El alma de Tucson

Crystal Frontier is reportedly Gabrielle Giffords' favorite song. On her Facebook page, she lists Calexico as the music she likes, and astronaut-husband Mark Kelly has listened to it as wake-up music while on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Rep. Giffords and Calexico's Joey Burns are mutual admirers, and he talks about their association here on NPR. He also talks about some of the local Tucson memorial/vigil events that took place after the shootings.

The song lyrics are deeply reflective of the issues of an Arizona border town, and things become more and more complex along with growing frustration, hatred, racism, desperation, and just enough hope to keep all those wheels turning... for better or worse... on all sides.

Marco's shadow falls on the door
to the 7 Lost Cities of Gold
finds a raven's head and rattler's tail
dead in his tracks, this Godforsaken soul's
unwanted here and his ghost lingers for years

Amalia's face hides behind the mask
sweating on the TV factory line
that smile on her face is starting to crack
while welding back the pieces of shattered heart
that's scattered out here, with the ghosts of her peers
searched for her lost child along the river of tears

At the end of the working week
when drunken worlds meet
both sides keeping a close eye
for a break in the line here... on the Crystal Frontier

Blood spills out on the streets
and bodies are missing for weeks
both sides keeping a close eye
watching the bullets fly here... on the Crystal Frontier

Ramon tightens up his leather belt
and slips through a hole in the fence
he can get you anything you want
might cost you a life, might cost you
the whole price of freedom here...on the Crystal Frontier

Restore sanity or keep fear alive? This time it's personal.

Well, it's been quiet around this blog for awhile. Just dealing with a lot of life changes and stuff, it's been difficult to blog. I become so easily overwhelmed with worries, and only some of them are worth the stress. Yes, you CAN worry yourself to death.

I've always been prone to panic attacks, or variations of them. I guess I need some kind of therapy - doctors or meds - but I've had some really unpleasant and frightening experiences with both of things before. Not really willing to head down that road yet. They have evolved over the years, and the recent ones have been really kind of scary.

No need for you all to worry about me, though. I will make it. I'm trying to get more sleep, or at least, rest. There is less going on, intentionally. I am less busy. Not scouring the Chronicle or the Club listings to see who's playing tonight. Not even doing the easy stuff if it's a weeknight. Yes, I know... I'm missing a lot. I've even missed my favorite bands, on purpose. I need downtime, relaxation, indifference, even laziness. Every Sunday night, the success of the weekend gets measured by how much stuff we got done. If things were left undone, I am disappointed in myself... but shouldn't be... really.

By the end of this year, I should be back to working just 40 hours a week for an employer with virtually no freelance clients. I have dearly loved being part of what makes the music happen (even though I can't play a note), but I will now be able to check some things off the list. Did some things I always wanted to do, did a pretty good job, and it's time to pass things along, sit back, take things in stride... and above all... DON'T PANIC (even when things are going to hell in a bucket).

Weekend part one: Friday

We love Calexico! I got there really early and was first in line, dragging the reluctant MrB. He likes to to mosey in later, but I am not so good at moseying when it comes to these things. I like to watch most shows from the front, so getting there early is the best and most polite way to do it, plus there's the added benefit of getting to hear soundcheck and occasionally chatting with a band member. We did get to chat with Joey Burns a few minutes, who signed my CD and even asked us if we had any requests. I asked him if he minded if we took some video, and he was OK with that so here 'tis. Sam Beam (Iron and Wine) just lives a few miles down the road, and he sat in with the band for a couple of numbers. They have recorded together quite a bit. Great show.

Bend to the Road


In the Reins (with Sam Beam). I am so enchanted by this song. What a beauty.


Across the Wire

It was a really nice weekend with beautiful weather (November, I love you). More about the rest of it later.

