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Former Austinite, Ladyfest producer Brea Grant moves to “Heroes”
So those of you who watch “Friday Night Lights” (and there aren’t nearly enough of you) might remember the small, blond gal with the dreadlocks named Jean Binnel who had a little crush on Landry.
Her character wormed her way into the hearts of record geeks everywhere by declaring that she divided her record collection into “metal and non-metal.” Many of us were pretty bummed when Landry dumped her to get back with Tyra. We shook our heads, mumbling, “Landry, Tyra’s a dime a dozen. It’s going to be a good long time before you find another Jean.”
The actress who played lil’ Jean is Brea Grant. She is a UT graduate and will show up on the new season of “Heroes.”
We interviewed Brea way back in 2003 when she was the 21-year-old co-organizer of Ladyfest Austin. Check out the story here.
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Review: DAM at Scoot Inn
Thirty years after hip-hop began in the streets of New York, it has become the soundtrack for youthful discontent worldwide. As one of the members of DAM, a rap group from the Palestinian city of Lod, declared: “We wrote these songs for the ghettos all over the world: the ghettos in Asia, in Europe, in Palestine and the U.S.” DAM, one of the biggest names in Arabic rap, made their first appearance in Texas at Scoot Inn on Thursday. Fresh off an intercontinental flight, they gave a brief but energetic performance to an enthusiastic crowd of around 100.
DAM is made up of three Palestinian rappers — Tamer Nafer, his younger brother Suhell and their childhood friend Mahmoud Jreri. Their music is a multicultural mix — Arabic lyrics with rapid-fire American-inspired flows over sample-heavy Middle-Eastern sounding beats. Think Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin” in Arabic. Since being founded in 1999, they’ve been on the forefront of a growing Palestinian rap scene.
The crowd was a mix of Arabic speakers familiar with the group and merely curious non-Arabic speakers. And despite rapping in Arabic, DAM did a good job of involving the English-speaking section. Tamer talked to the audience in English between songs as well as free-styling over more familiar beats like Busta Rhymes “Touch It.” Hip-hop became a bridge between different cultures, and by the end of the show, the whole crowd was chanting for them to do an encore.
They saved their biggest and most controversial song for the finale: “Meen Irhabi” (Who’s The Terrorist). It’s music with a message - DAM’s hope is that sympathy for the Palestinian cause will follow appreciation for their music. Social criticism has always inspired great music, and when DAM talked about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the anger was palpable.
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My Morning Jacket coming to Austin!
My Morning Jacket, whose fans are up there with those of the Boston Red Sox and Star Wars, are coming to Stubb’s Aug. 24. Tickets for the Austin date go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, May 16.
Check out the full run of dates here
See My Morning Jacket on this week’s “Saturday Night Live,” with host Shia LaBeouf. The show airs at 10:30 p.m. on NBC.
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CD reviews: Old 97’s, Murry Hammond, Tungsten Coil
Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Old 97’s
‘Blame it on Gravity’
(New West)
Launching “Blame it on Gravity” like a steam train, Rhett Miller lassoes the Armageddon of young love and swiftly streaks it across a smoldering Arizona backdrop. Time flies like an arrow. “He came from Phoenix in a borrowed VW bug,” Miller coos against a sharp detonation of drums and guitars. “Just to prove that he was on her like she was a drug, hallucinogenic with no hangover at all.” Breathe deep: “The Fool” is a blissful ride.
Better yet, the majority of this album — a vibrant shock of punchy songwriting that both salutes the Old 97’s’ alt-country roots and broadens its more recent pop leanings — measures up. Most notably, adventurous arias like “Dance With Me” and “Early Morning” soar with sparks of risk and rejuvenation. Meanwhile, a familiar balance of earthiness (“No Baby I,” “I Will Remain”) and radio-friendly hooks (“This Beautiful Thing,” “Ride”) provides a sturdy foundation.
“I still feel like (songs are) useful,” Miller explains in a YouTube preview of the band’s seventh studio effort and first since 2004’s “Drag It Up.” “That’s a word that comes up in my mind a lot in the recording session for this record: Useful. I want these songs to be useful. I want people to connect to them.” No doubt fans will celebrate the steady highway burn of “My Two Feet” and the runaway closer “The One.”
