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March 29, 2007
* conspiracy theories...
I get occasional submissions from overseas artists -- bands from the UK, Scandinavia, Germany, Australia, etc., sending along their CDs in hopes we'll review them (which we sometimes do).
I'm curious, though, about the most recent one which arrived a couple days ago. Is it purely coincidence that this package, which arrived with its seal broken and its contents clearly having been examined, just happened to be from a band that calls itself the God Fearing Atheists?
You be the judge.... better you than the postmaster, anyhow, apparently.
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 27, 2007
* "Try not to speak."
The header for this entry is borrowed from the inimitable Sir John Gielgud, one of his many memorable utterances in the 1981 movie Arthur. Like many of his lines in that movie, it was delivered with piercing forthrightness -- almost crass, if it weren't so on-the-mark.
Gielgud's remark came to mind last week when I was discussing with someone the dilemmas of overly loquacious singer-songwriters who might do well to take that message to heart. This is different from the "Shut up and sing" mantra that many directed toward the Dixie Chicks post-Bush-lashing a few years back; which is to say, it's not a matter of politics or free speech. Rather, it's all about the value of an artist recognizing the distinction between chatter that is charming and blather that is annoying.
Sometimes, interestingly enough, it can be an issue with artists whose singing voices are uncommonly wondrous. The discussion I had last week stemmed from my having witnessed, the night before, a very moving performance by Rosie Thomas at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin during SXSW. I've been enchanted by Thomas' music for several years now, and wrote about her in ND #47 (Sept.-Oct. 2003). Her song "Wedding Day" is one of the great should-have-been smash singles of this decade, the kind of thing that could've given Sarah McLachlan's ubiquitous "Arms Of An Angel" a run for its money if it had the benefit of a major promo machine behind it.
I've seen Thomas play three or four times now, with varying results. As angelic as her voice and her sense for melody can be, she has a tendency to ramble on far too long between songs, in a manner that often destroys the mesmerizing mood she casts with her music. It's possible there are those who find this trait to be just one of the charming aspects of her performances. I'm not one of them. I find myself longing for her to sing, to hear what makes her truly special as a musician, and muttering, under my breath, "Try not to speak."
As such, the Central Presbyterian performance was a godsend (pardon the pun). Perhaps calmed or humbled by the grand experience of playing in a giant chamber with towering ceilings and awesome acoustics, Thomas greatly reined in her banter and placed the focus squarely on her songs. Her own material (including "Wedding Day") has never sounded better from the stage, while her covers of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" and R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" (the latter to close the set) were magical.
Ultimately it's not really a matter of clamming up altogether; rather, it's just the secret of finding that balance, where the monologue remains reverent to the music. On this night, in church, Rosie got it right.
The person with whom I was having this discussion made a very similar observation about an artist with whom I was not familiar, named Stephanie Dosen. I've since checked out Dosen's myspace page and heard three songs there that I found quite enchanting; like Rosie, she has an innate beauty to her voice, and to her way with a song. I've not seen her perform, and must admit I approach that future possibility with some trepidation. Meantime, though, there's plenty of reward in just hearing her sing.
Posted by Peter at 3:02 PM | Permalink
March 20, 2007
* "austin are you calling..."
By now the number of blogs you've already read about SXSW is probably even greater than the number of bands that were in Austin over the last few days, so I'll spare you one more rundown of every band I saw and every party I attended. Instead, allow me to reflect on a handful of snapshots that in some way exemplified or encapsulated my impressions of the city I called home from age 4 through 26....
* Every time I set foot in the Hole In The Wall at 26th & Guadalupe, I'm inevitably taken back to the days of seeing the Commandos and Timbuk3 on that stage in the front window circa 1985. The stage is one of the few things that looks pretty much the same now as it did then; elsewhere, the club's midsection has been widened, the ceiling has been raised, and a back room bar has been added, all of which have improved the overall ambiance and flow of the venue. It may be off the beaten path of Sixth-Street-centered SXSW, but it remains an Austin classic, well worth the visit -- as it was for a quiet Wednesday afternoon of sets by artists on the Italian indie label Club De Musique.