Calexico - Friday

Trying to change gears and settle down after the election. No need to keep worrying about what Sarah Palin said today and whether it will win the hearts and minds of the populace. {big sigh of relief}

Friday, one of our favorite bands is in town - Calexico. I am excited about it, we haven't seen them for quite a long time, and have never seen them play for more than one hour at a time (festivals, showcases, etc.)

Also tomorrow, they are on our NPR affiliate, KUT, which streams if you want to hear it -- more info here:

"Tucson, AZ's Calexico continue to fascinate on the new engaging and beautiful Carried to Dust, softening their Southwestern-border/Americana sound with guests Sam Beam and Pieta Brown. Hear Calexico live in Studio 1A Friday morning at 11:30 a.m. on Eklektikos with John Aielli before their show at Antone's Friday night."

...or just click here for a live video show online.

Ballad of Cable Hogue (the French woman is not part of the band)


Two Silver Trees

Joey Burns Calexico

No. Not saying someone has committed arson in a California border town.

Happy birthday today to Joey Burns, lead singer, songwriter, guitar player and major driving force for the band Calexico. The band is based in Tuscon Arizona, and their quintessential sound is captured in this offering, The Crystal Frontier. The sound blends the American West with Mexico, and a lot of the songs, this one included, deal with the heartaches of The Border.


This one is more recent, the sound is a little less hot and dusty, the lyrics maybe a bit more political. It's called "Cruel"



The band has done a lot of support collaboration, including Neko Case, and more prominently Iron & Wine, a.k.a. Sam Beam -- who lives not too awfully far down the road in Dripping Springs. You will also hear them all over the soundtrack of that new Dylan movie, "I'm Not There". I'm going to post one more video here, even though it's as much Iron & Wine as it is Calexico... I am just really in love with this song right now. So there you have it. Recorded at KUT radio, Austin, Texas. "He Lays In The Reins"


Band website

The music junkie tries to narrow it down

Best concerts of the year! It's a tough one coming from the "live music capital of the world", I logged in 56 concerts, but count a day at a festival as "1" so it's skewed on the low end, I could add another 50 or more shows if I counted each festival show.

I will try to narrow down some highlights, and there are too many highlights to bother mentioning stuff that didn't impress me or a "worst list".

Top of the list is being on the front rail for the Rolling Stones at Zilker Park. It takes the entire SXSW music week to equal the intensity of that one. The rest are in no particular order. A lot of what makes them the best is purely personal. Sometimes it's a band I know or work for, and sometimes it's just the quality of the experience, the venue, and/or all of the above.

Saw James Hunter twice, but I have to go for that short acoustic show at Waterloo Records sitting cross-legged three feet away from him and his abbreviated band. He is really growing on me.

The Greencards at Momo's for SXSW, I have never heard them play any better than that, it was just smokin'. Saw them a few times, but that's the pick.

Nickel Creek: they played unplugged behind Yard Dog for SXSW where the audience is about a foot away (back up or you might get a fiddle bow in the eye!), and that was awesome!! Neil Young was nearby in the audience. They also played a fantastic sold-out show at Gruene Hall a couple of days later, I never saw them play any better than that. They played until the house pulled power, get on home now. Fantastic. Click on the Nickel Creek label for more posts on this band.

Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three are one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Check them out. Saw them several times at SXSW.

It was pretty sweet seeing Rosanne Cash at Waterloo Records.

Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar (with guest Redd Volkaert) at the Cactus Cafe. Great show in a great venue, and nice to chat with Sonny for a minute while he signed an autograph. A show at the Cactus is like seeing someone in a living room.

South Austin Jug Band, it's hard to decide between their show at ACL and the one right before at Mean-Eyed Cat in the drizzling rain. You get a dancing audience for them and it charges things up, mud, dust, sweat and all.

Clifford Antone's memorial at his club was about a 12 hour show and we only did 7-8 hours so we missed Eric Johnson (my favorite guitar player in the world) but did see an incredible heartfelt tribute. More here.

