Bullet the Blue Sky
Ailing Texas Top Hand Don Walser‘s ongoing health problems have prompted his family to move him into an assisted-living facility, where wife Pat will join him upon her release from the hospital. Son Al says the best way for well-wishers to reach the Walsers is to e-mail don@walserworks.com or send cards and letters to 6006 Eureka Dr., Austin, 78745.
Best of luck to all the locals joining Trail of Dead at NYC’s CMJ Festival this weekend: America Is Waiting, the Meat Purveyors, the Murdocks, Sound Team, the Transgressors, Western Keys, and Zykos. Other CMJ bands with Austin ties include Palaxy Tracks, Volcano, I’m Still Excited!!, and Vietnam.
It’s Kid Rock‘s fireworks just before the real thing this Saturday at Bocktoberfest in Shiner, Texas’ Green Dickson Park. Also on the bill, starting at noon, are Bill Pekar, Cory Morrow, Asleep at the Wheel, Lyle Lovett, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Staind.
Gothtober is in full swing this weekend: Break out the Bela Lugosi capes and dance to Love & Rockets, Tones on Tail, and more for Elysium’s salute to the Bauhaus diaspora Friday, while Maneja Beto, Shane Bartell, and others pay homage to the Cure Saturday at the Flamingo. Starting time on that one should be 10:15pm.
Explosions in the Sky‘s haunting Friday Night Lights score isn’t the only local music at your neighborhood Tinseltown: Jon Dee Graham‘s “Big Sweet Life” appears in the John Travolta/Joaquin Phoenix firefighter vehicle Ladder 49.
Austin jazz-pop chanteuse Sarah Sharp has rounded up several musician friends – Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Will Taylor, and Darin Murphy, among others – to volunteer for KUT’s fall pledge drive Tuesday during John Aielli‘s 9am-1pm Eklektikos shift. 90.5 on your FM dial.
Friends and admirers of Blaze Foley, including Mandy Mercier, Barbara K, Gurf Morlix, Calvin Russell, and the Texana Dames, mark the CD release of Oval Room, unreleased material from the late Austin songwriter’s final live recording, 6pm Sunday at Ruta Maya International Headquarters.
This article appears in October 15 • 2004.