Friday Cat - Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup!

Well, this is the kind of cuteness that presents a real distraction when I'm trying to get work done. Alex is the worst kind of flirt! He would have his Mom wrapped around his little finger, if he had any... fingers that is.

Here, Alex does his centerfold pose, and he's got the supermodel figure to go with it. Tell me, do you think stripes go with spots?

- Friday Ark - Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival is at Pet's Garden Blog on Sunday - Cats - Catblogging -

We need more cat time

I was going to wait until Cat Friday to post anything else, but I need a little lighthearted relief and I'm sure you do too. Here's a cyber pet to play with, very therapeutic and wastes time wonderfully. He's got a little cat toy to get out in the corner. Link via my friend Jazz. Note: you may need a Flash plugin to play with him.

Jeen Lilly, a.k.a. ev brown

I am mourning the loss of a friend today. It is Jeen Lilly of Scrumptious Monkey, a.k.a. ev brown. her previous blog was Happyland. She passed away sometime during the past week. I still don't know the cause, it is not yet determined.

She was an "online" friend most of the time I knew her, she lived in Connecticut and had never been further from home than New Jersey. She was a big fan of Eric Johnson ("Scrumptious Monkey" was the nickname he had given to an amp that he had helped design) and had become fascinated with Austin because of him ...I had fun sending her stuff that was Austin-centric... a Music Awards section of the Chronicle, a "Naked" calendar (locally produced charity project featuring naked photos of Austin musicians), a cartoonish poster map showing various landmarks, clubs, shops, etc.

She was a super-intelligent person. I told her several times that I was confident that she was Mensa material. (I've met lots of Mensans, due to the fact that I are one... I mean... I is one) There was always a skeptical response, but I still sincerely believe it. She was a wonderful writer and poet, very witty and wonderfully sarcastic. She could take aim and hit her target square in the eye every time, and using as few words as possible. Admirable! I mean that with all my heart.

She was also a very caring person. She was empathetic. It can be a curse or a gift when you soak up other people's feelings so much that you feel them as well, but that was one of her traits.

Like me, she was childfree, lost her father when she was a teenager, and was usually just the odd one out. Lots of things to mutually relate to.

I was really tickled when she declared that she was moving here, almost giggly. She was leaving an unhappy domestic situation and starting over here. I was so happy for her and couldn't wait to start showing her around. I completely understood about the fresh start and how hard it is. Austin was a fresh start for me too. Then, here comes an Eric Johnson show on the very night of her arrival! At Antone's, no less. One of the places she mentioned really wanting to see sometime (along with Whole Foods, Book People, Waterloo Records, etc.). After the show, I introduced her to Eric and they chatted for some time. I don't know what they talked about, I stepped away, it was like a little party there. I kept seeing people I knew. When the next EJ/Double Trouble show came up at Antone's, we gave her a ride to and from, she was still not too sure about some of the roads and such, and I totally sympathized, I still get lost here once in a while. Malford Milligan reached down and grabbed her hand during that show (as he will do!!) and she loved that.

We also got her started going to our UU church, something she had looked forward to and had been without in CT. She attended 2-3 times in the short 6 weeks being in Austin. She was a Pagan and was looking forward eventually to getting started with their CUUPS group. I sure seem to gravitate toward Pagans as friends for some reason. All my life it's been that way.

It seemed like things were really going to work out, she had another friend in town who was helping her out with basic needs of shelter, transportation, phone and computer (the basic geek requirements, aren't they? I am including myself in that category). She had gotten her own apartment, started a healthy diet, and was determined to make it. She had looked for work in a bookstore and gotten hired as a cake decorator. Isn't that the way life treats you sometimes?

I saw on her blog that she'd had a training day and was ready to start it the same day (It was an early morning post). That was on the 17th. I knew that her mother had died on the 11th, but she said she wasn't going to go up for the funeral, but still it entered my mind when I saw no postings for a few days that maybe she had changed her mind about that, or was just overwhelmed with the new job, etc., and we do a lot of stuff during the week of SXSW which was March 15-20 so it was busy busy for us.

