Arizona fun

Still working the scanner like a fiend, trying to post photos in chronological order (but we'll see how long that lasts). This gallery is in a similar time and place, 1951-1956 in Arizona. This is an event held annually in Wickenburg AZ (small community about 60-odd miles out of Phoenix) called "Gold Rush Days." It's very cowboy-themed! See the video below (video not mine) shot in 1958... as close to it as I have found. I love seeing all these folks decked out in their 50s best (I think it will enlarge if clicked), and the rest of the shots of cowboys and cheesy floats.

In other news, the weather is FINALLY cooling off, still warm enough to call summer up further north, but feeling less like an oven. We spent Tuesday night of this week attending the Austin City Limits TV taping of Neko Case - who has a haunting voice like no other. She spent some time in Tucson AZ herself (recording an album), her father was in the Air Force (like mine), and told the story during the show of have a stuffed iguana as a kid - not a plush toy but a real dead iguana with painted teeth, stuffed with cotton and (I'm sure) wires... this was funny to hear for me because when I was a kid I had a similar companion -- a stuffed baby alligator (or possibly a crocodile) named Kilroy. Parents can make strange choices sometimes.

Is this thing on...?

Waving helloooo after a long absence from the Oasis here. I miss it. Facebook drives me crazy sometimes, but also wears me out because it's constantly updating. Anyway, I am up to a lot of my usual activities, going to hear live music once or twice a week, almost too much to list except to make note of attending the Dawes Austin City Limits taping a day after my 60th birthday (OUCH).

I've also been keeping myself busy with the great historical photo and letter sorting project. Great progress, and have been keeping the scanner going. I have cleaned up my old Flickr account and am going to try and post as much as possible there. The first set is of a racetrack in Arizona where my dad worked as a side job in the pit crew for one of the drivers. I love seeing the way people people used to dress! Manzanita Speedway

All Hail the Autumn seasonal change!

Will be checking in and browsing around when I get the chance.

Acousticity

We were just a couple of days past Eeyore's Birthday drum circle day when it was time for some great live music shows. We got a couple of very special tickets for the Punch Brothers' Austin City Limits TV taping! Didn't not take any pics or video (They really really prefer that you don't take video, esp. since they are filming the show anyway, and all the phone cams make the audience look dorky.) but there are lots of nice pro pics at the link.

This was only our 4th time to get to attend and ACL taping. The tickets are free but must be acquired through a lottery or a connection, it's not easy to get in. The sound is amazing, and so is the camera work on the finished product, that we may get to see on TV this Fall.

If an ACL taping with what is probably my favorite band right now was not enough, we also saw them the next night at a sold-out, little-bit rowdy show at Antone's club. If the crowd at the taping was a bit reserved, this one made up for it - and there's video to show for it. This is actually an old one that mandolinist Chris Thile first wrote and recorded back when he was about 18. It's a gorgeous instrumental that I can't listen to enough.

Punch Brothers - Song For a Young Queen


This one is a cover of a song by The Strokes, but PB has made it their own, IMO. It's not one that they played during the taping because it contains one of those words that you still can't say on TV.
Punch Brothers - Heart in a Cage


Just a couple of days after Punch Brothers came though town, we were happy to welcome The Greencards back to Austin. They have moved back here from Nashville, and it's nice to have them back. Like Punch Brothers, they really tear it up on the strings and vocals. Here's a beautiful instrumental.
The Greencards - Adelaide


Great shows! What a week. Now - a little rest.

Old Timers

I've been caught up in the work busies, spending a lot of hours at work and still trying to keep up with the day-to-days, including getting some rest.

We lost Levon Helm, so sad... loved his music (and a fine actor too), he was in his 70s and I used think that was pretty old - now that I've gotten my first Senior Discount it seems to young to go. Dick Clark also just died - a personality that we boomers grew up with. If these things come in threes (and that's all individual perception, of course), then my third one was Jonathan Frid, TV's Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows, a show my mother and I watched every day. So wonderfully cheesy and addictive. I got to see him reciting some essays in a tiny, old theater, and got to meet him and get his autograph at a reception following that. It was pretty special.

Because of having to be at work, I didn't get to attend the unveiling of Willie Nelson's statue downtown. I love the fact that this beloved entertainer has gotten to unveil his own statue.

Here is a short spectator video of Willie performing a song that is rather on-topic when it comes to the passing of old favorites and celebrating their memory.

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die

Rock Me, Baby

My favorite version of this song played by my favorite guitar player, Eric Johnson. This is from an old, old episode of Austin City Limits.

