AUSTIN _ Here's the good news: I've been having a great time going out to see bands and spending a lot of time with my kids and grandkids, who live in this town.
Here's the bad news: I've gotten way behind on my blogging about t he festivities surrounding SXSW. My old cronies like Chuck and Alec will scoff at this notion, as they'll remember me in years past staying up to 5 a.m. At the old Excel Inn to blog this silly stuff. I guess I'm just getting feeble in my old age.
Also, during the few scraps of time that I've had to spend on this mess has been frustrating because my iPad blog program (Blogsy) isn't cooperating with placing and arranging photos like I want them.
At one point tonight I nearly started screaming at my screen in the Study Room of Strange Brew coffee house, which would have been extremely rude. (I've never been 86ed from a coffee joint before.
Tomorrow looks like a fun and busy day. Hopefully I'll finally catch The Night Beats Saturday at noon at Whole Foods on South Lamar. And there is more after that. So I'm going to do a blog moratorium for the rest of the trip.
AUSTIN, TEXAS _ Hands down my musical highlight Wednesday was The midnight set of The Hickoids over at The White Horse, a nothin' fancy but welcoming joint off East 6th Street that in recent years has become one of my favorite Austin venues in recent years. And, of course, The Hickoids have become one of my chief must-see bands every time I come to Austin. Having a Santa Fe crony, guitarist Tom Trusnovic in the group helps, but I already was a casual Hickhead even before Tommy joined several years ago.
But I was a little apprehensive about seeing them last night because this would be the first show I'd see them since last year's death of original member, guitar slinger, no-shit cosmic cowboy, "The True Heart of Austin Rock 'n' Roll" and Prince of the Plaid Davy Jones.
Publicist extraordinaire Heather West and Hickoid Jeff Smith with Davy's award
Last time I saw Davy, or The Hickoids, was during the 2014 SXSW. I saw them play twice (once in San Marcos and once at the White Horse) and I watched them get formally inducted in the Austin Music Hall of Fame at the Austin Music Awards show. He was in great spirits that week and played like the maniac he was.
Last night before the White Horse show, Davy was honored again at the Austin Music Awards. He got inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame, this time as a "solo" artist. Head Hickoids Honcho Jeff Smith was there to accept that award. He held it up on stage at the beginning of the band's set to great applause. And then the surviving Hickoids proceeded to live up to his memory.
Smith, Trusnovic, bassist Rice Moorehead and drummer Lance Farley -- along with new guitarist Cody Richardson (who also plays with The Beaumonts) bashed through some of my favorite Hickoid hits including "Git Back on The Truck," "Cool Arrow," "Working Man's Friend" and the fabulously filthy "Stop It, You're Killing Me," which put to shame anything in the Blowfly tribute set, which was on immediately before.
My son, who lives in Austin, went with me to the show, so it was heartwarming to see it through the eyes of a newcomer to the warped world of The Hickoids. (He'd seen the band once before, when they opened for Roky Erikson on New Year's Eve. But I'm so bitter and resentful for missing that show, I don't like to talk about it.)
Actually that Blowfly tribute was pretty disappointing. The main problem was it just went on way too long. I loved Blowfly, who died earlier this year, but a little of him goes a long way ...) But that set was sandwiched between two fantastic sets, The Hickoids and The Beaumonts.
I walked into the White Horse just as The Beaumonts were starting one of my favorite tunes, "Money for Drugs."
Unfortunately, we got there too late to see Churchwood and Stevie Tombstone. In my golden years I guess I'm starting to lose my schedule management abilities for SXSW ...
AUSTIN, TEXAS _ As Roger Miller would say, my ears still ring from last night's show at Hotel Vegas over on East Sixth Street. The stars of Tuesday's show were Thee Oh Sees, which longtime readers of this humble blog should know is one of my favorite living bands.
This is the third time I've seen John Dwyer and his merry band. I first caught them during the 2012 South by Southwest festival in Austin before I even knew who they were, playing on a bill with The Gories and Kid Congo Powers. By the second time I saw them, a couple of years ago in Albuquerque, their album Floating Coffin was one of my favorites of that year. (It's still my favorite Oh Sees record, though they've done a couple of fine ones since.)
Of those three shows I've seen, last night's was definitely the fiercest, most aggressive and most intense. They started off on full blast warp speed and rarely eased up for the hour-plus they played. Dwyer, after putting Thee Oh Sees on a ridiculously short "hiatus" shortly after the last time I saw them, moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and put together a new version of the group.
The band I saw last night had two drummers (which also was the case when I first saw them four years ago), a bass player and, of course Dwyer on guitar, vocals and occasional keyboards.