On Wed. the 22nd I sent an email - just a "how's it going, how's the new job, keep in touch" intended just to get a response because she always responded to email within a day or so. Nothing. Sent another one Friday with mention of a new bookstore opening and potential non-cake-decorating job. I also poked around some and discovered she'd had no activity on various forums where she was active (and I hadn't previously noticed her absence from Eric's forum because of SXSW and lack of forum-browsing time). I tried calling, and both land and cell just kept ringing, no messaging service ever kicked in. Calling is my last resort, I am an email person, not a phone person, and I only make phone calls that I really need to make. On Saturday (yesterday) people got involved and I learned of her passing this morning (Sunday).

There is a thread going over on Eric's Forum for ev. It is there to leave comments on ev, and of course they are welcome here too.

I will miss her terribly. This is a very sad day. I do want to know what happened, but will not speculate here. We simply don't know yet.

Buck Owens

R.I.P. to the great and legendary country musician Buck Owens, who just passed away at the age 0f 76.

- Music - Buck Owens -

Teddy Thompson

I have been listening to *lots* of this Teddy Thompson CD this week. Just what I need... another favorite artist to add to my list. I didn't just fall in love with his voice after the brief show at the No Depression Party at the Cactus last week.





That happened a few years ago. KGSR used to spin this Richard Thompson song called "Persuasion", a heart-achingly beautiful gem which features a duet with Teddy (his son), co-written with (and also recorded by) Tim Finn. To my knowledge, the duet can only be found on this CD, Action Packed: The Best of the Capitol Years. It was the main reason I bought the CD, although it's jam-packed with plenty of other tunes that are worth the rest of it all by themselves too.

But back to Teddy... you would never guess that he was the son of Richard and Linda Thompson, not based on his voice. Musical talent is obvious an inherited trait though. His voice can be compared to James Taylor's in that every note sounds perfect, like the sound of a clear bell, but TT's has got much more of an edge than JT's. It's not so sweet, bittersweet at best, with plenty of soul and just as much beauty. Also, he's a great songwriter. This CD is all keepers, no skipovers. He's got an earlier CD that I'm sure will be in my hot little collection soon. Also, if you are in Austin, Teddy has 2 shows coming up at the Cactus (solo acoustic) on April 4&5, also one in Dallas before he heads over to Europe.

- Music - Austin - Teddy Thompson - Richard Thompson -

Friday Kitty Cat Troll Booth

"Nobody gets by here without a donation!" say the Stair Trolls.

"pssssst... a little catnip will do fine."

- Friday Ark - Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival is at Scribblings on Sunday - Cats - Catblogging -

Politics and Music

James McMurtry wrote a commentary which has just been published in Billboard Magazine called "Musicians: Keep the Politics in your Songs", and you can read it on his blog - it's a good read. (EDIT: I just found out that you have to log in to MySpace to read it, so I'm going to post it here. If you want to leave him comments, then you will have to follow the link and log in)

Mar 18 - Musicians: Keep the Politics In Your Songs (Billboard Magazine)
BY JAMES MCMURTRY

Once at a show of mine in Plano, Texas, a woman took it upon herself to dance around in front of the stage with a handwritten sign that read, "Keep Politics Out of Music." She had not liked the anti-Bush rant that I had inserted into the song "Levelland." I wonder what she thought of the works of Woody Guthrie, John Lennon or Bob Dylan? And would she have been equally as offended by the sentiments expressed in the songs of Merle Haggard, Toby Keith or Clint Black? Was it politics in music that she objected to, or more specifically, my politics in my music? I probably lost a fan that day, not the first or the last.

I used to try to keep politics out of my music not for fear of losing fans - I had no fans - but rather for fear that my songs would become sermons. I did not want to be seen as another mediocre folkie up there preaching with righteous conviction to mask the fact that his songs sucked.

