 10-inch. The Flaming Lips first five Warner Bros. LP will be available in a box set. And on and on. (See the full list at www.recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases.)
Phil Waldorf, an Austinite whose record label Dead Oceans is part of a small but vibrant company that includes partners Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar (home of Okkervil River), is torn about the semi-holiday.
“Record Store Day is fantastic. It is getting people in the doors and spending money and gives them the experience of going to a record store,” Waldorf said. “The downside is that Record Store Day sometimes feels more about the buying of collectible objects that get resold on eBay or stashed in a collection than about buying physical releases that you actually listen to and enjoy.”
Not all stores will have all releases. Fortunately, Austin is blessed with a plethora of stores, 13 of which are participating in a record store crawl: Bring in a receipt from one, get 10 percent off at another.
Add the crawl to the collector mentality and there will be lines outside a lot of Austin stores, “We get people coming in who say, `I usually shop at Antone’s but I thought I’d hit all the stores,’” End of an Ear owner Dan Plunkett said.
More information and list of participating Austin stores after the jump.
The extent to which Record Store Day has become vinyl record day is also striking. Fewer than 10 percent of the 200 releases are CDs. Plunkett said vinyl accounts for about 50 percent of his sales.
“There always seem to be new people who are getting turned on to it,” Plunkett said. “Kids sometimes inherit their parents records or get into the idea that they can find an Elton John record for a dollar.”
Some stores are providing entertainment. Waterloo will host a performance from the Toadies at 5 p.m., with priority admission given to those who purchase the band’s exclusive seven-inch single. Backspin Records and Friends of Sound will have DJs, Trailer Space hosts the Zoltars at 7 p.m., End of an Ear will host touring punk band Apache Dropout, and Encore Records will host Austin hard rock band Marshall Dylan at 9 p.m.
Austin-area stores participating in Record Store Day (and the record store crawl, unless noted). Not all special releases will be available at all stores.
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Antone’s Record Shop(2928 Guadalupe Ave. 322-0660)
BackSpin Records(4631 Airport Blvd. Suite 110-A. 454-7746)
Cheapo Records(914 N. Lamar Blvd. 477-4499)
Encore Records (1745 W. Anderson Lane.451-8111)
End of an Ear (2209 S. First St. 462-6008)
Friends of Sound(1704 S. Congress Ave. 447-1000)
Musicmania (3909-D N. Interstate 35, Suite 1. 451-3361)
Piranha Records (1208 N. I-35, Round Rock. 238-0418; not participating in the crawl)
Trailer Space Records (1401-A Rosewood Ave. 524-1445; not participating in the crawl, but having a 20 percent off sale)
Waterloo Records (600A N. Lamar Blvd. 474-2500)
Whetstone Audio (2401 E. Sixth St. 477-8503)
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Soundgarden to play ACL Fest?
Soundgarden will tour this summer, it was announced today, and don’t be surprised if they end up as a headliner at ACL Fest at Zilker Park in mid-September. C3 Presents helped coax Chris Cornell and company out of retirement at Lollapalooza last year, so they’re a natural for C3’s other big fest.
The band is currently in the studio in Seattle, working on the first S’garden album of new material in 15 years. So an appearance on the “ACL” TV show would also seem to be in order. This is all speculation, as C3’s Charles Attal did not answer a text to confirm or deny, but after 9 years of ACL-watching Soundgarden feels right.
So far only four concert dates have been announced: July 2 in Toronto, July 13 in Philadelphia, July 18 in Denver and July 22 in Los Angeles. But Soundgarden is expected to be on the road through the summer.
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Weekend picks: Local genre-blenders White Denim, Pete Yorn and Stephen Marley
Friday
White Denim at Antones.Popular Austin genre-blenders are set to release a new record in May. This will be the last chance to catch them before they’re off on tour for the summer. With Yellow Fever and Hundred Visions. 9 p.m. $12. 213 W. Fifth St. antones.net.
Also recommended:
- Robert Earl Keen at Stubb’s
- the Rocketboys, Picardy III, Saints of Valory, David Ramirez and the Reynolds Number at the Parish
- Hatchet Wound, Soft Healer, Love Inks, Thousand Foot Whale Claw at Beerland
- Daniel Francis Doyle, Capillary Action, Reverse X-Rays at the Mohawk
- Texas Biennial Party with Brad Tucker at Trailer Space
- Austin Reggae Festival with Grimy Styles and more at Auditorium Shores
Saturday
Pete Yorn at Stubb’s.West coast singer songwriter’s self-titled 2010 album was produced by Frank Black of the Pixies.With Ben Kweller and the Wellspring. 7 p.m. $22. 801 Red River St. stubbsaustin.com.
Also recommended:
- Leatherbag, San Saba County, Pillow Talk at the Ghost Room
- Minor Mishap Marching Band, Churchwood (CD release), Megafauna at the Hole in the Wall
- Heirloom, Plus More, These Are Words, Black Gum, the French Inhales at Beerland
- Lone Star Jam at Waterloo Park (read our interview with Kyle Park)
- Austin Reggae Festival with Taj Weekes and more at Auditorium Shores
Sunday
Stephen Marley at La Zona Rosa Stephen Marley, second son of Bob, only has one album under his belt but has already won five Grammys. He’ll try to repeat that unlikely feat with the forthcoming “Revelation Part 1: The Root of Life.” With Ghetto Youths Crew feat. Chris Ellis, Joe Mercer and Daniel Bambaata. 8 p.m. $21. 612 W. Fourth St. lazonarosa.com.
Also recommended:
- Austin Reggae Festival with Israel Vibration and the Roots Radics Band at Auditorium Shores
- Pynchon Dual at Trailer Space (2 p.m)
- Eagle Claw at Red 7
- Fair to Midland at Emo’s
- F For Fake at the Mohawk
- Vienna Teng and Alex Wong at Stubb’s
- Fear Control at the Red Eyed Fly
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Grupo Fantasma, Terri Hendrix in at Old Settler’s
(Alberto Martinez AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Austin’s Latin funk fusion masters, recent Grammy winners and Old Settler’s alums have taken the 10:30 p.m. Friday slot vacated by the Avett Brothers. And Dirtfoot had to cancel because of emergency surgery. Terri Hendrix will fill in on Sunday. Update: The Mother Truckers have been added to the schedule, too, playing at 11 p.m.
- Even without Avetts plenty of reasons to love Old Settler’s
- Don’t-miss acts at this year’s Old Settler’s Festival
- Photos: Old Settler’s Festival 2011 highlights
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Tonight’s picks: Gypsy punk gone wild, La Snacks, Harry Hoots and more
(Ricardo B. Brazziell 2010 AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Gogol Bordello at Stubb’s. Theatrical, New York-meets-Eastern Europe gypsy punks released “Trans-Continental Hustle” in 2010. With Brownout. 6 p.m. $27. 801 Red River St. stubbsaustin.com. NOTE: This show is technically sold out.
Also recommended:
- La Snacks (7-inch release), the Calm Blue Sea, the Gary, Zoltars at the Hole in the Wall
- For the Love of Harry: “A Tribute to Harry Nilsson” with the Harry Hoot Orchestra at Ruta Maya
- Reggae Fest Kickoff Party with Grimy Styles, Skampida at Flamingo Cantina
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J.S. Blues Explosion to play Mohawk 5/6
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, touring in support of a Shout! Factory reissue campaign, are playing their first show in 7 years in the area May 6 at the Mohawk.
Check with the club’s website for ticket info.
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Texas State to honor Freddy Powers
The Wittliff Collections and the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University-San Marcos will celebrate the career of singer/songwriter Freddy Powers with a public reception Wednesday April 27 at 5 p.m.
Best known for writing such hits as “I Always Get Lucky With You” and “Let’s Chase Each Other Around The Room Tonight,” Powers was also Merle Haggard’s guitar player for many tours. Powers donated an archive of material to the Witliff Collections in 2009 as part of the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association Collection.
Attendees are asked to RSVP to southwesternwriters@txstate.edu.
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Live review: Kings of Leon at Erwin Center
Tuesday night’s concert by Kings of Leon and Band of Horses at the Erwin Center was a trip back to the ’80s when loud rock bands dominated the Drum. These are groups that women love as much as men do, and so out came the upscale streetwalker garb. Guys were swilling beer and high-fiving, plus the arena stunk of skunk.
Rock is dead, they say, with last year’s Kings of Leon album “Come Around Sundown” the best-selling rock record of the year landing at only #27 in sales. But Tuesday night about 10,000 fans came out to sway their arms, shout back familiar choruses and jump up and down to “Molly’s Chambers.” It was a vintage Tom Petty concert in 2011.
