George Ensle, Todd Hoke

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Sunday afternoon, a beautifully sunny warm day in Austin Texas (Kate even went swimming in Barton Springs), we have a house concert just east of town on the way towards Bastrop at the home of Joe & Bev Angel. Arhaven House Concerts are hosting George Ensle (a Texan who has been around for many years, we saw him at Mystery Mondays) and Todd Hoke (a younger fellow who we know nothing about). But it's a house concert, a place where people listen to music. Both are mature singer/song writers -- folk with a touch of country

Several years ago we were talking to a fellow at some music event  and he told us that we should look into house concerts. There are several around town that you can find if you do a little digging. We have tickets to go to three -- this one, a Rawhide Trail concert, and a neighborhood B2 concert. You need to search a bit to find these concerts and get on their mailing lists. House concerts usually require that you be invited. They're a great way to keep musicians employed and busy.

Joe & Bev, our hosts, have a nice home in an open country community just west of the airport. It's about a half hour drive from our home. We've been before -- last year we saw "Ordinary Elephant" and "Hardened and Tempered" at their home. We chat a bit with them and see them another time at the Austin Acoustical Cafe (a pseudo-house concert at the Seniors Centre on N Lamar). Bev tells us they were at the Stan-fest in Nova Scotia last year (the Stan Rogers Folk Festival) and plan on going again this year. Their home is well suited for house concerts -- we're told that they designed it on purpose so that it would support concerts like this. Today they have nearly 60 people. The show runs from 3:00 until around 5:30 with a break in the middle. Afterwards, if you want, you can stick around for an informal jam session. We haven't done that -- we should sometime.

George Ensle is an older Texan folk/country singer/song writer with some funny stories to tell. Todd Hoke is a much younger musician from North Carolina and George is the butt of many jokes about older folks. Rick Brock sat in with them playing harmonica. We bumped into Rich at El Mercado events later in our visit.

George was a contemporary with Townes van Zandt, Guy Clark and others. A very funny story concerned Townes and the birth of George's daughter. Townes had said to George that he wanted to give her a bible. George thinks this is pretty weird and little out of character, but OK sure. So Townes has George over to his house to give him a bible for his daughter. And there, he discovers, that Townes has book shelves full of Gideon bibles all neatly arranged by color. Stacks and stacks of them that he's collected from hotel/motels while touring. George says, you know you're not supposed to take them home, you're supposed to read them in your hotel room. Townes replies, "You'd have to stay there an awfully long time!".

We really like George's guitar picking but especially enjoyed Todd Hoke's music. We bought a CD and a couple of his digital downloads.

George says that in Nashville, if you put a capo on your dash you're entitled to disabled parking.