Off the Record
By Austin Powell, Fri., Oct. 19, 2007
The Life of Pillows
Marcus Rubio isn't your average high school senior. Along with juggling college applications and orchestral competitions, the 18-year-old San Antonio native has written string arrangements for Bill Baird's Silent Sunset project and San Antonio's Buttercup and Druggist and has sat in with Peter & the Wolf, the Summer Wardrobe, and Alejandro Escovedo, who hits Antone's on Friday. Proficient on violin, guitar, piano, and alto-saxophone, among a handful of other instruments, and chaperoned by his mother, Rubio regularly accents the nostalgic sounds of Leatherbag and Real Live Tigers and is a member of the Victorian carousel that is Mothfight. "It's like leading a dual life," laughs Rubio. "Outside of school I play shows and get to go on tour." Perhaps Rubio's biggest accomplishment to date is his third, self-recorded, and homemade album, The Life of Pillows, a grandiose concept album about a socially awkward high school kid succumbing to different societal pressures that sounds like Daniel Johnston exploring Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise. "I've always felt a connection to the characters and continuity in thematic records," Rubio says. "I think it stems from my parents always playing Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell for me as a child." Pillows comes to life on Friday at the Parlor on North Loop.