Now, a couple valleys — the woefully bland “She Loves the Sunset” and “Color of a Lonely Heart is Blue,” in particular — offset those peaks. But the magnificent hymnal “Here’s to the Halcyon” immediately redresses negligible missteps. “Pluck me from this driftwood, lord, and I’ll be a better man,” Miller sings on the album’s clear standout. “Raise me from the deep sea in the palm of your great hand.” Hallelujah, indeed.
(“Blame it on Gravity” is out Tuesday.)
Recommended: “Here’s to the Halcyon,” “My Two Feet,” “The One” — Brian T. Atkinson
Murry Hammond
‘I Don’t Know Where I’m Going, But I’m On My Way’
(self-released)
Murry Hammond shoots straight to the heart of the matter: train songs. In fact, if the thunderous roll of a locomotive defines the new Old 97’s album, this solo effort — a timeless landscape of dream catchers and lost highways — celebrates the vessel’s very purpose. “Before the old girl could get itchin’,” the band’s bassist and songwriter gently chants on “Riding the Rods.” “I’d die for the breakers again. So, I’ll see you down the road up yonder, where the Lord calls all good men.”
Naturally, Hammond’s journey toward that end unearths more questions than answers. Along the way, he crosses paths with workday poets who find fortune in freedom — the most adventurous inhabit “Next Time Take the Train” and the short sketches “Between the Switches” and “Life is Like a Mountain Railroad” — and the pleasures of a future unknown. At the same time, Hammond’s own long-ago yearning is precisely what binds this terrific collection with an organic front-to-back fluidity.
Honest reflection provides the most inspired moments. “I’m gonna sail on across a wide river, where my Lord has gone on before,” Hammond sings and yodels over the ethereal resonance of “I Believe, I Believe.” “Where a long look behind turns to family there gathered to meet and to part no more.” Unfussy production turns the sonic canvas into an echo chamber as limitless as Montana’s blue sky.
Perfect panorama for Hammond’s ornery reading of “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down.” The spooky opening recitation — “In you, oh Lord, I have taken refuge,” Hammond’s whisper threatens, “let me never be put to shame” — alone could frighten faith into the devil himself. Meanwhile, the chugging instrumental “Grainer,” the album’s surprise highlight, swells with the heady gratification of a lost soul’s first steps toward redemption, its breathless coda a watershed sigh.
Recommended: “Lost at Sea,” “Grainer,” “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” — Brian T. Atkinson
Tungsten Coil
‘Alpha Omega’
(self-released)
It being 2008 and all, the time is probably right for a full-scale industrial-dance rock revival. It’s been about 20 years since Ministry showed us their “Stigmata,” since Depeche Mode played “Music for the Masses,” since Nine Inch Nails beeped and thumped and screamed its way to Top 40 radio. Austin’s own Tungsten Coil would clearly like to be part of that revival — they even cover Depeche Mode’s we’re-a-rock-band-now thumper “I Feel You” on this album. The quintet has the sound down — giant drums, menacing synths, samples of violent movies. But song titles such as “Prey To Me” and “Clockwork Orange” samples were clichés back in Ministry’s day. Singer Eric Oberto sounds more demanding than passionate, his vocals moving between (that band again!) Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan seducto-sleaze and wide-screen modern rock. Surely this EP is just a first step, more alpha than omega. Right?
Recommended: Seeing them live, where the body-rock makes more sense. The band plays at 10 p.m. Saturday at Emo’s Lounge. 603 Red River St. 477-3667. — Joe Gross
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Weekend Picks: Oddball hip-hop, feel-good folk and grooves that move
Friday: Brett Dennen, Mason Jennings, Missy Higgins at La Zona Rosa. An evening of feel-good acoustic music. Dennen plays a wistful folk that swings harder than you might think. Jennings was born in Hawaii and hails from Minneapolis — a bit like Jack Johnson. Higgins is a brassy Australian. 7:30 p.m. $18 advance, $20 day of show. — Joe Gross
Friday: PPT, Zeale 32 Phranchize at Flamingo. American Weirdos from Dallas PPT perform tracks from their crazy inventive new album ‘Denglish’ (Dallas music with a British accent). Zeale 32 and Phranchize, Austin rappers with a flair for indie fusion, will also perform. $5 over 21, $10 under. More on PPT’s ‘Denglish.’ —-Deborah Sengupta Stith
Friday: DJ Melee at the Beauty Bar. Here’s how it works: Each DJ is given 5 minutes of record-store pillaging to pull 30 albums. The records are thrown into a lock box until the night of competition, when the DJs showcase their skills in rotating 10-minute sets. Round one of this turntable rumble packed the house at the Mohawk last month. For round two, DJs Starsign, Abomination and Ian Orth will square off at the Beauty Bar. —D.S.S.
