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* Show Log Mania, Part III of IV: 1990

Not to worry, we're pretty close to wrapping up all this nonsense. Meanwhile, here's a cursory review of some highlights scattered amidst everything I just transcribed from my 1990 show logs...

* The 800-pound gorilla in these entries is Butch Hancock. First came his legendary "No 2 Alike" series of shows at the Cactus Cafe from January 31 to February 5 -- six consecutive nights in which Hancock played all originals and never repeated a song. (It was originally scheduled for five nights but was held over when he couldn't get through everything he'd planned in just five!) Special guests ranged from Townes Van Zandt (doing a one-line cameo) to the late guitar great Jesse Taylor to a full-fledged Flatlanders reunion. Austin's never seen anything quite like it before, or since.

A few months later, my log shows entries on April 20 and 21 that read, simply, "Butch Hancock, Mariscal Canyon." The brevity of the notation only scratches the surface of the full story. This was part of a three-day, two-night raft trip on the Rio Grande in West Texas, run by a company called Far Flung Adventures. They'd begun doing these river trips where they'd bring along a musician and have them play campfire concerts at night -- the music echoing off the canyon walls, the stars blanketing the sky above. Soon as I saw Hancock was booked for one, I knew I had to go.

Butch enjoyed the experience so much, he eventually moved out to Terlingua (where Far Flung was based) and became a certified river guide with the company. I had such a fine time that ten years later I returned to do it again, this time bringing along my father as a present for his 70th birthday.

* I don't know if there's ever been a better Austin Music Awards show than the 1990 edition on March 14 at Palmer Auditorium. The lineup, in order of appearance: Townes Van Zandt, Daniel Johnston, Poi Dog Pondering, James McMurtry, Nanci Griffith, and the David Halley Band & Friends (I'm pretty sure Alejandro Escovedo was among the "Friends").

* I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Tiny Lights in here somewhere. I'd first seen them back in the summer of 1988 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, while interning at a newspaper in the NYC area. I dragged a few of my fellow interns to the show -- I think to see another band that was on the bill -- but ended up being blown away by this quintet that featured strings and horns prominently in their fascinatingly diverse folk/pop/jazz/rock/chamber/funk/avant-garde repertoire.

A few months later they came through Texas and played a show in San Marcos, south of town; apparently they hadn't been able to get a gig in Austin. I went down to see them and dragged them back to Austin to stay at "The Lodge" (as my roommates and I had dubbed our house back then) for a night or two before they continued their tour. They returned in 1989 a couple of times and gradually built more of a following. By the time they visited in 1990, they'd earned a headlining spot on Saturday night (March 17) during South By Southwest at the Ritz, one of the larger downtown venues, and they played live on the air at KLBJ's studios the following night.

* Tiny Lights' front couple, husband-and-wife John Hamilton and Donna Croughn, returned the lodging favor in the summer of 1990 when I made a brief visit to New York. Turned out they lived right down the street from Maxwell's, the Hoboken bar where I'd first seen them play a couple years earlier. So I strolled the few blocks to Maxwell's on the night of July 26 to catch a trio whose debut record I'd recently reviewed for the Austin daily. Not many people were there, maybe a couple dozen. The band was pretty darned good. They called themselves Uncle Tupelo.

* September 21 shows an Emmylou Harris & the Nash Ramblers gig at the Austin Opera House, with a couple of opening acts. Emmylou must have been touring with Canadian outfit the Prairie Oyster Band, as they were in the middle slot on the bill. Typically there would be just two acts on a roadshow at the Opera House, but for whatever reason, a regional opener had been added on this night — some quartet from Dallas, featuring a couple of sisters named Emily and Martie Erwin. Awhile later they became considerably more well-known when they added a singer named Natalie Maines to the lineup, but even in that early incarnation, they aready were billing themselves as the Dixie Chicks.

* Few Austin bands shot up and fizzled out as fast as Twang Twang Shock-A-Boom, a sorta skiffle-style trio that began by busking on UT's West Mall (just as Poi Dog Pondering had a couple years earlier). Seemingly overnight, they had a huge following, They released a handful of cassettes that altogether sold in the tens of thousands, and played gigs at many of the prime venues around town (including August 9 at Texas Tavern, August 13 at Cannibal Club, August 17 at Saxon Pub, September 20 at Texas Union Ballroom, and September 23 at Laguna Gloria Art Museum). And then they were splitsville, as quickly as they had arrived. (A November 10 "reunion" gig at the Four Seasons Hotel for a friend's wedding served as a sort of asterisk/endpoint.)

Leader David Garza has since had many lives as a solo artist, and drummer Chris Searles became one of Austin's most seasoned session pros. Even so, I'm not sure anything they've done since has ever quite radiated with the magic they captured in the spring and summer of 1990. As such, it was a nice surprise to recently discover that the best of those cassette releases is available in streaming download form here:
http://www.wiseup.org/twang/songs/

* My memories from this era of Austin music are dominated by evenings spent at the Hole in the Wall, the Cactus, Liberty Lunch, Club Cairo (later rechristened the Cannibal Club), Chicago House, and the Texas Tavern -- but going through these logs, I was surprised to see how frequently I also visited the long-gone Austin Outhouse. It was a dive to beat all dives, probably the "funkiest" music venue in town back then; but there was something very comfortable, and comforting, about that place. Maybe it was the license plates all over the walls. Perhaps it was the height of the stage -- or, rather, lack thereof. Probably it was just the bookings: The Outhouse remained loyal to a less-prominent subculture of Austin singer-songwriters, even as they welcomed the occasional "bigger name" (and they helped raise some of those bigger names too, most notably Timbuk 3). Although losing Liberty Lunch at the end of the '90s was the hardest blow to Austin's venue heritage since Armadillo World Headquarters was demolished in 1980, the Outhouse will always carry its own unique footnote in the city's cultural history.

* There was a twinge of sadness, but also joy, in seeing two entries -- May 16 at Threadgills, and August 3 at the summertime Town Lake shindig Aqua Fest -- for the duo of Walter Hyatt & Champ Hood. Some of my friends back then raved about the 1970s heyday of Hyatt and Hood's old trio (with David Ball) called Uncle Walt's Band; I was too young to catch any of that, but it was nice to see Walter & Champ playing the occasional gig together around town so many years later. We lost Walter in 1996 on the ValuJet crash in Florida; Champ died of cancer five years after that. They were both phenomenal musicians, and gentle, caring souls. Both deserved much longer lives. Seeing their names amid all these listings was a kind reminder of the way they were...back in the good old days of 1990.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on April 19, 2007 11:18 AM | Permalink