Flounders Without Eyes—What’s the Rush—The Flounders put out their fourth album What’s the Rush produced by Lloyd Maines bringing magnetic jam-rock band straight up Austin style. This large rock ensemble origins go back to the 1990s with a relocation from Houston to Austin and regular gigs jamming at bars and clubs throughout town.  The album is a natural melting pot of sounds Americana roots music, bluegrass, folk and country with bluesy rock to top it off. Soulful songs cross genres easily and skillful songwriting combined with innate instrumentation and harmonization make this an album that’s all Flounders.  4.5 McRiprock’s

Bocastria—Texicana—This is the first full-length album from Boscastria that takes you on a path from pure rock to Ranchera to Tejas Reggaeton all of which are in a Spanglish harmony. It is defining in Latin fusion sounds making for an interesting mix and a unique sound.  Harmonization and instrumentation reign supreme and capture your ears even if you aren’t on the page of what’s being sung about.  4.5 McRiprock’s.

THERE ARE MANY CHOICES IN TOWN TO DO YOUR HOLIDAZE SHOPPING OR TO DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY. THE AUSTIN DAZE RECOMMENDS THE ARMADILLO EXPERIENCE AT THE CONVENTION CENTER. MAKE SURE TO READ OUR WORDS WITH THE CREATOR OF AUSTIN’S OLDEST CHRISTMAS BAZAAR.

The Philips GoGear team scouted to find five of Austin’s best unknown music artists – and has been asking consumers to identify the artist or group who deserves the title of “Austin’s Best Undiscovered Band.” Artists vying for the title include Harlem, Neiliyo, Stormshadow, The Canvas Waiting and Yadira Brown. Saturday, the competition came to a close with Philips Undiscovered Austin Closing Party. The night kicked off with a party at the Philips loft on East 6th–a multilevel complex with great views of the city–hands down the coolest private hang in Austin. Canvas Waiting was announced as the winning band. The night continued on to Mohawk (the perfect music venue) where the winning band put on a great show. The Lemurs followed. Special/secret guest Matt and Kim Grand (out of Brookyln, NY) were a welcome surprise. Overall, a great night!

When we handed Bruce Willenzik, mastermind behind the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, a copy of our paper, he happily informed us we were in fact third generation thieves. Our slogan, “We’re here cause we’re not all there” was first stolen by him years ago when he was in Washington. We found out this is only one of many “firsts” he can take credit for. Check it out.

AUSTIN DAZE: Where did you originally get it from?

BRUCE WILLENZIK: A record store in Port Townsend, Washington. If you were going down the main drag of Port Townsend it’s on the water side of the street about two-thirds of the way down. That’s where it came from.

AD: Let’s talk about the Christmas Bazaar. How did you get involved in doing this?

BW: The first thing I did was get a job at Armadillo World Headquarters in 1974 in the kitchen. I had cooked vegetarian beans for one of the staff people and I didn’t even know that she worked at Armadillo. And all these people at Armadillo said, “Oh man yours are better than mine can you come down tomorrow and show us how to do this?” I went and showed them how to cook them and a week later I was running the kitchen. In the later days I started the t-shirt branch, did merchandise, did security—all of operations. I had a real good friend, Lucinda Williams, who used to live under the card table at the foot of my bed when she first came to town. I ran into her and we got to talking. I went to get cigarettes and she said, “Get me two packs.” I had sent her down to the drag to get some presence and asked her, “Where’s your money?” She is such a kind person, she was giving it to an artist on the drag who had a new baby and was having health problems and she didn’t want this lady out in the weather so she gave her all her guitar case money. So she was telling me this story and said, “It’s a shame that they have to be in that crummy weather when they could be in a nice dry hall like this. What do you all have in December?” I told her we were basically closed and she said, “Well if you had all those artists in here you could sell nachos, you could sell beer, you could have money, and they would have a place to be.” That night I wrote a five year plan to build a Christmas show. I took it the next day to the management who said, “Nah, we’re not in the business.” That was 74’. By 75’ there was a bad cash crunch and by 76’ we were going to into bankruptcy and we needed a way to save it. Christmas Bazaar! Christmas Bazaar! Christmas Bazaar! By 1980 we paid off the bankruptcy with five days left to operate, through the Christmas Bazaar. It became this cash flow thing.