Friday: Stax, Wax and Live Trax at the Victory Grill. Join T-Bird and the Breaks, RubyRico Productions and KOOP Radio’s “Excavation Nation” for a celebration of Memphis soul at Austin’s historic Victory Grill. Expect dancing, trivia and lots of good old-fashioned deep soul grooves. Portions of proceeds benefit KOOP Radio and the programs of the Stax Music Academy. $10 advance, $12 at the door. —D.S.S.
Saturday: Langhorne Slim at the Mohawk. Speaking of folk, this 27-year-old folk rocker has ended up on the otherwise fairly metal label Kemado. It’s soulful stuff; he’s the one in the fedora. With Nic Armstrong and Amy Levere. 10 p.m. $8. — J.G.
Saturday: Devin the Dude and the Coughee Brothaz at Ruta Maya. Houston’s dirty-minded, heavily blunted hip-hop crooner performs with a live band at Ruta Maya. Bavu Blakes, D Madness, Nick D, Kriminals and a mess of others will be in the house. $15. —D.S.S.
Saturday: Mike Dillon’s GoGo Jungle, Hairy Apes BMX, Kanko at Flamingo Cantina. A killer lineup of hard-driving groove mongers on a mission to make you move. —D.S.S.
Saturday: The Knux with DJ Mel at the Beauty Bar. Brothers Krispy Kream and Rah Al Millio, who perform together as the Knux deliver quick-witted “garage hop.” Though their MySpace page claims they’re “mars born,” the duo actually originated in New Orleans, but relocated to Cali following Katrina. Party-rocker DJ Mel rounds out the set. —D.S.S.
Sunday: Pennywise at Emo’s. I think I speak for people who remember the ’90s punk underground when I say, ‘Pennywise is still around?’ The outfit is releasing ‘Reason to Believe’ through MySpace Records. 6:30 p.m. $15. — J.G.
Sunday: Give Love Give Life Benefit at La Zona Rosa. This Mother’s Day show promotes ovarian cancer research. Native American recording artist John Trudell co-created the show and will appear, with his band, with two of Willie Nelson’s daughters, singer-songwriters Paula Nelson and Amy Nelson, and a granddaughter, Martha Fowler. 3 p.m. $25. Mothers get in free. - J.G.
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SXSW sues new restaurant/bar
Here’s a YouTube video we’d like to see: Louis Black and Roland Swenson just finding out that a new restaurant/ live music venue named “South By South First” was coming soon to the corner of South First Street and Stassney Lane.
First-time restauranteur Gary Miller was hit with a lawsuit from SXSW Inc. this week charging that the name South By South First infringes on the South by Southwest trademark. The steak and seafood restaurant with a big stage was set to open next week in the former location of Gino’s Italian Grill. Miller has two weeks to respond to the suit, filed by the firm of Fulbright & Jaworski, which could hold up the opening.
“They’re trying to bully us,” said Miller, who claims his joint’s name was based on geography. “We’re south of Ben White and by South First,” he said.
Swenson bristles at the bullying charge. “Our name is our primary asset, and we have defended our trademarks many times over many years,” Swenson said. “The only way to truly own a trademark is to defend it… We don’t want to sue anybody, but we had no choice.”
Miller’s partner Mike Mikeska, a drummer for Johnny Dee and the Rocket 88s, said he doesn’t understand why there’d be any confusion. “We’re a restaurant, not a music festival,” he said. Miller estimates that he and his partners have invested about $5,000 in the name through signage and menus.