It was a while before I realized that it is possible to write a good politically motivated song. Steve Earle's "The Ballad of Billy Austin," written from the point of view of a death-row inmate, showed me that it could be done. It is a great song first, a biting social commentary second. Kris Kristofferson's work has the same qualityit gets his point across without sacrificing his art. Oddly, when I first heard Kristofferson's songs, I did not notice the political statements in them. I was a child then, and the Vietnam War so thoroughly colored the world I came into that I could not even see it. The war was like your grandmother's kitchen wallpaper you had seen since you were 3 and no longer noticed. The sight of those glum-faced, young soldiers in the airport was perfectly normal to me.

The soldiers are back in the airports, but they are older now. I did not want my son's generation to grow numb to the sight of them, to become "blas about war," as Lennon once said. So I took a chance and put out a song called "We Can't Make It Here"put it out first as a free download. I received a lot of nasty e-mails right off the bat, but the download got more attention than anything I have put on a CD in the last 10 years.

Now, a year and a half later, WXRT Chicago, a station that has not added a James McMurtry song since the early '90s, is playing its own edit of "We Can't Make It Here" and doing quite well with it. (Yes, I am indeed blowing my own horn here. Somebody has to since my last manager threw up his hands and ran screaming back to Connecticut.)

WKIT, Stephen King's classic rock station in Bangor, Maine, was on the song as soon as it hit the Internet. Maine has lost 30,000 jobs to outsourcing, one of the facets of modern American life that the protagonist in my song complains about.

You could say that my little song became a hit in Bangor. That is good for me, but not so good for Bangor. "We Can't Make It Here" is not popular in Bangor or anywhere else by virtue of it being a great song. Its popularity, like that of most popular songs, lies in the fact that people are hearing their own lives in it. The lives they are hearing in this song cannot be much fun right now.

In a recent article in The Austin Chronicle, interviewer Andy Langer said to Kris Kristofferson, "Some people say the smart thing for folks like you and the Dixie Chicks is just to shut up and sing."

Kristofferson's response was, "I would say back, 'Shut up and listen.' "

Kristofferson is not the darling of country radio that he once was, but he has not gone away. He has continued to use his voice, and his power as a performer has only increased. Last year at South by Southwest, the Continental Club was dead silent when he sang. Even the people on the sidewalk watching through the open door were silent.

But, sadly, most of us so-called artists are afraid to use our voices, afraid to take a stand for fear of committing career suicide. We have to get over that fear because in succumbing to it we become invisible, and invisibility, for an artist, is true career death.

We cannot please everybody and we should not bother trying. It is not our job to be loved. It is our job to be remembered.

Powerful!

He talks about a woman who carried a sign at one of his shows that said "Keep politics out of music". hmmm. There's always been politics in music, it can't be escaped in this world. Even if you just talk about being oppressed, poor, unemployed, overemployed, owing your soul to the company store, workin' on the railroad, or the star-spangled banner by the dawn's early light there's some kind of politics in there... unless it's an instrumental [grin] and even then sometimes it shows up in the title or dedication.

Besides, if you can't speak your mind and express your opinions, then where's the freedom? The whole concept of music and art and theatre just goes to hell... it doesn't exist. That's not a world where I want to live.

- Music - Austin - James McMurtry -

SXSW Day Show Crawl - An "In Tents" Experience

Most of my SXSW day-show crawl and occasional showcase journal is over on my website, along with over 60 pictures! Check it out over there.

Just a quick rundown of the insanity, and these are all up close and personal shows:

Wednesday: Newton Faulkner, Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Bruton, Jessi Colter, Friends of Dean Martinez, James McMurtry, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3, Tom Freund, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Glen Phillips, Steve Wynn (again).

Thursday: Tapes N' Tapes, Nickel Creek (at Yard Dog no less), Tom Freund (again), The Greencards, Carey Ott, and RobinElla.

Friday: Big Blue Hearts, Sarah Harmer, Tres Chicas, Marty Stuart, Patterson Hood (Drive By Truckers), Teddy Thompson, and Beth Orton.

Saturday: Norah Jones, Rosanne Cash, Nic Armstrong & IV Thieves, Peter Case, Steve Wynn (again!), Grassy Knoll Boys, and Stringdusters.