One difference, though, is that KOL could be called Statues of Leon for all the stage presence they possess. They connected through music pure and powerful, mixing the old faves (“Fans,” “On Call,” “Knocked Up”) with half a dozen songs from the new album.
Admitting to downing a few pre-show margaritas, singer Caleb Followill said “we’re going to step outside our comfort zone tonight and do some stuff we haven’t played in years.” But comparing last night’s set list to those of previous shows, only “Velvet Snow” and “Pyro” seem spontaneous.
But the show did have a “special night” feel, with the crowd all full up of jubilation during “Sex On Fire” and the encore of “Closer,” “Use Somebody” and “Black Thumbnail.” The powerhouse drummer Nathan Followill drives this train, with Caleb’s perfect vocals making for a pleasing trip.
“We love Austin, except during football season,” said Caleb, who is apparently an Oklahoma Sooners fan (thanks, Jennifer). When the crowd booed, he said, “at least I had the balls to say it.” After all the mainstream success and the foul pigeon incident, KOL are no longer a cool band, if they ever were. They’re Supertramp of the iPhone era. But they’re also total pros who can rock a big house, for sure. It’s staggering to think just how few bands there still are that can do that.
Setlist is after the jump.
(As told to setlist.fm.com)
The End
Radioactive
Crawl
Taper Jean Girl
Velvet Snow
Molly’s Chambers
Mi Amigo
Back Down South
Fans
Mary
The Immortals
Notion
No Money
Four Kicks
Pyro
On Call
Knocked Up
Sex On Fire
Closer
Use Somebody
Black Thumbnail
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Avett Brothers not playing Old Settlers on account of childbirth
The Avett Brothers, whose booking Friday at Salt Lick Pavillion gave the Old Settler’s Fest its hottest headliner yet, have scrapped that date because Scott Avett’s wife is expecting a baby ahead of schedule. The band will play a make-up date somewhere in Austin Oct. 16.
“It’s disappointing, but a new life is a new life and everybody should celebrate that,” said fest booker Jean Spivey, who said word came late Tuesday. Unused Friday passes at Old Settlers will be honored at the makeup date.
As with most festivals, there aren’t refunds after an act drops out. Spivey said she’s working on getting a replacement for the Avetts. (Hey, what’s Sarah Jarosz up to?)
Scott Avett released the following statement:
“It is with great excitement that we announce the birth of my second child. This has been such a special time for our family and we are waiting with joyous anticipation for the arrival of our baby.
Unfortunately, we regret that the Avett Brothers must reschedule our shows in Houston, TX on April 14, Austin, TX on the 15th and Dallas, TX on the 16th, so that I may be by my wife’s side as we welcome our new baby. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I also apologize for the late notice, but we waited until the last possible minute to make this decision.
I would like to say a very heart-felt thank you to everyone for your well-wishes and kind words during this time. We will see you all very soon and assure you that these shows will be rescheduled.
In truth, Scott Avett & The Avett Brothers”
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In the mix with Lupe Fiasco
(Ricardo B. Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN)“I had laryngitis. We’re gonna send you the doctor’s note because people don’t believe me,” rapper Lupe Fiasco says explaining his last-minute cancellation from this year’s SXSW Music Festival. He’s sitting in the studio of local Clear Channel affiliate 102.3 The Beat making up an appearance that was supposed to happen during the festival. “I know people don’t believe me,” he laughs, “I got hammered in the press they were like ‘he doesn’t want to come and perform for these rock correspondents.’ Well it’s like when the doctor says if you keep talking you’ll never talk again, I’ll just shut up.”
This make-up date wraps up a radio promotional tour for Fiasco’s latest release ‘Lasers’ which after multiple delays, dropped in March of this year. The album’s title is a loose acronym for Love Always Shines Every time Remember to Smile. “In everything that I do I want to be positive,” Fiasco explains, “so even the titles of my albums, I want them to have a deeper meaning. To hopefully inspire and uplift people.”
While ‘Lasers’ debuted at the number one spot on the Billboard charts, the critical response to the album has largely been less than positive. Pop-oriented and heavy with glossy production and autotuned melodies, the album is less adventurous and lacks the utterly engrossing twists and textures of his previous two releases. Lyrically, from the unflinching political commentary on ‘Words I Never Said’ to the bittersweet melancholy of the artist lament ‘Till I Get There,’ Lupe proves he can still throw down with the best rappers in the game, but the overall feel of the album is markedly different. Fiasco concedes that this is at least in part due to pressure from his label to put out a more commercial release.
“I got an understanding that was kind of what the label wanted, that they wanted that type of album. So that’s what I gave them,” he admits.
“At the same time we wanted to go into territory that we had never been in before. Which is basically like radio. My albums never really had big smash radio records. It was something like let’s just take the opportunity to do that. If everybody’s focus is on is big radio records then let’s do a big radio album.”
The upside, obviously, of putting out a commercial album is larger reach, and even on the most manufactured sounding tracks Fiasco manages to slip in deftly astute, frequently inspiring lyricism.
“This is probably the most radio exposure we’ve had ever,” says Fiasco, “as the message (in the music) gets out, it’s going to go out to more people. (It) gets the positivity out to a wider audience.”
During his stop at the Beat, the rapper sat in with DJ Zannie K during the morning show and participated in a Facebook chat with fans. He then performed a three-song set and took questions from a group of about 40 fans. The performance took place in the Samuel’s Diamonds Live Music Lounge, an intimate space off the building’s main lobby full of unironic faux-glitz (think black velvet lounge chairs, couches with leopard-print shag throws and vases full of plastic diamonds).
The fans in attendance were listeners of the radio station who won entry to the show through text messaging contests. It was a diverse group of mainly young people and based on their rapt response to Fiasco, who at one point led them through a nearly perfect a capella rendition of the uplifting ode to perseverance,“The Show Goes On,” he’s definitely achieved a level of impact with the radio set.
But don’t write Lupe Fiasco off as a sell-out just yet. Hanging out in a corporate conference room before he took the stage he quietly mentioned plans to head to Houston and spend the evening in the studio with underground H-Town hero Trae tha Truth and hopefully hammer out a couple tracks. And that sounds like a collaboration any self-respecting hip-hop head can get behind.
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Updates from the trial of former recording studio owner Dennis Davis
Davis, 61, is charged with murder in the 1985 death of Natalie Antonetti, 38, who died 18 days after she was found beaten in her Barton Hills apartment. Antonetti was the mother of Austin musician Johnny Goudie, who was 17 at the time of her death. Statesman writer Steven Kreytak is at the trial and providing ongoing reports in the Austin Legal blog.
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Read Bill Hicks’ 39-page fax to John Lahr after Letterman ax
In October 1993, the David Letterman Show, blaming CBS standards and practices, cut an entire segment by Houston comedian Bill Hicks from broadcast. A week later, a still-upset Hicks sent this 39 page letter to John Lahr, who was in the process of writing a big New Yorker feature on Hicks.
It’s a fascinating read, as Hicks takes us behind the scenes at Letterman, recalling the process. A couple of things I found especially interesting: 1) Hicks used the pseudonym “Otis Blackwell” when he checked into the hotel in New York, as a private dig at comedian Denis Leary, who was getting rich by borrowing chunks of Hicks’ act. (Blackwell was the writer behind Elvis Presley’s transformation from rockabilly singer to pop star.) and 2) Hicks was a last-minute replacement on Letterman for a former Mobster, in the witness protection program, who had written a cookbook.
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Valentine hoppin’ mad after latest Go-Go’s snub by rock hall
Although the Go-Go’s were the first female band to write and play their own songs on a number one album (1981’s “Beauty and the Beat”), the group has been inexplicably left out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “Women Who Rock” exhibit.
Austin based Go-Go Kathy Valentine reacted with thumbs’ a flyin’ Monday afternoon, sending out a host of tweets in protest.
The exhibit opens May 13 in Cleveland. In advertising the exhibit’s punk and post-punk era, the list of highlighted artists includes Siouxie Sioux, Yoko Ono, the B-52’s, Kim Deal, Tina Weymouth, Chrissie Hynde and Marianne Faithful. But not Belinda Carlisle and company.
The Go-Go’s have also failed to make the ballot for the Hall of Fame, which is more understandable (right, Rush fans?) than this latest slight. Is there a No-No’s sentiment at the House of Wenner?
In one tweet, Valentine says an insider has said the committee won’t induct the Go-Go’s because they only recorded three albums in their heyday. In another she states: “Countless female musicians cited our success as their sole inspiration to pick up instruments or start bands.”