Sarah Jarosz - new album and tour

Running a little behind on reporting of current events around the TX-Oasis here, and at this rate will never catch up.


Local phenom, young Sarah Jarosz* has just released her new album "Follow Me Down," (her 2nd on Sugar Hill Records) and played a couple of sold-out shows at a stylish venue on Sunday, did the radio circuit, and played at Waterloo Records (on her 20th birthday) on Monday. That's where the video is from. Her bandmates are Alex Hargreaves on violin and Nathaniel Smith on cello (who are even younger than she is) and they are amazing players. In fact, (and check your local listings) Austin City Limits (the TV show) is rerunning her episode, the one with Steve Martin, this weekend -- or don't even wait for the rerun -- stream it here now!

This album is absolutely gorgeous and deserves high praise. She really swept us off our feet with this one.

*pronounced "juh-ROSE."

Flogging Molly on Austin City Limits

We had a great time at the Flogging Molly Austin City Limits taping last night. The use the new taping venue now, and I do think that, based on the limited experience of 2 tapings in the legendary previous venue, that this one does not quite measure up. Yes, the sound is wonderful, but the lack of bleacher seating (or any other seating for the floor area) and complete lack of line management are a definite negative in my book.

Anyway, the band really rocked and it was our first Flogging Molly concert. Also, the lead singer (Dave King) pointed to my t-shirt and talked a little about during the show!! It was a great Willie Nelson shirt of mine with a large picture of him on the front. Dave said, "There's an Austin shirt! I used to have hair like that!" and a bit more that I don't remember. I hope the editors keep that banter in so I can see it later on TV.

Austin City Limits taping tomorrow

We've got one hell of a music week coming up. Too tired to lay it all out at once. Starts tomorrow with this band (Flogging Molly) at the Austin City Limits TV show taping.


More on the rest of of the week coming up soon!

Steve Martin and Sarah Jarosz

Last April we won a lottery drawing to get "space available" entry to the Steve Martin/Sarah Jarosz Austin City Limits TV taping. That episode debuted this past Saturday (check your local listings for reruns on PBS) and we both had loads of audience cameos.

And the other person on the bill was the amazing Sarah Jarosz, who was about 13 I think, when we first saw her and she is now 18. It was an amazing show!

Shearwater @ KUT

With the crazy and sad week we just had, I put off posting on the Shearwater KUT radio benefit show that was held at the Austin City Limits studios. It was nice to see the band at a seated show with great sound. One of our videos is below. The song is called Black Eyes.

More videos of this show are on my channel. Here are some nice photos of the gig (not mine, these are good!)

And for all you folks who still that Austin City Limits is recorded outdoors, here is that tree that they shoot through from the upper left audience view.

Austin City Limits taping (it's a big f-ing deal)

[Austin Chronicle review][Statesman review: Sarah]
Just trying to catch up here. Our second Austin City Limits TV taping was on Tuesday: Sarah Jarosz and Steve Martin. Although we casually know Sarah and her folks, so does everybody and his brother around here (almost literally) so instead of asking for confirmed entry tickets I took a chance on the lottery email drawing - and incredibly - I won one of the 70 drawn (the drawing is for 2 tickets each). The ACL TV studio only holds 320 people (I think), the artists have a limited number of people they can invite, plus KLRU (our local PBS station), high roller benefactors, and corporate sponsors of the show are allowed a certain number of tickets - so even if you get a Space Available ticket, you better get your butt in the line early or you may not get in.

Early was 1:45 pm (for an 8pm show) and I was 3rd in line. Luckily, it was a beautiful, breezy, cooler-than-normal day, and the early-in-line bunch had a good time chatting around a patio table until it was time to hand out the line numbers at 5pm.

They line up the confirmed tickets at 7pm, and it looked like there were at least 200 people in that line (edit 4/29: I just learned that all the Space-Availables DID get in). The place was pretty packed when we got in, so we stood in front of the stage, one row back, for most of it.

If you've seen the show, you know that the studio setting is incredible-looking with amazing lighting. Also, the sound, especially front and center, is unbelievable.

Sarah was on first. Her career over the past year has been like the launch of a rocket - a well-received debut CD which got her a Grammy nomination, and now Austin City Limits. Up up up. She sounded amazing, and her new songs are stunning.

We both idolized Steve Martin back in the 70s, he was one of the funniest men on earth. His early movies were classic must-see comedies. He played the banjo (and very well) mostly as a prop or break during standup routines. He's been on a music tour in 2009/2010 with a band called the Steep Canyon Rangers, and they are quite a good bluegrass band.