* Butler Park Pitch & Putt sits just south of the river near the intersection of Riverside Drive and Lamar Boulevard, behind what was once the original home of Waterloo Records. The charming little nine-hole golf greenbelt is currently in the shadow of a giant condo complex midway under construction (something that seems to be happening all over the downtown area at present). In recent years, ND contributing editor David Menconi and I have managed to sneak off at some point during SXSW and spend an hour or so enjoying the bumpy tee boxes and barely-mowed greens at Butler Park. Joining us on this Thursday morning for our annual outing was accomplished tunesmith and devoted linksman Randy Weeks. Better than an afternoon on South Congress, even.
* Anywhere you go in Austin, there's usually at least one Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away. The best ones, though, are on the east side of town. Rarely do I miss a chance to visit El Azteca, owned by the same family for more than 40 years (I've been a devoted returning patron for about half that time). Usually I'll drag a few friends along too; this Thursday that included Texas A&M lecturer John Krajicek, who shared with us a unique song on his band the Ravines' new album. "Call A Horse" was written and performed by his young daughter Emma and sports such memorable lyrics as, "Don't call 911, just call what you've been looking for, a horse." It's pretty groovy, y'all.
* It had been more than 10 years since I last attended a taping of Austin City Limits; as with No Depression, ACL is less specifically Americana-focused nowadays, allowing for the inclusion of such artists as 20-year-old Scottish sensation Paolo Nutini (who taped a show on Sunday evening). The studio and setup haven't changed much, though the chairs are a bit more comfortable, and they now allow standing-room up-front for the younger audience members they're aiming to attract by including indie-scene acts. Nutini's talent proved deeper and broader than any simple categorization, though; he possessed the artistry of a seasoned veteran, while performing with the energy of a guy barely beyond his teens.
* My most "Austintatious" (to borrow a phrase) moment actually came after we returned home to the Northwest on Monday. As my wife & I wearily dragged a cart along the aisles of our local grocery store, knowing the icebox needed restocking, I was shocked to see, right there in the freezer aisle, Night Hawk Steak 'n' Taters dinners. I filled up the cart immediately.
You may be asking right now, "Ummm, what the hell are you talking about?" ... So, a little explanation. The Night Hawk was an Austin institution for 62 years, from its debut in 1932 (when my dad was a 2-year-old future Austin High & UT grad) to its demise in 1994 (three years after I'd moved away). There was the original location at the corner of Riverside & Congress right in the middle of town (in what is still one of the city's coolest buildings, though I believe it houses a legal firm these days), and eventually several satellite spots in surrounding neighborhoods. In my childhood years, we went most often to the Burnet & Koenig location which was known as the "Frisco Shop". It was by far my favorite restaurant -- always dependable, no frills or attitudes, just good food. A menu bargain was the "Steakette," a smaller chopped steak with potatoes on the side, sorta like a burger without the bun but much, much tastier than that. Something about the way the Night Hawk charbroiled and/or seasoned a steak made it a work of art, in my young and impressionable mind.
Somewhere along the line they started making Night Hawk frozen dinners as well, including a "Steak 'n' Taters" offering that was essentially a freezer version of the Steakette. When I eventually left home and attended UT in the 1980s, I leaned heavily upon those things as a source of cheap and easy home meals. It wasn't like buying Swanson's or Banquet or some other frozen meal that was about as tasty as the box it came in. This was Night Hawk, the real stuff -- and somehow they'd managed to make the grocery model a pretty close approximation of what was served in the restaurant.
When I left town in 1991, one of the things I immediately missed most was Night Hawk dinners; the stores out west had never even heard of 'em. Attempted substitutes such as Marie Callender's Salisbury Steak weren't even close. I'd get my fix when I went back home to visit; we'd hit the Mexican and barbecue joints when out on the town, but I'd always make sure there was a Steak 'n' Taters in my parents' freezer for one perfect little meal without leaving the house.
The eventual closing of all the Night Hawk locations (the flagship had burned in the '80s and was rebuilt, but it never really recovered) was a sad development in my eyes, another hole in the fabric of the Austin I had known and loved during my youth. The frozen dinners line, happily, continued, leaving at least one vestige behind of those etched-in-memory visits to the Frisco Shop.
