James McMurtry at Waterloo Records

2015/02/25 James McMurtry at Waterloo Records: James McMurtry has just released a new album, "Complicated Game", and we were lucky enough to see and hear him debut some of the songs at Waterloo Records where he performed with his band. We bought the record, of course!, and it's another great one to add to our library and a wonderful addition to the James McMurtry catalogue.

We've caught James a few times over the years -- most notably at La Zona Rosa (long since gone) where he was working on "Where Did You Hide The Bodies" many years ago when the warehouse district still had warehouses! We hope to see him again at the Continental Club while we're here. We caught his regular Tuesday night solo gig last year and an outdoor Threadgills performance back in 2009 with a full band.

Great artist, wonderful writer with a command of the language and his instrument. If you don't know about James McMurtry -- take some time to find out more, an adventure in Americana well worth the time.

El Mercado, Mystery Monday

2015/02/23 El Mercado Mystery Monday: A special Monday night at the El Mercado on South 1st with cool weather and threats of a possible sleet storm. A good night to take a taxi and be inside.

The regular Mystery Monday gig hosted by Christine Albert and David Carrol (on stand up bass) has special guests Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Gabe Rhodes. Christine had her son join her for a duet on a Townes tune and Butch had his son join for some fancy picking.

This was a standing room only affair. Kate and I arrived at about 5:30 for the 7:30 performance so we could get a good seat (and enjoy some snacks, beer and Mexican Martinis). Those who arrived late ended up either not getting in or standing where there was room for them.

I have a Butch CD "Diamond Hill" from 1979 (sic!) found that morning at the nearby "End of an Ear" record shop and get Butch to sign it. I remind him of the cassette series "NoTwo Alike" that he made after a week long stint at the Cactus Cafe back in 1990 ... which we naively missed when here all those years ago. We'll see him again for the Townes birthday bash in March.

As always they started with Townes' "White Freightliner Blues" and as often happens they closed with that bluegrass classic "I'll Fly Away" where we can all join in. In between we had Flatlanders' classics like "Dallas", "If You Were a Bluebird", and more. Butch and Jimmie would often swap verses on a tune. We had seen both before, on separate occasions, at Strange Brew but it's especially nice to see these Flatlanders perform together.

If only Joe Ely had popped in ... Oh well, next week it's Rosie Flores!

We had fun and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as did the attentive audience

2015-02 - LA Downtown

Kate and I made a brief visit to Downtown LA during our Austin winter vacation in 2015 -- Kate had a conference. We stayed at the Doubletree near Union Station. The photos in this collection are from walks nearby.

A note of caution -- while there are some interesting things to see and do the area is pretty depressed. Downtown LA is also known as "Skid Row". It's changing to be more of an entertainment district but that will take time.

This photo album is a sample of what we saw.

Street Art, Los Angeles

I suspect many of these have been posted before on other sites. But here's some street art found on a recent visit to downtown LA... Enjoy

[This was originally posted to Google+/Street Art]

Ameripolitan Awards

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Ameripolitan Awards, Paramount Theatre: Kate and I were at the 2nd Annual Ameripolitan Music Awards at the Paramount in Austin, Tuesday February 17  ...in the balcony with a pocket camera so the photos are only so so. It was a great pleasure to see local London, Ontario singer Tara Dunphy nominated for an award as Honky Tonk Female (she should have won) and even more to see her on stage performing with James White of the Broken Spoke fame (Amanda Cevallos who we've seen at the Broken Spoke was also was on stage to present an award).

I'll agree with Tara that the performance of Billy Joe Shaver's "I'm Going To Live Forever" by Joe Ely, who accepted a 2015 Founder of the Sound award for Billy Joe Shaver who was unable to attend because of a flu, was the highlight of the evening. It's a powerful tune and fitting as Billy Joe will live forever -- in the many wonderful songs he wrote. His lawyer also spoke and joked that Billy Joe was one of the few Outlaws who was actually acquitted in court (see Wacko from Waco).

The worst part of the evening was the MC Mojo Nixon. He's rude, crewd and lewd. I don't mind an f-bomb, and am guilty of being a bit coarse by times, but this guy was like a five year old who had only recently discovered that "fuck" is a bad word. If Elizabeth Cook, whose music and good humour I admire, had been left to MC on her own I'd have been much happier.

The truly odd award of the evening was DJ of the year -- Mojo Nixon won! Duh?