Follow Kathy V and the controversy at @Kathy_Valentine
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Interview: David Crosby
David Crosby and Graham Nash’s most resonant classics (“Guinevere,” “Teach Your Children”) helped define the boomer generation. The legendary duo, whose buoyant 1971 concert album “Another Stoney Evening” can be downloaded at crosbynash.com, perform Tuesday at Bass Concert Hall.
“Austin’s hot stuff to me,” the 69-year-old Crosby says. “There’ll be lots of people there who can play themselves and will know when we reach over our heads and when we do well. That’s a crowd you want to play to.”
American-Statesman: Describe the night ‘Another Stoney Evening’ was recorded (at Los Angeles’ Dorothy Chandler Pavilion).
David Crosby: Well, it was quite a night (laughs). I was fairly sick and had about a 103-(degree) fever. I was not quite myself, but Nash and I were in a very good mood. This isn’t very modest to say, (but) we did what turned out to be a very good show.
This album was bootlegged for years.
It was for many years one of the most famous bootlegs in the country on vinyl. It’s never been out digitally or on a CD or as a download, (but) we have this new record company (Blue Castle Records) and decided we’d like to have it out digitally.
Does the performance hold up as you listen four decades later?
Yeah, I think it holds up very well. Now, we didn’t have the band that we have (today). If you come to see Crosby Nash right now, it’s far stronger because we probably have the best band of anybody in the country.
Do you do ‘Guinevere’ solo?
We’re having an incredible time with it right now because for the very first time in 40 years, I’ve let other people play it with me. ‘Guinevere’ might well be my best song.

What makes it your best?
Well, I’m not sure it’s the best; that’s really a (subjective) decision that other people would argue with, I’m sure. There are a lot of people who think my most juvenile song of all, “Almost Cut My Hair,” is my best song (laughs). I would point toward “Déjà Vu” or “Guinevere” as my best. I think that it generates a mood, makes you feel something.
What is Graham’s greatest asset as a musical partner?
First of all, he’s a wonderful human being. Secondly, imagine two old fighter pilots who have been flying combat for many, many years. They know where the other guy’s wingtip is. They just do (laughs). We can fly a very, very tight formation. We almost telepathically know where the other guy’s wingtip is.

Does that apply to your personal relationship as well?
It’s both. We’ve been very, very good friends. He’s been very kind to me and very loyal. He stuck with me when I went through all of my down time. He tried his level best to help get me out. Of course, I had to do that for myself, but he never abandoned me. He’s always stayed my friend. I feel great loyalty and affection toward him.
Do you think about the legacy you two have created?
We don’t think about our legacy at all. It’s not even good for you. It’s better to think about what you’re going to do today and what you’re going to do tomorrow. Otherwise, you wind up standing there saying, “Gosh, I’m significant.” (He laughs.) I’m all about now: “What can I create today?” “How can I make the world a better place tonight?”
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Denmark’s indie rock Raveonettes return to Austin, at last
First things first — this time they’ll be here. Sharin Foo swears on it.
“Yeah, two times we had problems with visas and couldn’t make it there, but we’re taken care of now,” says Foo, one of two principal members of Danish indie rock band the Raveonettes. The latest document snafu happened less than a month ago when bandmate Sune Rose Wagner couldn’t get his visa approved in time for South by Southwest.
But talking by phone from a tour stop in Chicago last week, Foo said she and Wagner are looking forward to getting in front of audiences who have heard their just-released fifth full-length “Raven in the Grave” and will be able to interact with the songs more than crowds earlier in the tour.
“Because the record wasn’t out yet, the shows had a feeling that people didn’t know how to react to the songs since we’re playing so much of the new record on this tour,” Foo said. “I’m looking forward to having more interaction, because with two drummers along with Sune and myself, we’ve got the best live lineup we’ve ever had, or at least the one that I like best.”
Foo said having two drummers was essential to realize the synth-driven and at times nearly electronic elements that dominate the new material, with one percussionist triggering loops and other effects that add even more haze to the band’s brand of distortion-heavy garage pop.
“For this tour, we needed to have those unique layers of sound, and we could have had someone who was like a DJ handling that, but we wanted there to be a more physical element to it,” she said. “It’s always a very interesting discussion for us after we do a record and get ready to go out on tour, because we have to figure out what’s going to make this music work best when we do it live. (Writing) is a very intimate thing because it’s just Sune and I at that point, but then we have to work on bringing other people in in the right way for what we’ve created.”
“Raven in the Grave” isn’t a drastic departure for the band — the overall vibe is still boy-girl pop cloaked in Jesus and Mary Chain-style fuzz — but its nearly goth overtones make it probably the most distinct-sounding record the band has produced. Put another way, songs like the new “Recharge and Revolt” or “Forget That You’re Young” would sound out of place on any of the Raveonettes’ other albums and represent a specific musical approach, whereas most of the rest of their work could’ve been interchanged among records and feel at home.
Foo said the Cure-ish musical direction of “Raven…” wasn’t intentional, but the pair found the moody atmospherics fit their creative spirit as they worked through an identity crisis (her word) that plagued the early writing and recording sessions.
“There was a crisis we were having because we were questioning the future of the band, where we go from where we were after the last record (2009’s “In and Out of Control”) and whether there was much point in being a band anymore,” she said. “Even though it feels very dark, I find it to be hopeful, and once we got going, we found this restless energy and it felt sort of rebellious. Once we got going we found it to be re-energizing, so it was like we were rebuilding the band and it was sort of us against the world.”
The Ravenottes play Tuesday at Emo’s, 603 Red River St. $15. With Tamaryn and Shapes Have Fangs. emosaustin.com.
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Alejandro, Roky, Butch bring 100 years of Austin music to Chicago
Alejandro Escovedo has been tapped to lead the “United Sounds of America: Austin” program at the Chicago Symphony Hall on June 18. Among Escovedo’s guests will be Roky Erickson, Butch Hancock, Cindy Cashdollar, Joel Guzman, Stephen Barber and more.
Although Austin music arrived in 1966 when Roky sang “You’re Gonna Miss Me” with the 13th Floor Elevators, Escovedo and company will take listeners back to the days when John and Alan Lomax recorded folk music for the Library of Congress.
The “United Sounds” project also will have Marshall Crenshaw exploring the music of his native Detroit, Suzanne Vega on New York City, the Rebirth Brass Band doing New Orleans, among others.
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If you’re a fan of Harry Nilsson…
Justin Sherburn of Okkervil River has put together quite a bill for “For the Love of Harry: A Tribute to Harry Nilsson, Thursday at Ruta Maya. The Nilsson-scored “The Point” will screen at 8 p.m., with the bands playing at 9:45 pm until 1 am. Cover is $2.
Here’s the lineup:
The Harry Hoot Orchestra featuring Christina Mars of the Asylum Street Spankers
The Floating Opera Orchestra
Sweet Gary Newcomb
The Jitterbug Vipers
Miles Zuniga
Patrick Pestorius
Hillary York
Ramsay Midwood
Jenni Wieland
Vermeer Cartoon
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Cotton Mather kickstarts ‘Kontiki’ reissue
Back in 1997, Austin band Cotton Mather released an album called “Kontiki” to almost zero recognition in their home town. But when the record was released in the UK a year later on the Rainbow Quartz, “Kontiki” was championed by the likes of Noel Gallagher of Oasis.
“Kontiki” has been out of print for years, but CM leader Robert Harrison (currently of Future Clouds and Radar) is compiling a two-CD reissue, with bonus tracks, rarities and all that.
If you watch the pretty hilarious video above, you’ll wonder why Harrison didn’t use the money spent on the video to pay for “Kontiki Deluxe.” The video advertises a Kickstarter campaign to raise $12,000, a figure that has almost already been met.
It’s not yet known when “Kontiki” will again be on shelves.
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Austin’s Top 3 stations: KUT, KASE, KHFI
If the latest radio rankings from Arbitron look familiar, there’s a very good reason for that.
The current Top 10 list features the same stations as last time, although a few of the market’s main players have moved up or down a spot or two.
UT-operated NPR affiliate KUT remained No. 1 during the February ratings period, which ran Feb. 3 through March 2, followed by country station KASE 101 and pop-friendly 96.7 KISS-FM, both owned by San Antonio-based Clear Channel.
Average quarter-hour ratings as of March 2, courtesy of radio-info.com (numbers in parentheses indicate rank as of Feb. 2):
1.) KUT (1)
2.) KASE (2)
3.) KHFI (3)
4.) KLBJ-AM (4)
5.) KBPA (5)
6.) KPEZ (8)
7.) KVET-FM (9)
8.) KKMJ (7)
9.) KLZT (6)
10.) KAMX (10)
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Steamboat reunion May 15 at Threadgill’s
Annually, it’s one of the feelgood days of Austin music, when Danny Crooks brings back the spirit of Steamboat at Threadgill’s South.