So when we stumbled upon Steak 'n' Taters yesterday in the freezer of our local store way up here in Poulsbo .... well, maybe now you understand why I filled up the cart. Austin was suddenly right here, even two-thousand-odd miles away. Let's eat....
adios,
peter
(address any comments to peter at nodepression dot net)
p.s. -- an update of sorts: our Austin employee Trish Wagner has informed me that the Frisco Shop is in fact still open, much to my surprise. Evidently when the Night Hawk chain went out of business in '94, the original owner's nephew & his wife teamed up with a longtime Night Hawk employee to purchase the Frisco and keep it going. There's an asterisk, however -- apparently Walgreen's is in the process of buying the lot where the Frisco is located, which may soon signal either a relocation or the restaurant's final demise. Ah, Austin -- where no great cultural landmark goes undemolished. I suppose it'd ultimately be no surprise to see the last bastion of the Night Hawk go the way of the Armadillo, Liberty Lunch, and (soon) Las Manitas....
The inevitable final result, of course, will be that day in 2046 when the wrecking balls crash down upon the giant granite dome of the State Capitol Building. "Such a prime location in the heart of downtown was just too valuable to withhold from commercial development on the grounds of nothing more than cultural heritage," explained Austin Mayor George Walker Cheney Bush II. "Wal-Mart really needed a presence on this side of the river to supplement its Auditorium Shores location."
Bush added, with a trademark smirk, "Besides, clearly it's long been established that this is what Austinites want from their city. I mean, if they actually wanted civic landmarks more than retailers and hotels and parking garages, then my great-granddad probably would've kept smokin' pot with Willie and eatin' migas with Flaco way back in the olden days, right?"
Posted by Peter at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
March 12, 2007
* "you're the only quarter-horse in this stock-car race..."
In today's mail came an advance of a new disc from Confederate Railroad on Shanachie (which is apparently positioning itself as a refuge for once-mainstream country acts, this disc having been recently preceded by similar efforts from Daryle Singletary and David Ball). It seems a decent enough project -- covers of songs by the likes of Billy Joe Shaver, Johnny Paycheck, Charlie Daniels, Alan Jackson and others -- but that's not why I'm calling attention to it in this exposition.
What caught my eye was this: Of the disc's eleven songs, ten are properly credited to their writers on the accompanying press release -- the lone exception being the second track, "Hard Livin'", which is listed simply as "orig. recorded by Keith Whitley". I'll cut Shanachie some slack here and will assume they'll provide the proper writing credit to David Halley by the time the actual CD hits the stores. In the meantime, though, the mere fact that Halley's credit would be the only one absent on such a list tells me that maybe I need to step up for a moment and testify.
In the late 1980s, the division between Austin's college/indie/alt-rock scene (Reivers, Wild Seeds, Doctors' Mob, Glass Eye, et al.) and its country/folk/singer-songwriter scene (Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Robert Earl Keen, Jimmy LaFave, et al.) was rather wide, with very few figures floating between the two camps. Probably the most conspicuous one who did was Alejandro Escovedo, who'd been a major part of the rock scene with the True Believers in the mid-'80s but had made some ties in the country camp during his early-'80s tenure with Rank And File.
So it was that one casual Tuesday night in January 1989 at Club Cairo, a long-dead Sixth Street joint which was home to the alt-rock community for a brief time, Escovedo played host for one of the club's weekly "Hoot Nights" and presented an intriguing mix of acts that crossed the streams of those scenes. According to my brief notes from way back then, alongside the alternative likes of Shoulders (who I remember well) and the MakeOuts (who I've competely forgotten), Escovedo presented country-centered acts such as Dickie Lee Erwin and the Barnburners. The latter was a ringer of sorts, a short-lived supergroup featuring ex-True Believers bassist J.D. Foster (now an accomplished producer), guitarist Rich Brotherton (now Robert Earl Keen's right-hand man), and banjoist Danny Barnes (later the frontman for the Bad Livers).
The real shining star that night, though, took the stage somewhat inconspicuously, with the exception that Foster and Brotherton were among his backing crew -- a sign that something probably was up. These Hoot Nights were casual midweek gatherings, each act playing just three songs, often startup acts still trying to establish an identity. Frequently the night was largely just an excuse for friends to hang out and drink and chat amongst themselves.