Butch Hancock at Strange Brew

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Kate, Sam and I had a pleasant evening at Strange Brew and caught three different acts. Here's some photos of Butch Hancock's set with Bob Livingston on bass. The set started with "Spanish is the Loving Tongue" which made our day. Lots of tunes we know and love and some we'd never heard before even though they were written back in the 1970's.

Butch told a funny story about his university days in Lubbock with Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. They had a table made out of a door balanced on a couple of cinder blocks. With only two legs (the cinder blocks) it wasn't very stable. An engineering friend pointed out that it would be stable if only they had a third leg .... stunned silence, why hadn't we thought of that! So they saved up for a week and Joe brought one home on the back of his bicycle. Problem solved. Of course it's still a table only about a foot of the floor! 

I asked and Butch announced that there will be a Townes Van Zandt birthday party bash at the Cactus Café on March 7. Cindy will be here visiting at that time so we've got to get tickets for that event!

Terri Hendrix, Cactus Cafe

2015/02/13 Terri Hendrix, Cactus Cafe: On Friday night we caught Terri Hendrix at the Cactus Cafe on the UT campus. We caught a similar gig last year at about the same time. Terri is a powerful singer and a great writer. Lloyd Maines, as always, was there. It was another great show we thoroughly enjoyed. I've been following her for years and have come to recognize and love many of her songs.

We took Sam with us, her first night in town visiting, and on the way stopped at the Texas Chili Parlour Bar for a bowl of red and some mad dog margaritas (and not caring where you are...)

Another fun night...

Steve Earle at Waterloo Records

2015/02/12 Steve Earle at Waterloo Records: Kate and I got to see one of our favorite artists in a most unusual location. Steve Earle was showcasing his new album "Terraplane" at Waterloo Records on Lamar at 6th -- an early release. This is a blues album celebrating a long tradition from traditional artists, through folk like Townes Van Zandt down to current folk like Steve who turned 60 recently. Great tunes, it was fun and a wonderful opportunity to see an artist we've admired for years.

Two Tons of Steel, Guero's Taco Bar

2015/02/11 Two Tons of Steel at Guero's: Kate and I caught the San Antonio band "Two Tons of Steel" Thursday night at Guero's Taco Bar on South Congress in the garden under the live oaks. It was a lovely warm evening and the dance floor was hopping for the regular Wednesday live to radio broadcast. Really enjoyed the show and some of the best dancers we've seen in a while. I need to learn the Texas two step.

We had a bite at the Snack Bar down the street and some tasty margaritas during the show -- we think they're some of the better ones in town. They're simple to make but seem to have an effect on you.

And we even met a fellow Canuck who was staying down the street at the motel with penis shaped neon sign and the "So near, yet so far out" slogan.

Amanda Cevallos at The Broken Spoke

2015/02/10 Amanda Cevallos at The Broken Spoke

Amanda Cevallos & the High Hands play for tips as a dinner show before the dance at the Broken Spoke. I had a chicken fried steak (like many places they claim to be the best in all of Austin if not all of Texas), Kate struggles with the minimal vegetarian options. We've come for the music and dinner.

Amanda recognizes us from previous visits and I'm here to find out about her new album. She tells me it's only going to be released on LP, there's only going to be a pressing of 100 copies at $100 a pop, it will not be released on CD and if we want a copy we need to act fast. Hmmm... that sounds like a very odd marketing strategy. While I really like her music and have her last CD I have no desire to spin LP's and will pass on this new release.

Hopefully there will be new music coming soon in CD or iTunes format.

Mike Stinson at the Little Longhorn Saloon

2015/02/08 Mike Stinson at The Little Longhorn Saloon: Some photos from the Mike Stinson gig at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon. Kate was going to buy tickets for the chicken shit bingo but the lineup went around the building! Mike Stinson is a seasoned musician with some great drinking tunes. We had fun and so did the dancers.

A Day in San Antonio

2015-02-26 A Day in San Antonio: Kate and I had a day in San Antonio in February where we visited the Museum of Art, the River Walk and the Alamo. We'll come back another time and bring our bikes to explore off the beaten trail.

Kate and I had a quick visit to San Antonio during our winter vacation in Austin (it's only an hour or so south). We visited the San Antonio Museum of Art where there was a special exhibit of Picasso pieces rendered as tapestries. We wandered the River Walk and had a quick peek at the Alamo (that famous battle with Santa Anna was 1836 -- you remember the Alamo). We were going to do a bit of an architectural walk (there's lots of interesting buildings from the turn of the last century) but he weather turned on us.