When it was finally over and they were going to tear down the place they had an auction and I bought the little electrical distribution system thinking, I might continue to do this show. I bought the rights and started to look for an alternate location. There was a grocery store we found in July. I spent months trying to get this place. It took until November to get a signed Agreement. We worked around the clock and got our Certificate of Occupancy the morning we were open for business. But what a great joy it was when we opened up. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Austin’s cultural future had a new stimulus inside it.

AD: What kind of cultural impact do you think the Christmas Bazaar has had on the community?

BW: It’s been a great way to broaden our cultural reach in the community. We had always seen the World Headquarters Concert Floor and Stage as 14,400 square feet where culture thrives and evolves and our job was to protect and feed that floor. The Christmas Bazaar was going to be the thing that nourished it as well. And it did. It allowed us to be more experimental with booking and do a jazz series.

We’ve also been a living laboratory and our job has been to protect culture and have it flourish. We’ve watched them grow. We took one guy who in his first year was making grouted wood beer signs with mirror scrap behind them to make them look like something. He quickly turned into one of the best jewelers in the country. And for 25 plus years has been winning Best in Show at almost every show he does. That’s because he was put in an environment in which he could grow. We’ve watched one after the other do that. We watched a whole group of Austin artists become the backbone of national art shows. And the community seems to be very supportive of what we do.

AD: You were the only reason we ever found to go to the Austin City Music Hall.

BW: As many problems as there were there it was still a joy—the staff was wonderful and we had a great time. It was great when we got the brand new Music Hall but there wasn’t really any room to expand and there are different codes for concerts and exhibitions. Concerts need five foot aisles, exhibitions need ten foot aisles. It’s built for five foot aisles—we can’t go back. We kind of panicked. Middle of August we had nothing and then I emailed my friends at the Economic Growth for the City and they had a solution: The Convention Center. They were helpful because we are the retail anchor for downtown, we are the anchor for them to build 2^nd street and all that retail activity downtown and they needed us and we needed them.

AD: How was your first year at the Convention Center?

BW: It was scary but it was great. One of the first things we did was ask for character points. They were wonderful with us. They really wanted us to be comfortable. We found out that we had enough expansion space in that room, in that building, that if we really wanted to we could add a dozen booths a year for 80 years.

When we got in there it was very tense. Luckily we had been thinking for years about the possibility of getting to expand and how we would handle more room. We had all this trial stuff on the shelf. We were throwing stuff together and I was biting on fingernails and sweating profusely and sure enough it worked. The artists were so surprised by the clean air—everybody stayed healthy and they didn’t have to clean their display cases every morning. So we decided we are going to have to teach these people permanent non conventionality because we are back and we are going to stay there and in a few years we’ll go to a bigger room.

AD: A lot of your artists have been with you for years. Is there a demand for new artists?

BW: There has been a lot of demand for new artists but one of the things we were concerned about is that we didn’t want to bring in 100 new booths at once because you have to build the crowd—supply and demand at the same time. We’ve been smart about that and we have been working on it and are just as excited as can be to be working on it. We are now almost fully using the smallest rooms. The security is wonderful, the parking is great. We now have new things like free passes if you are staying at the hotels, and posting office for shipment.

AD: Are your artists worried about the economy?

BW: Anybody who hasn’t worried about it I think would be silly. An artist said the other day, “Bruce, I work all year round to get ready for this show. Everything else I do is to get me in a position to get into the start of your show to make the money that allows me to have the next year of my life and pay my mortgage and get my kids through school. It’s half my annual work load and half my annual revenue. Please let it be half my worry.” I had to laugh at that because it made sense—they are entitled to it.

