Friday, October 10. 2008
 Widespread Panic at The Backyard in 2007 - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
by Jeff Barringer - Staff Writer
It's not often that bands invite their fans to bring large heavy metallic objects to their concerts, lest they be pelted with same later, but Widespread Panic is willing to take that risk. Their 2-day show out at Austin's Backyard this weekend is now a food drive for the Capital Area Food Bank here in Austin. In it's 27th year the food bank is desperate to replenish it's stocks of food after Central Texas was overwhelmed with refugees from Hurricane Ike, and to get ready for the holiday season. Everyone attending is urged to bring USEFUL non-perishable items to the show. (no showing up with a case of 40 year old canned turtle meat you found in your uncle Fester's closet.)
Speaking of The Backyard, Sundays show by The Roots and Gym Class Heroes has moved from The Backyard over to La Zona Rosa. Please mark your schedules accordingly.
In more Direct Events/The Backyard related news, the closing party for this West Austin venue has been extended to 2 days to make it a real blowout. On Saturday October 25th the bill includes Driver F, Alpha Rev, Del Castillo, White Ghost Shivers, The Boxing Lesson, Los Gallos, Dremnt The End, High on Hot Dogs, Joker and DrumJam. Sunday October 26th's bill features Willie Nelson, Ruthie Foster, Grupo Fantasma, Kelly Willis, The Gourds, Carolyn Wonderland, Nakia & His Southern Cousins, Lucky Tomblin Band and Elizabeth Wills.
Tickets for all these shows are available at GETTIX outlets including UT CO-OP, RunTex locations & Waterloo Records, charge by phone at 1-866-443-8849 or buy tickets on the web at www.directevents.net
Thursday, October 9. 2008
 Chris Ballew of the Presidents of the United States of America - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
by Greg Klein - Staff Writer
Presidents of the United States of America
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
http://www.presidentsrock.com
Presidents of the United States of America Concert Photos
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Stubb's BarBQ(Austin, Texas)
Also: Black And White Years
In this time of financial uncertainty, negative political ads, and banal sound bites, who can we trust to lead our country into a new, better era? For those fed up with both candidates and their empty promises, why not look to established musical figures? Enter the Presidents of the United States of America.
No, I'm not talking about Bill Clinton's jazz trio, featuring George H.W. Bush on drums and Jimmy "Peanut Oil" Carter on standup bass, but the alternative rock group who made it big in the music scene 13 years ago singing about peaches and lumps.
Appropriate, then, they play Stubb's in Austin, TX, a month before the election. Now, political parallels such as these may be too easy for a writer like myself to make, but seeing as I showed up late to the show, I'm not exactly what you call 'presidential material.' Oops, I did it again. Sorry, I'll stop.
Local band Black & White Years was already on stage upon my arrival. An indie electro-rock group, they sounded like a rocked-out version of the Talking Heads. (I found out later that Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads produced their self-titled album. Point: Greg.). The band played a solid set as the crowd steadily grew, and they were clearly enjoying their music, but the mood changed dramatically as soon as the Presidents stepped on stage.
Continue reading "Concert Review: Presidents Of The United States Of America at Stubb's BarBQ, Austin, Texas"
Wednesday, October 8. 2008
by Michael Hurcomb - club.kingsnake contributor
The Molson Amphitheatre. Toronto, Ontario
Friday September 5th, 2008
I've always liked Journey. I'll admit it. In fact I think everyone likes Journey. Those damned catchy, sappy songs with great guitar solos. They've certainly received more press in the last few years thanks to the use of "Don't Stop Believin" in the Sopranos series finale and the hiring of the You Tube sensation Arnel Pineda from the Philippines . Before the show I checked out the footage of Arnel singing with his old cover band The Zoo. Arnel can sing exactly like Steve Perry but you'd be surprised to hear how well he can impersonate other singers. He nails Bon Jovi, Boston, STP, Queen and lots of others.
The big test would be hearing him live, especially after Journey canceled the prior night because Arnel had a cold. Well, he was perfect. Journey put on a fantastic show with lots of energy and great interplay, as did their openers Cheap Trick and Heart. It's refreshing to hear great live singers in this era of "Auto Tune". The crowd loved every minute of it - especially the large Filipino crowd! Hopefully Journey can keep Arnel longer than their past few singers. They start another leg of their tour in November so check them out if they're headed your way.
Tuesday, October 7. 2008
 Neil Fallon of Clutch - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
by Jeff Barringer - Staff Writer
Clutch
Hometown: Germantown, Maryland
http://www.pro-rock.com
Clutch Concert Photos
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Stubb's BarBQ(Austin, Texas)
Also: Graveyard, The Sword
A sold out crowd greeted Clutch at their Austin appearance at Stubb's, but each band on the tour brought their own hardcore following so it was sometimes tough to tell who was the headliner.
