Purgatory Players

Click image for video ...

One of our Sunday morning pleasures in Austin is to attend the Purgatory Players performance at the El Mercado South. This is a regular event with a fluid group of local musicians and guests who play together to raise funds for the Central Texas Food Bank. They're mostly professional musicians and pass the hat for the food bank rather than themselves — they are giving their time. They say every dollar raised makes for four good meals and, over the years, have raised quite a bit of money. 

The El Mercado "Backstage", where this event happens, is a very good listening room where you can also have a meal and drinks. We each have a huge Tex/Mex breakfast with Morning Margaritas.

The "regular" players today are Scrappy Jud Newcomb,  Rich Brotherton, and Guy Forsyth who perform a first set of well rehearsed tunes (perhaps a little heavy on the gospel side). All are amazing performers who we've seen around town and on ACL over the years. Guests include Kate Howard (who Kate talked with by the WC — she's a regular), Bonnie Gibson sang Steve Earle's Jerusalem and brought me to tears, and others included Guila Millanta and the sound man Drew Preston. They're all supportive of one another and make sure we're aware of who is playing where in the coming week.

Drew will be playing at the "Regal Rooms" and Guila with Ben Jones at the "04 Center" — venues we will investigate. The 04 Center is pretty across the street from us in Zilker ... well within walking distance.

The link under the picture is to a video of the event recorded by DanViewtube (his nom de plume) who I talked to at the end of the performance. He's been documenting these live music events on YouTube for many years and I have approached him before. We talked about how much I appreciated his work in general and over the pandemic when we've not been here. I especially liked the recording of Christine Albert's Mystery Monday Farewell show back in 2020 (now replaced by a Monday Night Supper Club hosted by Ben Jones and Barbara Nesbitt). Dan suggests we go see Ulla at the Saxon later today (Rich Brotherton is also part of that gang), but I explain that we're off to a house concert. We both comment on how much great music there is to see in Austin. That's why we're here! We'll catch Ulla another day.

Kate and I remark that the house hasn't bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers. It should, these are fine musicians, a worthy cause and a great place for breakfast. We will be back.

Our waiter invites us back ... little does he know how soon he'll see us (we're back the next night).