You know after 9/11 I watched retail nationally, and every person I talked to said it was off 40%. I talked to bands and they were getting cancellations up to 40%. I talked to Clifford Antone, people like that, and everything was off by 40%. My brother has a big retail store here and they were off 40%. So I figured we were going to be off 40% and that’s what we prepared for. We had the busiest year ever. We had people waiting in line for hours in the rain to get in because it felt good and they loved it. My sweetheart Annie was working the box office and she kept telling me to get more Kleenex. I saw grown adults burst into tears of joy when they got their ticket after waiting in line for an hour. I just was overwhelmed by it. We asked our artists to find out from the customers what it was about that year that was making it a huge success. The answer: It felt good and it was real. And once they came they had to come back every day so our crowd was maxed out. I don’t know if that will happen again.

AD: Let’s talk about that. For people that don’t know, what makes this so special? What makes it real? Because you have options–you can go to a store and do your shopping there.

BW: There is nothing else like it in the world. It’s a one-of-a-kind show because we didn’t model it off of anything else. It came from Armadillo’s funky business model of being a for profit community operation. We built this thing for community. These artists cherish the chance to be there. It’s the best stuff because we told the artists 30 years ago if you are going to stay with us you have to prove to us that you are improving every year. You have to demonstrate that you are working to get better every year. A lot of these people have been with us for 25 years. After that many years of staying up worrying about how to impress me they have gotten very good at what they do. It’s also not like any other show because if you spent 25 years doing a 2 week show that’s a whole year of your being so it forms a community. Artists say they travel all over the country and go to shows they have never been to and as soon as they see a fellow Armadillo artist they have a brother or sister right there with them. They are family and take care of each other wherever they go. So it has that bond which came right out of the World Headquarters.

AD: What do you think about all the other Bazaars and festivals in town?

BW: It’s a funny thing about that. Starting in our fifth year we noticed that other events started calling themselves Christmas Bazaars. And we had picked that name because the only thing we could find that had a Christmas Bazaar was one little church and we figured it was basically unused so let’s grab it. By 1980, they were doing a Last Chance Bazaar at the Palmer. The next year there was the International Bazaar in Houston. Every year they would last a year or two and then go away. And then Blue Genie came along who did a magnificent thing, they are a wonderful group, and they were so careful not to compete—they call it the Blue Genie Christmas Art Bazaar. It is wonderful to have them in town and operating. We always figured when we were in the concert business that the more good concert venues that were successful the more people got in the habit of going to concerts and the better everybody did. So we had the same attitude about Christmas Bazaars. We encouraged other people and helped if they asked.

The first problem that we had was in ‘84 when a big downtown developer people decided to do the Dillo Christmas downtown and spent about 400K trying to force us out of business. We survived and they didn’t. He wanted to create a new culture for Austin that was different than what the Armadillo had. That’s why we wanted to move downtown and that was one of the reasons why we were happy to move to the Austin City Music Hall. I thought to myself, we are going to be such an asset to this city, with so much community good will, that no one will ever attack us again. And we did. I immediately got involved in arts politics and in three years I was on the Arts Commission for the city. I’ve been on it for 20 years. Last year, the Keep Austin Bazaar Bazaar guys came along and probably assumed that the Music Hall wasn’t going to get ready, probably assumed that we weren’t going to be there, and thought it was an opportunity to be “the” Christmas Bazaar. Well, I wished they would have talked to us first because we could have given them a really good idea on how to create a distinct identity—there is plenty of room for more shows. They started with an idea that we really like which was to get street vendors off the street and into a warm place to sell. It was the same idea that Lucinda Williams gave me in ‘74. If they had asked us for help we would have been all over helping them but instead they chose a different tactic and confusion came out about what was what and who was who. And there are laws about creating confusion when it comes to identity of businesses. So we had no choice but to take legal action and get them to come to an agreement that in the future all their ads would have their name before the designation Christmas Bazaar. We hope they will behave themselves this year and that they will establish themselves like we did and that in years to come they will be an asset to the community. It’s a maturity process and we went through it. We were kids once who didn’t know any better so you have to give them sum slack on that as long as they aren’t hostile. And if they become hostile, we have very good attorneys. But we want these things to grow, if your mission is to grow cultural prosperity for the community and they are in a community trying to do it that is good. But if they are going to do it by confusing people with identity that’s bad. We built our identity and we are entitled to it.