Eric Johnson, I have to pick the Antone's show with Ant B (a little extra jazz fusion flavor than usual), Mike Keller and Double Trouble, with honorable mention to a bluesier show 2 weeks previous with Keller, DT and Malford. Made extra special by having the opportunity to introduce Jeen Lilly to Eric. More here.

Calexico at Emo's, great venue for them, very up close and informal. They played Garden Ruin and more, and were super friendly at the autograph table.

Del Castillo... I'd have to pick the back-to-back nights at Antone's in July. Monte Montgomery strapped on an electric guitar and played with the electrified DC bros for the encore. I'll bet you never saw THAT before. Thought not.

You may find more pictures of these events here.

Tags: Music - Austin - Texas - Texas Music

ACL festival 2006 - September Simmering Boil

Almost back to the land of the living this fine Monday after the big ACL bash. I have a real love/hate relationship to that festival. There is soooo much hype over it on all the local media outlets, and I always want to go so bad I just wouldn't want to miss it... but in reality the whole experience balances out as far as it being worth all the hell and aggravation. The media is not getting or giving a true picture of what it's like to trudge through this affair as a regular non-VIP grunt, so their coverage is not only spun but their experiences not typical.

Cons and rants:

1. Too damned hot here in September for an outdoor 3-day event.
2. Way too crowded.
3. Really long lines for food.
4. Too many stages, too close together, sound bleeds over to the wrong stage.
5. Not "Austin Weird", as corporate as it gets around here.
6. The Power$-That-Be seem to be inflexible toward changing any of this stuff.
   

Positive:

1. There's always a couple of really good experiences that are memorable for each day.
2. Get to hear some bands that you would not normally be exposed to.

Friday
A day of blasting hot sun (98 degrees) and high humidity with no relief. We were troopers and held out for hours at a big stage, saw Guster and Asleep at the Wheel before Nickel Creek came up, the band we were camped out for. Went through their autograph line, and had time to catch 2 songs by Del Castillo. The rest of the night was spent wandering through the crowd without a main focus as we could not really hear some of the bands we wanted to hear due to sound bleed. Listened to John Mayer from a half mile away for awhile (still plenty loud though) and called it a day. Exhausted from the heat and humidity.

Saturday
Same weather as Friday, 98 degrees and humid. Couldn't handle the full sun but enjoyed the music of Galactic from the shelter of a misting tent. Great live band, gotta see them at a club soon. I was really frustrated all day until I was able to get a rail-spot for Calexico along with some welcome cloud-cover. They were great, and we hurried over to another stage for a great set from The South Austin Jug Band, and were done in for the day. No headliners even attempted today. With the extra layer of sunburn we went to dinner, then home to a houseful of cranky cats.

Sunday
At last! Some rain and cloud cover. It still managed to get up to 98 - and sticky! Kathleen Edwards was a highlight. We camped out at a smaller stage for The Greencards, so we got to see local Austin's own MTV Rockstar Patrice Pike (pictured), and also Matt Costa. The Greencards were another big highlight for the day. We miss them!

After they played we intended to see Tom Petty, who was the big headliner for the day and one of our favorites. It was a solid mass of people, all headed somewhere in a hurry. One of the problems of the festival being too crowded and too many stages is that there is no "back" of the crowd... that nice mellow place where people are resting on blankets, playing frisbee and hacky-sack (sp?) and having room to dance like nobody's looking. I was hoping to find that place for Tom Petty because it was really not possible to get a front rail view without investing the time, and by that point was too hot and tired to stand up for 2 more hours. We tramped around looking for "that" place, and when Petty started playing we were surprised to hear that for some reason they had his volume turned down lower than any band of the weekend!! A major headliner and we couldn't hear him from a half mile away, not well enough. Disappointed, we decided to call it over and try to hear Petty from the sidewalk outside. Here was our view of Tom Petty below, and we could hear the show much better from this spot than we could inside. (sad.) It started to rain, and Tom Petty took a rain delay, so it really was over then. I got more sunburned on this cloudy day than I did the rest of the weekend. I guess the old wives tales about clouds and sunburn are really true.


