The Austin music community woke up on Aug. 27, 1990. with a chunk of its soul gone. At close to 1 a.m., blues guitar great Stevie Ray Vaughan perished in a helicopter crash in East Troy, Wis., after a concert.
Book signing and discussion Wednesday Sept. 26 at Waterloo Records. 5 p.m. Hear the report on NPR’s “All Things Considered” “Essential… A magnificent and important set” – Roots and Rhythm Here’s the full review “He Is My Story is essential reading for gospel fans, pre-war jazz and blues enthusiasts, church historians, and may well be the […]
The Scoot Inn should have a new owner by next week. The man named Casino, who owns Casino El Camino on Sixth Street, confirmed that he’s days away from closing a deal to take over the Scoot Inn from co-owners James Stockbauer and Kevin Crutchfield. “We’re going to keep the name, but the format will […]
There were three times more people outside the club than were able to fit inside, where it was brutally hot and gloriously sweaty. Sitting in little clumps on the sidewalk and standing in the street behind the stage, the throng drank 7-11 beer, smoked joints and reminisced about nights spent in the glorious black wooden […]
Brent Grulke was a music man. He bought tons of records and worked with bands and eventually rose through the ranks of South By Southwest to become creative director in the mid-’90s. The reason that 2,000 acts play SXSW every year, instead of a more manageable 700 or 800 is, in part, because Grulke just […]
Singer-songwriter Calvin Russell’s story was one for the movies, an ex-con toiling in obscurity in Austin dives before a homemade cassette made him a star in Europe. The Townes Van Zandt protege with the rugged features and signature hobo hat passed away Sunday (April 2011) at his home in Garfield after a lengthy battle with […]
I’ve always had a twisted sense of humor, but a person’s gotta make a living, so I’ve been able to suppress that side for the most part. Just today I found evidence that I’ve matured immensely through the years. It’s a lifestyle magazine parody I wrote about cophraphaliacs- people who eat shit- call GRIN. These […]
June 24, 2011 was my last day at the Austin American-Statesman, where I worked for 16 years as a music critic, three-dot columnist and feature writer. The terms of the buyout, which was taken by several other longtime staffers, was two weeks pay for each year of service. I received my last check on Feb. […]
Hunter S. Thompson? Lester Bangs? Jack Kerouac? Fitzgerald? Hemingway? Salinger? Nope, Reed. Rex Reed is, without a doubt, the person who most influenced my writing style. And I’ve never really read him. His TV appearances in the late ’60s/ early ’70s were my introduction to the Mean Queen that owes my head about 40 years […]