We had a lot to do with building Austin’s identity and worked hard at it. We worked for 30 years to keep that identity of Austin as this free spirited, accepted city where creativity was rewarded—that’s very important to us. If they want to be part of that free spirit in Austin and part of that creativity and originality they will be rewarded for it. If it’s not original, then it’s going to be harder. That’s one thing about the Austin community: there is tremendous respect for originality.

AD: Have you ever had vendors that you couldn’t nurture anymore and had to let go?

BW: Yes. When someone new comes in we give them a tremendous amount of patience and a lot of help. We really like to match them up with a friend who they trust, a senior artist in a mentor/protégé relationship for at least a year before they get set free on the floor. Not a mentor on how to be an artist but on the culture of this show. All of our artists have a peer pressure going amongst them to work together to build that prosperity around the show and the community. If they think anybody is slacking they are all over the slacker. We have a mission and we’ve stuck to it and we plan to stick to it for a long time.

AD: What’s new this year?

BW: We finally have a chance to do a lot of new things this year. Not only are we bringing in new artists but we are bringing in a lot of new musicians. We started a lunch time series where we have a concert every day from 12:30 to 3:30 and showcase some emerging artists. There is a story behind this and how it happened. One of the artists spent about five years trying to get in the show was Russell Smith. Russell and his wife Barbara have a daughter, Sahara Smith, who is an aspiring folk singer. And when she was 16 or 17 we brought her up to do a showcase. My old friend Kevin Wommack, who I gave my first job to at the World Headquarters, is in music management. Russell told him to come see his daughter. So there she was in front of that historic banner that was at Willie Nelson’s first Fourth of July party and Kevin thought she was terrific. Kevin called me up this year and said he is working with Sahara and she is doing an album and is going to break out nationally. He wanted to get her back on stage again because he needed to do some publicity pictures. That turned into the idea of the lunch time gig. And then we decided to find some other breakout gigs. It’s another second generation breaking into another area. So we have Dan Dyer and Band of Heathens booked among others.

We decided to stock this thing: we’ve got 35 musical acts in 13 days. We get to bring back some of our favorites. Butch Hancock didn’t like playing the music hall because he would get sick from the dust, but the convention center? No problem. So he’s back this year.

AD: It’s funny how it’s all full circle. It started out with the music and the Bazaar was a branch off from that and now it’s coming back to the music.

BW: That’s right. It’s all about circles. That’s how systems work. That’s how life works. We just believe every circle you connect gives you the strength to connect more. It’s worked very well for us and it’s worked very well for community.

AD: This city is changing so much. Where do you think we are headed?

BW: A couple of years ago I got on the board of an urban issues think tank called Livable City and one of our earlier conversations was talking about what Austin is. And I brought up what someone had said to me once, “Austin is to America what Venice was to the Renaissance.” It was this little itty bitty place with this huge influence. And we proceeded to flourish off of that. And one of the board members said, “Yeah it’s still Venice but it’s surrounded by Phoenix.” We can’t stop that but we can keep the central identity on it. The Armadillo philosophy from the beginning has always been: You bring out the best in others by showing the best in yourself. If you are successful in doing it then everybody is stuck with the experience of dealing with only the best.

***

AUSTIN DAZE: I know this started this as an improv project. What made you consider going forward and making this more formal?

BAND OF HEATHENS: We were in a Roman Bath House together scrubbing each other’s backs. We were exfoliating.

AD: That would do it.

BOH: We were all doing individual shows, everyone was having a good time playing each other’s stuff, sharing each other’s girlfriend’s and wives—it was a real party.