Among the acts playing this year are Del Castillo, the Lotions, Vallejo and Greezy Wheels. After the jump, read what Crooks has to say about each band on the bill.
DANNY CROOKS ON THE STEAMBOAT REUNION LINEUP
2:00 TruePenny A cool little pop band that played in the late 90’s that I liked but they were all in different bands and broke up before anything really took off.
3:00 The Sunday Monsters (Will Sexton , Tommy Taylor , David Holt , Stephen Doster , Buka Allen and Kyle Brock). They packed Steamboat every Sunday, which is hard to do, because you never knew who they would have joining them on stage. I looked up one night and lined up against the wall by the stage waiting their turn were Ian Moore , Eric Johnson , Billy White , Pat McDonald , Chris Duarte and several more.
4:00 Greezy Wheels was one of the biggest bands of the 70’s. They would fill the Armadillo by themselves or they were used as an opening drawing band by most of the acts that came through. On the Frank Zappa live album where Frank says the immortal words “Goodnight Austin Texas wherever you are,” it was Greezy Wheels opening. Sweet Mary taught Jon Luc Ponty, Franks violin player, how to play The Orange Blossom Special on the side of the stage. In about five minutes and they had one of them dueling banjo type of moments which I still think was one of the best moments in any concert i ever saw.
5:00 The Lotions. From the mid 70’s to the late 80’s there wasn’t a bigger band in Austin. I saw a story in Texas Monthly calling them Texas’ first Reggae Band. They would also fill the Armadillo in the 70’s and Steamboat and Liberty Lunch in the eighties.
6:00 PigGie Hat started playing Steamboat when Chris Sensat (drummer) was 13, Joddee Purkeypile(guitar,vocals) was 14 Sean Crooks(guitar,vocals) was 15 and Paul Murray(bass) was 17. They developed a good following and toured around Texas , Arkansas and Oklahoma. They played three SXSW and one NXNW and was just starting to take off when like so many Austin bands they broke up. Chris , Sean and Joddee have stayed playing together all these years in their bands The Alice Rose , Planet Rye Co , The Battlemen and their 13th Floor Elevator cover band Acid Tomb.
7:00 Vitera played Steamboat in the late 90’s in his original band Haydn Vitera a very cool rock band who since has dropped his first name and added a mean violin which he plays along with guitar and a strong latin influence. He is going to be one of Austin’s bigger bands real soon. The band gets tighter and the crowds get bigger with every show.
8:00 Vallejo has been a driving force in the Austin music scene since 95. When they first moved here from Alabama no-one knew who they were. At there first show there was three of us but i could tell they were a band Austin would like so I started them headlining wednesdays starting the next week. it started out slow but each week would get a little better.They tried every thing they could to get people to come. One week they even played naked and sure enough by the end of the year they had 600 people coming to every show. That was in 95 and they have toured nationally won every award available in the Austin Music Awards and continue playing touring and putting their music on t.v. shows and movies or where ever they can put it. Alex Vallejo is also a founding member of the Pachanga Music Fest.
9:00 Del Castillo has done every thing a band can do since forming in 2001. Toured around the world. Released amazing albums. Collaborated with Robert Rodriquez , having music in most of his movies. He directed their first video which was shot at Steamboat Austin on Riverside drive.They are even in a band with him Chingon. They too have won nearly every award you can win at the Austin Music Awards . Mark used to play in a couple of bands that played Steamboat on 6th so when he came to me in 2001 after Steamboat closed on 6th and before I opened Steamboat Austin (which was an incredible venue but just not Steamboat) while I was helping turn fat tuesdays into the vibe and asked me if they could play a show i said of course. At that time they didn’t plan on being a band they had made an album for their mother and just wanted to play one live show for her and their friends. When they started playing they blew me away . Even though I don’t speak spanish and didn’t have a clue what Alex was saying i knew it was a positive message and totally amazing. After the show I told them they were starting the next week playing every thursday and after a little back and forth they said ok. They were a band from then on and when I left the vibe and opened Steamboat Austin I took them with me and they started playing every thursday. The rest as they say is history.
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Exene Cervenka talks about canceled tour
The former X singer and all-around cool singer and writer was in Austin last month for both South by Southwest and a show the week after at the Mohawk. Cervenka, who has multiple sclerosis, says the disease flared up during SXSW. From a message to fans (read the whole message on her web site):
“as you probably know by now, i was diagnosed with ms. i have been doing relatively well. i thought i could handle sxsw in austin, and a short solo tour. however, i got sick in austin during sx, it is a hard event even under the best of circumstances. it didn’t seem that hot to me, but heat is very bad for those of us with ms. i started feeling bad almost as soon as i started playing on wednesday and by sunday night, i had a terrible headache and couldn’t get out of bed. i didn’t feel any better by wednesday so i called my neurologist and got a prescription for steroids. i started to improve a little and thought i’d be okay to start my southwest southeast tour on the following friday. in retrospect, i should have called off the tour then and there. but i didn’t want to cancel. kevin seconds, who was on the tour with me, met me in austin, and we played our first show. but i wasn’t getting better in knoxville tn, a week later, i was fatigued and having a hard time functioning. when i took the stage that night, i was surprised to discover that my right hand and arm were not responding to my commands, and i couldn’t play guitar.”
Photos from Cervenka’s Mohawk show.
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Show review: Penn & Teller at the Paramount Thursday
Question numero uno at the Paramount Theater Thursday night was: Will Teller speak?
The answer was yes. Quite a lot, very thoughtfully, eloquently and illuminatingly. The silent half of pretty much the only comedy act worth paying attention to for more than three decades acted like he’d been waiting to speak his mind the entire time.
“Penn & Teller: 35 Years of Magic and B.S.” was nothing close to their full Vegas show; the evening was billed as a moderated Q&A with a few tricks thrown in. The stage was spare — throw in a couple of potted plants and it could have been “Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.” And the conversation roamed, from how their got their respective starts in magic, how they got together (Teller: “We were searching for a way to show the audience we did’;t insult their intelligence”) and how they’ve maintained a close but businesslike relationship. Along the way they dropped illuminating trivia: The last movie they saw together was ‘Piranha 3D;” Teller taught at Jon Stewart’s old high school.
“If Charlie Sheen can talk off the cuff, I should,” Penn Jillette said early on. Yeah, but is that such a good idea? As Sheen is off bombing and deluding himself into thinking he’s winning, Penn & Jillette were relaxing and being their natural funny selves. Jillette went out of his way to praise his partner, whom he usually sort of overshadows by virtue of his size and volume, calling Teller “ the best magician that ever lived.”
“I love the truth that hides in plain site,” Teller said, and they illustrated that principle early on with their cups and balls bit, which they do a second time with clear plastic cups. Penn & Teller were in plain sight but not hiding Thursday, and they revealed themselves to be great company, eminently likable and deserving of every bit of success they’ve enjoyed.
Now, if they could only figure out how to vanish a cow…
Penn & Teller play the Paramount again tonight. That show is sold out.
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Alamo Drafthouse cracking down on talkers at movies
Shhhhhh! The Alamo Drafthouse has had enough of rude people.
Tim League, the founder and CEO of the local chain of dine-and-watch theaters, says that despite the Alamo’s proactive policies aimed at weeding out obnoxious people, an incident last week has spurred even more action. Apparently, a group of annoying talkers managed to ruin the experience for several movie-goers at the Ritz, and the Alamo’s method for stopping them failed.
League is determined to fix that. He doesn’t quite bring out the masking tape (wouldn’t that be great?), but he is planning several steps to assure those of us who want to watch a movie and enjoy a beer that we won’t have to deal with talkers.
Among the steps: Retrain the staff, have a staff member in the theater listening for talkers at all times during peak shows and having a manager stay in the theater once there is a complaint.
Here’s League’s official response.
Hooray. Now, be quiet: the movie is starting.
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Weekend picks: Influential pioneers, graceful post-punk and fuzzy, surfy rock
- Photos: This week’s picks
Friday
Wire at Mohawk. Influential post-punk pioneers released a new album, “Red Barked Tree,” in January. $17. 9 p.m. 912 Red River St. mohawkaustin.com - Peter Mongillo
Also recommended:
- Books at the Central Presbyterian Church
- Wil Cope, Larry Llodra at Trailer Space
Saturday
Warpaint at La Zona Rosa. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing headliners Sonic Youth at La Zona Rosa - which now sounds excellent after years of sounding terrible - but this Los Angeles act’s wiry, graceful post-punk set, which opened the show, ended up being my favorite live show of the year. 8 p.m. $15. 612 W. Fourth St. lazonarosa.com. - Joe Gross
Also recommended:
- Urban Music Fest at Auditorium Shores
- the Pains of Being Pure At Heart at Emo’s
- The Eastern Sea, Seryn at the Mohawk
- Gone to Croatoan at the Broken Neck
- School of Rock presents Pioneers of Punk at Red 7 (early show, 7 p.m.)
