Ants on the Melon
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Saturday night I was finally able to see one of my favorite musicians at one of my favorite venues: Terry Allen at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck. I’ve been waiting years to see Terry Allen perform like this.

Nearly two years ago I flew out to Los Angeles to meet up with Chris B. to see Terry perform his play/musical/something-else-entirely “Dugout” at the California Institute of the Arts. It was one of the most interesting performances that I think I’ll ever see, and worth the trip for sure. Since then I’ve been watching his schedule and waiting for the opportunity to see him again. Unfortunately, Terry doesn’t perform very often, typically only 5-10 shows a year (at least for the past couple years), so when I discovered three months ago that he would be playing at the Mucky Duck (which is 1.6 miles from my apartment) I bought tickets right away.

The show was absolutely wonderful, and he played some of my favorite songs of his including “Amarillo Highway”, “Flatland Boogie” and “Gimme A Ride To Heaven Boy.” Terry was joined on stage by fiddler/mandolin player Richard Bowden, and accordian player Bukka Allen (Terry’s son). I was also hoping Lloyd Maines would show up, but that didn’t happen. Bukka’s wife Sally Allen also came on stage for a couple songs, including a beautiful duet performed with Bukka, as well as a bluesy song of her own which was quite good. Afterwards she continued to sing backup on a few of Terry’s songs, and sounded just as good as Lucinda Williams did in the original versions.

I was able to record a few songs on my camera, and I’ve uploaded them to the YouTube on the Internets. But instead of going to the Google to find them, I’ll just link them right here (in the order performed):

• Amarillo Highway (4:13)
• Yo Ho Ho/ Big Ol’ White Boys (4:57)
• New Delhi Freight Train (4:56)
• Gimme A Ride To Heaven Boy (3:55)

We also had the pleasure of sharing a table with a really nice couple from the U.K. (hi Grahan and Gill!) who are big fans of Texas music and had traveled all the way here for their vacation. Now that’s dedication. I can’t say that I’ve ever flown to another continent to see my favorite musicians perform. Fortunately, I just have to make a left turn, a right turn, and another left turn and then I’m there.

Apparently this is all over the Internet, but I am just now seeing it and I think its pretty awesome:

By calling himself an amateur, Mr. Gjertsen also inflates his stature as musician — the star performer can’t play a lick. But in the three-minute video, the Norwegian weaves together a drums-and-piano duet, creating a knee-bouncing tune that substitutes crafty editing for the instrumental skills Mr. Gjertsen lacks. His trick: stop-motion video.

Tony vs. Paul is another fascinating stop-motion video if you have another 5 minutes to spare.

Last year one of my favorite bands broke up, the Hot Club of Cowtown. Their website has stated that they might play a show together every once in a while, so I’ve been hoping that I would be able to see them perform again. Well, I just noticed that they are going to be playing 3 sets on Saturday, December 16th at the Luna Fine Music Club in San Antonio. Fortunately, I will be in town that weekend, so you can imagine that I am very excited! Luna’s website lists the booking at “Elana James and the Continental Two”, but Elana’s site says that it will be a Hot Club show. In addition to the Luna sets, there will be performances earlier that day at Central Market. Woo Hoo!

I returned yesterday from my 5th trip to Las Vegas in the past 15 months (yes, I like the place). This time I was only out there for 2 days, for a mini family vacation (only part of the family, and only a couple days). The highlight of this trip was seeing the new Beatles’ Cirque Du Soleil show, LOVE.

After having an incredible meal at The Tillerman, we headed over to the Mirage to catch the show. This is the third Cirque show I have seen, and this one did not disappoint. Although there were less acrobatics in LOVE than most other Cirque shows, it was still amazing. LOVE tells the story of the Beatles’ lives, surrounded by their music. I’ve always been a Beatles fan (the first song I learned to play on the guitar was Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood”, thanks to Dad), so it was very exciting to get the chance to experience the Cirque show.

After the show I was thinking about other people/groups throughout history that have never been able to be replaced. Everyone pretty much agrees that there has not (yet) been another band as influential as the Beatles. But what else? The next thing I thought of was Michael Jordon. I don’t really follow sports, but when Michael Jordon was playing basketball he was seemingly invinceable, and I have not heard of anyone else like him since he retired (the first time). I imagine Steve Jobs will probably also appear this way once he retires. Alan Greenspan also comes to mind.

I imagine it would have been awesome to see the Beatles in concert, and to be around when they were changing the world. I wonder if we will ever see anyone as great as they were, or if the world we live in can handle such a revolutionary music group again.

“Billy Breathes” is probably my favorite album of all time, and one of the best songs on there is “Waste.” Here’s a performace of “Waste” that I found on YouTube:

Incidentally, I just noticed that “Billy Breathes” was released on my 17th birthday. Once I read in The Phish Companion that “Billy Breathes” is actually a strange Rock Opera about a fish named Billy. The album made much more sense after I learned the story.