Starting out with night was the band Graveyard from Sweden, a 4 piece stoner rock band that sounded straight out
of the Blue Cheer school of psychedelic metal. Huge overblown epic metal masterpieces with a distinct late 60's Cream/Yardbirds blues feel. The only thing missing was the crude 60's blacklight posters and lava lamps.
They didn't have much of a stage presence, not interacting with the crowd, or each other for that matter, intensely focusing on playing, but I don't think the crowd was there for a Van Halen style show. With only a short 4 song, 30 minute set, I was kind of disappointed when it ended and I know I wanted to hear more. I guess that is what they make headphones, mp3 players, and fractal programs for (Dude, those colors are neat...you got any cheetos?).
Continue reading "Concert Review: Clutch at Stubb's BarBQ, Austin, Texas"
Monday, October 6. 2008
by Michael Hurcomb - club.kingsnake contributor
The Molson Amphitheatre. Toronto, Ontario
Friday September 5th, 2008
Thursday, October 2. 2008
Foo Fighters
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
http://www.foofighters.com
Monday, September 29th, 2008
KLRU Studio(Austin, Texas)
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden chance to make my way
And with a golden ticket, it's a golden day
- Grandpa Joe and Charlie - Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
I must admit that when I greedily ripped open the envelope and saw the hint of gold the lyrics above immediately popped into my head. How après peau that the tickets were a rich golden hue. Though they were free they were the toughest ACL Fest tickets to get because EVERYBODY that could called in favors, pulled strings, or resorted to blackmail to get into this one. I am not talking about the Foo Fighters ripping it up in front of 80,000 sweaty festival goers in the park on Sunday night, this article is about their Austin City Limits television show performance the night afterwards down at the KLRU studios on the U.T. campus.
With seating limited to only 350 people, those lucky few with the golden tickets began lining up hours before the appointed 7:00 pm gate. Across the plaza another line formed for the "seats available" backup line, each hoping and praying that an offcourse UT shuttle bus would wipe out the golden ticket holders so they could gain entry.
Once the doors opened, ticket holders were ushered into the foyer and then up the elevator 10 at a time. With a quiet "wshhhh" the doors opened to an oasis, chilled to the right temperature and filled with KLRU volunteers handing out free beer and programs. Moving into the darkened studio one immediately sees the familiar Austin City Limits background of the city's skyline, and tonight there would be no chairs on the floor. Though bleachers surrounded the floor and afforded excellent sightlines no matter where you were, there would be no sitting there either once the Foo Fighters took the stage.
I grabbed an open space on the second level of the bleachers and found myself next to Frank Hendrix, owner of Emo's at 6th and Red River. Looking across the bleachers I caught sight of Gary Miller of the Austin Chronicle and soon Raoul Hernandez, the Chronicle's music editor appeared in the stream of people coming in. I saw a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, many of them local music industry types. Once all the ticket holders made it in and the last call came, a select lucky few from the "seats available" line were allowed in, but not very many.
 Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters at ACL Fest 2008 |
Soon the stage darkened and the shows longtime producer, Terry Lickona, stepped onstage to welcome us, remind us not to take pictures, and then he welcomed the band as they took the stage behind him. A heavily bearded Dave Grohl stepped to the mic, talked about the honor of being invited to play, seeing all the photos of the great artists that had played before him, and then found an opening to rib Lickona about his afro in the 70's.
The band lit into the first song, "Times Like These", immediately triggering cheers from the audience and we were off.. The sound was unbelievably clean, crisp, and tight, the lights in the studio rivaling any major tour or venue I have ever seen. The only things missing were the smoke and the fire, and the bands performance provided plenty of that. Every song they played just popped, and they played a lot, 17 songs by my count, exluding the bizarre yet fantastic guitar break into the "Hocus Pocus" riff by the early 70's band Focus, stopping just short of the yodeling (I was a little disappointed he didn't give the yodeling thing a shot).
Dave was all over the stage, in the audience, at one point coming all the way out and standing in the bleachers, playing his guitar less than 10 feet away from me. He joked with the band members, talked to people in the audience, even gave a guitar pick to someone in front that asked, much to the bemusement of his roadie who immediately ran out and replaced it on his mic stand.
After covering most of their hits, a few new songs, some fan favorites, and the old standard "Young Man's Blues" the set seemed to end much too quickly. What seemed like 30 minutes was in fact 1:45 minutes.
Heading out the door I made sure I saved my stub as I was sure this was in fact my lucky ticket.
The Foo Fighters Austin City Limits show performance is scheduled to air on January 17th 2009 on your local PBS station. Other performers that stopped by KLRU to record a session while they were in town for ACL Fest include Gnarls Barkley(1/24/09), Manu Chao (1/31/09), Erykah Badu (11/22/08), and The Swell Season
(2/14/09). Thanks go out to Austin City Limits for inviting us out for the taping. Maybe they'll do it again sometime. And thanks to Gary at The Chronicle and Mark over at the Gibson showroom for helping figure out the name of the Focus song.
 Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters at ACL Fest 2008 |
Austin City Limits Taping Set List
Times Like These
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
Learn To Fly
Young Man's Blues
Long Road To Ruin
Let it Die
Stacked Actors
Skin And Bones
Marigold
My Hero
Cold Day In The Sun
But, Honestly
Everlong
Monkey Wrench
All My Life
Aurora
The Pretender
Lucky Foo Fighters ticket holders lined up to enter the KLRU studio  |
Wednesday, October 1. 2008
 Paul Leary and Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
Butthole Surfers
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
http://www.buttholesurfers.com
Butthole Surfers Concert Photos
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
Stubb's BarBQ(Austin, Texas)
Also: Fuckemos, The Kills
The infamous Gibby Haynes and the Butthole Surfers returned to the Austin stage after a long absence and despite predictions no one died during the performance, though polls heavily favored Gibby.
Long known for their live antics like packing a shotgun onstage or playing with matches and lighter fluid in a club with limited fire exits, Saturdays performance at Stubb's was rather calm by comparison, though the crowd surfers almost overwhelmed the barrier more than once, despite the triple security in the pit. It could be that time has finally tempered the band, it could be the miles, but it certainly hasn't tempered their ability to attract controversy, and Gibby and crew aren't ready to retire out to Sun City and start voting Republican just yet.
Although the Surfers and I had crossed path's many, many times in the early 80's during Austin's heyday as the state's punk rock mecca, I only actually saw them perform once back in "The Day". That show was probably in 81 or 82 down at the old Club Foot on 4th Street, next to the bus station. Club Foot was a split evel club in the warehouse district whose interior walls were covered in sheet metal, and though the acoustics did nothing to enhance the performance, neither did a lot of the bands they booked.
 Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
At that show an early version of the Surfers opened for Austin's Big Boys, and my memory of the performance was that they were looking for a sound and were as yet a long way off. Still, the band had a certain stage presence, and that presence could be summed up in one word - revolting.
The band had discovered early that the performance is the performance, rather than the music. You didn't have to be good musically to attract an audience, you just had to have a performance that they wanted to watch. And in Austin in the late 70's and early 80's the best way to do that as a punk band was to be shocking, to push the envelopes of taste and propriety, and challenge the social and politcal morays of the establishment. The Hun's did it by kissing a police officer at Rauls, getting arrested, and almost starting a riot, which made Austin an early "scene". Gibby Haynes did it at that show by wearing a bright red T-Shirt that depicted a gay cowboy sporting a massive erection while stumbling about the stage abusing himself with a loaded staple gun. Their is something about a bleeding man with an erection shirt screaming profanity at you through a P.A. that sticks in your mind. I certainly remembered them, and when I later heard of GG Allin, I thought GG stole their act.
Though I missed the rest of their performances in the 80's and 90's, the band actually managed to learn how to play their instruments and wrap their stage show in some interesting and culturally relevant songs, and they turned out to be actually quite good musically. In 1981, not so much. Still I followed the band, bought all their records, followed them in the press, and watched as their legend grew.
 Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers - more photos photo by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer |
The Surfers lived up to their legend status Saturday night at their sold out performance. Old punks from "back in the day", young punks and metalheads there to see and surf, even the press were out in droves to catch the show, and I don't think anyone walked away disappointed. Covering songs from throughout their catalog, the pit area was a war zone as the masses continually battled with security and threatened to flow over the barrier. Gibby was up to his usual antics, appearing initially in a T- Shirt with "Fuck The Man" crudely painted on it, he soon peeled it off to reveal another shirt equally rendered with "Van Palin Sux/Hockey Cunt" which raised a roar from the crowd. Still not satisfied with his sartorial accoutrements he stripped off that shirt a few minutes later revealing a shirt blotted with just the word "Urine". The Surfers set lasted exactly 1 hour and 34 minutes, beating the midnight curfew by a slender 1 minute.
The band sounded great and I look forward to seeing them tour and record again.
Opening the show were the Fuckemos, an Austin institution for over 20 years, playing the Stubb's stage for the very first time. To describe their sound and their songs, imagine a 3 minute dry belch set to metal and punk guitar work. These guys might have pioneered the whole cookie monster vocal thing, but they never seemed to break big because of the limits imposed by the bands name.
The Kills were the second band on the bill and I was impressed by their music and their stage presence. Kind of like a more melodic and harmonic White Stripes, this duo wasn't quite weird enough for the scene that night but I really enjoyed their set and their sound. With a sound thats stripped down to bare bones, they had a raw energy that made it tough to turn away. Oh, and if anyone finds The Kill's tour bus, let them know. They appear to have mis-placed it en route back to Los Angeles.
Thanks to everyone at Stubb's, C3, ACL, and The Butthole Surfers for inviting us out.
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