- Paperthreat at the Beauty Bar
- Aeolus Quartet, Austin New Music Co-op at Space12
- Benefit for Japan at the Scoot Inn
- All Time Low, Yellowcard at Stubb’s
- Tube Amp Love Affair at the Parish
- Broken Teeth at the Red Eyed Fly
Sunday
Real Estate at the Parish. This kind of fuzzy, kind of surfy rock from New Jersey is closer to Wavves and Best Coast than the Boss. With Pure Ecstasy and Love Inks $15. 8 p.m. 214 E. Sixth St. 478-6372. theparishaustin.com - P.M.
Also recommended:
- Dipset (Juelz Santana, Cam’ron, Jim Jones) at Emo’s
- Maserati, My Education at the Mohawk
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Concert preview: Texas Legends hip-hop showcase
“It’s what Austin is known for on the urban side of things,” says Mr. Greezo of the League of Extraordinary Gz. He’s talking on the phone about Texas Relays weekend, the annual spring athletic event that brings thousands of people from around the state to Austin, many of whom happen to be young African-Americans looking to socialize.
This year, his group is participating in the inaugural Texas Legends Showcase, an event that aims to cater to the urban audience the Texas Relays draw. The showcase, which opens tonight and continues Friday, Saturday and Sunday, includes everything from a freestyle rap contest to a nightly entertainment roster heavy with recognized rap talent from Houston and Austin.
Eight members deep, The League of Extraordinary Gz is an amalgamation of three solid local hip-hop groups, C.O.D., Dred Skott and SouthBound.
They blend gritty street poetry with club bangers and startlingly soulful playas anthems tightly laced with Southern harmonies so seductive you might miss some of the borderline offensive subtext.
We hit Greezo up for his thoughts on the ATX hip-hop scene, SXSW and what to expect from this weekend’s performance.
Music Source: You’ve been on the Austin hip-hop scene for a minute now, how have you observed it evolving?
Mr. Greezo: This year is probably the best year for the Austin hip-hop scene. As far different representations, now it’s better than it’s ever been.
How would you compare the local scene to Houston or Dallas?
I believe that Austin has the potential to be bigger than those scenes as far as talent alone. But what Austin lacks that those other cities have is the casual fan. There are people in Austin who are really dope that do music but it seems like the majority of people who know about them are other artists. It’s not too many casual fans who know about the League of Extraordinary Gz versus in Houston (people) who know about Chamillionaire or Slim Thugg. I believe a lot of it has to do with this city’s reputation as the live music capital, aka musicians play music, as opposed to hip hop. So you can be an indie rock group in Austin and have four or five thousand Austin fans who come see you each week and buy your merch and CDs and stuff and you can survive like that, but as far as hip hop goes that’s not gonna happen. I’m not saying that the casual fan isn’t out there because they are; it’s just letting people know that there’s legitimate hip-hop artists here who have talent and who are professionals about this so we can be taken in a professional light.
How was your SXSW showcase?
Aw, man it was awesome. Those are the times that let me know that Austin has potential, because we’re a local group, we’re not signed, but we packed out our venue. We got good reviews. It was a lot of our fans, but it was a lot of new casual fans that came and saw us perform and that was really good as far as letting me know where we can go.
What can people expect from your show on Saturday?
We’re definitely gonna do music for the Texas Relays crowd. We’re gonna party and we’re just gonna have a good time. When people come to our shows they can expect a lot of energy. They can expect a lot of jammin’ music. They can expect a lot of pretty girls in the crowd. It’s a good atmosphere and a good party and they can definitely expect it not to be any sort of bs going on. We let people know off the rip, leave that at the house. Don’t bring that negativity to what we’re doing. And it’s always successful.
The Texas Legends shows are all at Easy Tiger, 709 East Sixth St.; cover is $20 a night. The League of Extraordinary Gz play Saturday night on a bill with Houston’s KB from Street Military.
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Live review: Lady Gaga at Erwin Center
If there was any doubt that Lady Gaga, who turned 25 last week, had the pure talent and jaw-dropping showmanship to hold a packed arena delirious and enrapt for two hours, that was put to rest Wednesday night at the Erwin Center. Little Miss Dynamite was spectacular in every way and, if the new piano-driven song “You and I” is an indication, she’s only going to get better.
Click here to see photos from Lady Gaga’s Austin show.
Madonna did it first, but the more vocally and musically gifted Gaga does it better. I guarantee that on her best night, Ms. Ciccone never put on a show like this one, which owed as much to Broadway musicals and Bette Midler sentimentality than catchy dance songs.
Gaga came out on “Dance In the Dark” to a Sieg Heil of cell phone cameras; this is how it is at every big concert these days.. But on a couple of occasions she ordered her “little monsters,” many of whom dressed like the star, to put down their phones and make claws in the air and they did without pause.
Some of the set’s early highlights were “Just Dance,” which had the entire arena leaping in unison with the star and her troupe of nearly a dozen dancers, “LoveGame,” which made full use of the runway that took them closer to fans, and “The Fame,” which set a theme. But it was the coupling of a solo piano version of “Born This Way,” which grew into a Marshall Tucker-like anthem, and the Elton John-like “You and I” that made this concert more than an extravagant dance party.
Gaga often caught her breath between numbers by talking to her fans and spreading her message of following your dreams and loving yourself and others. She addressed several fans by name and read a note from one who had suffered physical injuries yet had the drive to keep going because of her love for the Ga. The show had other Oprah moments, but I want all that when I go to a concert. Comedy, drama, singing, dancing, sparkler bras and crotches, speeches: yeah, why not?
It’s too bad that, during “Teeth,” she resorted to provocative sexual posing with one of her dancers. That’s not who she is when she’s the person I want her to be. The idiotic crotch grabs are what really ruined Michael Jackson’s career, so M’ Lady has to be careful. Didn’t add anything to the show; has the potential to take a lot away.
There were also too many moments of obligatory profanity and continued pandering to the crowd. The F-word and “Austin!” each received a couple dozen mentions. Also, Gaga and her terrific band seemed to race through the big hits- “Alejandro,” “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi” near the end.
During “Teeth,” Gaga announced that she’s never lipsynced and never will, but should have left it at that without implying that those that do are not authentic. A lot of really major talents- Michael Jackson, Dixie Chicks, Whitney Houston and many more have lipsynced on occasion. Gaga’s pronouncement seemed out of place. And she’d better never tell a grand jury she’s never knowingly lipsynced.
Better were the moments of spontaneity, as Gaga did funny things with objects thrown onstage, even biting the head off a Barbie doll and spitting it into the crowd.
The most impressive thing about the woman born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is her voice. Then her stage presence. But right up there is the humanity you feel during one of her concerts. Love was in the house Wednesday night.
When she was covered in fake blood during show-closing “Born This Way” (which was born as “Express Yourself” two decades ago), it was less a horror movie affectation and more a symbol of birth. Lady Gaga is a once in a generation artist. And she’s only just begun.
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Show review: Jeff Beck at ACL Live Tuesday
Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
As much fun as it is, rockabilly is a rigidly narrow style. And as much as Jeff Beck professes to love rockabilly, his anchoring an old-time rock ‘n’ roll band is like Christo doodling on postage stamps. The question: Is there going to be enough room in these songs for a guitar legend to swing for the fences?
The answer: You betcha. With Irish singer Imelda May and her Tupelo hunky husband Darrel Higham, Beck and an altogether swingin’ band brought their very best stuff to ACL Live Tuesday night, reverently but raucously covering the likes of “Hound Dog,” “Cry Me a River,” “Vaya con Dios” and more. As was the case with a similar lineup’s CD and DVD at the Iridium in New York, the night was something of a tribute to Les Paul, with lots of slap echo and pre-recorded backing vocals for May (which she acknowledged as a nod to the great one).
Just a couple of years ago Beck said he was pretty much done with rockabilly, and he’s spent a long and restless career moving forward, from an apprenticeship in the Yardbirds to having something to do with laying at least a cornerstone for heavy metal to the power trio to fusion to neo-classical and electronica. A bona fide virtuoso and notorious perfectionist, Beck never stops trying to surprise even himself, and his work is consistently amazing but sometimes weighted with a certain maestro fatigue.