I was doing just that as David Halley began singing...but soon enough I found myself completely distracted from whatever conversation I was having, transfixed by the songs, and the sounds, emanating from the stage. This was waaaaaaaaay above typical Hoot Night fare. I knew Foster and Brotherton's reputations well enough to know they didn't latch themselves on to just anybody...but just where had they come across this ace in the hole?
Turns out he was already an established character...sort of. He'd written a song that had reached the country charts a few years earlier -- yes, the aforementioned "Hard Livin'" via Keith Whitley's version, though it was NOT "originally recorded" by Whitley (Joe Ely had done it first on Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, followed by Jerry Jeff Walker shortly thereafter). More recently, Jimmie Dale Gilmore had put Halley's "Rain Just Falls" on his 1988 album Fair And Square. But Halley had never released a record of his own, and so remained largely under the radar in Austin.
Things started to change not long after that Hoot Night appearance. Turns out Halley had been in the studio with Foster and Brotherton, recording what would outrageously be issued as a cassette-only release. This was right in the midst of the transition from LPs to CDs; if you didn't have a record deal, it was somewhat impractical to press up quantities of either format on your own. And so, probably the best single singer-songwriter record to come out of Austin that decade was on nothing but tape.
Yes, it was that good. Later it did get pressed onto disc (under the title Stray Dog Talk, first by UK's Demon in 1990, then by Austin's Dos in 1994), with a couple songs added from the original cassette version (including Halley's own version of "Hard Livin'", which remains his most successful song but actually quite far from his best). Foster (who produced) made some bold choices in the studio, juxtaposing roots-scene veterans such as drummer Davis McLarty and fiddler Champ Hood with alt-rock up-and-comers including trumpeter David Crawford (Poi Dog Pondering) and guitarist Mike Tamas (Water The Dog). The clincher was Syd Straw, a sultry/spunky chanteuse with her own fast-rising career (her Virgin Records debut surfaced at about the same time) who contributed backing vocals on several cuts.
The end result was perhaps the most definitive example of "alt-country" ever made in Austin. The songs were rooted in country -- as was Halley, having been raised in Lubbock and coming of age just on the tail-end of the Flatlanders' initial heyday there -- but the tone and arrangements borrowed considerably from rock and pop. Nearly twenty years later, it remains an almost perfect record.
Halley's writing is sharp, witty, rhythmic and lyrical: "And you wonder of course if you can handle the pace/You're the only quarter-horse in this stock-car race/And it's kind of a drag/'Cause it's a mighty long way to that checkered flag," he sings slyly in "Live And Learn". On "Opportunity Knocking", he observes that his baby has a "tight little dress cut up high as the national debt."
Elsewhere, he's heartachingly straightforward: "If you should ever doubt your worth/Let me show you what I see," he vows in "If Ever You Need Me", perhaps the best love ballad never to have been tapped by Music Row. "Rain Just Falls" (covered more recently by Stacy Dean Campbell, in 1999) opens with remarkably poignant poeticism: "In the still of the night/All the feeling inside me/Is concealing any sight from sore eyes."
On "Tonight", "Darlene" and "Walk The Line", Halley delivers ultra-catchy upbeat twangy country-pop that compares well with that of his fellow Lubbock native Buddy Holly (Straw's sassy harmonies sparking the last of those three especially). Rich Brotherton's classic-Glen-Campbell-esque bold-faced guitar riff dominates the the pointedly disillusioned "When It Comes To You", while Dave Crawford's free-jazzy trombone gives precisely the right touch of spook to the otherworldly "Dreamlife".
Somehow, nothing ever really happened for Halley. He followed up the debut with Broken Spell, which was more hit-and-miss but includes some very high highlights (the soaring pop opener "Sky", the hard-hitting ballads "It's Just As Well" and "Man Of Steel", the emotional confessional "Close To Your Heart", the offbeat charmer "Girlfriend"), and then, well, he pretty much disappeared from sight. At some point he moved to Nashville and tried to make a go of songwriting there; I recall him telling me in 2000 that he was working on a song called "I'm Giving 'Giving Up' Up", but apparently he gave up on that eventually (the song and the whole Music Row stock-car race). He's since moved back to Texas, though as far as I know, he's not playing out much.