AD: Exfoliating, baths, and wife swapping. Sounds like the perfect combination for a band.

BOH: Plus we’re all brothers—same mother different fathers. Pretty soon after that we all got on stage and it was fun and we just started doing it. Not long after that we decided to record and have it just for our own posterior. So at first we weren’t going to do anything with it, and then we decided to put it out—we realized we wouldn’t lose money on it, which is good.

AD: When you decided to do the live album, did you think, “Ok, we have to actually come up with some shit for this thing because they are going to record it?”

BOH: We had a rehearsal. Some of us got there at 7 and some of us got there at 9. We did about a half hour of stuff and wrote down about 12 or 15 songs we knew we wanted to get to in the show. We ended up doing two shows because some of them didn’t come out usable. There were some glitches.

AD: Performing glitches or recording glitches?

BOH: Performing glitches. And technical glitches. And tequila induced glitches. We weren’t the perfect band that we are now. We’ve really come a long way.

AD: And the Austin Music Awards. It’s been written a few times that that was an official turning point in deciding to do this. Is that a PR story or a real story?

BOH: We were pretty wrapped up full time at that point. That was icing on the cake. The project is probably three and a half years old, but it’s really only like a year and three quarters because it wasn’t until January 2007 that we really took anything seriously. That was our first tour. By the time the music awards came we had already played a lot and were doing what we wanted to do.

AD: This was such an organic thing when it started, did the dynamic change once you were doing something more official? Did you have to regroup? Did someone have to take the lead?

BOH: We weren’t sure what would happen but it stayed the same.

AD: Were you nervous about it?

BOH: No. I think it felt pretty natural with all the wife swapping that we had done.

AD: I guess once you’ve seen somebody else’s wife naked…

BOH: We also had Ray Wylie Hubbard to referee which turned out to be a bunch of fun and he just fit right into the vibe. His advice tended to revolve around, “Well that’s pretty good but I think you can make it a little cooler. Why don’t you go make it a little cooler.” Very specific stuff.

AD: How did he come on board?

BOH: Well like us, He’s seen fire and he’s seen rain. He’d seen sunny days he thought would never end. Ray does a radio show. We got invited to go down and do the show and we hit it off really great and he told us to come back next week so we did. And then really informally, we started talking to him about doing a record. So we bought him a tuna sandwich and the rest was history.

AD: What was that like?

BOH: The tuna sandwich was great. He’s great. He has really strong opinions but has a cool way of letting you know them. It’s not about, play this note here or lets go fix this, it’s just try it again and capture the vibe. It’s about the overall vibe; the bigger picture.

AD: You’re all talented in your own right, but do you think you had seen the bigger picture before?

BOH: We don’t really like what any of us do but we realize there isn’t anything we can do to change it.

AD: You suffer through.

BOH: It’s a band. Everyone came from a place where everyone was doing their own solo stuff. Now you may have written the song but everybody is going to have a final say in it. It’s about the extent of your final say; your involvement of how it is going to go. But that’s cool because that’s what makes it sound the way it does.

AD: You guys have had experienced both SXSW and ACL. What are some of the most obvious differences between the two?

BOH: We were like chickens with our heads cut off at SXSW. Both years at SXSW were like 18 gigs non stop. Last year was like, play for 14 minutes pack your stuff up and then go play for 17 minutes. It was still fun.

AD: And ACL?

BOH: ACL is taking it right to the people. You cut out the middle man. We’ve seen a lot of people come up to us at shows since ACL and said they saw us for the first time there. It seems to be having an impact that is pretty immediate. We did get a European record deal out of SXSW this year. It’s just different. What they have most in common is that there is a lot of press—that was the working part of the ACL show and the rest of the time we went and saw bands.

AD: How do you feel about dealing with the press? What about the business side of things? I see you have a list of people involved now.

BOH: They just do what we tell them to do. We’re very apprehensive about press and interviews in general.

AD: There is a lot of talk about bands going about the business differently, with Myspace and the whole “fuck the label” route. You guys seem to have both the traditional outlets and your own.

