Transmission Entertainment has revealed a few more confirmations for the fourth annual Fun Fun Fun Fest, Nov. 7-8 at Waterloo Park, and so far things are looking pretty good. Along with the previously announced headliner, the Jesus Lizard, expect to see the King Khan & BBQ Show, Atlas Sound, and Broadcast. Not that booker Graham Williams is in need of suggestions, but how about a make-up show from Flipper or possibly routing the Gories, Feelies, or Monkeywrench this way?
Studio 6A in the communications building at the University of Texas, the site for Austin City Limits, is hands down the best place in town to catch a show, if you’re lucky enough to get through the doors. Several esteemed locals have now gotten a shot on the big stage thanks to ACL’s Stage Left, and the results thus far are expectedly impeccable. Simply put, no other music-based web series can match ACL’s production, lighting, and sound quality. Here are two fine examples, Brazos’ solo retread of “Mary Jo” and Leatherbag’s “On Down the Line.”
Popular local Americana artists Reckless Kelly will be rolling their tour bus up to the gates of the Dell Diamond this Tuesday, June 30 to participate in all kinds of baseball-related fun. Following their supersuccesful Celebrity Softball Jam held last April 19 at the Dell, Austin's local boys done good will be handing over the cash they raised at that event to the Miracle League and South Austin Little League. In addition to the check presentation, RK will be performing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and competing in a "trike race" following the sixth inning of the Round Rock Express' game vs. the Iowa Cubs. First pitch at 7:05pm.
They were kind enough to invite me to the CSJ and I must say it was a good time was had by all. Plus, I got to rub shoulders with Eric Winston of the Houston Texans and Ray Benson just to name a few. Seeing Dale Watson play ball in his biker boots was worth the price of admission alone. And you couldn't meet a bunch of nicer guys. Please check out the photo gallery above for my pics from the Softball Jam and click here for more on the Express.
About once a month, I go to lunch with 70-year-old Isidoro Lopez, the voice and host of Fiesta Musical. These lunches stem from his desire to integrate Austin’s Latino music community into the greater music scene the city is known for, and I am totally into this. He points out that for every genre of music known in Austin, there’s a Spanish language equivalent, and then some. And Lopez is quite correct.
Because of Isidoro’s lunches, I’ve met a number of remarkable people in and out of the Latino scene, including the legendary Johnny Hernandez. Johnny has played alongside his brother Little Joe for decades and while that alone provides him with a book’s worth of stories, his own journey of musical discovery is rich and colorful. And that’s why he’s working on a screenplay of his life story.
Hailing from Temple, Johnny was drafted at age 17 to play with his brothers in the Latinaires, one of the best-known Chicano Soul bands, then in the family band known as Little Joe, Johnny y la Familia. By the 1980s, la Familia was one of the top-selling Latino acts in the country, and virtual royalty in Texas. Johnny’s soaring voice made hits of the band’s renditions of songs such as “Las Nubes,” and they’ve collected three Grammys in their illustrious career.
Hernandez is back in Austin after a decade in L.A. and Las Vegas, and has reinvigorated his solo career. With a brass-inflected band and a new CD, This Time (Again), Hernandez updates 1970s favorite “This Time” and adds dancefloor classics such as “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Just a Dream” to go along with his own “Todo Me Gusta De Ti.”
As for the screenplay? You’ll just have to wait for the movie.
Local mash-up maestro Chris Rose, better known as Car Stereo (Wars), is packing his things for the Big Apple, where he plans to try his luck as a late night or comedy television writer. “It’s probably not the smartest decision to move to the toughest city in the country during the worst economy of our lifetimes without a job, right as stuff like Lollapalooza is happening,” Rose writes, “but I feel like I’ve been putting it off for over a year so I just need to go.”
Car Stereo (Wars) pops the trunk one last time locally at the Beauty Bar tonight, and promises some special Michael Jackson remixes.
Saturday afternoon, the Parish hosts the first of two Girls Rock Camp Austin showcases, featuring bands formed during the camp sessions. If you missed last summer's tear-jerking, ass-kicking showcases, then this is another chance to realize 10-18 year-old girls are already way cooler than you.
Saturday sees GRCA-formed bands Randomness, Potential Chaos, Squeeking Piggies, Supernova, Outlet, the Dreadfully Ugly Children, Shmillion, Awkward, Homicidal Toys, Bitter NV, and A Hole in the Ceiling. Doors at 12:30pm, bands start at 2pm. A $5 donation benefits the camp.
Richard Marsh, known as Sky Saxon, passed this morning. The new Austinite had been in critical condition at St. David's with what was thought to be an infection of the internal organs since Monday, just two days after playing with Shapes Have Fangs at Antone's. Saxon was the founder and frontman for 1960s psych pioneers the Seeds.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Austin Powell spoke at length with with Saxon last week, and there will be more in Off the Record next week.
Forever men Winwood (l) and Clapton, Dallas, 6.23.09
Gary Miller
Jerry Lynn Williams and I first crossed paths in 1985 though I didn’t know it at the time. Rather, the first single and MTV video off Eric Clapton’s Behind the Sun was one of three songs on the new effort bearing his brand. The name meant nothing to me then, but I noted it because that’s who was credited on “Forever Man.” That was the song, too. Slowhand’s classic 461 Ocean Boulevard tones rippled through it on a Caribbean lilt lined with a steel-drum guitar stutter. Cream-y.
Unfathomably, “She’s Waiting,” the album’s second single, hit instead. As I sniped in a record review for my college newspaper, “She’s Waiting” sounded like she’s waiting for the disc’s producer to sing the song, and not one note of music back then didn’t feature Phil Collins. Behind the Sun radiated two other Williams compositions, and taken with “Forever Man,” they fueled the platter. Three years later on Crossroads, the second CD box set after Dylan’s Biograph, “Wanna Make Love to You,” an outtake from Sun’s follow-up August, left another forget-me-not. “Running on Faith,” one of five Williams contributions to 1989’s Journeyman, Clapton’s post-Crossroads rebirth, later showed up on the sole Jerry Lynn Williams CD I’ve come across: 2001’s The Peacemaker. That was at Waterloo Records mainstay Martin Coulter’s table at an Austin Records Convention a couple years ago.
Last night, halfway through a two-hour main set at the America Airlines Center in Dallas – Williams’ hometown – Clapton launched “Forever Man” like a three-minute time capsule from somewhere deep inside my last quarter-century. When Steve Winwood sang the second verse, a circle closed; it’s the organist who suggested unearthing the song as both Blind Faith veterans attest in the new Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood Live From Madison Square GardenDVD.
Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson were supposed to perform at the Cactus Café last September. Then Hurricane Ike happened, flights were canceled, and they were unable to make it to Texas. Monday evening the Australian couple made up for it with two sets and although I only caught the late show, it was surely worth the wait. Joined for most of the performance by Kasey’s father Bill on a variety of stringed things, they turned the already intimate Cactus into their "lounge room." That’s Australian for living room.
For more than 90 minutes, they ran the gamut of Americana, concentrating on the bluegrass feel of last year’s Rattlin’ Bones (Sugar Hill) but also offering sides of their own work and even previewing a couple of children’s tunes from an album that Kasey and Bill are getting ready to release.
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.
