 |
| Click for Photo Album |
The photo at left is Alejandro Escovedo (an east Austin original) and Rosie Flores (a San Antonio native) playing together at Strange Brew at a benefit concert for Alejandro's son-in-law Matt McCormick who lost his Onion Creek home in a flash flood late in 2013. This was one of the few events where we stayed up late. Often times we'd catch one of the early shows and be home in bed at a sensible time. There's often 4 shows each night starting at 4:00pm and ending by midnight. The benefit was an evening filled with many acts headlined by Alejandro and Rosie.
We had caught Rosie last year at a MapJam concert at the Scoot Inn in East Austin but didn't get to see much as the place was very crowded. For Matt McCormick benefit event we purchased tickets on line which gave us early access to good seating and several raffle tickets. We had front row seats and got some good pictures of many of the acts. One of the best tunes at the concert was the duet by Alejandro and Rosie of "Goodbye Again" a song Rosie made famous as a duet with Dave Alvin on the 1994 "King of California" album. Alejandro also sang a smoking version of the Rolling Stones "Beast of Burden" which has been posted on YouTube.
It was an evening of great acts. One that stood out was Kacy Crowley with Will Knaak on guitar. We saw them last year and she did some of the same songs – "A Funeral for Spring". He did a great song "Take It All Away" and has just put out a record that he funded through crowd sourcing -- we've contributed and hope to see the CD soon.
We caught John Imnon several times at Strange Brew. He's a guy about our age who had played with Jerry Jeff, Marcia Ball and various others. Most of his career as a sideman but during February he was doing an early gig at Strange Brew to try out as a front man. We caught that act twice. The first time his set ended when he said that was all the songs he knew but that he would try to learn a new one each week! I'm not sure how well that went. He's well respected and we saw him another time with Jimmie Lafave.
On Valentine's day, when I was not at all well, we saw Butch Hancock at Strange Brew (with his son who looked about 14-15 noodling on the electric guitar, a guy playing fiddle (whose name we didn't catch) and Bob Livingston (who looks a bit like Phillip Hoffman Seymour) on bass. Butch is one of the folks we really like to see and this year we caught him guesting several times at the El Mercado on Mystery Mondays. It was another good show at Strange Brew and early in the evening. Butch did some favorites that he wrote ("If You Were a Bluebird", "Thank God for the Road" ) as well as the Townes Van Zandt classic "Pancho and Lefty" Butch leads a birthday tribute to Townes every year at the Cactus on March 7 (Townes’ birthday) and we missed that again having to return home -- next year we should be able to catch it. We were right up close to the stage on the side where we have sat the previous times there and got some good pictures. He told some funny stories including one about bringing his jeep back from Mexico to Terlingua after the jeep had been impounded by "The Federales" for a couple of years. The show was over by 10:00pm – another band was coming on.
On Sunday March 2 we had several entertainment options for the afternoon – there was a Sarah Elizabeth Campbell (long time host of Mystery Mondays at the El Mercado) memorial in Kyle with music by Christine Albert and others but it’s about 30 miles south of Austin and was in a hall but still the weather was crappy. The Lost Gonzo Band (Jerry Jeff Walkers old band with John Imnon, Gary P Nunn, Bob Livingston, Lloyd Maines, etc.) was having one of their reunions at the South Austin brewery just south of Ben White between IH-35 and Congress but we had gone to check it out and couldn’t figure out how they would be able to fit everyone inside plus there would probably be a lot of standing for Kate's new knee. So we went to see Sam Baker and friends at Strange Brew. Sam Baker was recommended by a fellow who works the door at Strange Brew who we had bumped into at an El Mercado Mystery Monday event. Kate liked Sam Baker and his music a lot and bought all 4 of his CDs. I was not so keen -- his music is more spoken word poetry than song but still there were some very nice songs. It was an entertaining evening and went from 6pm to 7:30 so the timing was good. We also bought the "Caldera" CD of one of the women who was playing with him – Raina Rose. Her music is very nice and reminds me a bit of Sara Harmer (the Canadian singer).
One of the odder stories about Strange Brew is a camera story. While I really like the place for music and how close you can get to the stage I do have to complain about the lighting -- it's very minimal and therefore very hard to get good natural lighting photography without a high ISO rating and fast lens. While I can push my camera pretty high on film speed (the Canon T4i can shoot at ISO 25,000) and I do have a short 50mm f1.8 standard lens I sometimes resort to using a flash have done so many times at Strange Brew. Others, who have way deeper pockets, come with very expensive fast zooms -- like the Canon 7-210 f2.8 L series. One night, while shooting pictures of Jimmy Lafave, I decided to shoot some flash pictures and was clamping on my Vivitar 285 flash (it's big, ugly and very powerful) when a photographer nearby came to me and said "You can't use that!". I am aware that performers don't like flashes in their face and do try to be unobtrusive. The place doesn't have a no flash policy -- there are lots of point and shoot flashes going off.
Gosh, there's lots more I could write about Strange Brew but suffice to say -- it's one of the nicer places we have found for live music in Austin and we kept coming back. If you're in Austin, do check it out.
[PS. Strange Brew is no more.]
No comments:
Post a Comment