Conjunto Festival

On Sunday we caught a bit of the Rancho Alegre Conjunto Festival (a three day festival with a ton of performers) in east Austin at the Austin Moose Lodge No. 1735, 2103 E.M. Franklin. This is the second year for the festival and it seems to be a success. They're already planning for next year.

The Moose Lodge is a bit of a dark and dreary spot with no windows and it was a beautifully bright day so we only stayed long enough to see a couple of acts -- the Conjunto Cats (young fellows) and Conjunto Los Pinkys (very seasoned fellows). The photo at left is "Los Pinkys". I understand they've been playing together for 60 years or so! I'm not surprised.

It was at this festival where I bumped into the record dealer who runs "Turntable Records" just down the street from us on 1st in SoCo. He seems to specialise in obscure music like conjunto. While it is popular amongst a certain population you need to search it out. You'll not bump into it in the many bars along Pecan Street downtown. I bought a CD by Los Pinkys ("Los Pinkys con Isidro Samelpa -- !Seguro que Si!" from 1994 -- they have been around for a while) and a T-shirt for Susan Torres and Conjunto Clemencia who he raved about. They had played earlier another day. On that recommendation we ventured over to east Austin on Tuesday night where we caught their early show at the Scoot Inn.

I've been aware of conjunto music for some years having been introduced by our friend Padric who is no longer around to vicariously enjoy our adventures in places like Austin. The Texas Tornados are, I suppose, a popularised version of the style. I can certainly hear where they come from when I sit in a dance hall with conjunto playing.

Clearly the music is shaped by the Germans who brought accordions to this part of the world as settlers in the late 1800's. A conjunto band should have four instruments -- an accordion, a 12 (or sometimes) 10 string guitar, bass guitar and drums. The accordion is the defining instrument -- likewise for Zydeco. Like Zydeco it's good time party music just made for dancing. For conjunto the dance is often a polka beat (there's that German influence) but sometimes a waltz or samba beat. People come to these gigs to dance and it's great to see. With Kate's bum knees we're not able to participate in the dancing .. but we sure enjoyed the music.

There's lots more music to see and hear. We're only here for a month but hope to see much more in more of the myriad styles available in this music capitol.