BOH: We released the record ourselves—raised the money for it and everything. The band definitely comes from the new model of doing it ourselves—we are very hands on; cut from that cloth. We are hands on about the website, the way the t-shirts look. We actually spin our own cotton.

AD: You stay up late making those shirts? Make the pattern?

BOH: Yes.

AD: How’s that working for you?

BOH: Slow. We sell about three shirts a week.

AD: Let’s talk about the music a little bit. I’ve read a few times, “sounds like The Band.” How do you feel about that?

BOH: That’s a good one.

AD: What do you get that’s bad?

BOH: The Eagles. But if you want to cover one of our songs, we’ll talk. Early Eagles would be OK. Then again, how awesome did the Eagles do?

AD: What’s the worst band you could ever be compared to?

BOH: Richard Marx. Michael Bolton.

AD: What are you guys up to now? Are you writing? Recording?

BOH: Blogging. On the trials and tribulations of being a professional musicians. This record came out five months ago so we are going to ride that thing right into the ditch. We’d like to do another record sooner than later.

AD: Anything else you want to add? Some plugging and promo?

BOH: Come see us at the Saxon on Tuesday nights.

***

AUSTIN DAZE: The motto here is “Keep Austin Weird”, do you think it’s a weird place?

SEAN: I don’t think it’s weird but I’m from Minneapolis. It’s kind of very similar—some people even joke about how they are the same place.

AD: Let’s talk about the new album, which is awesome by the way. I know the songs are about people that a lot of us can relate to. I’m wondering if that was what you were going for with these songs.

S: I was just going with people that I relate to. There are two songs on there that are incredibly autobiographical and there is one song that is about my girlfriend and the rest are about people that I don’t know but are depictions of people I see in myself—if that makes any sense.

AD: Given the success of Atmosphere, where do you see yourself going in the next few years?

S: I have no idea. I’ve never been good at doing the, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” thing. I do everything one week at a time.

AD: Are there any artists that you look at now that you think have lost their touch? Do you ever worry that that could happen to you guys?

S: I think it could happen to us. I think it happens to everybody at some point or another. I think you are supposed to lose your touch; I think you are supposed to evolve; you’re not supposed to be the same forever because that’s not very challenging. If you make the same shit over and over that’s kind of a sellout thing; that tells me that you found an equation that works and you are just beating it to death and I feel that I’ve come dangerously close to that in my own path and so I do kind of hope that we reach places where certain people feel that we fell the fuck off and other people feel like we are actually getting better.

AD: Are there any songs from your album that you won’t play live?

S: Yeah, there are a lot of songs that I’ve retired. The list is too long to go through them. I retire songs once I no longer have an actual connection to them–once I’ve out grown certain phases. There are certain songs that were written during those phases that I just don’t feel belong to me anymore so I just stop performing them.

AD: How do you handle unruly fans?

S: Usually I make them part of the show. Otherwise I have them kicked out. If you are going to come here and possibly distract away from other people enjoying themselves then I’m going to do whatever I can to make an example of you.

AD: Let’s talk about Obama.

S: The main thing about him that makes him important for me is the ideals behind the man. The fact that this person stepped forward to be a candidate and it motivated a lot of people who in the past had been considered a voiceless people–young people, black people, Native American people, poor people–in our society for a long time. Obama motivated these people to use their voice finally and to me that is kind of the ball rolling—that is what we have needed for a long time. If people who are finally using their voice see a success from that then we are looking at the possibility of some of these people continuing to use their voice.

AD: What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given and do you follow it?

S: Yes I do and that is to be honest.

AD: What is your drink of choice?

S: Water.

AD: If you could be a woman for a day what would you do?

S: I guess I’d call every ex-girlfriend I got and apologize.

AD: You can’t do it as a guy?

S: Yeah but I think they would take it a little bit more serious. I think as a guy they would think I was just trying to get laid.

AD: Again.

S: Nice throw in.

