Austin Music

Click for Photo Album

Austin is Live Music and that's one of the main reasons we take our winter holidays there. This album is a collection of photos from various shows we went to during Feb-Mar of 2014. See also the albums for Strange Brew and the El Mercado where we returned many times.

The Cactus Cafe on grounds of UTexas is a folk club with a long history of booking important folk acts. We saw the Austin Lounge Lizards and really enjoyed ourselves. They're very funny and we've been hoping to see them for years. Another night we went to see Terri Hendrix (with Lloyd Maines) who I have followed for years. We missed Iris Dement at the Cactus Cafe (tickets were gone by the time we discovered, then a second gig was booked and it sold out before we knew about it). The night we saw Terri Hendrix was the same night that Kinky Friedman and Billy Joe Shaver were in town at seperate gigs!

We went back to the Broken Spoke for dinner one evening and to see Amanda Cevallos. James McMurtry, who we've seen before a couple of times, plays a midnight gig with a full band at the Continental Club -- we caught an earlier solo acoustic gig in the Continental Club Gallery (above the club). He can make a twelve string sound like a whole orchestra. We caught Charles Thibodeaux and the Austin Cajun Aces at Evangalines where they play every week. I'm a big fan of Cajun and Zydeco music. Cajun... Acadian... Canadian...

Mapjam is a day long musical event in east Austin sponsored by the UTexas radio station. On a sunny day you can bike or walk between outdoor events. We caught the "Carper Family" (a bluegrass outfit) and Hops & Grain (a brewery) and a punkish band "Grow" at a lumber yard (odd venue for sure).

A big treat for us was to see Chris Wall at the Twin Creeks Dancehall. Chris is a great song writer -- "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight" was made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker. We got a snap of Kate with Chris.

The best of all was the happinstance of catching Joe Ely's live to radio KDRP at Geuro's on our last night in town. We were aware of the KDRP radio broadcasts but hadn't investigated who played at them (they're not listed in the Chronicle). On our last night we stopped into a pizza joint across the street and recognized Joe signing when we got out of the car. We dashed over and caught the last half hour of the set. We wish we had known before hand.

Anyways, there's lots of live music in Austin.

I've blogged as well. Here's a photo album.