This weekend I drove up to the capital city for the 2006 Austin City Limits Music Festival.

After last years festival I had decided that I did not want to spent another weekend under the blazing Sun and try to enjoy music. It was just too hot. But when I saw that both Ween and Willie Nelson would be performing, I went ahead and bought two 3-day passes. As it turns out, I had a pretty good time this year.

Friday I was there alone, and I just walked around from stage to stage. I spent more time getting to and from the festival than I did at the festival, but it was fun anyway (although really, really hot). I managed to see Gnarls Barkley and a few other shows.

On Saturday Sandy was able to come with me and we saw String Cheese Incident, the South Austin Jug Band, Brazilian Girls, and of course, Willie Nelson, as well as several other smaller bands.

Sunday morning we met up with Jason at Kerby Lane Cafe for a late Breakfast. Afterwards we went up to the 360 Bridge and chilled for a while, before picking up Katie and heading to the festival. We caught parts of performances from Ween, Matisyahu, Sun Volt, The Flaming Lips, The Greencards and Ben Harper.

At the gates of the festival there were people giving away iTunes music cards that said they were worth $30 towards music from bands performing at the festival. At first I thought this meant that I could pick $30 worth of music, but as it turns out they have a preselected playlist of 31 songs from artists at the festival. So now I have 5 extra cards, if anyone would like one.

A month or so ago I bought tickets for John Prine’s upcoming concert at the Majestic Theater on June 9th. I saw him perform last year at ACL Fest and I thought it was the best show there.

Anyway, I was just browsing through my iTunes library and decided to listen to some Todd Snider. Out of curiosity I decided to pull up his website and see when he would be in the area. As it turns out, he’s opening for John Prine on the night I have tickets, woot! That should be a really great show, I can’t wait.

Friday night I made it up to Gruene Hall to see The Gourds.

The last time I saw The Gourds was in August when they played at Gruene, and I was a little disappointed with the show. They had begun playing more and more electric-ish music, and it didn’t have that Gourds sound. But when I was at Bart’s CD Cellar in Boulder a few weeks ago I noticed that The Gourds had released a new album, Heavy Ornamentals, so I bought it. Its possible that this is their best album yet, and its definitely their best work since Bolsa de Agua and Cow, Fish, Fowl or Pig. So with all these great new songs I had high hopes for the show, and I was not disappointed.

I knew it was going to be a great show as soon as it started because they opened with one of my favorite songs, “Ants on the Melon.” They followed it with “El Paso”, which is probably my favorite Gourds tune. The show only got better from there as they played “Pick & Roll” and “Declineometer” from the new album, as well as a bunch of other favorites such as “Ceilings Leaking”, “Blankets”, and “Lower 48.” All in all, it was a fantastic show. I didn’t stay for the encore because invariably at Gruene there are some idiots who yell and scream for “Gin and Juice.”

If you’ve never seen The Gourds, and you like alt-country, you should check them out. They’ll be playing in San Antonio at Rebar on April 7th, I’ll definitely be there.

Wednesday night I was able to go catch a show by Bonnie Raitt at the Majestic Theatre.

The show opened with 8 or 9 songs from Paul Brady, an Irish musician who wrote several songs that Bonnie made famous. His musical skills were pretty good, but his songs were a little too “popish” for me.

Bonnie and her band finally came on stage around 9pm, and started off with some really good blues songs. During the middle of the show they descended into pop-land, but arose from the depths to tear up several more blues songs near the end of the show. The encore was 3 slow love songs, which I could have done without.

I loved the fast stuff, and was pretty bored during the slow songs, but overall it was a decent show. I really love seeing shows at the Majestic, its such a great venue.

Saturday I drove up to Gruene Hall to see Elana James and the Continental Two.

Although I had seen Elana perform a couple times since the Hot Club of Cowtown stopped playing together, this was the first chance I have had to see her with the new band.

Elana’s playing style is famous, and Beau Sample does a terrific job on the upright bass. Luke Hill also seems to be very talented, although he was playing an electric/acoustic classical guitar and it just didn’t quite have the presence that it needed to fill the room. I imagine he sounds great when playing a hollowbody jazz instrument. The music was very similar to that of Hot Club, and it was difficult to avoid comparing this group with them. Overall I think this will be a really fun group to go see.

Elana had a CD available for sale at the show with the strange title of “Top Secret Illegal Bootleg Sampler.” Buying music that is self-proclaimed “illegal” seemed a little strange, but I had to get it anyway.

Incidentally, I just checked the Hot Club website and saw this:

We are happy to announce that THE HOT CLUB OF COWTOWN will continue to perform a limited number of shows in 2006.

That is great news, as this is one of the few bands that I would actually drive hours to go see. Hopefully they will play a show or two in south Texas at some point this year.