OK...just a few recommendations and bits of quiet good news from what I saw
and heard dopwn there...People we OUGHT to get to hera more of, I think...
Monte Warden.
Big return week for him, as a cxloser with buddies the Robison bros and
Kelly Willis at thge awards, and a strong set at the Broken Spoke Thursday
night of SXSW with James Intveld on keyboards...I'd highly rcommend his new
CD "A Stranger to Me Now" too...which is a brnad new 1959-60
post-rockabilly pop album...which is to say, in the tradition of Roy
Orbison, Phil Everly and Buddy Holly....melodic and dramatic. Marshall
Crenshaw fans will probably go for it too. Live, he also showed he could
hit the rockabilly twanger with some slashing guitar dramatics--which, by
my definition, you have to be able to do to do THIS brnad of non-rockabilly
convincingly.
Lonelyland.
Caught these guys in the Convention Hall one afternoon. Led by Austin guy
Bob Schneider, who'd appently has led a bunch of funk bands before, here
comes up with a unique and engaging laid back-and grinning by the fishin'
hole style that I certainly hope will find a recording home...A very
modern twist on what I'd call the traditions of Hoagy Carmichael/Phil
Harris singing...ya know, Rockin Chair's Got Me!
Henhouse
The all-star Austin women musical extravaganza (Rosie Flores, Marcia Ball,
Cindy Cashdollar, etc.)...and boy, are they capable and roudy and ought to
be a real ongoing group...Fronting Wanda Jackson--who basically sounds
excatly like she did 40+ years ago at age 62, as roaring and growling as
ever..they were maybe even stronger.
Continental Drifters
Saw their really strong set at the Music Hall and their appearance at the
ND/Miles of Weisses Broken Spoke event--where they finished off with an
exhuberant version of the Fairport Convention arrangement of Matty
Groves...This is maybe the most talent almost utterly unheard bunch of folk
rock pros (if I can use that term; it seems right) that ought to be stars
again I can think of. They rock and they sing. And the former Miss
Cowsill was surley the only one at SXSW with Top Tens Hits when she was
five...
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Right up there among the very best young acoustic bluessss men around...he
proved rather remote from the audience live--and then showed off what he
coulkd do with some electricity in an absolutely rousing and rhythmically
unforgettablke version of, of all things, John Fogerty's "Pagan
Baby"...After it was all over, this one kept coming back into me head..anmd
I hope he'll do an electric blues album now.
Beaver Nelson
OK..I thought he was David and Ricky's unknown little brother, The
Beaver...but Corrie Weiss warned me he was really good ...and he
was...really set the stage for the remarkable Mr. Cisco...
I'll add my nod to the "hillbilly Idol" i a good band list...especially lie
their songwriting...and to those who had nice things to say about Michael
Hall and thre Brooders (best loud band I heard there, plus he looks like
Lou Reed and Woody Guthrie's half brother!)...and while I only caughtn
three Hank Dogs songs, I'd have to ay, on the other hand, they were very
boring even briefly...Best unscheduled xtra good time was on that parking
lot in South Austin where Doug Sahm and Johnny Bush joined Cornell Hurd
and the Hollisters for some harder stuff in the morning...I am also now the
owner of an officially endorsed Cornell Hurd Band Whoopee Cushion, and you
can't have enough of those.
Barry
