Warming Up
Music and sports seemed to cross paths a lot this year, most tragically in San Antonio when Ramiro “Ram” Ayala, owner of storied punk club Tacoland, was murdered hours after the Spurs won the NBA championship. Eighty miles up I-35, a UT student who’d allegedly dismembered one of his classmates monopolized the media between the smoking ban and the Longhorns‘ march to Wednesday’s Rose Bowl. It’s been that kind of year. Spiraling casualty tolls from Indonesia and Sri Lanka began 2005 by putting any kind of leisure activity in perspective, prompting Willie Nelson‘s tsunami-relief extravaganza at the Austin Music Hall.Later, disaster struck much closer to home, and Austin opened its homes, municipal facilities, and checkbooks to those stranded by hurricanes Katrina and Rita; Willie needed the Erwin Center for that one. Relocating here were members of the Neville family and some Iguanas, who reconvened as the Texiles. Weeks of nonstop donations led to 2005’s trendiest local malady, benefit fatigue, from which Jon Dee Graham and son Willie were spectacularly immune in the year’s most heartbreaking and heartwarming family drama. For the Grahams, the region, and maybe the country, 2005 was about as bad as it gets. The local music community’s response when both one of its own and thousands of strangers were in need showed true championship form.
Austin’s All-Star Team
ROKY ERICKSON2005 MVP and this week’s Father Time capped an inspiring comeback with an impeccable ACL Music Fest set.
WHAT MADE MILWAUKEE FAMOUS
Local indie-rockers became the first unsigned (for now) group to play Austin City Limits in the show’s 30-year history.
DARIN MURPHY
Won understudy role in Broadway musical Lennon, which tanked for entirely unrelated reasons.
JOHN WICKHAM
Elysium owner’s City Council campaign, though unsuccessful, brought Red River‘s political maturity to a whole new level.
SPOON
The band’s best year ever started at Trophy’s and ends on The OC, Veronica Mars, and Britt Daniel‘s relocation to Portland.
JAMES MCMURTRY
Though author of the Bush-skewering “We Can’t Make It Here,” the veteran singer-songwriter was still one of the few locals loaded into the presidental iPod.
PINETOP PERKINS
Ninety-one-years-young piano man received a lifetime achievement Grammy in January and one from the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation in April.
DANIEL JOHNSTON
Because he’s still with us and, last we heard, out of immediate danger and improving.
NIC ARMSTRONG & THE THIEVES
The shaggy Nottingham lads’ Austin residency was so successful they were reluctant to go back, even to open for Oasis.
RAPID RIC
Austin DJ invested early in Houston’s exploding national rap name, then turned in a Bun B remix disc even better than the Trill thing.
EMO’S NEW AC
The stickiest, sweatiest room in town grew frigid overnight thanks to about a zillion BTUs.
AMERICAN ANALOG SET
Instrumental troupe left on a grace note after 10 dreamy years.
TERRY LICKONA
Longtime ACL producer elected Chairman of the Recording Academy‘s Board of Trustees. Not bad.
MIDTOWN LIVE
Too bad this popular northeast nightspot had to burn down for Austin to have a serious dialogue about its treatment of African-Americans.
DALE WATSON
Austin sang a sad song upon learning its honky-tonk treasure is departing, temporarily we hope, for Baltimore and a job at UPS.
HEALTH ALLIANCE FOR AUSTIN MUSICIANS
Workable, affordable health coverage for musicians? The year’s biggest hit, hands down.
TRAIL OF DEAD, THE SWORD, OCTOPUS PROJECT, THE BLACK
Austin Caravan of the Year, taking a great Friday night across the nation for six solid weeks.
Drafted
Local bands and artists recruited by out-of-town labels in 2005:Sound Team, Capitol; I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, Secretly Canadian; Voxtrot, Cult Hero; the Sword, Kemado; Yuppie Pricks, Alternative Tentacles; Black Angels, Light in the Attic; Shane Bartell, Sarathan; Pink Swords, Gearhead; Scott H. Biram, Bloodshot; Gorch Fock, Rough Trade (UK only)
Retired
Locals, honorary or otherwise, who hung up their spikes for good:CLARENCE “GATEMOUTH” BROWN, guitarist, fiddler, Gulf Coast shaman. September, age 81.
ALLEN DAMRON, singer-songwriter, actor, Kerrville Folk Festival co-founder. August, age 66.
T.J. MACFARLAND, drummer, booking agent, talent scout. September, age 58.
RANDY “BISCUIT” TURNER, Big Boys co-founder, artist, collector, local icon. August, age 56.
VALA CUPP former John Lee Hooker vocalist, vocal coach. November, age 51.
