"Welcome to my life, tattoo! I'm a man now, thanks to you. I expect I'll regret you, but the skin-graft man won't get you, You'll be there when I die, tattoo!" – The Who's "Tattoo" Nothing says "loyal fan" like getting some artwork inked into your skin forever. These Austinites felt moved to wear their passion on their sleeves. Or, in some cases, sleeve their passion on their arms. Click through the gallery for the ink.

The first time I heard Tom Waits was through a college boyfriend and, like many people, I didn't really get it. "I don't like his voice," I said. "You will," he said. He'd played Mule Variations and I just couldn't wrap my head around its rusty, clanking sound. A few months later, I randomly saw Closing Time, his 1973 debut, at the record store, the cover showing young, wild-haired Tom seemingly passed out at his piano. I shook off my stubbornness and bought it. Suddenly it was like someone had pulled the tablecloth off the table without moving the dishes. His voice still had a little velvet in it, his stories largely relegated to L.A.'s bars and women and drunks, himself included. To this day, the song "Lonely" will make me cry, any time, any place. So I bought The Heart of Saturday Night and Small Change. No one will ever write a song as wounded and clear as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)." Seeing him live became part of my ever-growing list of "Things to Do Before I Die."

During the recent dust-up caused by my less-than-glowing Hayes Carll review, someone pointed me in the direction of the 9513. Helmed by Austin residents and twin brothers Brady and Brody Vercher, it’s a country music site that doesn’t take sides in the battle between mainstream and Americana. It takes the current crop of Nashville poseurs to task when needed, but doesn’t praise all things alt or Texas either, pointing the way to what’s good on either side of the fence. Brody explains that the name for the site is a tribute to their grandmother. Her street address was 9513 and when she passed away while they were looking for a name for what they were doing - the blog started about a year and a half ago - it seemed to signify home. “We just wanted to build a community of people who enjoy country music and provide some credibility to country music, really,” he states. “It’s an alternative to what was out there, a place for people to come to discuss country music intelligently and not just go with what the radio was trying to provide for you. Country music is the only music I listen to really. It’s what we have a passion for. I guess the first song I ever knew was “Pancho and Lefty.” It’s something my dad taught me when I probably four years old.”

“My life, my life, my life, my life, in the sunshine...” Roy Ayers has always reminded me of a hot summer day. It’s the cooled out vibe, the hot-to-the-touch electric keys, the simple piano riff and deliberately slinky pace of syrupy jams like “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” Just when the synths begin to blister the breezy vocals cool things down. No worries, Ayers assures, it’s “just bees and things and flowers.” I was in Washington D.C. this weekend, about to hop on the Metro when a conversation turned my ears into antennas. “Roy Ayers is playing tonight.” “Who?” “Roy Ayers, the old jazz musician.” I reversed course and approached the woman in the transit worker vest to see if I’d heard correctly. “Yeah, he’s playing down by the Capitol and I can’t get anyone excited about it!”

Interviews, by phone or in person, generally top out at 45 minutes, an hour. Anything going longer demands either a recess or a follow-up, or else both parties start getting fidgety. File it under the theory that focused concentration requires some sort of reset every 60 minutes. Tony Visconti, record producer to the stars, spoke lovingly about his latest charge, Real Animal Alejandro Escovedo, for just over a half-hour on the morning of June 10, after which our phoner was more of less done. Wrapping, I asked him if I could lob a couple more questions. Really, with someone of Visconti’s stature, you could elicit music history ‘til Elvis comes back for a snack, but that’s why last year he set his autobiography down in print. Bowie, Bolan, and the Brooklyn Boy produces enough rock & roll sound bites to satisfy Hall of Fame war-story quotas. Milton Berle’s foot-long certainly stands out…. Which left me with one burning inquiry about the album that could well become David Bowie’s Tattoo You – his final masterpiece – 2002’s Visconti-helmed Heathen, and of course a general prompting about a personal pet obsession. Tony was only too happy to oblige. As T. Rex once titled one of his Visconti productions, Tanx.

