KVRX party, Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, The Jimmy Reed Highway, James Hand, '10 Minute Max'
Monday, August 27, 2007Music: KVRX party at the Mohawk
It really became apparent how supportive Austin is of its thriving independent music scene when 500 people came to their local college station's Web launch party. It was a crowded scene of all ages (older than 21) and types Saturday night at the Mohawk for the KVRX 91.7 party as everyone darted back and forth between the inside and outside stages.
It was a hearty helping from Austin's indie music scene, which is to be expected for a station whose motto is "None of the Hits, All of the Time." First up was Foot Patrol, who quickly attracted every ear and eye in the joint to the tight space inside with their jokey funk/hip-hop songs flush with puns about foot fetishes. Girls dressed as racy cops danced with the crowd as the band played "Such a Pity" and a keyboard breakdown resembling the Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me."
Next, everyone scrambled to the outside stage for the Mercer's jingle-jangly, dreamy indie rock. Before they were finished, it was back inside to peer over the heads for Yellow Fever. Then, the occasionally dark, occasionally far-out and gritty rock of Lomita bled into Peter and the Wolf's set of Red Hunter's take on folky indie pop. Maneja Beto wound down the show with a 10-string guitar, keyboard effects and Spanish rock, and Fancy Feast closed with her wild, spoken word/hip-hop/singing over a beat machine as she darted and danced around the stage. The crowd spent part of the time cringing and the other part smiling, but you couldn't take your eyes off her.
— William Mills
Music: Perry Farrell's Satellite Party
Saturday evening at Emo's, Perry Farrell and his new band Satellite Party slayed their fans in attendance with a spot-on live show, proving that they are more than just a vanity project for Farrell.
Ironically, it's easy to argue that there wouldn't even be an Emo's music venue without the "alternative music" counter-culture that Farrell had a direct hand in birthing, molding and packaging as frontman for his now-classic rock band, Jane's Addiction, as well as with his 1990s creation, the Lollapalooza Festival. With that in mind, it was somehow fitting that Farrell would bring his new band to Emo's for their first non-South by Southwest Austin performance.
Satellite Party was solid, despite a recent line-up change (in July guitarist Nuno Bettencourt and drummer Kevin Figueiredo both quit). Etty Lau Farrell's (Perry's wife) constant go-go dancing provided tantalizing eye candy as bassist Carl Restivo - and new members guitarist Nick Perri and drummer Jordan Plosky - rocked the band's original songs, which held up to the accelerated renditions from Farrell's extensive Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros back catalog.
The audience - showing slight signs of aging right along with Farrell - appeared ecstatic to see a living rock legend up close and personal; the crowd was nowhere close to a sell-out, hovering somewhere near 450 people.
Polite applause followed the new Satellite Party songs, but when Farrell and band raced through Jane's Addiction classics like "Mountain Song," "Been Caught Stealing," "Stop," and "Jane Says," the audience exploded into shouts and wide-smile sing-a-longs.
— V. M. Black
Music: the Jimmy Reed Highway
Hey, Clifford: I wish you could have seen this one. Because this was a night that really brought honor to the blues, and old friends, and the club that bears your name. The Jimmy Reed Highway — the new blues revue featuring Jimmie Vaughan, Omar Dykes, Kim Wilson, Lou Ann Barton, Derek O'Brien and Gary Clark Jr. — was a smashing success on stage. It was a show of the highest order.
I swear, Clifford, the energy in the air on Friday was almost sensual. Not blues like a hurricane, or blues as a string of blazing solos. Rather, it was blues like a long, slow, smoky burn. You see, the idea was to play it straight to the spirit of Mississippi blues legend Jimmy Reed. And just as much, to the spirit of his longtime guitarist: your hero, "the greatest there ever was," Eddie Taylor.