Anyhow, I've made a short story rather long, and should probably stop rambling now. Check out Confederate Railroad's disc when it comes out, but follow "Hard Livin'" back to its source. David Halley deserves better than to be the lone guy who's been forgotten when it comes time to roll the credits.
adios,
peter
p.s. -- direct comments, if you wish, not to the "comments" section on this board (which we've disabled), but via email to: peter at no depression dot net
Posted by Peter at 10:48 AM | Permalink
March 5, 2007
* ND #68 Revisited
Trying something new here that perhaps will turn into a regular thing. Though we finished working on it a few weeks ago, our new issue is now on the stands, and so this afternoon I'm perusing its pages in retrospect, with an eye toward making a few comments on things that stood out personally to me, for one reason or another....
* We were fortunate to have Barry Mazor in our ranks when it came time to run an obituary on Ahmet Ertegun. Likely very few writers who penned obits on the legendary Atlantic Records co-founder had actually had a recent encounter with the man, as Barry did when he was researching Little Miss Cornshucks (for a long piece that eventually became the cover story of ND #45). Barry's personalized recollections made his piece more intimate than a typical career summation would have been.
* New to our pages in the "Miked" live section were correspondent Sterry Butcher and photographer Fred Covarrubias, who did a terrific job setting the somewhat surreal scene of a Jeff Tweedy concert in the tiny West Texas town of Marfa. Thanks go to Robert Halpern of the Big Bend Sentinel for hooking us up with them, and to our esteemed contributing editor Joe Nick Patoski for referring us to Halpern in the first place. Joe Nick has spent a fair bit of time in deepest West Texas over the years, as the following link will attest:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/feature2/
* Mark Guarino's piece on Irish band the Frames was a personal favorite of mine in this issue, largely because they've been one of my favorite bands since I first saw them play five years ago in North Carolina (opening for the New Pornographers). It's still unfathomable to me that their 1999 album Dance The Devil -- to my mind, still their best collection of songs -- never got released in the States....though, thankfully, eMusic has gotten the rights to it for digital downloads:
http://www.emusic.com/album/10940/10940872.html
* We've already had a few raves from readers about Silas House's extensive feature on Carlene Carter -- the most meaningful for me personally being a very kind voice-mail message left by Flo Wolfe of the Carter Fold in Virginia. Flo is one of A.P & Sara Carter's granddaughters, and has been an integral cog at the Carter Fold homestead for many years. It had been awhile since we had been in touch; it was nice to know she was still reading us, and that the Carlene piece had meant something to the family.
* Bob Doerschuk's review of the new Norah Jones record was a bit more, well, lukewarm, I suppose, than her record sales, which were once again through the roof to the point that she debuted at #1 on the charts -- which I'm sure even Bob, despite his reservations, would consider a good thing compared to much of what reaches the top of the pops these days. I did think his criticisms were legitimate, even if I probably enjoyed the album a little bit more than he did; there is that danger of style overshadowing substance when an artist becomes so specifically identified with a particular sound, which I expect is why Jones has (justifiably) gotten a real kick out of her country sidetracks with the Little Willies. After watching her recent 60 Minutes interview in which she responded to a critical review in some other publication by saying it was "mean," I wondered if she'd feel the same way about Bob's review. If so, I'd have to disagree; in both Bob's review and the one cited on 60 Minutes, my sense is that the writers were simply striving to explain why the music did not move them, as opposed to making any sort of personal comments about the artist. I hope Jones, as she grows older, becomes increasingly comfortable with the notion that some folks may not dig what she does, without thinking anyone's being mean to her. The more at peace an artist can be with such differences of opinion about their work, I believe, the freer they become to fully express themselves through their music.
* Finally, Rick Cornell's "Screen Door" piece on the closing of the small Record Cellar label and the relocation of the much larger Sugar Hill label struck a similar kind of personal chord with me as it did with Rick. As a former resident of the NC Triangle, I find it difficult to imagine that music scene's identity without Sugar Hill's looming presence in Durham as a major Americana torchbearer. Philly's Record Cellar I was less personally attached to -- while I knew several Sugar Hill staffers, I'd never met RC boss Neil Drucker -- but I'd come to really admire them as an example of a small label that was in it for all the right reasons. If this is the end of their run, we can all hope to have as much goodness to show for our work when it comes time to close a life chapter.
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)