Don’t let the title track fool you. Davie Allan isn’t just moving right along. He’s put his fuzz–pedal to the metal for Moving Right Along on Lifeguard Records. The man who fused surf and psychedelia with six strings is back with ripped-up (mostly) instrumentals old and new, and serves notice that he’s still the king of bad-ass fuzz guitar. When Allan first rose to public view in the 1960s with his band the Arrows, he was best known as the B-movie soundtrack sultan, charting with “Blue’s Theme” from the Wild Angels. For this CD, he’s re-tooled his badass “Bongo Party” off the same film, from the days when beatniks and bikers were the biggest threat to American youth. Likewise, Allan smokes his way through “Shape of Things to Come” from Wild in the Streets, as high and hard as the relentless pounding of David Winogrand’s locomotive drums on “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

Speaking of kids playing music, Monte Warden reminded me the other night that he was 15 when I first wrote about him in 1982. He radiated star quality like a shiny gold halo. Most anyone who saw him would nod after a few minutes, nudge the person next to him, and say, “He’s gonna make it.” He made it all right, bouncing through the rockabilly revival of the early 1980s with Whoa, Trigger!, then helped get country right with the Wagoneers on A&M Records. Yet his solo career has been just as successful, writing songs for George Jones, Kelly Willis, Bruce Robison, Patty Loveless, and Travis Tritt. Warden and Robison co-wrote Strait's Top 10 hit “Desperately” in 2006. That year, Warden was awarded BMI's “Million-Air” Award to acknowledge over one million radio performances of the song. Who better, then, to host the new Saxon Pub Songwriter Series? Warden is inviting songwriters with at least one charted single on a major chart (i.e. Billboard, R&R, Mediabase, etc.) or who have earned at least one RIAA platinum record as a composer. That’s gonna separate the wheat from the chaff but it’s also make for prime listening. Saturday Warden takes the stage at the Saxon at 7pm with Jim Photoglo and Allen Shamblin. Photoglo (love that last name!) wrote the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s No. 1 hit “Fishin’ in the Dark” and “Hometown Honeymoon” for Alabama. Shamblin composed “He Walked on Water” for Randy Travis and “I Can’t Make You Love Me” for Bonnie Raitt. It’s a little touch of Nashville that Austin – for once – can use.

According to the always-informative celebrity news at IMDB.com, Rush, Shakira, the Village People, and the Miracles have finally made it to the big time. Who needs the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when, for a paltry $25,000, one can be forever embedded into the Hollywood Walk of Fame? That's right, kids: Joining Brooks & Dunn, Ricky Martin, the Doors, Leann Rimes, and of course, your Marilyn Monroes and Gene Kellys of the last 50 years, as well as 2,000 of their closest millionaires, is America's favorite Canadian prog-rock band.

Not that Rush doesn't deserve it, but doesn't this just seem absolutely ridiculous? And who knew that once nominated for the illustrious sidewalk, a (figurative) star had to shell out so much dough for "security" and maintenance of the (real) star? Does the Walk of Fame hold any kind of acclaim for anyone anymore? Okay. Enough with the rhetoricals.

Joining the aforementioned recording stars are Cameron Diaz, Robert Downey Jr., Hugh Jackman, Sir Ben Kingsley, William H. Macy, Tim Burton, and – get this – John Stamos, aka Uncle Jesse, and Tinkerbell, the animated flying fairy. There are too many jokes to go off on there, so I'll leave it to your own imagination.

Oh, Geddy. How does it feel to be walked on? For more on Rush in Austin, see Death Valley Nights' "Natural Science" blog.

My trip to Bonnaroo began back in early December when I got an email telling me I had won a trip to Hollywood for the premiere of PS I Love You starring Hillary Swank. My wife and I were excited to go not so much for the movie, but because we have friends and family in Los Angeles and I'm from that area originally. The night before we were to depart, both of us started feeling ill and by the next morning we were both sick as dogs and unable to move much farther than the bathroom to throw up. There was no way we were taking a trip anywhere. The flights, hotel, limo, and premiere tickets at Mann’s Chinese Theater all went unused. Sometime in early February, on a whim, I got on American Airlines' website and typed in our reservation numbers and up popped the information for our flights and at the bottom a statement that the tickets were unused and fully refundable. I immediately called American and told the story to the customer service rep. I asked her if the price of the tickets could be applied to other flights rather than refunded to Warner Bros. as they were the ones who paid for them. She checked and said “No problem.” Over the next couple of days my wife and I talked about where we wanted to go. Warner had paid for the tickets last minute, ponying up full fare so we had over $1,700 in credit to play with. In the end, we got a flight for my wife to visit family in Kansas, I got one to Chicago to shoot Lollapalooza later this summer, two roundtrips to L.A. for my wife’s birthday, and of course my flight to Bonnaroo.