The show really worked as a revue, with Ronnie James on stand-up bass, O'Brien on a hollow-body Gibson, Jimmie on a caramel-colored Telecaster. Omar and Lou Ann shared vocals on "Caress Me Baby"; Jimmie tipped his hat to Eddie Taylor on "Bad Boy"; and Clark rocked the house on "Shame Shame Shame." The band did a rousing version of "High and Lonesome" that was so good I can't believe they left the song off the CD.
But the best moment of all came in the middle of "You Upset My Mind." Kim Wilson rips into a killer harmonica solo, and here comes Jimmie, sliding over from the opposite side of the stage, hunched low, caramel guitar against a lime green vintage shirt, almost hiding behind Lou Ann and Omar at center stage. Then Jimmie starts playing these brilliant, tasty, understated lead lines under Kim's solo. It was a sublime moment, two estranged friends together once again, one reaching out to the other, honoring the other, understanding the other, through the language of the blues.
You would have loved it, Clifford. I wish you could have seen it.
— Brad Buchholz
Music: James Hand
Past the rusted out, abandoned tour bus and the antiquated oil pump in the parking lot, into the restaurant serving legendary chicken-fried steak, and through the hall of fame featuring pictures of all the actors, musicians and politicians who have stopped at this country music oasis, you'll find the heart of the Broken Spoke, a dance floor that's starting to fill as James "Slim" Hand is just heating up.
Friday night, Hand's Western swing and classic country sound was enough to pull the crowd's Wranglers from the seats and fill the dance floor with cowboy hats twirling and boots shuffling. From his very first song, the two-stepper "Baby, Baby, Don't Tell Me That," Hand started strumming his acoustic guitar high up on his chest like he was aiming a shotgun and the bass pumped out no frills, enduring lines. He squeezed in a well-adapted cover or two, such as "There's a Kind of Hush" popularized by Herman's Hermits, and during his set break he made time to greet fans, removing his hat when he met a lady.
He was especially kind to couples with the slower tracks tailored for them like, "In The Corner." The slow whine of the steel guitar, the drummer's brushes rattling on the drum heads and the crawling twang of the guitar solos created a great catalyst for closeness. Throughout the night the dance floor remained full. Hand's cronies immortalized in the hall-of-fame photographs, the likes of Randy Travis, Lyle Lovett, Dolly Parton and Kris Kristofferson would be proud.
— William Mills
Dance: 10 Minute Max
Dance Umbrella's 10 Minute Max has become the Austin dance community's equivalent of a coffeeshop open-mike night. With an open-door policy to any choreographer who desires to present work, Friday night's performance at the Carver Cultural Center Theatre felt like a workshop. There were occasional interesting moments, but the 15 works, mostly composed by local undergraduate students, seemed more like studies from a compositional class than complete pieces.
In some cases, the brevity left a hunger for more. Houston's Second Generation Dance Company featured inventive movement vocabulary, particularly in its fusion of classical Indian and hip-hop, but the three-part "Flirtation, Bali and Clash" was just three tiny snippets entirely lacking internal connection.
Khoi Le's solo "The Unedited Me" displayed the best of Le's performance skills as he stretched his body into long diagonal lines. The four women in Lori Bujung's "Womenspeak" turned in fierce interpretations of Nina Simone's vocals, but because the dance just ended when the song did, there was no sense of fulfillment.
The evening's freshest dance was its oddest, closer "Sunday in the Park with the Lord" by Amie Elyn. Three dancers tangled with Bibles — one seeming to have a sexual relationship with the book, another becoming literally entangled in the bag holding hers — then they used their Bibles to corral bystander Fadi Skeiker centerstage, assaulting him in a darkly comic, Bible-thumping dance.
Other artists' work on the program included Melissa Andrews, Julia Langenberg, Ashley Card, Eve Marie Springer, Brenda Porta, Kaysie Seitz Brown, Jennifer Weitz, Nikki Johnston, Annie Hudson and Emily T. Shaw.
— Clare Croft