SXSW director Swenson said his company first contacted the restaurant owners in January, three months before the South by South First signs went up.
“If (fighting the lawsuit) gets expensive we’ll have to give in,” Miller said. If it does come to finding a new name, they’d be wise to stay away from “South Austin City Limits” or “Sea-3 Presents.”
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ACL grid update: New release date is June 3
The release of daily grids for the daily Austin City Limits music schedule has been pushed from May 13 to June 3, according to Austin-based C3 Presents. Stay tuned …
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In the clubs with Jets Under Fire
Jason Poe, leader of the Austin band Jets Under Fire, is a Christian, but he doesn’t believe in Christian music.
“I really hate the term ‘Christian music,’ ” Poe says. “The word Christian is a noun, not a adjective. I don’t think music has a soul that can be saved. We play music. I am a Christian. That’s it.”
Even if you didn’t know he was a Christian, one had to admire his and his band’s willingness to remain cool and good-natured at their April 17 performance at Progress Coffee, one of the most technically disastrous sets I’ve ever seen.
Nothing seemed to work. The band — Poe, drummer Corbin Petersen and bassist Todd Meador — would play for a minute and the sound would cut out. They’d play, then the sound would cut out. (Let’s hope this will not be the case when the band plays Friday inside at Stubb’s.)
Poe laughs when talking about it. “As far as we could tell, the bass on the keyboard seemed to be overpowering the little speaker and overpowering the little system. We would turn the keyboard up, and it would crash everything.”
But then, it seems a weird little miracle that Poe is playing rock ‘n’ roll at all. He grew up in Springfield, Mo., the son of devout Christians. “Nothing but Christian music for a while there. Then my dad brought home an old Boston CD, which I clung to,” he says. By his senior year in high school, he had started to write songs and play in bands.
Jets Under Fire started as a side project, an offshoot of his main act, the Professional Americans. He knocked out two brief CD-EPs of piano-based rock under the Jets name before the Americans relocated to Austin in 2005.
“(The Professional Americans) kinda maxed out what we could do in Missouri,” Poe says. “We had a friend who came down and started a church plant two years before, so we decided to move here and help them out.” The church, the Southwest Family Fellowship, thrived and meets at the Barton Creek Square AMC theater.
But Professional Americans did not, and was gone within a year, leaving Poe free to concentrate full time on Jets Under Fire and its American brand of British-sounding rock. (Poe doesn’t really deny the influence of such large-emotion rockers as the Verve, Radiohead or Travis.) The band released its debut full-length, “Kingdoms,” in March.
Poe says the title refers to the impermanence of life, one of the most basic human questions. “We build whatever you want, but in the end, you’re going to die,” he says,
“Kingdoms rise and fall.”
Jets Under Fire, however, would still like to find a guitar player to round out their sound live.
In the clubs: Jets Under Fire plays with Ars Supernova and Sounds Under Radio at 9 p.m. Friday indoors at Stubb’s, 801 Red River St. $8 in advance, $10 at the door. stubbsaustin.com
(Photos by Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Review: Guy Clark, Joe Ely, John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett at the Paramount
The era of the Great American Songbook, that unifying canon of popular music that everyone could sing along with, is almost certainly over. They aren’t minting any more Cole Porters or Johnny Mercers. Yet, even in the fracturing genres that make up modern pop music, there are artisans whose body of work forms a sort of Unified Field Theory within that particular niche.
Thus fans of singer-songwriters and Americana music need not have seen all four of the artists onstage at the Paramount Theatre on Monday to be familiar with their songs. Though Guy Clark, Joe Ely, John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett each had fierce partisans in the sold-out house, the audience cheered in unison as each trotted out familiar and not-so-familiar selections from their individual songbooks. You’d have thought Mercer and Porter were in the house, along with Jerome Kern and maybe Irving Berlin, to boot.
This tour — amazingly playing Austin for just the first time — is the latest iteration of a songwriters’ guitar pull that the four men have been conducting for the past decade or so. Inevitably, tried and true bits of shtick have accrued to the performance: Clark lit up a cigarette at just the right moment in one of Lovett’s expository interludes, and Hiatt’s tale of a youthful bout of delinquency had the polished sheen of repeated delivery.
