TCB
Music news
By Christopher Gray, Fri., Sept. 16, 2005
Gris-Gris
GOIN' BACK TO NEW ORLEANS: "I'm happy to be here," New Orleans' Cyril Neville (right) told the sold-out crowd at Threadgill's World Headquarters last Friday night, as owner Eddie Wilson stood front and center. "I'm happy to be anywhere." Loosening up with a greasy version of "Big Chief," Neville, wife Gaynelle, son Henry Caesar, and locals Papa Mali & the Instigators effortlessly bridged New Orleans and Austin, first through Gaynelle's impassioned vocals on Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," then with Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne's blues-baked guitar work on "Tipitina." "The gumbo's spilled over into the chili," quipped Neville.Indeed it has. Neville and friends are scheduled to play "Second Line for Pets" Friday at Jo's Hot Coffee. Please bring pet supplies (carriers, collars, leashes, etc.) or drop them off at Rivers & Reefs, 1323 S. Congress, from 10am to 7pm weekdays... Former Austinite Fred Sanders, now of New Orleans, performs tonight and Friday at the Austin Jazz & Arts Festival at Kenny Dorham's Backyard next to the Victory Grill. Fellow jazzer Elias Haslanger ([email protected]) is taking donations for Sanders' family, which has been displaced to Dallas. Other highlights of the Thursday-Saturday festival include Tribal Nation, Gary Clark Jr., and Ephraim Owens.
Ghost of the Russian Empire, the Always Already, Tran Tram, and Clap!Clap! play a $5 Katrina benefit Saturday at the Flamingo Cantina... South Austin Jug Band, Jane Bond, Seth Walker, Oliver Rajamani, and more play a free show 11am Sunday at Central Market North. Nonperishable food items and money, but no bottled water or diapers, are requested.
Emo's hosts its own huge benefit Tuesday, with Young Heart Attack, Flametrick Subs, Pink Swords, the Score, Invincible Czars, Attic Ted, Oh, Beast!, Masonic, My Education, and the Shells outside, and Horse Plus Donkey, the Fall Collection, Pompeii, Cue, Sally Crewe & the Sudden Moves, Single Frame, the Word Association, the Lemurs, Vacation Gold, and the Midgetmen inside. Starts 8pm.
Abra Moore, King Tears, Tucker Livingston, and more pause for the cause at Ruta Maya Wednesday... At the Frank Erwin Center's "Neighbors in Need" concert the same day will be Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Johnson, Patty Griffin, the Flatlanders, Bob Schneider, and, just maybe, a special guest or two. Clifford Antone, who helped organize the show, isn't stopping there, planning benefits Sept. 28 at the Paramount, Oct. 8 at the Broken Spoke, and Nov. 5 at the Austin Music Hall.
Almost – but not quite – an afterthought at this point, the Austin City Limits Music Festival will have Red Cross donation points and other relief efforts stationed around Zilker Park, says producer Charles Attal. (That's right, it's next weekend!) A few hundred one-day passes for Friday are all that's left, and Attal hopes the festival will also provide a different sort of relief: psychological.
"Everybody I know, whether they have a company, or if it's a friend, or if they make $7 an hour, everybody's done something to try to help," he says. "That's what we're going to do at ACL."
Creole Moon
BLUE DAYS: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (right), whose profound mastery of the guitar, fiddle, and mandolin influenced musicians of all stripes for a half century, passed away Saturday in his native Orange, where the Slidell, La., resident had sought refuge from Hurricane Katrina at his grandniece's apartment. Brown was 81 and suffered from lung cancer and heart disease.Clifford Antone, who first brought Brown to Antone's in 1975, says he had been trying to resettle Gatemouth in Austin much the same way he did "Pinetop" Perkins last year. "We tried so hard to get him here to Austin," Antone says. "It killed me to find out he was dead."
