earache!

Saturday’s Wobeon Fest sub headliners, Red Baraat – direct support to Benin’s Afropop diva Angelique Kidjo – sounds like an Indian wedding marching through the French Quarter, a clanging cacophony of horns and percussion that’s part Bollywood, part Bayou brass. Read More | Comment »

Gilberto Gil remains an absolute giant of Brazilian music. While sitting in a parked car outside a Houston mega-church, the Chronicle spoke by phone with the famed singer-songwriter from his home in Brazil. Gil performs tonight at Bass Concert Hall. Read More | Comment »

Five years ago, when immigration rhetoric reached fever pitch, Houston rapper Chingo Bling stoked debate via They Can’t Deport Us All, his major label bow and the boldest move in a career that began with selling mixtapes out of his car. Pachanga Fest reveler Friday, May 11, he's no less guerrilla today. Read More | Comment »

From the unlikely Texas town of Victoria, Kool & Together – led by brothers Tyrone, Joe, and Charles Sanders, Jr. – explored the expanses of lo-fi funk and fuzzy psychedelic rock. For years the band’s master tapes were unceremoniously stuffed in a tin can, but on Oct. 4 the group's Original Recordings 1970-77 will be brought out of the dark by Heavy Light. Read More | Comment »

Femi Kuti plays ACL Live at Moody Theater this Friday, May 6. If you've never seen the Afrobeat legend live, it's not just a show, it's a ceremony. Here's an extended interview with the man. Read More | Comment »

With free beer for double-fisting, a perfectly engineered mix, and an intimate setting, the fact that the Austin City Limits studio is this town's best listening room is the worst kept secret. In the rare event of a hiccup it’s still hard to fault the experience. Read More | Comment »

“A heaping helping of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese/And collard greens too big for my jeans/Smoke steams from under the lid that's on the pot/Ain't never had a lot but thankful for the little that I got.” Read More | Comment »

After my interview with Dâm-Funk, the 38-year-old Los Angeles DJ/keyboardist/composer, I sent an email to his manager letting him know it went well. “Yeah,” he replied knowingly. “We call him the Funk Yoda.” Read More | Comment »

Welcome to the third edition of South by So Real, where Bump & Hustle raps with Matt Sonzala, whose AustinSurreal now comes in blog and Internet radio form. Read More | Comment »

In New Orleans - a city defined by Mardi Gras, where gender-bending is the norm - Big Freedia and friends came up in the bounce scene, performing mainly at straight clubs and parties where the frenetic call-and-response sound has been booming since the early 1990s. Read More | 1 Comment »

Saturday night, down at the Continental Club, a little-known 1970s Dallas gospel group takes the stage for the first time in nearly three decades. Unless you happen to be among the handful of parishioners at God’s Anointed Community COGIC in West Dallas, this is not your pastor’s church music. This is gospel with a whole lotta get down. Read More | Comment »

“I’ve been singing soul music for, like, 10 or 11 months. It’s very, very new to me but I’m getting the hang of it now and starting to find the groove.” Read More | Comment »

K’Naan stands to gain a whole mess of new fans with his festival performance tomorrow, 5:45pm on the Wildflower Center stage. Read More | Comment »

Every year at South by Southwest, there is one cancellation that hits hard. In 2008, it was Brazilian rapper Marcelo D2, someone I've always wanted to see because he rarely tours the States. This year it was Jamaican dancehall phenom Terry Lynn. The great thing about Austin, of course, is that many of these artists eventually return. Terry Lynn make her better-late-than-never Austin debut this Friday, playing a free show (with free beer to boot) at the Independent @ 501 Studios. Lynn is a cross between M.I.A., Sister Nancy, and Eazy-E. She spits ghetto realism over techno-infused dancehall, painting a bleak picture of Kingston's concrete jungle that makes Damian Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock" seem like a lullaby. This video for "The System," from her album Kingstonlogic 2.0, is extra real.



Friday's show celebrates new release It Was Written. RSVP required. Read More | Comment »

After a year of brushing off cease and desist orders, the record-obsessed gentlemen behind one of the funkiest dance parties in Austin are being forced to drop the name Waxploitation! As the fellas said in an email, "All we have ever wanted to do is share our record collections with friends over a few Lone Stars, remember legends like James Brown, and shine light on those who should of been, like local James Polk." The Los Angeles-based label/artist management company of the same name didn't see it that way and has been harassing the soul spinners with threatening letters, emails, and phone calls for the past year. Looking to avoid a lawsuit, DJs Little Danny, Greg Most, Dr. Rhythm, Pointman, Second Line Social, and company are begrudgingly undergoing a name change. The DJs formerly known as Waxploitation! throw down hot wax and reveal their new moniker Friday at Club de Ville. Read More | Comment »

