All Good and Fine

We had a great day of music on Saturday. This was a free all-day concert held on a downtown street, a benefit for Comfort the Children International. Lots of "green" foodie vendors with samples/coupons, and the permanent shops and sidewalk joints. Ponderosa (Atlanta GA) and Cowboy & Indian (Austin TX) are excellent bands that we've seen before and liked a lot. We saw only partial sets of theirs because the stages were located at the other end of the street from where I was hanging out. I wanted to make sure and see Seryn (Denton TX).

Over a year ago we caught a few songs of theirs during SXSW, we were watching from the sidewalk outside an Irish pub, and were very impressed and asked the woman in the band who they were. She said "Seryn. S-E-R-Y-N." (pronounced sir-WREN, or sair-REN). We missed some opportunities to see them again since that, but got lucky on Saturday. I have been in love with their sound ever since. Gorgeous! High-energy, rich beauty.

The traffic light looked weird as a backdrop for the stage.

Believe me, it sounds good.

They are one of Paste Magazine's favorite bands - period. When the set was over, someone asked a band member who they were, and he replied "Seryn. S-E-R-Y-N." It must be spelled each time. Ha Ha!

Alpha Rev (Austin TX) is another favorite of ours, and they have added quite a bit of new material lately. Casey McPherson's voice is amazing to me. Good singer and songwriter too. Like Seryn, lots of lush sounds here. Check out this western-flavored "Lonely Man." I swore it was something that I'd heard from Mark Knopfler before, but it is an original tune co-written with the Texas Ukulele King (TUK), and his version that he calls "That's How You Die a Lonely Man." I'm not seeing a ukulele in his picture though. ;-)

We finished off the day with a night show at the great listening room, the Cactus Cafe, where 2 of the mainstays from The Band of Heathens were doing an unplugged show - Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist. They are doing something special both at these unplugged and full-band gig - they are recording the show and making it available for sale on a thumb drive afterward.

This is Gordy Quist, the singer and songwriter of this tune. I didn't get any focused shots of Ed Jurdi, so apologies for that. Need to improve the camera situation soon for better low-light shots.

I love every one of their songs. Every one.