Oh si!
This Austin crowd was extremely fired up, immediately forming a frenzied mosh pit, which inspired a seemingly endless stream of stage-divers/crowd surfers. It was as if the early '90s never ended.
And I've got to go on the record here as a hip and swingin' rock 'n' roll grandpappy and say that this crap irritates me. I've avoided the mosh pits since that night a few years ago I nearly lost my upper plate when some dumbass mosher thought it would be cool to slam into my back. One reason I hate it so much is that the quality of my snapshots suffer when I lost my place up front and center.
But all that geezer stuff aside, this show left me grinning. Not only was the show full of fire, the crazed other-worldliness of Dwyer's musical vision -- his distorted falsetto vocals, the crazy sci-fi guitar bleeps and blorches -- cuts to the bone.
It's all on a visceral level. I couldn't actually make out any of the lyrics he was singing and I didn't recognize many of the songs until several minutes in -- and many of them, I didn't recognize at all.
But you could feel the power, that call of the weird that rock 'n' roll fans crave.
If you're in Austin right now, don't kick yourself for missing this show last night. Thee Oh Sees have taken up residency at Hotel Vegas and will be playing tonight and every night through Saturday there. (Not sure of the times though.)
One disappointment: Another favorite underground band I love, The Night Beats, also was on the bill at Hotel Vegas Tuesday. However, they played hours before I arrived, around 5 p.m. (5 p.m.? What is this, the early bird special at Denny's?) So hopefully I'll catch them somewhere later this week.
Sunday, March 13, 2016 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Webcasting! 101.1 FM email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Accentuate the Positve / Things are Getting Better by NRBQ
Little Doll by The Stooges
I Got Eyes for You by The Gories
Ass Welt Boogie by The Bassholes
Bad Love by The Night Beats
Meat Juice Mustache by Made for Chickens by Robots
UFO, Please Take Her Home by The Coachwhips
Wild Man by The Mokkers
Romance by Wild Flag
Crazy for You by Dirtbombs
Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon
Voyage of the Trieste by Chocolate Watch Band
Lady Queen Bee by The Grandmothers
Bee Line by The Ugly Beats
Facebook Troll / No Xmas for John Quay by The Fall
Love is in the air in Austin next week.
And The Waco Brothers will be there too
I'm headed down to Texas once again for the festivities surrounding South by Southwest. Please bookmark this blog and watch for my posts. Hopefully, if my grandsons allow it, I'll be posting ever day, starting Wednesday morning.
No, I didn't get a badge or wristband. But as any music fiend who has attended this Spring Break for the Music Industry knows, you don't need no stinking badge! There are plenty of unofficial, unsanctioned, unspeakable events to keep you thoroughly entertained.
The last time I was there, in 2014, there was a senseless, tragic crime in the streets of Austin that left four people dead (just a few blocks from where I was at the time.) A maniac named Rashad Owens plowed through Red River Street, which was full of pedestrians, leaving four people dead. this was near the Mohawk, where some musical acts I love, including X, The Black ANgels and Les Claypool were playing.
Last November a jury found Owens guilty of capital murder. Because the state didn't seek the death penalty, he received an automatic life sentence.
If anyone gives a rodent's posterior, you can find my posts from past years, going back to 2004 HERE. And you can find a whole lot of my SXSW snapshots HERE
Someone I won't be seeing next week is the late Davy Jones of The Hickoids. Davy died of cancer in November. But I bet his spirit will be there Tuesday night when Hickoids, Beaumonts, Churchwood, Stevie Tombstone and others play The White Horse.
Friday, March 11 , 2016 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
String's Mountain Dew by Stringbean
Five Brothers by Marty Robbins
Cheatin'. Again by Whitey Morgan & The 78s
Rock my World by Jimmy & The Mustangs
Talk to Me Lonesome Heart by Miss Leslie & Her Juke Jointers
My Baby Don't Dance to Nothin' But Ernest Tubb by Junior Brown
Who Says God is Dead by Eilen Jewell
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven by Loretta Lynn
Your Money and My Good Looks by Gene Watson & Rhonda Vincent
I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven by Eddie Dean & The Frontiersmen
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican March 11, 2016
You know from the first words Paul Burch sings on his new album, Meridian Rising, that this is going to have a lot more attitude than most records honoring any country-music immortals.
“Let me tell you all about the place I’m from/Where the police tip their hats while they’re swinging their clubs. … You best mind where you go and watch what you say/I’ll visit your ma, but I’m not going to stay.”
Yes, the sweet sunny South of romantic myth juxtaposed against the oppressive reality. I knew right then I was going to love this album.