Cyril Neville made his name as a musical chameleon, slithering between funk and R&B, rock and reggae. Brand New Blues is Neville’s first album in eight years and, as the title suggests, a return to notes of an ocean hue. After all, how could the New Orleans native – exiled in Austin since the 2005 storm – sing anything but the blues? Like many Crescent City natives, Neville no longer holds his breath waiting for promised federal funds, instead piecing his home back together as time and money permits. Truth be told, he is in no hurry. “People continue to ask when we are coming back home,” Neville explains by phone while driving between East Coast gigs with his band Tribe 13. “I drove through my neighborhood the last time we were down there after dark and it ain’t the same neighborhood that it was before Katrina. And it ain’t gonna be.” To be clear, Brand New Blues isn’t a record about Katrina. The album jumps off with Jimmy Reed’s “I Found Joy,” where Neville mixes the sound of the great Chicago bluesman with a spike of B3 from big brother Art. “I just imagined what it would have been like if Jimmy Reed and Professor Longhair would have met,” Neville muses of the tune. He revisits Reed on the slow blues of “Blue, Blue Water” and channels Bobby “Blue” Bland on the brooding gospel of the Brook Benton-penned “I’ll Take Care of You.” Read More | Comment »

Welcome to the second annual edition of South by So Real, where we rap with South by Southwest booker and hustler extraordinaire Matt Sonzala about all things hip-hop. If an MC is performing at the festival, Sonzala made it happen. Also, rappers beware: If you see him in the house and you’re rhyming over your CD with vocals, he will throw a bottle at you. After all, “This ain’t fucking Star Search, this is real life!” Bump & Hustle: This is your first full year on the job. Did that make it any easier? Matt Sonzala: Definitely not any easier because my responsibilities quadrupled. I deal with a lot of the bands coming from Europe, not just urban music now. It’s easier logistically in terms of convincing rappers to come down. Last year when we talked I said it was getting better as far as the industry recognizing and wanting to come down but this year everyone wants to come down. I’m really happy with what we have this year. A lot of rappers actually applied on time this year! Read More | Comment »

Although he certainly has a handful of cult devotees, Steve Mann has long been little more than an obscure footnote of the 1960s West Coast music scene. The guitarist did session work for Dr. John and Sonny and Cher here, a jam session with Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane there, but he never earned a national or even much of a regional audience. Not for a lack of chops - fans champion Mann as an acoustic guitar virtuoso and rightfully so. His quirky take on blues and folk on Live at the Ash Grove explains why whispers of the legend of Steve Mann still blow in the Bay Area breeze. The album captures an intimate live performance recorded at the storied Los Angeles folk club in 1967, reminiscent of similar vintage sets from Texas troubadour Townes Van Zandt. Aside from 2006’s Alive and Pickin’ – a collection of old recordings, including three Southern Comfort-fueled rough cuts from Joplin’s San Francisco apartment – there simply aren’t many of Mann’s recordings available for those not willing to drop big bucks on vinyl rarities. That alone makes Live at the Ash Grove worth copping, not to mention it was among the last times Mann stepped on stage before falling off the musical map due in part to mental illness and drug use. In fact, rumors of his death (greatly exaggerated, of course) swirled at the end of 1960s and he’s hardly been heard from since. As one might expect from a long lost live session, the audio is decidedly lo-fi, complete with constant background hiss. That doesn’t detract from Mann’s take on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “99 Year Blues” or Robert Johnson’s “Walking Blues.” There’s not a self-penned tune in the bunch but Mann puts his stamp on all of them, including the devastating “Drown in My Own Tears,” classic “She Caught the Katy,” and rough and tumble “Buddy Brown’s Blues”. Read More | Comment »

Would you buy Sharon Jones a drink if the soul sister were sitting next to you at the bar? Of course you would, and so would nearly 200 fans who chipped in the price of a pint (depending on your zip code) to help Daptone Records recoup losses after burglars looted their Brooklyn recording studio for about $20,000 worth of equipment. SaveDaptone.com was set up to help the uninsured Brooklyn boys but the label has said thanks but no thanks. In a letter sent out yesterday by label co-owners Neil Sugarman and Gabe Roth, the soul scions thanked fans for the outpouring of support but assured that their old school studio was operational and that they would not be accepting monetary donations. Read More | Comment »

I spoke with the great Archie Bell by phone a couple weeks ago while doing background research for an article I hope to eventually publish. It was off topic but I opened with a question that's been bugging me for years. Every R&B fan knows the famous intro to the 1968 hit "Tighten Up," where Archie raps, "Hi, everybody. I'm Archie Bell of the Drells of Houston, Texas. We don't only sing but we dance just as good as we walk." Look up the lyrics and that's exactly what you'll find. But hold up. To these ears that Screwston drawl is bragging, "We dance just as good as we want." So, Mr. Bell, which is it? "I said, 'As good as we want,'" he clarified. "It was hard for me to convince people that I didn't say walk but I did say want. A lot of guys said, 'No, you said walk,' so I just left it at that. A lot of times you can't convince the public what you said because people put their own words in what they want to hear. They could hear a word in a song that's actually totally different but in their mind it sticks and stays there. As long as they was talking about it, it didn't make me no difference. As long as they were talking about me when they were talking about it, it was good publicity." Read More | Comment »