TVZ Birthday

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On Friday the city announces that the South by Southwest Festival is cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak. They don't want to be an epidemic center created by the thousands who would be gathering from all over the world. There are some who think Austin will be better without SxSW and all the crowds but nobody anticipates how bad it's going to get.

The SxSW festival often marks the end of our winter stay in Austin. We have booked to head home just before the festival starts -- we don't like crowds and it gets very expensive to stay. This year we plan to leave a day earlier anyways.

One of the important events (at least for us), just before SxSW, is the annual Townes Van Zandt Birthday Bash organized at the Cactus Cafe at UTX by Butch Hancock (pictured at left). Townes' birthday is March 7, 1944; he died young on January 1,1997. Sometimes SxSW starts earlier and we miss the event. We are lucky this year to be here. Today is the 22nd annual birthday bash.

We get away early and I drop Kate off at the Student Union/Cactus Cafe building so she can get in line to get good seats and I search for nearby street parking. After circling for a couple of times I end up parking at a student residence which has several floors of off street parking -- it ends up costing us $24. Not cheap.

Butch is just back from New Zealand and has lots of stories to tell -- he's somewhat amazed at the eels in NZ rivers and claims one of them ate Jimmie Dale Gilmore. He's not one to watch the clock and tells quite long stories before playing Towne's tunes and moving on to the other guests. He also encouraged folks to sign up for a New Mexico boat trip he's organized where you camp out and swap songs around the camp fire. It's a full house and there are a lot of guest performers in the course of the evening. Some who had travelled a good distance just to honor Townes.

There are some very good tunes (e.g. Beety Soo did a couple of stand out tunes on a borrowed guitar, Jackson Emmer came down from Colorado especially for this event and there was this couple from New Mexico who sang well together). We enjoyed the music.

There are some very odd characters too -- there was this fellow who had chummed around with Townes and others back in the 1960's, he told a long story about Linda Miller (who he had a relationship with) and how "For the Sake of the Song" was written for her. He arrived on stage wearing an "Open Carry" T-shirt with a picture of a Yosemite Sam character brandishing two joints (marijuana open carry, not gun open carry). It seemed that he had spent a lifetime doing too many drugs and it affected his ability to hold a line of thought. Once on stage he was hard to get rid of. But Butch was kind, respectful and forgiving. Not so some of the audience or the sound man.

There was a break and a 2nd set. But we cut out at around 11:30 with new people still coming up to sing Townes' songs. It was very loosely organized, more of an ad-hoc tune swap. There are quite a few, like us, who have to cut out early.

I'm glad we were able to attend this birthday bash. Townes van Zandt is, to many, a really important Texas artist who shaped the music we love so much. If you don't know his music here's some tunes to try "Tecumseh Valley", "Pancho and Lefty", "If I Needed You" and "Marie". See also the Townes Van Zandt Youtube Channel.

Ps. The Cactus Cafe is celebrating 40 years. The Austin Lounge Lizards are celebrating 40years. Kate and I are celebrating 40 years. Coincidence?