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* "alleys of austin...."

Too busy putting together the final ND at present to provide much in the way of connective tissue tonight...but there's a handful of loose change rattling around in the pockets of my brain, and it all appears to be at least tangentially related to my hometown of Austin:

* Just by sheer chance, the past couple days I've been channel-surfing at the very end of the night and have happened upon footage of the Faces on VH1 Classic. Last night's was two songs at the very end of a film called Sound Of The City: London 1964-73; tonight's is a full set from what appears to be a slightly later time, a live performance on BBC Television.

Many of my close friends would probably disown me for admitting this, but my background in the Faces is really pretty spotty. Their heyday was really just a little too early for me to appreciate; as an elementary-schooler in the early-mid-'70s raised on AM Top-40 radio, I fell in with the vast masses who'd heard Rod Stewart but not that band he used to be in. Somehow when I went through my "rediscovering the classics" phase in my teen years, I dug (to varying depths) into the Beatles and the Stones and Dylan and the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield and Led Zep and the Who and plenty other legends of the era, but somehow never made it to the Faces. I do remember purchasing a bootleg cassette in 1995 in Australia, but sound-quality was for shit and so I got none of the spark that so many people I knew swore up and down about.

Thus my relationship to the Faces has all ended up funneling through my connection to Austin, as fate would have it. Bassist Ronnie Lane moved there in the mid-'80s, just as I was going out to see bands all the time; he was in a wheelchair from multiple sclerosis by then, but still had that twinkle in his eye and that magic in his voice, and it was no surprise to see a horde of first-rate Austin musicians line up to play in his band. (Among them were erstwhile True Believers Alejandro Escovedo, John Dee Graham and J.D. Foster, as well as moonlighting Poi Dog Pondering players Susan Voelz and Dave Crawford, and rising Austin radio icon Jody Denberg.)

Later, after I'd left town for Seattle in the early '90s, keyboardist Ian McLagan moved to Austin too; I believe it was shortly after Lane's death in 1997 in Colorado (where he'd moved a few years prior). McLagan remains a mainstay of the Austin scene, playing frequently with his Bump Band (another set of top-flight local cats) at clubs such as the Lucky Lounge and the Saxon Pub. In visits back home over the years I've caught a couple of his shows, though probably not as many as I should have.

Seeing the classic footage from the band's heyday the past couple nights was a real nice surprise, a chance to see Ian holding court with his old pals, and to see Ronnie in his prime, alive with wide-eyed wonder. At one point they go into Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" and Ronnie sings the first verse, soaring with the high notes before Stewart comes in at the chorus. So, OK, I'm decades late to the party. Sure was a nice thing to stumble upon at midnight, in any event.

* Speaking of Jon Dee Graham -- he'll be doing a solo-opening set on Monday evening at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar in Austin, as a lead-in to a screening of the documentary film Purple State Of Mind, which I blogged about at length a few weeks back (see here). I'd like to take this opportunity to urge any Austinites who may be reading this to go catch this movie, which is one of the most rewarding films I've seen in the past few years. Jon Dee lending his time and music to the event is a kind and noble gesture; meanwhile, you can get further editorial and musical insight from one of the film's two creators, John Marks, in our upcoming final issue of No Depression, per a feature story he's writing for us on a well-known Texas band.

* Going through my leftover notes from SXSW a week and a half ago, I found the following ramble written while listening to Abra Moore in the 18th Floor lounge atop the Hilton Garden hotel:

"When you're on the 18th floor of the Hilton, and you look to the southwest, you see Austin's future -- the Frost Bank Tower, the new hotels, the high-rise condos either under construction or already built. When you look to the northwest, you see the grand, lonely, old Austin -- the Capitol building, and the UT Tower, still standing strong and proud and full of character and years, if no longer tall in relation to the modern skyline. Theirs is a lost elegance, an architectural relic, an almost European old-world sentiment commemorating an Austin that used to be. And still is, I suppose -- the buildings are still there, and the state government and the University of Texas remain the city's primary employers -- but they aren't the dominating guardians of Austin's identity that they once were."

Just seemed worth sharing....

* One more serving of SXSW leftovers to add to the pile, if I may present the following visual element:

What you see here has become known over the years simply as The Hat. Longtime friend and occasional ND contributor Steve Terrell, a political reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican daily newspaper, introduced The Hat to SXSW many years ago, wearing it around town as he attended various showcases and parties. One came to expect seeing not only Terrell, but The Hat.

The catch was that because of his duties covering the New Mexico State Legislature for the daily paper, Terrell generally was able to attend SXSW only every other year (i.e., the years when the legislature wasn't in session during mid-March). The years he wasn't able to come, we missed seeing Steve...but, it must be noted, we really missed The Hat.

So at some point it came to be that in the years Terrell could not attend, he would send The Hat to some unlikely suspect amid our circle of friends, who would then be anointed Keeper Of The Hat until the time of SXSW arrived, at which point said Keeper would accompany The Hat to Austin and we'd gather at some bar or another, taking turns toasting Terrell and hoisting The Hat upon our noggins.

This year we got to see both Terrell and The Hat. We gathered one evening at Artz Rib House for a fine dining experience of barbecue and our celebratory annual session of, well, passing The Hat.

So, if, at a future SXSW, you spy The Hat jutting skyward somewhere above the crowd -- now you know the story. It may not quite rival the Beatle Bob story, but then, Beatle Bob is hatless.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on March 26, 2008 10:09 PM | Permalink