AD: We’ve never been to Minneapolis. What would you recommend doing there?

S: The first thing I would recommend is to get a jacket. Other than that, there are a lot of museums that are really good like the Walker Art Center. I would also suggest that you go eat at a breakfast place called Victors—it’s a Cuban breakfast spot. I would suggest that you don’t sleep with anybody because every male in that city is a needy son of a bitch.

AD: Noted.

***

Ireland’s Autamata is sometimes electronica, sometimes rock, sometimes acoustic, and always worth checking out. Fortunately you’ll have a chance to when they come back for SXSW.

AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get started in music?

KEN MCHUGH: I was born into a musical family. I started playing traditional Irish music with 4 of my sisters around the west of Ireland from a very early age.

I then sold my soul to the devil and started playing rock music.

Later I learned how to work a studio and this introduced me to electronic and abstract sounds. I now combine all these things into the Autamata sound.

AD: You wear several hats: Composer, musician, and producer. Do they require different personalities? Which is the most challenging? Which is the easiest?

KM: I guess so. I don’t really think about it too much. I just like making music, sometimes my own as Autamata and sometimes for other people. I just like the whole process of making records. Playing live is the most exciting though as I normally rock it out a lot more and jump around “and stuff”. Making a happy album from scratch locked away in a house in the wilds of Ireland during a bleak winter is probably the most challenging.

AD: Did you have a back up plan or alternative to the “When I grow up” question?

KH: It weird I just knew I was going to be doing this. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I do believe you make your own luck in life.

AD: Tell me about the Autamata sound.

KH: Myself just using various instruments at my studio writing instrumental tracks first made the last three albums. For some of these I write lyrics myself and sing and otherwise I get Carol Keogh or Cathy Davey to come hang out and they write the lyrics and sing. So there are some songs and some instrumentals. I don’t get too caught up in what box Autamata is in and just let each track build naturally into whatever it wants to be. I get some mates in then to replace certain parts on instruments I cant play very well and I mix the tracks.

AD: Tell me about the “revolving door” band. How does it work? What’s it like to team up with different musicians? Is this by choice or circumstance?

KH: Well it all just started with me giving albums I made around to friends and then they started to convince me to release them. I put the first album out and it was well received so people started to ask me to play it live. I then got some of my mates together and we set up an Autamata live band to tour the albums.

I really like the current live band though and reckon I will keep this crew together now for a while. There was no plan really. It has all just grown naturally.

AD: I read about your success with advertising and Hollywood. Were you afraid of that at all? Does it mean anything as a musician to go that route? Is there a fear of losing authenticity?

KH: Well I run my own label and publishing company. It’s a little cottage industry. So if someone rings me up offering me some money to use my tunes in a film or an advert that I am not morally against I say yes. I take it as a compliment that people want to use my music to soundtrack their visuals. It enables me to tour and make more albums. Some bands are against this but they are usually on major record companies and have kind of sold themselves to big corporations anyway.

It gets my music to a wider audience without having some An n’ R guy telling me what socks I should be wearing.

AD: How does the music culture differ in Ireland and the UK in comparison to here?

KH: It pretty similar. There is pop, there is indie and then there is shit!

UK is very haircut driven at the moment. It seems to matter more about what shoes you are wearing than the music with most bands just completely ripping off older bands. Ireland has a really big independent scene where a lot of artists just set up their own labels and release their own albums. The scene is seriously fresh at the moment. After being in Austin though I have to agree that it is the “music capital of the world.” You don’t have bands playing as much in restaurants and Whole Foods stores in Ireland. We don’t have many original Hip hop/RNB acts though.

AD: How was your response been in the states?

KH: Our first gig at the ACL festival was amazing. People seemed to really like our set. Lots of love! We rock it out a lot more live which surprises a lot of people.

We would like to come back lots more and play around the states.

AD: America is…

KH: Hot, friendly, big on breakfast, confident.

AD: Ireland is…

KH: Cold, not as friendly as we think, big on drinking, greener, more clannish and a little easier going.