In a similar vein, each of the performers slipped into a familiar persona — Clark the craggy patriarch, Ely the boyish, footloose rocker, Hiatt the wisecracking character actor and Lovett the droll, bemused grad student.
But the music each of the men has been responsible for is largely timeless and bereft of artifice. Beginning with Clark’s “L.A. Freeway,” the four rotated turns in the spotlight. Hiatt lit up the room with his percussive, colorful guitar work on “Tennessee Plates,” and was by turn droll and yearning on “Thunderbird” and “Have A Little Faith In Me.” Ely essayed one of his best-known songs, “All Just To Get to You,” and one of his least, “If I Could Teach My Chihuahua to Sing.” Clark’s mastery of minimal nuance was on display in “Out In the Parking Lot” and “Stuff That Works.” Lovett’s wry, elliptical songcraft (“South Texas Girl,” “My Baby Don’t Tolerate”) shone with particular luster away from the orchestrations of his Large Band.
Each man sang his own compositions except for a couple of Woody Guthrie encores and the next-to-last number, Lovett’s cover of Clark’s first song, “Step Inside This House.” Which sparked an interesting notion…on some future leg of this ongoing collaboration, wouldn’t it be interesting to hear the performers essaying one another’s songs? Just a thought…
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Late night musical guests this week
Monday
Jimmy Eat World - “Late Show with David Letterman”
Rascal Flatts - “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
Thrice - “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”
Michael Starr - “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”
Tuesday
Steve Winwood - “Late Show with David Letterman”
KT Tunstall - “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
Galactic - “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”
Lyfe Jennings - “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Jason Aldean - “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”
Wednesday
Dirk Arthur - “Late Show with David Letterman”
P.O.D. - “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
The Duke Spirit - “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”
Lil Mama - “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Mike Doughty - “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”
Thursday
Panic at the Disco - “Late Show with David Letterman”
Trace Adkins - “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
Gavin DeGraw - “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Friday
Carly Simon - “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”
Tokio Hotel - “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”
Ludo - “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
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PPT’s ‘Denglish’: Dallas soul, English style
PPT came onto my radar back in 2006 when I caught the Dallas power trio at a showcase at Antone’s. Their unique brand of hip-hop-soul-funk fusion was unlike anything I’d heard before. Their performance style, full of high-energy falsetto harmonies and goofy charm, was ridiculously infectious. I instantly became a fan.
The group, consisting of three independently established established artists, Pikahsso Allen Poe, Picnic and Tahiti, was signed to Idol Records which released their well-received debut platter “Tres Monos in Love” shortly thereafter. Nearly two years later, on the heels of a SXSW performance they dropped their sophomore offering “Denglish,” a concept CD featuring Dallas music delivered in an English accent. With a wicked sense of humor, lush production full of rich instrumentation and an endless abundance of tight harmonies, it’s one of the most oddly adventurous urban releases to come out of Texas, or, for that matter, anywhere in years.
We caught up with Pikahsso through the e-mail to chat about hip-hop and humor, undersung Dallas funk and “Denglish” muffins.
Music Source: What’s the story behind “Denglish”? How did you come up with the idea to do a British themed-Dallas music album?
Pikahsso: Well, basically it went like this: At the end of 2006, Picnic made a beat that put us in the mind of Pet Shop Boys and groups of that nature. Now when we heard it we just started getting in the mind frame of “wow this is some British type sound” so we just kind of started playing around with the accents and being silly. Then after Picnic’s house burnt down, we were sitting around at a studio still vibing on the idea, and I said, “Hey we can call it ‘Denglish’ to let people know it’s like life in Dallas from a black British/English perspective.” We wanted it to be the welcoming mat to our city of Dallas Texas.
The Denglish thing goes deeper than the put-on accents. Sonically, I hear everything from new wave to psychedelic Beatles sounds on this album. Were you fans of English music already or did you put in study time while writing this album?
