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.
This article appears in October 19 • 2007.