A Drunken Poet's Dream
Weird Yet Strange: Notes From an Austin Music Artist
Vaunted Austin artist writes beyond his own posters
Reviewed by Tim Stegall, Fri., Dec. 11, 2015
If Danny Garrett's name doesn't ring a bell (bang a gong), his imagery will. Alongside locals Micael Priest, Jack Jackson, Jim Franklin, and Guy Juke, his pen-and-ink line work and cryptic flourishes helped make posters the primary medium for marketing concerts. Garrett became a key part of Priest's Sheauxnough Studios artist collective, basically creating Antone's graphic blues brand. Showcasing a healthy cross section of his oeuvre (Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and explaining his processes and work habits, Garrett weaves a tale in the nooks between poster reproductions. Austin music's evolution through the Seventies and Eighties thus becomes the real tale of Weird Yet Strange. He proves as adept with prose as with cross-hatching, re-creating the daily life of a card-carrying leader of the native counter-culture, and exhaling the smoky atmosphere fogging these legendary spaces. Essential reading for Austin art and music scholars alike.
Weird Yet Strange: Notes from An Austin Music Artist
by Danny GarrettTCU Press, 200 pp., $29.95 (paper)