Yes, we are fans of the Beatles. If you look at the cover you can see what we visually tried to pull off from an African American hip-hop perspective. We listen to the Rolling Stones, Parliament, Cameo, A Tribe Called Quest, Earth Wind And Fire, David Ruffin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Green Day, Bobbi Humphrey, N Dambi, John Coltrane, Cab Calloway, Sun Ra, The Pharcyde, Big Daddy Kane, Thomas Dolby, Moby, Centro Matic, Bavu Blakes, UGK, Manhatan Transfer, Weezer, Black Moon, and many more. It’s more than just three black guys rapping and singing in British accents. We want to circumnavigate the world around our city and give [our listeners] a crash course on Dallas and to let people know we are no joke on the mic when it comes to spitting them molten lava flows. But [the album is] not made for people who take it way too seriously. It’s an album that’s made to have fun, stimulate the mind, make your speakers knock and bring the world together in harmony. And to let people know that Dallas does have creativity of all sorts.
With anything in life you have to study the craft and the greats that came before you to be a better artist.
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White, Shue night at the Longbranch
Guitarist Jack White and actress Elisabeth Shue (“Leaving Las Vegas”) showed up together Friday night at the Longbranch Inn on E. 11th Street following the Raconteurs set at Stubb’s. Well, maybe “together” is too strong a word. Both are married to others- White to model Karen Elson.
Shue was with husband Dave Guggenheim, the director (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “Deadwood”) currently making a documentary about White and other guitarists. A Longbranch employee said the White group chilled for about an hour and a half.
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Tom Waits to break Texas vow
Tom Waits announced Monday his “Glitter & Doom” tour will come to El Paso June 20, Houston June 22 and Dallas June 23.
After his friend Don Hyde was badly beaten by La Zona Rosa bouncers during SXSW in 1999, Waits reportedly announced that he’d never play Texas again.
Here are all the confirmed dates:
6/17 Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum
6/18 Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum
6/20 El Paso, TX - Plaza Theatre
6/22 Houston, TX - Jones Hall
6/23 Dallas, TX - Palladium
6-25 Tulsa, OK - Brady Theatre
6/26 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
6/28 Columbus, OH - Ohio Theatre
6/29 Knoxville, TN - Civic Theatre
7/01 Jacksonville, FL - Moran Theatre
7/2 Mobile, AL - Saenger Theatre
7/3 Birmingham, AL - Alabama Theatre
7/5 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre
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Update: ACL Fest grid, single-day tickets coming June 3
Still debating whether or not to shell out $170 for a 3-day pass for ACL Fest 2008? If you’re on the fence about the overall lineup, the full festival schedule will be released May 13 June 3, which is the same day that single-day tickets will go on sale. Of course, there’s a chance 3-day passes will be sold out at that point.
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Los Lonely Boys’ album ‘Forgiven’ out July 1
Los Lonely Boys’ third album ‘Forgiven’ hits the street July 1.
Produced by drummer-to-the-stars Steve Jordan (Keith Richards, John Mayer), the trio’s new effort was was recorded in somewhat unorthodox fashion at East Side Stages in Austin, with the band mimicking its live set-up on a sound stage.
The boys perform an exclusive acoustic set 10:30 p.m. May 24 at Saxon Pub at a Music for Literacy benefit with 100 percent of ticket sales going to the charity. Tickets were sold through Los Lonely Boys’ fan club and are sold out.
The band plays Blues on the Green on July 9.
Here’s the track listing:
“Heart Won’t Tell a Lie”
“Forgiven”
“Staying With Me”
“Loving You Always”
“I’m a Man”
“Make it Better”
“Love Don’t Care About Me”
“Cruel”
“You Can’t See the Light”
“Superman”
“Another Broken Heart”
“The Way I Feel”
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Review: The Raconteurs at Stubb’s
They love vibing off Led Zeppelin’s blues-rock stomp, garagey guitar noise and arena-ready songs because they can play to the cheap seats without falling into too much cliché. The arrangements on their new album, “Consolers of the Lonely,” feels too slick and fussy by half (not to mention that it’s mastered way too loudly). But their show at Stubb’s, which stripped back the songs to their chunky essence, was a wonderful argument for the band recording its next album live in the studio. The Raconteurs have an actual working mojo. (It doesn’t hurt that cameras were filming a documentary — posterity is always a good reason to play one’s best.)