Why do I do this festival? It's hard to resist, with all the hype and the lineup it really makes you want to go! Like a lot of things, it's not as much fun as it sounds like it's going to be, but I always end up with some nice memories.

- Music - Austin - Texas - Texas Music - ACL - Festival - Austin City Limits -

Hot Spring weekend

A really nice weekend! Friday night we went to the Alamo Drafthouse to see V for Vendetta. We both like it a lot. We will see it again, probably on DVD. The Alamo is a fattening experience, so I've been trying at least half-heartedly, to behave since that. One of the things that sucks about being this old. Always on a danged diet! Sucks!

Saturday, there was a free show at Emo's by Calexico, who are one of my favorite bands. It was excellent, and too short, like all the other Calexico shows I've seen. They've all been openers, or SXSW, or ACL, or something that means you play an hour or less. Maybe Jovita's last year was a little longer, but I'm still waiting for my headliner Calexico full-length full electric show in Austin. It was great anyway though. I think maybe Joey recognized me from meeting him briefly a time or two, not all people will do that but some will (or maybe it's that dancing old lady factor). I've got more pics posted here. Afterwards went to Koriente for great veggie fare and powerful wasabi. It was a beautiful night.

Today, Sunday, it got up to between 94 and 98 degrees, depending on your part of town. Hello Spring!!

- Austin - Calexico -

From El Guero Canelo to Stubb's BBQ

I'm pretty sure we were the oldest people at the Iron & Wine/Calexico show at Stubb's. Actually there were 4 people who looked older than us who seemed to be new at the concert thing and were directed to the VIP area. I think they were parents and maybe grandparents of the opener... so we still count, esp. since we were front and center. It was a really nice crowd of mostly teens and twenties, which I like to see very much because this is good music for the soul and I like to see kids getting hooked on the good stuff. These are hard-core music-lovers and they are listening.

We were close enough to where I could easily ask Joey Burns "when are we going to get a whole Calexico show in Austin?", and he said they'd love to but this touring with other acts is working out pretty well too. Fair enough, I suppose. They will get better known this way. They've just done a record with Iron & Wine, which I wasn't that familiar with, in fact... I wasn't that familiar with Iron & Wine at all except for that one track on the Garden State soundtrack.

Calexico played a really tasty one-hour set, which was awesome. Some new stuff I didn't know and some signature pieces. Charlie Sexton joined in. Then they played either full or partial band with I&W for the rest of the night.

Iron & Wine was called psychedelic in one of the papers here. I can see that. I remember how lots of the music in the 60s was played very, very slow... folk, blues, and what they would now call "ambient"... sometimes with some rhythm, sometimes without any, like a heartbeat slowed by deep-breathing, meditating, time to concentrate deeply on every note, every breath, so that it all seems to go in super-slo-mo. You can practically see the color tracers. It's been a long time, but that's not an experience that's forgotten. that is the way Sam Beam presents each tone, like the petals of a flower or a leaf falling from a tree. What's the hurry?

With that said, I will say that overall it was too slow and mellow for my tastes, or maybe my mood, although I really liked the pieces that used percussion (More cowbell !!!!). Calexico was a nice synergistic addition, and I'm really glad I got to see this show but I would prefer just to hear them for a couple of hours... heating it up with horns and percussion, and that sweet pedal steel and the biggest hot desert twang you ever heard. I am hooked on that.

No pictures because I don't even bother trying to take a camera into Stubb's (Amphitheatre), but I've already got a lot of Calexico pictures here.

(EDIT-Post title explanation: El Guero Canelo is a Mexican hot dog place in Tuscon, and Guero Canelo is a Calexico song.)

- Music - Austin - Calexico -