Working within the constraints of these classic songs, Beck was like DeNiro playing a comic role: He relaxed, the audience relaxed and the goal was simply to have a good time. And it was impossible not to, listening to the band rip through Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “That’s All Right” (famously covered by another hunk from Tupelo), Beck recreating Scotty Moore’s guitar part and adding a little of his own tonal shading. On compact songs like that, ones without a lot of solo space, Beck was at his most explosive and, as ever, always in service to the song.
There were, however, spots in the set where Beck was able to stretch out and demonstrate why it was his name at the top of the bill. “Sleep Walk” gave him the chance to trot out the world’s greatest lap steel impression,”Peter Gunn” rumbled menacingly like a Peterbilt on your tail on I-35 and “Danny Boy” felt like, and was, a recessional. True guitar porn, that. He really is one of the best electric guitarists ever. And those are some of the best pop songs ever. It made for a pretty great Tuesday night.
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Calvin Russell funeral Monday
Singer-songwriter Calvin Russell, who died of liver cancer Sunday, will be laid to rest Monday in Pflugerville, where he grew up.. The funeral is at 1 p.m. at Cook Walden Capital Parks. It’s open to the public.
There will also be a tribute April 17 at Ruta Maya, beginning in the early afternoon.
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Thumbs of fire: Gaga live tweets 2morrow
My timing has generally been bad. A little too young for the Beatles and too old for Nirvana. Missed out on the “free love” era by a couple years. Bought a house in 2007.
But the one bit of perfect timing in my life was Twitter coming along at a time when I was tired of writing anymore, especially music criticism. With Twitter you don’t even really have to worry about punctuation or spelling.
And situations that would normally be unbearable are made fun by live tweeting. Oh, and I’ll be live tweeting the Lady Gaga show at the Erwin Center Wednesday.
You can follow at @michaelcorcoran
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Wagoneers to debut new material at Continental 4/16
What was planned as a one-off reunion set at the Austin Music Awards during South by Southwest seems to be heading for a fullblown reunion for Monte Warden and the Wagoneers. Drummer Tom Lewis said the quartet, signed to A&M Records in the late ’80s, has a dozen new original songs they intend to play at the Continental Club on April 16.
The band is also releasing “Essential Wagoneers,” compiling their two A&M albums, “Stout & High” and “Good Fortune,” along with three never-released gospel tracks recorded in Nashville in 1988.
“This is about all four original members reconnecting after 22 years and pooling our experiences into a new version of a very well respected band,” Lewis said in an email. “We have all worked very hard making sure the new version lives up to it’s legacy.”
The April 16 show at the Continental is currently the only Austin date on the books, but Lewis said the incredible response the band received at SXSW has “made us firm believers that we are still viable in today’s music scene and hope to be again embraced by it.”
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Austin’s MilkDrive releases ‘Road From Home’
They’ll celebrate the CD’s release with a 9 p.m. show Friday at the Saxon Pub that will broadcast live by KGSR. Cover is $10. The acoustic string band also will play the Old Settler’s Music Festival next weekend, April 14-17.
Updated: The cover for Friday’s show is now $10.
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Austin’s Nakia shown on promo for “The Voice”
NBC unveils a completely original new music judging series- how do they get these ideas?- called “The Voice” April 26. Nakia Reynoso is among the contestants and shows up on the promo. The show’s vocally accomplished judges are Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton and Adam Levine.
A native of Alabama, Nakia has been singing soul music in Austin for several years. His next show in town is April 16 at the Saxon Pub. A representative said he’s unable to talk to the press while his outcome on the show has not been made public yet.
Another Austinite competing in “The Voice” is country singer Curtis Grimes, who won a contest a couple years back to open for Kenny Chesney at the Erwin Center. Grimes also plays Austin on April 16, as part of the Lone Star Jam at Waterloo Park.
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Partial lineup, ticket information released for Pachanga Latino Music Festival
Ozomatli, the Echocentrics, rapper Chingo Bling, and Houston ska outfit Los Skarnales more are slated to play the fourth annual Pachanga Latino Music Festival May 21 at Fiesta Gardens.
Ozokidz, Ozomatli’s new children’s music project will headline Niño’s Rock Pachanga, the daylong children’s festival. The Echocentrics is a new project from Grupo Fantasma’s Adrian Quesada.
A limited number of early bird tickets are on sale until April 19 or they run out, whichever comes first. Tickets are $15, $25 after April 19, with Saturday VIP tickets for $45, $60 after April 19. Children under 12 are free when accompanied by a ticketed adult.
Tickets are on sale at pachangafest.com, Waterloo Records and all Front Gate Tickets outlets, including frontgatetickets.com. A portion of all proceeds will benefit the FuturoFund Austin.
Here’s the initial lineup: Ozomatli (Los Angeles, CA) The Echocentrics (Austin/NYC/Rio de Janeiro) Chingo Bling (Houston, TX) Chico Mann (Jersey City, NJ) Los Skarnales (Houston, TX) Maneja Beto (Austin, TX) Chicanoson (Los Angeles, CA) Master Blaster Sound System (Corpus Christi, TX) Mexicans with Guns (San Antonio, TX) Este Vato (Austin, TX) La Guerilla, (Austin, TX) Gina Chavez (Austin, TX) Son de Rey (Austin, TX) Peligrosa All-Stars (Austin, TX) Ozokids (Los Angeles, CA)
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Janet Jackson at ACL Live
What’s most surprising about Janet Jackson in 2011 is not that she’ll be 45 in May, it’s that she’s not older.
She has been a cultural presence since the Reagan administration, carving out an niche for herself as the hard-dancing pop princess, a top-flight talent living perpetually in the shadow of a world-historical one. She released her first album at 12, had her first number one hit the year she turned 20 in 1986, and scored 34 more. She’s stared in movies and on television. She’s had wardrobe malfunctions and controversial magazine covers and secret marriages. That’s quite a career.
Jackson hasn’t had a hit in some time, so it’s a little hard to tell if this tour, “Number Ones: Up Close and Personal” is a victory lap or a career restart. The title certainly is on the nose — 90 minutes of number one hits in a series of the most intimate venues she’s played in years. It was almost the punchline to a joke about what older concert-goers want from a show: All hits, no opening act, comfy seats, home in time for Fallon.
A video intro showed Jackson, probably too young to drink, performing her hit “Control” which, Like virtually everything else this evening, it was greeted with screams from the (let’s not kid ourselves) older crowd (everyone was getting in touch with their inner 16 year old).
Jackson and a small group of dancers took the stage in matching black jeans, boots and tank tops, backed by a seven-piece band all in white. Then hard-charging, precision pop music: The early hit “The Pleasure Principle” bled into a medley of “Control, “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Feedback.”
Jackson kept up with her dancers, their moves recalling a few decades of Jackson’s videos, but broke the show into hunks that allowed for breaks — she worked and sweated and (I think) sang, but this isn’t 1989.
The crowd-thrilling “Nasty” was followed by video clips from movies such as “Good Times,”Diff’rent Strokes” “Poetic Justice,” where she usually looked far less happy than she did on stage.
“Let’s Wait Awhile” was a huge sing-along, while the numbers with more extensive choreography got the medley treatment: “Doesn’t Really Matter,” “Escapade,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” were all folded together, while the hardest dancing (and perhaps loudest screaming) was saved for “If” and the “Scream”/”Rhythm Nation” mash-up. This was a show that said, and only said, “This is my music, my dancing, my career. Enjoy.”
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Ke$ha coming to Cedar Park 8/3
C3 Presents, which had a big weekend bringing Lollapalooza to Chile, just announced that KE$HA’s Get $leazy tour is coming to the Cedar Park Center Aug. 3. Opening acts are LMFAO and Spank Rock,Tix on-sale this Friday 4/8 @ 10 a.m.
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Kat E. makes her Kickstarter goal of $50,000
Austin jazz singer Kat Edmonson took it to the wire Sunday night, passing the finish line on her second album. According to www.kickstarter.com rules, if you don’t raise your goal in the alotted time you don’t get any of the money. Edmonson was able to take in just over $53,000.
Now she’s gotta sing birthday greetings, make cookies, perform at private parties, drywall a basement and fulfill other incentives to contribute. But the album will finally get made.
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Memories of Calvin Russell and his crack in time
Back when East Austin was still East Austin, and the Longbranch Inn opened to a mixed clientele of neighborhood oldtimers and true hipsters in late 2003, Calvin Russell played the club on East 11th St. every Monday night. I never missed him there. He’d play his songs and speed up Blaze Foley’s songs, sometimes solo, sometimes with a band of buddies, and his gorgeous Swiss wife and her sister would dance. There was such a bold realness to his sound, which found a home in the early days of the Longbranch. Really, there wasn’t a cooler gig in town and I wondered why I was so late to this great artist..
Here was an Austin guy, who played to 7,000 people a night in Europe, just coming out for the fun and the company. And it was something that nobody really knew about except those who did..