And it is a band. Here, Brendan Benson plays the curly haired frontman while letting professional oddball Jack White be the guitarist with mystique (who happens to sing a whole mess of the songs). The White Stripes’ devotion to primitivism, which began to abate around “Seven Nation Army,” has always been a partial mask for just how good a player White is - he brings a fire to solos that could sound dull in the hands of people who treat the blues too reverently.
In front of a thrilled, might-as-well-have been-sold-out crowd, the band, augmented with a keyboard/fiddle player, tore into the new album’s title track and “You Don’t Understand Me,”. On the latter, White reminded the crowd that a hard-strummed acoustic buried in the mix forces the band to swing that much harder.
The fiddle-driven“Old Enough” and “Top Yourself” roared with a fire absent from the band’s studio efforts, while a new blues let White cut loose. “These Stones Will Shout” and “Steady, As She Goes” were crowd faves, while “Carolina Drama,” a ballad in many chapters, perhaps benefited the most from the absence of production butter.
Pulling off a rock smart and swaggering in equal measure is not easy. Wish I had gone both nights.
(Jack White performs with the Raconteurs Friday night at Stubb’s. Photo by Tammy Perez/For AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Live shots: The Raconteurs, M.I.A.
Tammy Perez FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Our ‘Live from Austin 2008’ photo gallery continues to grow with new pics from the Raconteurs sold out Stubb’s show on Friday night and M.I.A.’s sold out La Zona gig last Thursday.
- Photos: Live from Austin 2008
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Major Latino Music Month gigs for May 3
Austin Latino rock titans Del Castillo and Esquivel fan Charanga Cakewalk play Antones at 8 p.m.
Acoustic guitarist Buzz Guerra plays the Waterloo Ice House (9600 Escarpment Blvd.301-1007) at 11 a.m.
Grupo Fantasmanand other Latino acts play the Old Pecan Street Festival
Nash Hernandez Orchestra play Donn’s Depot at 9 p.m.
Check out the Austin Latino Music Association calendar for the full lineups.
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Review: Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Curtis Grimes at the Erwin Center
All the stories cropping up recently about how Willie Nelson bucked Nashville for Austin lead you to believe there’s a rift between the two country-music factories. Not so. At least not Thursday night for Nashville chart-topper Kenny Chesney’s high-octane show at the Frank Erwin Center. Of course, it helped that the fevered, camera-crazy audience was primed by two opening acts from Texas.
First up was Austin’s Curtis Grimes, a crooner with a rowdy streak who was the local winner of the Next Big Star competition, which awards small-time acts 15 minutes on the front end of each stop on Chesney’s Poets & Pirates tour. Next up was LeAnn Rimes, the songbird who calls Texas home even though she was born in Mississippi.
In much the same way you couldn’t wipe the smile off Grimes’ face, what with his family stage right and his buddies in the pit, there was no denying the glow of many a male in the crowd when Rimes, in a form-fitting short-skirt dress that left little to the imagination, appeared out of nowhere among the floor-seats patrons and allowed them to grasp at her at will while she belted out “Nothin’ Better to Do.” She peppered cuts from her latest album, “Family,” with oldies but goodies like “How Do I Live” and a cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me,” which was made all the more rousing by Rimes’ offer of a drink backstage after the show to one lucky person who texted “RIMES” to 66937.
Rimes might have Chesney to thank for her promotional coup. The stage set-up for the man who is so attached to cowboy hats you’d think he has a Kojak dome underneath was bathed in corporate advertising. Brand names radiated prominently atop amps comprising a mini Wall of Sound. The tour’s beer sponsor’s logo was interwoven into the spectacular multimedia presentation on the colossal monitor. Shoot, Chesney even displayed the steel-toe boots comped him by a local retailer after a recent foot injury threatened to cancel the show (he didn’t need ‘em, though, because, as one of the emcees said, he had him some “goooood pills”).
When Chesney and his 11-piece band weren’t high-fiving and hugging each other, they were galloping through back-catalog keepers like “Live Those Songs” and “Beer in Mexico” and numbers from his latest album, “Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates,” like “Wild Ride,” with its wicked Peter Frampton guitar effect, and “Shiftwork,” the steeldrum-infused singalong with the clever “Working 7 to 3, 3 to 11, 11 to 7” refrain.