DIXON COULBOURN, Raul’s archivist, Idle Time publisher. July, age 43.
JOE CLAYTOR, Reloaded publisher, club manager, promoter. July, age 39.
KATHERINE HASTINGS, performer and DJ known as Pandora. January, age 29.
Road Games
So that’s where all the money went: a (very) partial rundown of the year’s notable touring shows, many of them sellouts, broken down by venue.ANTONE’S
Camper Van Beethoven, Glenn Tilbrook, Smithereens, Damien & Stephen Marley, Neko Case, Irma Thomas, Robert Cray Band, Los Lobos, Devin the Dude, Chingo Bling
AUDITORIUM SHORES
George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars
AUSTIN MUSIC HALL
Snoop Dogg, Mars Volta, Interpol, Audioslave, Ashlee Simpson, Paul Wall, Modest Mouse/Walkmen
BACKYARD
B.B. King & Bobby Blue Bland, Jack Johnson, Tori Amos, Journey
CONTINENTAL CLUB
Link Wray, Bernie Worrell, Archie Bell & Roy Head, Marty Stuart
ELYSIUM
New Model Army, Cruxshadows, Gene Loves Jezebel
EMO’S
Arcade Fire (January), Queens of the Stone Age (October), Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Black Keys, Aceyalone, Hieroglyphics, High Dials, De La Soul, Wrens, Yo La Tengo, Devendra Banhart, Architecture in Helsinki, Ghostface, Atmosphere, Feist, the Coup, Deerhoof, Phosphorescent
FRANK ERWIN CENTER
George Strait, Dave Chappelle, Dalai Lama, Foo Fighters/Weezer, Luis Miguel
FLAMINGO CANTINA
Bernie Worrell, Yellowman, Skatalites
LA ZONA ROSA
M.I.A., Jimmy Eat World, Bright Eyes, Kings of Leon (March), Ted Nugent, Stryper, Super Furry Animals, My Morning Jacket, All-American Rejects, MF Doom
PARAMOUNT THEATER
English Beat, Gavin DeGraw, Del McCoury Band, Ozomatli, Roberta Flack, Ravi Shankar
PARISH
M. Ward, Dizzee Rascal, Secret Machines, Raveonettes, Knitters, Stereophonics, Autolux, Autechre, Prefuse 73, Of Montreal, Kasabian, Mosquitos, Kid606, Rosebuds, Rogue Wave, Calla, Metric, Shout Out Louds
SCOTTISH RITE THEATER
Jandek
STUBB’S
Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age (March), Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire (September), Wilco, Social Distortion, Dwight Yoakam, the Faint, Common, Killers, Cafe Tacuba, Rilo Kiley, Jurassic 5, Heartless Bastards, Jesse McCartney, Molotov, Julieta Venegas, Kings of Leon (October), Billy Idol, LCD Soundsystem, Calexico/Iron & Wine, Broken Social Scene
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
Duran Duran, Ralph Stanley, Alicia Keys, Richard Thompson, Mountain, Loudon Wainwright III, Jonathan Richman, Aimee Mann, Ben Folds, Aqualung, Blind Boys of Alabama
In the Booth
TCB can’t list his favorite radio songs of the past year because the Astros and Longhorns had the dial stuck on 1300 the Zone. (Loved “Golddigger,” though.) One person who did listen is Andy Langer, who marks 10 years hosting 101X’s Next Big Thing in May. The station has several of his 2006 picks – Arctic Monkeys, the Subways, Jenny Lewis, People in Planes, We Are Scientists, and more, including Austin’s Ghostland Observatory, Glass Family, and Mercers – in regular rotation this weekend, and Sunday at 6pm, Langer counts down NBT‘s Top 50 songs of 2005. He let TCB, and now you, peek at the local entries:THE ARM, “D-Stressed”
BLACK ANGELS, “Black Grease”
CRUISERWEIGHT, “Goodbye Daily Sadness”
GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY, “Candy Rider”
I LOVE YOU BUT I’VE CHOSEN DARKNESS, “I Want to Die in the Hot Summer”
KISSINGER, “Me and Otto”
MOONLIGHT TOWERS, “I Sleep Alone,” “Never the Same Again”
QUIEN ES BOOM, “Brown of Fall”
SPOON, “Sunday Morning, Wednesday Night,” “I Turn My Camera On,” “My Mathematical Mind”
THIS MICROWAVE WORLD, “The Party Line”
TRAIL OF DEAD, “Caterwaul,” “The Rest Will Follow”
WHAT MADE MILWAUKEE FAMOUS, “Selling Yourself Short,” “Hellodrama”
YOUNGMOND GRAND, “Pressing the Holes”
ZYKOS, “Above the Map”
This article appears in December 30 • 2005.