My book “All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music” came out in October 2005 and, even though he wasn’t in it, Calvin was happy to play three of my book tour parties because I had chapters on Blaze and Townes Van Zandt. He and his classic early ‘90s band- Leland and David Waddell, plus the great guitarist Gary Kraft- played Waterloo Records and Threadgill’s, which were both well-attended and so they were fun gigs, I guess. The band rocked hard and almost stole the show at Threadgill’s, until Alejandro Escovedo and John Dee Graham pulled out “Castanets” to end the night.
But then I asked them to play my book signing up in Dallas, at the All Good Café, and it was kind of a bust. It was a long way to drive for 20 people and I sold 11 books, which barely covered my hotel. What’s worse, the band came out rockin’ in the singer-songwriter venue and there were maybe six people left at the end.
Calvin was pretty bummed and I felt horrible about getting them involved. I tried to give him $100 and an apology, but he wouldn’t take either. At least take it for gas money, I said, and shoved it into his hand..
When I got back to the hotel, I reached into my jacket pocket and there were the five 20s I tried to give to Calvin. I left my jacket on the back of a chair and he musta slid the money back in. I can’t tell you how touched I was at that gesture. It wasn’t the money, it was the understanding.
It’s allright, man, you meant the best. Thanks for thinking of us.
A lot of people looked at Calvin Russell, with that craggy Comanche face of derelect defiance, and they may have thought he was a certain way. Tough, bitter, knocked around a bit. A drifter with talent. But, in my brief time with him, he was nothing but class. His friends were cherished, his wife adored, his music necessary and his dogs knew they were gonna get fed at the same time every day.
I didn’t even know Calvin was dying. When he was diagnosed with liver disease and then cancer, that was his thing. He didn’t want others to worry about him.
Of his tight, wasted circle of fearless songsmiths, who could break your heart with a song one minute, then break a pool cue over some disrespectful jerk the next, only Rich Minus is still alive, as far as I know. Blaze, Townes, Jubal Clark and the others are gone, to no real surprise. They lived the sad songs to sing them better.
And now they’re joined by Calvin Russell, who had the craziest success story of them all, but didn’t let it change him. “What a beautiful character,” guitarist Chuck Prophet wrote on Twitter Sunday, when the news hit. “The last of the true weirdos.”
Alot of people have been quoting Calvin’s lyrics in Twitter and Facebook posts, but to tell you the truth, I never listened to the words. But I knew what he was saying. Calvin Russell endured an incredibly tough life, but he also enjoyed fame, found love, and died on 14 acres of Garfield that were all his.
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Calvin Russell passes away Sunday morning
Singer-songwriter Calvin Russell’s story was one for the movies, an ex-con toiling in obscurity in Austin dives before a homemade cassette made him a star in Europe. The Townes Van Zandt protege with the rugged features and signature hobo hat passed away Sunday at his home in Garfield after a lengthy battle with liver cancer. He was 62.
“Calvin’s wife Cynthia called this morning at about 9:30 to tell us he passed away,” close friend Brad Brobiski said Sunday. Russell played for the last time at Giddy Ups in Manchaca in November. “He couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds and he was in pain, but he played four songs,” said Leland Waddell, Russell’s longtime drummer.
During his early ‘90s heyday in France, where he was considered a harder rocking, Texas version of Tom Waits, Russell and his band took home as much as $15,000 a night, and gave their fans their money’s worth, playing three hour sets without a break. After shows they often received a Hell’s Angels escort back to the hotel. “They wanted to rock and, boy, we gave it to ‘em,” Russell told the American Statesman in 2005.
Russell’s unlikely career windfall came after a party for musician Ike Ritter in South Austin in 1989. Ritter’s friend Charlie Sexton was expected to attend, so, hoping the rising star would cover one of his songs, Russell made a demo tape and brought it to the party. But before he could get it in Sexton’s hands, French label owner Patrick Mathe, asked for a tape after Russell performed at the party. Russell had made only one copy.
Four months later, Russell, whose real name was Calvert Russell Kosler, received a call from Paris. “You have a heet,” Mathe said, explaining that the tape, entitled “A Crack In Time,” was released to great acclaim. It went on to sell 100,000 copies in Europe. After Russell was shown performing on a commercial for Swiss Oil during the 1994 World Cup, he couldn’t walk around Paris or Amsterdam or Berlin without attracting a crowd.
“They really loved the hat,” Russell told the Statesman. “That’s how they knew it was me.” Russell had been given a felt cowboy hat by a drunken patron at some dive, but because he didn’t want to hear Merle Haggard requests all night, Russell cut around the brim to create the cartoony porkpie that would define his image as a trouble-tossed, yet tender troubadour. Russell’s look was not a pose, but the product of a hard life. He started writing songs as an 18-year-old serving time in Huntsville on forgery and marijuana possession charges. His earliest songwriting inspiration was fellow prisoner Shotgun McAdams, a rhyme master who got his nickname robbing Safeways with a shotgun.
While in Europe, where he owned an apartment in Amsterdam, Russell was sweating a 1995 conviction for possession of cocaine back home in Austin. He eventually received eight years probation on the cocaine charge and moved back to the Austin area, where he bought 14 acres about 10 miles east of Austin. He lived there with his wife, whom he married when she was 22 and he was 49, and five dogs.
Russell was the fourth child, but the first to not die in infancy, of a short order cook and a waitress at the Sho’ Nuff Cafe on South Lamar Boulevard. The family lived on a dead-end street next to Pete Pistol’s Wrecking Yard; one of Russell’s most vivid childhood memories was the sound of the car wheels on the gravel road on the night, when he was 12, that the family moved in the middle of the night to avoid paying back rent.
When the family returned to Austin, Russell was kept back three times at McCallum High School, then kicked out of school when he showed up at the senior picnic with a six-pack of beer. “I was technically a 10th-grader, but I wanted to party with the kids I came in with,” he told the Statesman.
“Calvin always had that aura about him that he was tough,” said drummer Waddell, whose brother David played bass with Russell during the European heyday. “Everybody knew he was in prison and all that, but he was really a good guy. He cared about people.”
Waddell said Russell had been in quickly failing health for the past two years.
“We knew he was in trouble, but that final nail is still a shock,” said Waddell. “We traveled the world together and now our friend is gone.”
Russell is survived by his wife Cynthia, a son Justin and a brother and two sisters. Memorial services are pending.
More on Calvin Russell from April 2005 XL cover story:
Russell says an adage passed down from his great-grandmother, a Comanche Indian he says lived to be 106, best sums up his life. “She told me that everyone had two dogs inside them fighting. There was the good dog, the loving dog and there was the evil, violent dog. The one that won was the one you fed.”
“Austin in the ’60s was dirty, nasty, hip and dangerous all at the same time,” says Russell, who made his living selling LSD, which was legal until October 1966. Russell’s drug connection was a successful car dealer in San Antonio who had “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” of the straight life, converting his mansion into a counterculture flophouse.
Another benefactor to the peace and love generation was a wealthy, middle-aged West Austin woman who’d inherited a fortune after her husband’s death and used the money to bankroll recording projects and feed and house a commune on her property. “One day we saw police looking at the back of the house with binoculars and that’s when she said, ‘Let’s move to Mexico.’ “
She bought a 60-passenger yellow school bus, ripped out most of the seats, put in a Lear Jet stereo system and rolled south on Interstate 35 with a group of kids in sleeping bags inside. The bus was stopped at the border, however. “They said something or other wasn’t in order with the bus,” Russell says, “but they also said we had to get haircuts.” While the bus stayed on the U.S. side, Russell and his friends walked over to the Mexican side and met a pot dealer who sold them Mexican weed for $3 a kilo (2.2 pounds). Russell brought the marijuana back to Austin where he sold it for $10 an ounce in Prince Albert cans. In 1968, high on LSD, Russell used a credit card he says someone had given him to get a room at the Chariot Inn. When he signed the name on the card, he was guilty of forgery and ended up serving 15 months at Huntsville.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” Russell says of his stint at hard labor. “I had blisters on my hands, blisters on my neck from the hot sun. The guards were a sorry, sadistic bunch and they’d look for any excuse to whale on you.”
When Russell got out, he started frequenting Spellman’s on West Fifth Street and fell in with a hard-livin’ songwriting crowd that included Foley, Jubal Clark and Rich Minus. But hearing Townes Van Zandt for the first time, at a song-swapping session at Seymour Washington’s former blacksmith shop in Clarksville, was the true epiphany. “He had this magical use of words,” Russell says. “I remember he played ‘Pancho and Lefty’ and Seymour had tears streaming down his face. That’s when I realized just what a song could do.”