Whatever trace of country was inherent in Chesney’s music was eclipsed by a full-throttle, stadium-rock vibe. But that sort of crossover is likely the reason for his mass appeal. Plus, the pearly whites he flashed for all the swooning Texas betties didn’t hurt.
(Kenny Chesney performs Thursday night at the Frank Erwin Center. Photo by Kelly West/AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF)
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In praise of myTunes
Not only is Rev. Louis Overstreet the subject of the greatest music video ever made, he’s in my iTunes fave 25.
One big way in which life has gotten better: the “My Top 25 Most Played” function on iTunes. Why couldn’t this have been around years ago when I’d come home from a night of partying, yet still wanted the musical merriment to carry on? Do you how many hours of my life I’ve wasted trying to find that perfect Elvis Costello song at three in the morning?
That’s what you do when you’ve had a few. You don’t play new, unfamiliar music; you play “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd over and over and over. I do wish iTunes would do away with the counter that tells you exactly the number of times played. It makes me ask myself what kind of grown man needs to hear “Over the Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole 31 times?
But I’m proud of “My Top 25 Most Played.” The song I’ve played the most in the year or so since I realized that iTunes doesn’t bite is “Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus” by Rev. Charlie Jackson of Memphis. The Rev’s “God’s Got It,” another solo electric blues-gospel stomper, is also in my top 10.
Number two on my list is “Unless It’s Kicks” by Okkervil River, a new kind of glamrocker with that great guitar riff. I’ve also been obsessed lately with Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1964 live version of “What I’d Say,” which somehow tops the Ray Charles original and should overtake Bruddah Iz on my list by tomorrow night. “Okie Dokie Stomp” by Gatemouth Brown is currently #5, followed by “Gold Soundz” from Pavement, “Falta tu Amor” by Steve Jordan, “I Summon You” by Spoon, “Who Knew” from my girl Pink and “Postal Blowfish” by Guided By Voices. I didn’t realize how cool I am until iTunes gave me my own private Billboard chart.
Online dating is a big thing these days, now that everyone’s at their computer every night and not learning to two-step at Midnight Rodeo. The best way to see if someone’s compatable is to check out their “My Top 25 Most Played” list. It’s so simple, yet can be an effective gauge. Anyone’s who’s got “Fernando” by ABBA or “To Sir With Love”in their top 5 is my kind of gal. But if 7 of her top 10 most played are tracks from Bob Schneider’s “Lonelyland,” well, we’ve just saved ourselves a lot of time.
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Latino Music Month in Austin!
Latino music is an indelible part Austin’s musical fabric. Which is why back in 2005, the Austin City Council declared the month of May to be “Latino Music Month” in our fair city.
The first Latino Music Month took place in 2006.
May is once again packed with Latino music events (check out a full lineup here).
Here are a few highlights:
A Cinco De Mayo show at Antone’s Saturday night featuring Del Castillo and Charanga Cakewalk.
The Austin Conjunto Music Festival Monday at Fiesta Gardens featuring Johnny Delgado, Los Texas Wranglers and more.
The Latina Music Showcase a.k.a. Las Chicas del Barrio at Jovita’s with Girl in a Coma, Eva Ybarra y su Conjunto, Texana Dames and more.
“Viva Jose Alfredo Jimenez” show May 16 at Antonio’s Restaurant with El Trio Romantico, Trio Los Castros and the Crockett High School Mariachi.
And then there’s the Pachanga Festival May 31 at Waterloo Park. Twenty bands on three stages including Bostich & Fussible, Grupo Fantasma, Vallejo, Charanga Cakewalk, Maneja Beto and more.
But there are shows going on literally every day all over the city. Check out www.austinlatinomusic.com for details and check out Austin Music Source every day for that night’s Latino Music shows.
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Dope article!! Pikhasso posted a link to this on the PPT Myspace. I really need to get this album!!!
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Curtis Grimes was amazing. His opening act was both energetic and poignant. The song of following your dreams and remembering your Mama was so touching. He showed signs of greatness when he joined Kenny for “She thinks my tractor’s sexy”.
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