Sunday: Nickel Creek, Gruene Hall (to be covered later... possibly)

Total admission paid for all Wednesday through Saturday shows: $25 each
Free drinks: more than I usually drink... and way earlier in the day too.

- Music - Austin - Texas - SXSW -

Uhmmm... hey wake up dude, you're not in Kansas.

You're also not in Amarillo, Lubbock, Houston, or Crawford... and maybe it would make sense to just move to one of those places so everyone can be happy in their surroundings, and you can attend South-by-SeanHannity.
SXSW: Liberal menace - Opinion

hmmm. I wonder if this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek... hard to tell... [snort]. If so, I totally apologize! Hey! That was pretty funny piece of satire!

- Austin - Texas - SXSW -

Another SXSW has come and gone

Having a recovery and catch-up day today from the whole SXSW fun week, plus a Nickel Creek show yesterday. Took tons of pictures, and will do an in-depth post on all the goings-on soon, today or tomorrow probably. I am way behind on reading everyone else's blogs too, so sorry about that and I'm getting behinder by the minute. Here's a pretty picture to have as a sampler. That's Norah Jones at Waterloo Records.

- Music - Austin - Texas - SXSW -

Friday Morning After Party Animal

Jax is attending the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival and after staying out until 2 a.m. every morning he's pretty pooped in the daylight hours, as you can see. Jax is especially relaxed now that he no longer sings the Stray Cat Blues.

- Friday Ark - Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival is at Music and Cats on Sunday - Cats - Catblogging -

Cheap thrills

SXSW Music is nearly upon us, and I have been working like a fiend on my spreadsheet, trying to figure out where we can be and at what time without superpowers. We don't get wristbands, in fact we aren't going to go to more than a couple of official showcases. We do the various day shows, that are mostly free.

Like tomorrow morning, we are planning on being at the Four Seasons at about 6 a.m. (we shall see...) to see Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Bruton, Friends of Dean Martinez, and Jessi Colter. Nothing like Wednesday Mornin' Comin' Down. Lyle Lovett will probably still be sitting in with the radio crew and doing the weather reports. Last year he spent the week doing that, and has been at it since Monday of this week. It was pretty cool, he was sitting there on the couch, and I was sitting right by him on the floor while the bands played a few feet away. He looked over and smiled at me while the Greencards were playing. He was enjoying them! That did my heart good.

After the breakfast show we'll head back out in early afternoon for the Guitartown party (Steve Wynn, James McMurtry, Scrappy Jud, Jon Dee Graham, etc. I will pass on the Gourds. I'd rather not actually watch them) and the one across the street, (Glen Phillips, etc.) hop over to the Austin Music Hall to see who won the Music Awards. That should do us for Wednesday, then comes Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and collapse. Sunday is a show with Nickel Creek at Gruene Hall. There's so much to do here in March, it's just stupid.

Blogging might be light for the rest of the week with the wacko schedule, plus I still have hired work to do at home... so bizzy bizzy.

- Music - Austin -

Couldn't ugly up this weekend!

This weekend helped to smooth out my attitude, which could only have improved. Saturday we went to see the long-awaited The Libertine, the Johnny Depp feature that has been basically shelved for 2 years. I thought he was really great in it, and probably uglied up more than I've ever seen before. It got thumbs up from us, and do see it if just for him... and no... that picture's not an example of the "uglied up" version.

The weekend had really beautiful weather, so after spending part of the day indoors we went to the Nutty Brown in the evening to see the South Austin Jug Band. It was a really fine night, great temperature and a good breeze blowing, plus really good music. It's a nice venue, but I wish it weren't food oriented. Basically it's like a dinner theatre, people eat and go, but there's plenty of dancing room... just plenty of room, the place is huge.

Sunday was another beautiful day, but I spent most of it working right here on this Powerbook. No escaping that. Finished watching Jarhead on Friday, which I really liked a lot, and North Country on Sunday, thumbs up all around, but no spoilers offered here.