Complain all you want about the traffic, the rising cost of living, the rash of condos, the second weekend of ACL Fest and how this once-sleepy college town has gone to hell in a pedicab. But the luckiest residents of Austin are the ones who just moved here. Huh? “You must also love those assholes […]
SAN MARCOS, 2007: It doesn’t get much more incongruous than this: a group of men in their 60s playing up-tempo sock-hop blues in a vacant house next door to the funeral home owned by their bassist. But the Traits, former San Marcos High School mates who had regional hits soon after forming in 1957, have […]
OASIS – `BE HERE NOW’ (Epic) * * * * Even when they were so unknown that they had to feud with Blur to get noticed, Manchester, England, band OASIS — led by a pair of uncouth party yobs named Gallagher — laid claim to the title of the best band on the planet. On […]
Originally published in the Austin American Statesman 1/6/13 SAN ANTONIO. “Wow, 35 years!” exclaimed Ty Gavin, singer of the regrouped band the Next, whose members met at the infamous Sex Pistols show in San Antonio on Jan. 8, 1978. “Has it really been that long?” Three days before the anniversary of the most notorious rock […]
If he could find a white man who could sing like a black man, he could make a million dollars. That’s what Sam Phillips would say over and over again from his Memphis Recording Service on Union Avenue. Then one day in 1953 Elvis Presley walked in, and the desire became a reality. Elvis, and […]
Paul Sessums loved the sound of loud electric guitars. When he’d stand on the Sixth Street sidewalk and rail about this and that, using a parking meter as his pulpit, everything was all right in his universe as long as the guitars were ringing through the doors of his Black Cat Lounge. He’d hire any […]
By Michael Corcoran Pogues fans on this side of the Pond are often unaware that the Celtic roots/punk band was from England, not Ireland. But when Dubliner Frank Murray became their manager and got them signed to Stiff Records in 1984, they were held in the embrace of Irish music royalty. Murray worked with traditional […]
Sorry, the chapter on Freddie King in the upcoming book All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music was posted only one day, the 40th anniversary of Freddie’s death. The book, which features 41 other chapters on Texas music pioneers, will be in stores and online in late April via the University of North […]
From All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music (2017 UNT Press) She had done whatever it took to raise three sons alone after their father died in an automobile accident in 1961. She demonstrated organs for Hammond, taught at J.R. Reed Music on Congress Avenue in Austin and at night played elegant solo […]
His young daughter, Katie Belle, came running in and said, “Daddy’s having a fight with his heart.” It wasn’t the first time, but this one was physical and cost Townes Van Zandt his life. The singer-songwriter, whose dark and illuminating lyrics walked with a self-destructive limp, died of a heart attack Jan. 1, 1997, at […]