Van Zandt, sensing that this ex-con was a true outlaw, took in “Calvert Russell” — he used his first and middle name on the bill until everyone kept misspelling and mispronouncing it as “Calvin” — as a creative protege. “I shut up around Townes and listened,” he says. “All my intelligence just went right to him.” By example, Van Zandt taught Russell to write in complete seclusion and to not play a song until it was finished. “You never saw Townes working on a song.”
Material came slow to Russell, whose club sets were stocked with covers of blues artists such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters. But over the years he’d built up a catalog of 22 songs he was proud of. When Charlie Sexton was signed to MCA Records in the mid-’80s and ended up on the cover of Spin, Russell compiled a demo with hopes that the kid who’d grown up around drunken songwriters would record one of his songs. In early ‘89, Sexton was expected to show up at a birthday party for his guitar mentor, Ike Ritter. Russell had his demo cassette in his pocket when he played a short set of covers in Ritter’s living room.
But before he could give the tape to Sexton, Russell was approached by visiting French label boss Mathe, who said he liked Calvin’s style. “I gave him the tape I was going to give to Charlie and the next morning I got a call from Patrick. He said, ‘I want to put this record out,’ and I thought, well, Warner Brothers ain’t knocking my door down, so, yeah, go ahead. I didn’t expect anything to happen.”
Then came the call about the “heet.”
So here was Calvin Russell, boarding a plane for Geneva, Switzerland, ready to play his first European show, solo acoustic, in front of 3,000 fans. “I was the opening act for a rock band, so I didn’t know what to expect, but the crowd loved it,” he says. When he played Lille, France, with a full band a few months later, the audience was 7,000 strong and out of control in its enthusiasm. “I was petrified,” he says. “I was afraid to adjust my amp. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
While most of his musical associates were mired in alcohol abuse, including Van Zandt, who died of a heart attack at age 52, Russell says he was never really much of a drinker. “Psychedelics and some good herb — those were my things,” he says.
But after a French journalist described Russell as a Jack Daniels-swigging tunesmith in a major feature, big bottles of Jack started showing up backstage before every show. And Russell began partaking. “We liked to play on LSD,” he says, “and when you’re tripping you can drink all the booze in the world and not pass out.” The hangovers got brutal and Russell realized that he was killing himself. These days he has an occasional beer, but stays off the hard stuff.
“We’re pretty laid-back,” he says of himself and wife Cynthia, whose family bought one of the trailers on the property and visits so often that the clock in the guest trailer is set on Swiss time.
He met his fourth wife nine years ago at a festival in the Alps. “Her daddy was a fan and he got his kids into my music, so they all came back after a show,” he says. “That first night, Cynthia said she wanted to be with me, and I thought, ‘I don’t want to have nothing to do with a woman that beautiful. She’s probably just looking for a big cocaine party.’ “
A few nights later, Russell and his band were playing a show in Madrid and a band member said, “Hey, Calvin, there’s that girl from Switzerland.” Cynthia was near the front and afterward came backstage. “I want to be with you,” she reiterated, and this time added, “forever.” The couple was married two years later, when Cynthia was 22 and Calvin 49.
Don’t let the glamor gap fool you — the supermodel and the hobo poet are a perfect match. “Cynthia’s just a village girl who likes simple things, like a clean house and playing host to her family,” says Russell.
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Unadulerated, live-time review: John Mellencamp at ACL Live
In the old analog days of concert reviews, this is how my Saturday evening with John Mellencamp at Austin City Limits Live would’ve went. I would’ve sat there bored and gently seething for the first two hours, scribbling mean stuff in my notebook about this Woodless Guthrie. But then, with a power-packed last half hour, I would’ve been won over by the sheer professionalism. Standing, along with everyone else in the packed house during “Pink Houses,” I would’ve finally given in and gone home to write a mixed review that made its positive points. Overhearing the satisfied folks walking out would’ve made me rethink the set.
But things have changed. With Twitter, each thought is instantly published. And a somewhat tedious show can be fun. Here’s how I saw the action from @michaelcorcoran:
These tweets, after the jump, are in chronological order, starting at about 7:55 p.m.
The Coog is showing his hit videos before the show, opening for himself. The point?
And now a 20-minute intermission. Again what’s the point? I’m missing Uconn v. KY. Let’s go! Crew guy is checking guitar sound. Had all day.
First song is that ripoff of ‘I Fought the Law.’ Autocorrect rubbed it in by trying to change ripoff to tipoff. UK-Conn score?
Gotta say the sound for Mellencamp is pretty good. ‘No One Cares About Me’ from last year’s T-bone produced LP works well with JM ragged vox.
Wow first time I’ve seen Mellencamp with a drummer not wearing black leather gloves.
Mellen Johnny is six songs in and there hasn’t been an original moment. Now he’s doing Springsteen. Wait, he’s always doing Springsteen.
Two Austin biased questions while watching JCM: why isn’t Joe Ely bigger? How can the Coog be in rock hall and SRV can’t even make ballot?
If anyone from acl staff is on twitter please take me to the secret TV. This has been a commercial for the the tbone lp so far.
Someone, god love em, just yelled ‘play the old stuff.’ As on cue the band goes into ‘Check it Out.’ crowd goes crazy. JCMs jacket is off.
Solo acoustic time. ‘We drove a thousand miles to play for y’all tonight.’ Another new one ‘Save some time to dream.’ It’s pretty lame.
Why do people yell out ‘I Love You’ during soft times of the show? That’s rhetorical. God, this crowd is easier than a $100 question on tv.
An a Capella version of ‘Cherry Bomb?’ he plays it every night but Johnny acted like some fan he met before the show convinced him to do it.
This Mellen Johnny show is the opposite of LCD at MSG a band quitting when they still have something to say. Daft codger playing in my house.
Some Brechtian song about the devil went on too long. Now ‘Jackie Brown.’ crowd enrapt. Hope I haven’t been giving the imp. this show’s bad.
‘Life is short even in it’s longest days’ Mellencamp sings. What a coincidence. This has become a long day. ‘Jack and Diane’ singalong.
‘Small Town’ singalong. I’m lucky to have a newspaper job. I’m lucky to have a newspaper job. Repeated six times. Doesn’t help.
Rain on the Scarecrow. Too loud for a singalong. First use of a bass drum all night. We’re rockin’ now!
Wonder if Mellencamp has a ranch in Indiana where he raises Arabian horses and female violinists.
How much of (UK-UConn) game is left? Do I have time to rush home to see kemba’s game winner when ‘pink houses’ starts? It should be next then r-o-c-k.
Problem clumping together Mellen rockers: they all sound the same. And he shouldn’t dance. The Boss has earned the right not the Employer.
God this thing won’t end. ‘A Night With John Mellencamp.’ They weren’t kidding. Though that billing could be any amount if time.
‘Pink Houses’ has the entire crowd dancing. Ain’t that America? Hard not to be impressed, try as I may.
Okay here comes ‘R-O-C-K in the USA.’ Crowd goes nutsoid while Im trying to count all the songs JCM ‘borrows’ from. The first mashup?
Deafening encore call but that’s it. Cmon John. MORE!!!!!
(This morning: Twitter’s great, but can it give me back the 35 years I’ve spent developing a craft?)
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Sarah Jaffe kicks off ‘Unplugged at the Grove’
Another season of the incredibly popular “Unplugged at the Grove” series is upon us, starting with Denton’s captivating Sarah Jaffe April 14. Here are the other confirmed acts. All shows are free.
April 21 CAROLYN WONDERLAND
April 28 QUIET COMPANY
May 5 RAY WYLIE HUBBARD
May 12 SLAID CLEAVES
May 19 SUZANNA CHOFFEL
May 26 JAMES MCMURTRY
June 2 CHARLIE MARS
June 9 THE GOURDS
June 23 BAND OF HEATHENS
June 30 SEAN MCCONNELL
July TBA
August 11 DEADMAN
August 18 FOSTER & LLOYD
August 25 UNCLE LUCIUS
September 1 KAT EDMONDSON
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Explosions gig to die for
Austin’s great, bombastic instrumental band Explosions In The Sky, sold out its April 30 show at L.A.’s Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 72 hours. A week prior, the boneyard will host an art exhibit based on songs from the upcoming Explosions LP “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care,” The new CD is out April 26 on Temporary Residence.
Recorded at Sonic Ranch in El Paso by John Congleton and produced by the band, “Take Care X 3” is Explo’s first album since 2007’s “All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone.” The band’s tour starts tonight at the Lyric in Oxford MS and includes an April 6 date at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. The band, which scored the “Friday Night Lights” movie set in their original home of Odessa- Midland,, plays the Backyard May 3, opening for Arcade Fire.