AD: Tell me about your musical influences.

KH: The Beach boys, Bork, Massive attack, Daft Punk, The Cure, The future sound of London, My bloody Valentine, Kate Bush.

AD: The world seems to be coming to an end these days. Are you creatively affected by that? Is there a sense of responsibility to provide relief; a voice; anything?

KH: Well there is a song we wrote for our first album called “out of this” that is a good soundtrack to the times we are living in and giving hope. It’s up on our myspace page www.myspace.com/autamata.

Otherwise I am writing an album under a different name “spectator” at the moment. It’s all instrumental and a lot darker than most of the autamata stuff so I guess the world-ending syndrome is affecting me a little.

AD: Have you ever experienced a time of “no inspiration”?

KH: Yes. When this happens I just work on other people’s records, make s a video or just do a lot of cooking. If all this fails I just go to the pub.

AD: Do you think it’s possible to run out of material?

KH: Nah, never. There is always new music to root up that will influence me into getting back into the studio and making more of my own tracks. I do believe I will be doing this until I am 90 or something. I doubt I will be promoting albums then but ill be making music just for my kids and hopefully, myself.

AD: Do you consider yourself an optimistic person?

KH: It’s my middle name.

AD: What’s next?

We just recorded a live radio session for 2fm here in Ireland. It’s actually being played on air now as I type. Ill post the tracks on my space for people to hear more what we sound like live. I’m going to finish off this spectator album I spoke about.

Then I plan to get the current autamata live band into the studio and write a killer album together in the studio rather than just by myself as we have a really good energy as a “band”. So maybe Autamata is turning into a band! Always evolving!

We are booking in more gigs and plan to head back to Austin for SXSW.

AD: Anything else?

KH: New album is now available in Waterloo records y’all.

***

Ms. Lavelle in a no-holds-barred interview, in a state of the union address. The union of course, being the Austin music scene. Honored in France with the “Otis Redding” award, This Texas musical treasure has toured and performed all over the world with the musical greats , like Aretha Franklin, the Isley Brothers, James Brown, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Sam Cooke, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and many many more. You can catch her on Dec. 20th at the Palmer Events Center at 9 p.m., and December 26th at Momo’s for Miss Lavelle’s annual Christmas party.

Ms. Lavelle White from Austin Daze Magazine on Vimeo.

Movin’ Target–UnPegged–This album moves from genre to genre going from a four to a eight piece band effortlessly. Blending keyboards, midi-guitar, harmonica, lots of percussion and vocal harmonies with a a sax or fiddle thrown in for good measure. The album definitely straddles a line between Americana and more traditional country. keeping the sounds fresh. The group is unique in that four of the band members sing lead vocals. It’s good Texas country/Americana keeping boots tapping. 4.0 McRiprock’s. Read the rest of this entry »

WE CAUGHT UP WITH 2 MEMBERS RECENTLY. DID YOU  HEAR ABOUT THE GRAMMY NOMINATION?

Grupo Fantasma at Fun Fun Fun Fest from AMFM STUDIOS LLC on Vimeo.

A conversation with the clever indietronica dance band who won a spot at Coachella 2006 after a fan entered them in a Myspace contest. The rest is history.

The Octopus Project from AMFM STUDIOS LLC on Vimeo.

As the weather gets colder, the music gets louder. Dud’s got a sweater and I’ve got a few koozies for the cans. 1: drinkable-6: lost track and tastes good.

Amanda Mora–The Ribbon–Mora’s debut album is a nice blend of acoustic pop and cafe jazz with it’s feet firmly planted in folk territory. Her voice is soothing and stirring without being intrusive or abrasive. Released in October, at 25 years old she produces an album that’s mature and complex with its vision and its songwriting/singing skill. Flavored with all things jazzy, folksy and including the beauty of a voice that sings with ease, Mora’s album is an interesting mix that makes for a nice change of pace. 5.0 McRiprock’s Read the rest of this entry »