Brown's big break came in 1947 as a last-minute replacement for T-Bone Walker at Houston's Bronze Peacock club, where he reportedly made up the song "Gatemouth Boogie" on the spot. His catholic blending of jazz, R&B, country, and Cajun sounds, which he refused to call "blues," had a profound effect on Guitar Slim, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Albert Collins, Billy Gibbons, and Sue Foley, to name but a few.
"He was like Count Basie playing the blues," says Antone. "He thought of it like an orchestra, but he still played the lowdown blues."
Preceding Brown by nine days was Fat Possum figurehead R.L. Burnside, who died from unknown causes Sept. 1 at a Memphis hospital. "People just now beginning to realize that the blues is the roots of all the music," he told the Chronicle in 2000. "It took the people a long time to realize that, and they're coming back to it now."
Burnside's new album at the time was Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down. Now, hopefully, he is.
Trippin' Live
Art-rock bad boys ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead bassist Danny Wood fractured his arm in a bicycle accident last week, but is expected to be fine for their show at Emo's Friday with Okkervil River, America Is Waiting, and the new Disney Girls. "He's feeling better," singer Conrad Keely says. "What a silly thing that was." Keely himself has been painting, preparing for an art show 7pm, Sept. 24, at the Austin Daze compound on East Fourth Street. While the band waits to see what fall brings – perhaps a tour of Australia and Japan and a re-release of Worlds Apart – they've been recording new material at their Mob House studio. "We're just trying to keep busy," Keely says. "Whenever we get back to Austin, it's always like, 'What the fuck do we do now?'" Keely terms the new stuff "transitional." "I'm still trying to experiment with different tonic technology," he says. "And I've really been getting into horns."
The Sun, Moon, & Herbs
Native Texan Rodney Crowell brought an Outsider's point of view to the area's newest venue, the Glenn at the Backyard, Monday night. Named after the Irish word for "a small, secluded valley," the Glenn shares the Backyard's camplike backstage area, but will otherwise be operated more like a neighborhood bar for the booming Bee Caves exurb. "I'd like to do a lot of local bands," says Direct Events talent buyer Chris Thies. "Tim [O'Connor] wants to use it as a breeding ground for the Backyard."Anutha Zone
Web extra: Catch TCB's online interview with singer Roddy Woomble of Scottish pop-rockers Idlewild, who play the Parish Saturday. Woomble discusses wintering in L.A., Idlewild's new album, Warnings/Promises, and playing "Sweet Home Alabama" onstage with R.E.M.'s Mike Mills. Remember, if it's not Scottish, it's crap!It's Thursday, Sept. 15, and the smoking ban still sucks. The latest bit of hilarity involves a smoldering cigarette on the back porch of Elysium, which started a small fire before alert staffers put it out. Terrific. Oh, and all you nonsmokers who swore you'd flock downtown once the ban took effect: We're still waiting. There's plenty of room.
Memo to the Yuppie Pricks: You are more than welcome to your opinion of the Chronicle music staff as "pussies," but sending us a box of Tampax is so played. We already went down the whole feminine-hygiene-product road years ago when the Sheridans sent Michael Bertin a case of douche. Be more like Misprint magazine, who sent several copies of their side-splitting "Austin Shitty Limits" issue and some awesome stickers. Misprint rules.
Best of luck to the umpteen Austin bands and musicians playing CMJ in the Big Apple this weekend: Cruiserweight, DJ Rapid Ric, Gorch Fock, Jeff Klein, Single Frame, Sound Team, Attack Formation, the Arm, Voxtrot, Honky, Shane Bartell, Octopus Project, Tia Carrera, and Zom Zoms. In somewhat related news, SXSW 06 is now taking applications at www.sxsw.com.
Music buff and sometime Austinite Matthew McConaughey is at it again. Looking "completely out of it," Double M broke out the bongos – whether it was the same set presented by City Manager Toby Futrell at April's Sahara premiere is unclear – to join John Mellencamp on "Pink Houses" at the Coog's Aug. 29 Hollywood Bowl show. "I knew every word," posted an eyewitness on Defamer.com. "I'm not sure Matty did."
