TCB
Music news
By Christopher Gray, Fri., Dec. 2, 2005
Pinkett Slip
The Fresh Prince's wife fronts a metal band. Who knew? Since 2003, Jada Pinkett Smith (A Different World, Collateral) has been the voice of Wicked Wisdom, the L.A. quintet she describes as "a progressive, aggressive, hard rock band." A day before embarking on the tour that brings Wicked Wisdom to the Back Room Sunday, she called en route to a studio to "tweak" their upcoming album, due Feb. 21 on her own 100 Percent Woman label.TCB: Were you always into hard rock and metal?
Jada Pinkett Smith: I grew up on MTV and you have to remember, when MTV first started, that's when metal really ruled the world. My generation grew up on Guns N' Roses and Poison and Metallica and Nine Inch Nails. I was getting that Guns N' Roses album with my Eric B. & Rakim album.
TCB: How was being on Ozzfest this year?
JPS: Oh, Ozzfest was a trip. I had a really good time. It was very challenging. Those first few shows, they were rough. There was a huge learning curve for me. Ozzfest is a beast of its own. There's no audience like it.
TCB: What was it like being a woman in such a testosterone-heavy environment?
JPS: I'm used to that. That's been kinda my life, being the only chick. That doesn't bother me. I feel very comfortable in male-dominated environments. Shoot, being in Hollywood, that's just my life.
TCB: Has your husband seen the band?
JPS: Oh heck yeah. He was on Ozzfest with us for most of the run. He loved it.
TCB: What's harder, acting or singing in a band?
JPS: Oh, singing in a band for sure. In acting, I'd studied for years before I actually hit the stage, but this music thing, you have to really fall on your face in front of people to learn and grow. But that's also what makes it so much more gratifying.
Throwing the Book
Once upon a time, TCB's ancestor was called "Don't You Start Me Talking," Hawaii transplant Michael Corcoran's acerbic account of local music happenings that usually left at least one band per week ready to wring his neck and Chronicle readers laughing themselves silly. Corcoran moved on to San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas, but eventually came back to the Statesman, where he writes the "Game On" Longhorns blog and features that have landed him in Da Capo's Best Music Writing anthology three years straight. One such story, a 2001 profile of Billy Joe Shaver, became the germ for his new book, All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music (UT Press). "Kinky Friedman called me and said, 'Do you have any more like this? You should do a book,'" Corcoran says. Enfolding the Geto Boys, Selena, and Townes Van Zandt alongside lesser-known talents like Washington Phillips, Ella Mae Morse, and Arizona Dranes, All Over the Map also inspired the Texas Music Museum's new exhibit of artifacts Corcoran collected in his research. Friday's show at the nearby Victory Grill, with Gary Clark Jr., Scott H. Biram, Black Joe Lewis & Walter Daniels, and Corcoran's ACL Festival discovery, Bay City's Jones Family Singers, was simply born of his desire to see gospel and blues on the same bill. "That always bothered me, because to me they're kind of the same thing," he says. "They both come from Negro spirituals." (Friday is also his 50th birthday.) The book closes with his 1986 Spin article on Austin's "New Sincerity" scene, which seems oddly contemporary even now. "When I got here, everybody talked about how great Austin was, and I was a total outsider and just made it my goal to knock everything," Corcoran says. "Then I found out there were a lot of people who were sick of hearing about how great Austin was. My friend called it 'the little town with the big head.'"
Looking Sharp
Not long ago, local jazz-pop siren Sarah Sharp found herself in one of the most hallowed locales anywhere in the music world: Studio A in Capitol Records' Hollywood headquarters, behind the same microphone used by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and the Beach Boys, and with legendary Capitol house engineer Al Schmidt at the controls. While playing a friend's party in Pacific Palisades in August, Sharp met former Rufus drummer and producer Andre Fisher, who took a shine to her the same way he had Chaka Khan and Dusty Springfield. After her next L.A. gig, Fisher introduced her to Schmidt and publishing tycoon Ronnie Vance, and "the next thing I knew we were in the studio," she says. (Even better, her neighbor in Studio B was none other than Poison.) Sharp admits to feeling flustered upon entering the "enormous" studio, but relaxed enough that of the five songs the three decided to mix down into demos, four were recorded that first session. "There's something about being a little bit timid, that I love the way it translated," Sharp says. "I've never heard myself back like that." Her high-placed friends plan to shop the songs to several labels – Capitol first, of course – while Sharp readies for a European swing later this month. "So far everything they've said has happened," she says. "That's the only reason I don't feel like a complete dumbass for talking about it."
Dead Like Me
Move over, Walk the Line: The hippest soundtrack of this holiday season figures to be Stubb's the Zombie, the Austin-assembled companion to the new Xbox game starring a hero whose snack of choice is human brains. Released in October by local software house Aspyr Media and Shout! Factory Records, the soundtrack features indie-rock heavyweights covering songs appropriate to the game's 1959 milieu: Death Cab for Cutie's "Earth Angel," the Raveonettes' "My Boyfriend's Back," the Walkmen's "There Goes My Baby," and Austin's Milton Mapes, who announced this week they'll open for the Cowboy Junkies on a brief February tour, revisiting "Lonesome Town." "In some instances, the artists had ideas for the song, in others it was ours," says co-producer Chad Beck. For example, when Beck e-mailed the Flaming Lips' manager to inquire if the Oklahomans would be interested in contributing "If I Only Had a Brain," he got back an MP3 of Wayne Coyne's solo piano rendition almost immediately. "It turns out he had already been working on it that morning before we even asked him," Beck says.Luck Be a Lady
Former Peenbeets comrades and renowned ladies' men Greg Beets and Chepo Pena, aided by their current groups Summer Breeze and DeadMotleySexMaidens, present Ladies' Night Dec. 15 at the Continental Club. All songs will have "lady" in the title, so expect plenty of Sinatra, Dylan, Hendrix, and Kenny Rogers. In honor of the former first lady's 95th birthday, proceeds go to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Hope someone does U2's "Lady With the Spinning Head."Austin's reigning queen of soul and R&B, Miss Lavelle White, comes out of semiretirement for a special holiday show 10pm Saturday at the Saxon Pub. Cyril Neville & Tribe 13, Malford Milligan, and Todd Potter of Bubble Puppy join in the fun.
The Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, in conjunction with St. David's Community Health Foundation, is sponsoring two dental health vans outside Ruta Maya World Headquarters, 3601 S. Congress, Dec. 16-22. HAAM members should call 322-5177 to schedule an appointment. At 350 members and counting, HAAM is also looking for generous types willing to open their checkbooks and become founding sponsors. See www.healthallianceforaustinmusicians.org.
TCB Correction Corner: The Texas Rollergirls' exhibition match against the Tucson Saddletramps is 6:30pm Saturday, not Sunday, at Playland; Alamo City screamers the Sons of Hercules wail at halftime. Sunday, in the spacious Thunderdome, 2005 Lonestar Rollergirls champs the Rhinestone Cowgirls take on the All-Scar Army between sets by Jesse Dayton and Two Hoots & a Holler. 6pm.
As TCB was going to press, Pitchforkmedia.com reported that Daniel Johnston has been hospitalized in Waller since last Wednesday with what is believed to be Lithium poisoning. More details next week.
