TCB
Music news
By Christopher Gray, Fri., April 28, 2006
RAP THRIVES ON RIVERSIDE
Although it remains largely a metal outlet, thanks to promoter James Dean the Back Room is also fast becoming Austin's primary rap venue, and not just during SXSW. (Note that the Travis County Expo Center welcomes T.I. and Young Jeezy May 12.) Son of general manager Sean McCarthy, Dean began at the Riverside Drive mainstay as security at SXSW 05, and a few months later passed on managing in favor of promoting. Watching local crew Dirty Wormz's monthly shows at the club gave him an idea. "It's halfway a rap show, but people hadn't noticed it," says Dean. He talked his father into letting him have the run on Sunday nights, when the club had traditionally been closed, and saw it fill up with locals hungry for homegrown talent like Nac & Swift and Casino & Gutta Gang. "My dad was real into that, because one thing the hip-hop crowd does is spend money," Dean says. That in turn opened the door for popular regional acts like Bun B, Devin the Dude, Trae, Z-Ro, and Big Pokey. Better still, after years of foundering in Houston's shadow, Dean says Austin producers Carnival Beats and up-and-comers like Basswood Lane and J-Kapone are helping the 512 hip-hop scene forge its own identity. "It's been nothing but positive response," asserts Dean. "I've had shows where I haven't even had time to get flyers or radio ads out, and 200 people show up." Expect a full house for his 25th birthday party Sunday, with Devin, Bavu Blakes, Chale Boy, Basswood, 3rd Degree, and lots more.
MOTHER'S DAY
Barely a year after relocating here from San Francisco, the Mother Truckers are practically the South Congress house band. With a twang-infused sound that connects the dots between Billy Joe Shaver, Brooks & Dunn, and the originals on their latest CD Broke Not Broken, the Truckers took over Thursday happy hours at the Continental Club in February and this month have pulled double duty in the late-night slot at Ego's. "There's always five or 10 people at the Continental that follow us to Ego's," says Josh Zee, who shares vocal duties with Teal Collins, whom he met several years ago at an open-mic blues night. Despairing that "original music is pretty low on people's priority list" in the Bay area, Zee and Collins moved to Austin because it was cheaper than New York and because they'd met Ray Benson when the Truckers opened a couple of Asleep at the Wheel's California shows. "Ray took a shine to us and said, 'Hey, if you're ever out in Austin, I can introduce you to a few people,'" relates Zee. Benson set up their first show at Threadgill's World Headquarters, let the Truckers record Broke Not Broken at his Bismeaux studios on spec, and engineered spots on the bill at his pre-SXSW birthday party at La Zona Rosa and Willie Nelson's upcoming Fourth of July picnic in Fort Worth. "He's been really good to us," Zee says. The Truckers skip tonight's (Thursday) happy hour, but play Ego's late and Jovita's Saturday.
AFTERMATH
Topped by Fats Domino, the Meters, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Juvenile, this year's edition of New Orleans' Jazz & Heritage Festival, which begins this weekend, has a lot riding on it. After Mardi Gras, Jazzfest is the second major tourist event to happen in the city since Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flood, and the Big Easy's chance to literally sing for its supper: not just economically, with thousands of out-of-towners spending money right and left, but spiritually for locals and visitors alike. Among those making the trek down I-10 will be Austin filmmaker Michael Lacy and his Zodiac Productions crew ([email protected]), who began working on their Jazzfest documentary in 2004 by planning to showcase the abundance of local color on display, including a mural artist later cut down in a drive-by shooting. Now Lacy will be documenting a city in ruins, and a festival many people see as a barometer of New Orleans' fate as a whole. "Obviously, people are going to do whatever they can to support not only the festival, but the people in the city," he says. "I just feel that with the state of the music industry these days, on top of what's going on in New Orleans, it's just sort of questionable." Contact: 567-6591.
MADE TO BE BROKEN
It took until April for TCB to snag a copy of the 2006 She Rocks calendar, but it was worth it. Local photographer Ricardo Acevedo has captured several of the scene's loveliest young ladies, including Ginger Leigh, Marti Brom, and the TunaHelpers, at their most sensual, and proceeds benefit various Austin creative-arts charities. Still available at discriminating shops around town.
If there ever was a band that didn't know the meaning of "downtime," it's Okkervil River. In February, the sextet gathered at frontman Will Sheff's house for a boozy marathon recording session of songs that label Secretly Canadian says the band has no plans to release. Sheff has since temporarily relocated to Brooklyn to write even more new material, which the band plans to record this fall. First they begin a monthlong jaunt through Europe this Saturday, where Virgin will re-release last year's stellar Black Sheep Boy/Black Sheep Boy Appendix the day before.
On their most recent swing through Minneapolis, Grand Champeen dropped a set of pre-Winona Ryder Soul Asylum songs at a benefit for the family of late bassist Karl Mueller, who succumbed to throat cancer last year. (Mueller's final recordings appear on SA's The Silver Lining, out June 17.) "That took a lot of balls, if you ask me," reports TCB's Daily Texan colleague and Minneapolis Star-Tribune music critic Chris Riemenschneider. "The nearest equivalent would be if a bunch of Minnesota boys came down to the Hole in the Wall and did all Doug Sahm tunes." Champeen burns down the Continental Club with King Tears and Tammany Hall Machine May 11.
RollingStone.com reported last week that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers will play this year's ACL Music Festival as part of their 30th anniversary, and possibly final, tour. The lineup won't be officially released until May 11, but leaks are springing faster than anywhere outside the White House press room: New Pornographers, Los Lonely Boys, Son Volt, Buckwheat Zydeco, Ben Harper, and Austin's the Black Angels and Centro-matic are in, and interestingly enough, slinky Colombian superstar Shakira has a four-day gap in her fall tour before a Sept. 19 show in Houston.
Your Saturday night social calendar: Eardrum-straining Nashville cats the Clutters drop by the Longbranch Inn for their boss Mike Dickinson's birthday party. The Texas Sapphires, who opened for Dwight Yoakam last week at Floore's Country Store, release Valley So Sweet at Threadgill's World Headquarters with Jane Bond and the Flametrick Subs. And all kinds of stuff is going on at the Parish's Plug appreciation party: visuals by Super!Alright!; music from the Arm, Loxsly, Single Frame, and DJ Finger on the Pulse; and the fashions of Tina Sparkles and Team Fabrication, featuring models styled and shot by Soft Action, fresh off Monday's preshow session with TV on the Radio. Plan accordingly.
As TCB was going to press Wednesday, we learned that Julie Burrell, a local jazz vocalist who had recently moved back to Austin from Los Angeles, passed away Tuesday morning. Services for Burrell, the first vocalist to win Best Jazz Act in the Austin Music Awards, will be Saturday in Manor. More details next week.