That song “Meridian” is about Meridian, Mississippi, and the album is about that town’s most famous son, Jimmie Rodgers — America’s beloved “Singing Brakeman,” often called the “father of country music.”
But Burch, a honky-tonkin’ alt-country hero for more than 20 years, swings down the club on any notion that this is anything like any Rodgers tribute you’ve heard before. (And there have been some fine ones, such as Merle Haggard’s Same Train,A Different Time, Steve Forbert’s Any Old Time, and the Bob Dylan-instigated various-artist spectacular, The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers.) For one thing, there are no actual Jimmie songs here, though most the tunes are played in the Rodgers style that blends hillbilly, blues, and jazz.
Instead of merely covering his songs, Burch tells the story of Rodgers’ life — not as a literal biography, but with songs from Rodgers’ point of view in various situations. You find Rodgers on tour like a Depression-era rock star on “US Rte 49” — traveling, picking, drinking, womanizing. “They put me up in a house after the show/The mayor’s wife and daughter came in the back door. … Girls did alright by me but I had to leave ’em on Rte 49.”
But the stories Burch tells aren’t all fun and games. “Poor Don’t Vote” shows Rodgers’ working-class sympathy with those hit hardest by the Depression — and his anger at politicians who exploited and looked down on them. “You think you’re safe ’cause the poor don’t vote. … You’d better be kind to this rabble/’Cause if you got my vote or not may be the least of your troubles.”
Jimmie likes it
Rodgers’ death from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-five is foreshadowed in several tunes — even in the good-time “US Rte. 49,” there’s a quick road stop in a hospital.
On “Fast Fuse Blues,” the singer notes “Later’s coming earlier every day,” and makes a last request: “Take me to Coney Island, so the last thing in my eye/Is you way up on the Wonder Wheel waving me goodbye.” Indeed, Rodgers visited Coney Island the day before he died.
The beauty of these songs — the stories they tell and the emotions behind them — is that they stand on their own even if a listener knows nothing about Rodgers.
In the end, Meridian Rising makes me better appreciate both Rodgers and Paul Burch. Also recommended
* Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later) by Danny Barnes. Banjo maniac Barnes first got famous — well, maybe not actually famous, but he achieved a certain level of underground acclaim — with the pioneering Texas alt/punk/weirdo-bluegrass outfit called Bad Livers in the 1990s.
The Livers broke up around the turn of the century after their commercially disastrous final album, Blood and Mood, basically scared and/or angered much of the Americana crowd. In my review back then I wrote, “Had Beck been raised in Mayberry as the abused stepson of Gomer Pyle …”
In other words, I loved it.
After that, Barnes left Austin for Washington State and began a solo career, sometimes collaborating with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and even Dave Matthews — yes, that Dave Matthews — and others.
In 2005, Barnes released a record called Get Myself Together. “It was kinda my last acoustic type effort heretofore (I launched pretty heavily into my electronic period),” Barnes wrote on his website.
I’m not exactly sure why he decided to release a new version of that album, but somehow I missed the original when it came out, so I’m glad he did. (Unfortunately, he left off his bluegrass version of “Sympathy for the Devil,” which was on the 2005 album, though he does have a new version of Bad Livers’ “I’m Convicted” as a bonus track on the new one.)
Barnes does most of these tunes solo, mainly just voice and banjo. His wry lyrics and his vocal phrasing make him sound like a modern John Hartford. You can hear that in the song “Wasted Mind,” a disdainful look at some kid going nowhere fast.
“He ain’t the first boy standing round a beat-up Chevy/Want to sing like Eminem,” Barnes sings while his fingers fly around his banjo. “On a first name basis at the police station/Where you spend a lot of lonely nights/Standin’ in the line-up lights.”
Incarceration for stupidity is the theme of another highlight here, “Get Me Out of Jail.” It begins “Well, I got drunk this morning/And I went off to work/By nine or ten I cashed it in/And threw up on my shirt/Then I lost your house keys/So I broke in with a rock/I keep my OxyContin baby/Way down in my sock.”
And things get worse from there.
If you’re interested in Danny Barnes, check out this 2009 Bad Livers’ reunion show HERE.
Video Time:
Here's a live performance of "Meridian" by Paul Burch
Here's "Fast Fuse Blues"
Here's Jimmie Rodgers -- at least that's the name on the tail of his shirt. And yes, that's Louis Armstrong on the cornet and his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano.
Here's Danny Barnes singing "Get Me Out of Jail" with Mimi Naja on mandolin and drummer Tyler Thompson live in Oregon last November.
And just for old time's snake, here's "Fist Magnet," my favorite song from The Bad Livers' crazed final album, Blood & Mood
