Followers of this column knew it was coming, but now it’s official; Antone’s
Records has signed a distribution deal with Discovery Records and will be
receiving marketing support and major distribution through the monstrous WEA
(Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) network in North America and Warner Music
International in Australia. This follows Arista/Texas as the second major
distribution deal to be struck in the city. Antone’s will remain in Austin, of
course, with “A&R guidance” provided by founder Clifford Antone and CEO
Harry Friedman. Discovery’s Cary Baker admits that “we came along at a good
time” to the floundering label, though the deal was not engineered as a rescue
effort. Baker came to the table as a blues fan, and “If somebody [at Discovery]
is really into something,” he says, “we find a way to do it.” The first wave of
joint releases come on July 23 with Sue Foley’sWalk In the Sun, Guy
Forsyth’s Needle Gun, and the Antone’s 20th Anniversary compilation. Next, in August, albums will follow from Steve James, Teddy
Morgan, and Candye Kane. The Forsyth and Kane albums will be re-releases of the
current Antone’s albums that Baker describes as having “limited” circulation so
far. The keystone of Discovery’s plans is the consolidation of Antone’s 20-year
blues catalog with Discovery’s own 50-year jazz catalog, which includes the
works of Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Sarah Vaughan among
others. The itinerary calls for the development of the blues and jazz catalogs
in tandem, with a long-term goal of beginning what the label calls a
“populace-targeted new recording series” to be guided by Clifford and
tentatively titled the Antone’s Home of the Blues Masters Series.
Whither the Spankers?
One question raised by the Antone’s/Discovery deal is where that other band Guy Forsyth is in, the Asylum Street Spankers, stands. The band has beenrecording with Mark Rubin producing and Danny Barnes engineering (“we
did use that demon electricity,” reveals Christina Marrs) and
Continental Records has shown interest, but there appear to be questions about
whether Forsyth’s contract with Antone’s would allow for a Spankers release on
another label. Forsyth’s reply to questions on the subject is simple: “I don’t
know.” But why make an album when you don’t know if you can do anything with
it? Also simple: because the many, busy members of the band were “all here.”
For his part, Discovery’s Baker has a pretty simple response to the question of
whether Discovery would be interested in the Spankers: “I don’t see why not.
I’ve heard great things [about them].”
At this time, the Spankers could use the income from an album. The band lost
$3,000 in cash that was destined for their bank account when Marrs’ house
burned last weekend. Marrs also lost a closet full of antique clothing.
Benefits are being planned for her and her housemates at this time.
Sixteen Deluxe Sells Out!
“There’s no reason to celebrate yet,” says Sixteen Deluxe’s Jeff Copas, “but,yeah, we are going to sign to Warner Bros.” The band have arranged for a deal
that would allow them to continue making “weird little independent things”
while recording for the major, and in fact are recording an album right now
with Crust (the band) producing, which won’t be on WB or Trance, home of
their previous album. Instead, look for some tracks from the sessions to go to
Frank Kozik’s Man’s Ruin label and a compilation album that Sonic Boom is
working on.
Limited Exposure
Pledge-drive time at PBS comes up again in August, and as always, they won’tjust be dusting off the umbrellas and tote bags to attract your donations;
they’ll also be trotting out special programming to run between their pitches
for cash. One such program will be a long-awaited Austin City Limits highlights program entitled Country Music’s Finest Hour, featuring the
likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Dwight
Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Mary Chapin Carpenter, k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett… the
list goes on. The performances range from 1977 (Willie’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In
the Rain”) up to the Nineties, but if you know ACL‘s previous dealings
with health-conscious artists not wanting them to show clips of them in their
fat, coked-out days, you know not to expect too much from the decadent early
Eighties. (Hey guys, how ’bout assembling a “private stock” vid called “Country
Music’s Highest Hours” just for laughs!) Finest Hour will also be
released as a CD around the same time, and plans call for a similar treatment
for ACL’s Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute show. Despite previous delays on
the release of the latter program, KLRU’s Laura Bond insists that “finally,
somebody besides the people who were there will get to see it.”
Even Moore Video News
Yes, these was video shooting going on during the Monday and Tuesday part ofIan Moore’s five-day stint at the Steamboat last week, and no, it’s not because
manager Jan Mirkin has a thing for Bob Saget. Nope, it’s just that Moore’s
Live at Steamboat EP got fans demanding a video to go along with it, so
now there are plans to self-release a video culled from that series of shows.
