South Austin Roots Crawl: The Zipcode, Saturday Afternoon, Mar 18

South Austin Roots Crawl

The Zipcode, Saturday Afternoon, Mar 18

Call me old-fashioned, but each year the Texicalli Grille's laid-back, Western swing and honky-tonk jamboree is still one of my favorite events of SXSW, both for the music and for the old Austin ambiance. Outdoors in the parking lot under bright, sunny skies, the usual cast of characters serenade a crowd of graying yet feisty cosmic cowboys and cowgirls who are heartily celebrating, whether they realize it or not, a time and place we relished long before any of us could ever envision a world awash in the throes of a dot-com revolution. But behold, the music is very much alive and well -- at least in South Austin. Playing after South by Southwest showcaser Bill Kirchen & Too Much Fun, Teddy Roddy, fresh from his well-deserved induction into the Texas Music Hall of Fame at the Austin Music Awards, came on next with his Teardrop Troubadours, the singer's deep voice a salve for the soul. Cornell Hurd and company were of course the ringleaders, backing a slew of singers, including Charlene and Connie Hancock, and rockabilly dynamo Marti Brom. It was a truly magic moment when in the midst of Willie Nelson's classic "Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away," local steel player Herb Steiner took a haunting, soulful solo while Connie Hancock, having stepped back from the microphone, swayed gracefully beside him, entranced in the dreamy, shimmering sound of steel. Perhaps the only thing that could have made this afternoon more perfect was if Doug Sahm had been there in his purple cowboy suit. Not far away, down on South Congress, the two-block-long, Yard Dog-Continental Club-Under the Sun-San Jose motel musical nexus was in high gear with more hipsters than Greenwich Village in the Sixties. While Chuck E. Weiss growled the blues at Yard Dog and Jon Dee Graham took no prisoners in a ferocious set in the darkness of the Continental, it was James Intveld's tight and good-rockin' set of honky-tonk and rockabilly out in the yard under the oak trees behind Under the Sun that capped my afternoon. A veteran of the L.A. scene, Intveld's polished fourpiece made it look almost too easy, cranking out one sawdust gem after another. The cool cats and kittens loved it!