Just about now, every year, when we are amidst of our 2nd or 3rd cold blast, I start to get the itch. Got my early bitd tickets to Old Settlers Music Festival. But that doesn’t suffice. I need that “Old-Timey Sound.”  Bluegrass and nothing else will do.  Essentially this is the DEL MCCOURY BAND WITHOUT DEL. On stage are: Ron McCoury on mandolin, Rob McCoury on banjo, Jason Carter on fiddle, and Alan Bartram on bass , with featured guests on guitar and vocals, is the latest incarnation of the most awarded band in the history of bluegrass -The Del McCoury Band. “Known for their individual prowess on their instruments and their rapidly expanding reputation as collaborators with the members of numerous musical icons from Vince Gill to the Allman Brothers, The Lee Boys and Phish, this touring unit blends the best of the Appalachian tradition with the improvisational magic of jazz. Unique live collaborations are the hallmark of their performances, and demonstrates why people across the country hail them as the best bluegrass band in the world.”  I have seen these boys play many times with and without Del and am  always blown away by  the McCourys generational representation on stage.The McCourys name will surely live on in music for years. Seeing this gig at One World was awesome, up close and intimate.. Only problem; nobody  was dancing until I  closed my eyes.
(THANK YOU K.F. FOR  THE PICTURES.)

Flatcar Rattlers–Which side Are You On?: A rowdy bluegrass band with a touch of Grime mixes up rootsy, backwoods Appalachia with fast punk rock to create a sound all their own. With six members form six states, they eventually made the journey to Austin and became ranked as one of the top ten Best New Bands and Best Bluegrass Banks per the Austin Chronicle’s 2008-2009 Music Poll. They released their first studio album on 11/28 at the Scoot Inn with appearances including the Lonesome Heroes, American Graveyard and The Bread. The Rattlers take hold of the listener and stick them on a ride that blows right off the tracks. 6.0 McRiprock’s. www.myspace.com/FlatCarRattlers.
Dertybird--Pure Analog: Cultivating thier mix of Muscle Shoals Soul and Hill Country/Swamp Blues into a new blend of Southern Vinyl Rock. The release of this album is a fresh starting point for the band, after releasing a self-titled EP and a regional tour. The album allows for a stronger foothold and step forward to building thier fan base. Dertybird is Clayton Colvin and JT Holt. They fuse Clayton’s soulful, honest MuscleShoals influence with JT’s raw, gut-bucket guitar riffs. Trademarked by solid, gutsy vocals with tight arrangments and a tasteful Southern Rock sound with searing slide guitar they began to march their way to branding themselves in markets throughout the South. The alubm was recorded to a 2″ tape and mixed live at NestRecording in South Austin. They hoped to give the listener an “in the room” sound and experience so the bass, drums and rhythm guitar were cut live in one session. The most radio-friendly tune on the album is “People Change,” however other tracks have impressive hooks and arrangements. Read the rest of this entry »

David Bates - The Deluge II

David Bates since 1982: From the Everyday to the Epic

 David Bates, a Texan by birth and still a Texan by choice, makes art. In a way, Bates’ art is like the city of New Orleans: both can mean different things to different people. You may find it modern, yet others like the folksy charm, some enjoy its natural beauty, while others are drawn to its human emotions. Bates’ art is shown in New Orleans a lot, so much that I assumed he was from Louisiana at first. For New Orleans, a place rich in local culture, to welcome a foreigner like Bates into their museums and galleries speaks highly of the man’s work. Accolades also come from his home state, as seen in the Austin Museum of Art’s exhibition David Bates Since 1982: From the Everyday to the Epic. AMOA’s downtown gallery is filled with the different sides of Bates: folk art renderings of musicians, landscapes of nature preserves, still life magnolia blossoms, and cubist forms of cigarettes and Corona bottles. Bates’ brushstrokes have a signature style, and the same unique angular lines he puts down on canvas show up in his sculptures. In The Woodsman, Bates paints a life-size five-foot tall woodpile, no two logs alike, each one painted with subtle differences in color and pattern. The relationship between Bates and New Orleans comes as no surprise; the city is a famous haven for roots music, and Bates exalts this music on canvas via the imagery of musicians Clifton Chenier and Lightning Hopkins. People are the soul of any city, and Bates’ work shows a connection with the people of New Orleans. In the Katrina aftermath, Bates painted flooded landscapes and the faces of the citizens deluged by the federal levee failure. This recent Katrina series is worth seeking out. The AMOA exhibition is a sure bet, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans has Bates on view in their permanent collection. The Ogden features The Storm, a series of three large panels, each one filled with a dozen life-size faces of flood survivors.

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Jesus, what a waste of time. I was actually giving the bird to the screen, midway through. It started off pretty cool but it soon became a rehash of   revenge pictures. Where are the original ideas?  Along the same lines and well done was a film called “TAKEN.”  Save your money and time and skip this. Mel was sleepwalking through this. Some folks actually applauded when the credits rolled. I was grateful also.  The talent and money wasted could have done better.  Maybe I’m harsh, my friend that was there didn’t feel negative about it. Maybe I missed something? Ray Winstone was awesome and saves what he can of the film.  As it stands, the story was a rehash and poorly executed. I just did not give a toss……………………. I’m owed a few hours of my life back.