I don't know why, but I didn't know that Steve was still a really funny man onstage. (Why would that surprise me?) Examples:

• He started his show with the almost typical "Appearing on the Austin City Limits stage has been a dream of mine for many years... and tonight I am one step closer toward fulfilling that dream."
• "I write from personal experience. This next song is called, 'I Think My Masseuse Is Too Chatty' "
  
• On exiting the stage to let the band do a number alone, he said had to go because he hadn't googled himself for 25 minutes.
• He's got a song called "Atheists don't have no songs" which was a funny song no matter what persuasion you are.
• He played King Tut!! (I kind of prefer the old SNL version to the bluegrass one, but still... he played King Tut!!)

Our first ACL-TV taping was with The Band of Heathens last summer.

Austin City Limits - Our First Time

The experience of Austin City Limits [ACL] (and it is necessary to clarify that I mean the 34-year running TV show on PBS, and not the more recent annual ACL festival) is shrouded in mystery. People don’t talk about it much, either before or afterward. I will break that unwritten rule to some degree here.

It has always been very difficult for most people to get in. If you are not “connected”, then you need to do your homework to try and be prepared for the ticket giveaways. There are several ways that it’s done – most commonly through the years (I believe) there would be an announcement on the radio telling you where to go get them, beginning NOW… and then if you weren’t at that spot at that time you would not get tickets. The rest of this story is that the show tapings are not given much press, so the average Joe music fan will not even know that it happened until the episode airs.

For a couple of years now (and only discovered very recently by me) there has been a blog bearing info on all things ACL-TV including ticket giveaways. They also feature online drawings for the tickets – which is how we got ours. These tickets are called “Space Available.” The venue capacity is 320, the Space Available people can go in after the invited guest-listers, and they give away a LOT more tickets that they will be able to seat so they make no promises about you getting in, even with a ticket. They distributed line numbers at 5PM, and let us go in at 7:40. If you were old enough, there was free beer waiting before entering the studio – which is as close to a sanctuary for modern music as you will find.

::: some would argue in favor of the Grand Ole Opry as the music show of longevity, but it has changed venues over its many years, and carved itself into a deep genre niche in the 1970s when they shunned almost all the “longhairs” [Opry wiki entry] while Austin embraced them, Willie Nelson's outlaw redneck/hippie combo changed American music, and the ACL studio stayed in the same place, meaning that you just might be seeing the same piano that Ray Charles played :::

ACL started out by featuring mostly Texas artists of all types, but has branched out over the years to feature music from all over the musical and geographical map, all either established or rising stars. Look at this amazing list!

We’ve been wanting to see a taping of ACL ever since we’ve lived here, and would have been happy to see nearly anyone, whether it was somebody really big, or even someone we weren’t that familiar with, but it was really special to be able to see one of our favorite Austin bands, the Band of Heathens, on their own turf with their peeps in the house, get to play on Austin City Limits.

Some notes on the experience.

Happily, the ticket line was outside but shaded from the beating-down 105° sun. I had been expecting to fry on the sidewalk.

(photo snagged off Maggie's Austin)

If you’ve seen the show, you know that the set looks like the stage is outside in a park with the Austin night skyline in the background. When we walked in, I couldn’t conceive of how they were going make that plain-looking room come alive, there was an extremely drab mural painted on the wall – then they switched it on, and voila! It all appeared like magic. It’s quite complicated and done with artful lighting. I only wish that the real Austin skyline wasn’t getting so complicated with all the new towering view clutter being built, but that’s another issue.

The sound in there was incredibly good, They never sounded better, or played better, or looked better (in the great lighting and with that backdrop) – it was really very exciting for the audience and the band too. We were in the front row dancing area (so, yeah, we will be on the teevee) and it was fun dancing (do I get carried away sometimes? Yes, I guess so, I just can’t be still. Some things just make me so happy so that nothing can blot it out, at least for the duration and sometimes the high will go for days depending on the intensity of the joy. That’s why I seek out those things.). I don’t know if it was my amazing sense of rhythm or what, but – much to my surprise – Colin Brooks threw me his tambourine – and the other big surprise is that I caught the sucker without missing a beat. I will never forget that. Nope. Never.

We won’t get to see the Heathens in Austin again until September for one show at Antone’s (new CD then maybe?). They are touring this country until then, touring Europe after that, then back home again in December. Check their schedule and go see them if you can. Meant to be seen live (or on Austin City Limits this November with Elvis Costello) (I will post a heads-up later).

[addendum 7/11] here's another posting from someone who went to this.


Tags: Music - Austin - Texas - Texas Music