It will be a full-lengther of at least an hour, and with pro sound — it was
recorded live to 24-track — but as far as a date and a title, those are still
up in the air.
Wining, Dining & Signing
Antone’s isn’t the only busy little label in town. Freedom Records has got anew “acoustic-based” CD coming out from Loose Diamonds at the end of this
month. The disc, entitled Fresco Fiasco (isn’t that the name of Wesley
Willis’ band?) features guests Toni Price and Champ Hood, but don’t look for
the band to be promoting it in town right away. They’ll be heading for Europe
in July and won’t be back to do their Austin business until August. Freedom has
also picked up Kevin Carroll & the Sleestacks’ Redemption Day CD for
U.S. release, and has Libbi Bosworth’s new one headed for stores in late July,
featuring Gurf Morlix, Prairie Oyster, Gary Primich, Erik Hokkanen, Casper
Rawls, and one of the Ugly Americans.
The Skins of the Pariah
No, I’m not sure exactly what that sub-heading is supposed to mean, but itsounds vaguely mystical, doesn’t it? In any case, have you heard the song
“Skinless” that KLBJ has been playing? Well, it’s one of eight cuts by Pariah,
originally recorded as demos for a second album, that the surviving members
have decided to release on CD. Continued interest from their fan base prompted
the idea to issue the tracks, but the members still get hit with some
“hard-core memories” of their late bandmate Sims Ellison when working on the
project, says guitarist Jared Tuten. Look for the CD a few months down the line.
Jazz For the Eyes
As part of the “June is Jazz Month” goings-on (personally, I always foundNovember more jazzy, and June sort of ambient), the Wild About Music art
gallery has arranged to display 12 paintings by Diana Dale that once adorned
the walls of New York City’s Birdland club. The paintings depict jazz masters
who performed there, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie,
and Billie Holiday. Considering the paintings’ history — the Charlie Parker
portrait vanished when the club closed in 1966, two more were lost or stolen
while on loan to another jazz club, and the remainder haven’t been on public
display since 1968 — I wouldn’t try to nick one unless you want to end up like
Jaco Pastorius.
Mixed Notes
Willie Nelson announced that he’s donating proceeds from this year’s Fourth ofJuly Picnic to drought-stricken farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. He’s
also asking other musicians to donate “a day’s work” to the cause. I don’t
know, Willie; that’s eight hot hours of delivering pizzas you’re talkin’
about… So you hate the slogan “Live Music Capital of the World”? Well, get
ready for this: In a note to the Texas Music Office, Betty Baker at the
Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau allows that “ACVB [is] changing its logo
to `Experience the C.H.A.R.M. of Austin’ with each letter being explained:
Culture, Heritage, Art, Recreation, and Music. This new logo does not `change’
the motto of Austin, but simply expands the tourism base for the bureau’s
marketing.” Maybe they should add another “C” for all the collisions that’ll be
caused by anyone trying to get all that out of a bumper sticker… My, how the
world has changed! Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that the
American-Statesman would only refer to the Butthole Surfers as the “B-H
Surfers”? Well, even the Branson, Mo. Daily News (now the only Live Music Capital of the World?) says that “It definitely is our policy to
spell it out since it is a [band] name.” But wait! According to the latest
Billboard, those cutting-edge types at MTV asked Gavin Bowden, director
of the Surfers’ “Pepper” video, to remove the words “rapist,” “shot,” and
“bullet” from the song. No reason was given in the magazine, but remember,
we’re talking about the same neo-Puritan rock & roll network that blurs out
shots of people shooting the finger. That same issue of Billboard includes a nice feature on Storyville and their upcoming Code Blue/Atlantic
release A Piece of Your Soul. For those curious about Atlantic’s
marketing strategy for the band, the piece quotes Pat Creed, director of
product development for the label, as saying that “The one thing we’ve
learned… for bands that have regional appeal is that we really micromarket to
their home market initially to get them up the charts. Then we just use that
story to take it everywhere and win them over market by market.” In other
words, you can all start looking for Storyville postcards in the mailbox any
day now… Fastball are throwing an in-store at Waterloo Records this Friday
at the usual time (5pm). One assumes they’ve played enough AC/DC songs this
week and will be performing their own stuff…
— Contributors: Christopher Gray, Raoul Hernandez, Andy Langer, Margaret
Moser
This article appears in June 14 • 1996 and June 14 • 1996 (Cover).