Imagine, if you will, my sheer unbridled glee at being handed this assignment, to catch a new Werner Herzog movie! Me and Werner go way back, beginning with Fitzcarraldo. Here is a man who picks highly explosive, Quixotic characters who put themselves and everyone around them through mind bending hell on their quest for their own personal holy grail, and Werner gives them free rein to eviscerate themselves for our entertainment. Werner is not everyone’s cup o‘ tea, mind you, but I dig his aesthetic largely.
Now, imagine, if you will, how dumbfounded I became when I’m walking into the theater and the greeter tells me this is a David Lynch production! I could barely contain my enthusiasm… Finally, I am going to be challenged by the celluloid, rather than being slapped in the face with a dead rotting fish and insulted, like I was by the last attempts of both Eastwood and Jackson, of which I covered both for the Daze. After those two miserable excuses for film making I needed this like a junkie with a pocketful of money knocking on the door of his reputable and reliable dealer.
This film, a crime drama, stars Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Michael Shannon, Grace Zabriskie and Udo Keir (with a great cameo by Brad Dourif), and is based on a true story, but between the capable folk in charge here we get something quite surreal in the process that never sacrifices or sullies the ongoing narrative. A brilliant mix of style and composition, the marriage of these two auteurs is awesome to behold. I was transfixed from start to finish, wondering just what in the hell was gonna happen next, satisfied as well as bewildered at every crook and turn.
The musical score, by Ernst Reijseger, is not to be believed. It seemingly never stops the entire film, lending an already phantasmagorical set of scenes a twist of nonsense and raw emotion that keeps the deadpan delivery of this movie percolating right along. Brilliant choice, this.
Warning: THIS MOVIE ISN’T FOR EVERYONE!!!
Art lovers, however, will rejoice!
Finally, a movie that is well worthy of an investment in time. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and I’m sure will continue to do so for the next few days, too; a true mark of a movie well done.
What can I say, but by all means…
Thank you Herr Lynch and Herzog. A collaboration that lives up to your hype.

THIS WAS SUCH A COLD NIGHT OUTSIDE. ROCKSLIDE AND I BRAVED THE ELEMENTS FOR THE AUSTIN DAZE. ON THE WAY HOME  THAT NIGHT, I SAW 2 POLAR BEARS ON THE SOUTH CONGRESS BRIDGE!  REALLY!

The movie began well enough, a seemingly complimentary pairing of the suspense thriller genre with a fantasy backdrop. I was pulled deeper and deeper into the story, enjoying myself, along for the ride….
Then suddenly, without warning, or buildup, or anything resembling plausibility, the movie takes a horrible turn where the characters come unhinged and commit acts totally out of character, and the film never recovers, only gets worse and worse.
Because of some CGI enhanced transmuted feeling, admittedly vague at best, one character literally stalks another with a baseball bat down the middle class streets, at night!!, pursing the other character into a cornfield where all goes bad to worse in a most unbelievable way????!!!!! BS! The mother flies the coop, leaving family behind to go work with itinerant strawberry pickers somewhere far far away. ????!!!!! BS!! We are given no buildup of how or why for these sudden twists of character, who until now, were distraught, but normal, together, middle class folks.
One of the family does keep it together and she manages to uncover the source of the families woes, duly reports it to her family… and nothing happens… Nothing.
Some more inane story crap ensues, enhanced by CGI that is a horrible device for storytelling.
Then, apparently after much time passes, the bad character is still up to his nastiness, but lures his bait to another person in the most unbelievable of settings and circumstances, and then courtesy of CGI magic, something resembling justice occurs. … Gimme a break.
Then, it ends. Mercifully.
Susan Sarandon is the only believable character here. But her role doesn’t a movie make.
Yet another note to Hollywood… Take the money you guys are spending on CGI and HIRE A DECENT WRITER!!! Don’t try and lull us and dazzle us with your dream worlds when you haven’t a clue how to move us with a believable and compelling story.
Don’t bother with this one, readers. A total mess. A waste of two hours of your life. Yuck!
Yo Pete, gain back the weight you lost, maybe that will bring you back to form…
Cruel I know, but I don’t particularly like my time wasted, regardless of whom is the perpetrator. Pete let the bar be lowered, and the buck ultimately stops with him, and for that he should pay. And I guarantee you he will come 2nd week box office receipts. I’m not a betting man, but any takers?

Being a huge fan of the film, “Tender Mercies”, I entered the theater with a knot of trepidation firmly lodged in my stomach. The theater darkened, then this sweet music filled the room, and the inner nervousness melted right away.
First off, I’m also a huge fan of Jeff Bridges. Beginning with “Last Picture Show” and moving right along through “Starman”, “The Big Lewbowski” and others, this actor has steadily applied himself into roles that he made entirely believable. This role as Bad, a country singer/songwriter who’s fallen prey to alcohol and shit gigs just to stay alive, may very well be his masterpiece.
Must also give kudos to Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her character’s pitch was spot on.
This story is believable and does not come away without leaving some bumps and bruises, and is real. I only had one slight problem with some dialogue in one scene concerning some music business that I found non-believable, but still, this small film gives the movie goer everything they emotionally need to leave the theater having had a real life experience from a world they can never inhabit.
And must bring up the music again as this was the swan song of the late T. S. Bruton. The work he’s done here with the esteemed T-Bone Burnet brings the film an honesty, a hard won battle over life and all its iniquities, trials and tribulations, the travails that we all face day to day. Beautifully done. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a new joint on South Lamar that deserves a few words in its favor: Red’s Porch
Imagine, if you will, a restaurant that is equal parts Z Tejas, Threadgills, with a bit of Torchy’s Tacos thrown in for good measure. And most everything on the menu for $9.95 or less! A multi-story, extremely spacious joint that overlooks the Barton Springs Greenbelt. Serves a wide selection of beers. Has multiple television for sports viewing. Kitschy 50’s style. Even has a renovated Airstream trailer outside for private parties or alternate seating. All sounds good, right?
Well bottom line for me is the groceries and on this day I was served a smorgasbord of items to get a general feel for taste and vibe. Big thumbs up!! Across the board, the food tastes like you are eating at someone’s home who knows their way around the kitchen. Read the rest of this entry »