“Rock and Roll will live forever-but can it float?”
If writer/director Richard Curtis has anything to say about it, the answer is a bursting, “Yes!” evidenced by his latest film, Pirate Radio. It’s an unapologetically uplifting comedy about a group of 1960s rogue deejays determined to deliver forbidden music to 25 million people. Listen to some of the last broadcasts of the ships for which the story was inspired and you might come to a different conclusion. Early critics of the film accuse it of being a “too sugary” and “too sweet” account of an event that in the words of Robert Daltrey of The Who, people were “a lot more pissed off” about. To say that Curtis delivers a staunchly sunnier version of the events than many remember it is an understatement. But sitting down with Curtis last week in New York I came to understand why it couldn’t possibly have been any other way.
I am out at Rice Fest in Fischer, TX this week. It’s an annual pilgrimage for me. The event spotlights Americana music with a bent for songwriters and bluegrass–this year’s line up includes Kevin Welch, the Band of Heathens, Darrell Scott, and the Hudsons..
Watched Hays County Burn Band last night. Billy Bright on mandolin, Matt Downing on banjo, Tom Ellis on bass, Elliot Rogers on guitar, and Mike Montgomery on fiddle. Everybody sings. They play into one mike, and it is magic to watch them weave in and out, so someone can come forward to sing or solo.
I was glad to be out in Fischer, but I was disappointed I had to miss Split Lip Rayfield’s show at the Continental. To atone for my inability to be in two places at one time, I met up with Jeff Eaton, Eric Mardis and Wayne Gottstine at 8:00 am this morning to talk for a few minutes and get some pics. SLR drove 12 hours yesterday to get to the Continental Club, and were up early to drive 8 hours up to Oklahoma for another gig tonight. They stayed at a hotel at South First and Barton Springs. In the early seventies the property along the south bank of Bouldin Creek was the dirt driveway providing access back to the Armadillo World Headquarters. Seemed appropriate, somehow, to be standing there talking to musicians. Read the rest of this entry »
Are you looking for something sexy AND entertaining? Well you’re in luck! The 2nd Annual Texas Burlesque Festival is being held tonight and the 16th at Emo’s (603 Red River). The festival is described on the website as a “two-day hoedown and showdown celebrating the raucous revival of Texas burlesque and vaudeville”. There are at least 50 different performers from around the nation coming to our dear old Austin to entertain you. Austin Daze was able to sneak a few moments with two stars from Chicago who will be performing at the festival on Saturday.
Natasha Minsk is model, burlesque dancer, and vintage clothing entrepreneur. She’ll be dazzling you with her performance Saturday night but first she’ll be answering some of our questions.
Lee Leffingwell is a City Council member dedicated to Austin.Austin Daze got to speak with the mayoral candidate about his popularity with local businesses, public transportation, and what he plans to do to make our fine city even better.
While media outlets were saturated with AIG backlash and increasingly grim developments both here and abroad we were dancing atop the escapism-happy-place-protective clouds of films like “I love You, Man”, “Adventureland” and “Observe and Report”–guaranteed good natured chuckles in the dark without a care in the world. The same could not be said about the documentaries shown this year. Case in point: “New World Order“, a behind the scenes look at an underground movement of people who want to expose “global elitists”, whom they claim are covertly masterminding a series of destructive events to cause a mass breakdown of the world’s economy and socity.
RC:I’m looking forward to eating some good Mexican food and hearing some new music.
AD:You guys have a really unique sound mixing Latin, Rock, and R&B. What inspires this mix in your music?
RC:I think we just have a sense about what works for us. We started out in one place, and we added to it bit by bit, feeling it out as we went. The central thread is the collective personality of the group.
AD:Judging by the message board on your web site it seems like you all have a really personal relationship with your fans. Can you feel the love?
RC:We feel it.And it feels good.
AD:Your latest album “If You Should Ever Fall on Hard Times” has a lot to do with the effect Hurricane Katrina had on your hometown and families. Is this album closer to your heart than previous albums?
RC:You love all your children, just in different ways. This new music is an excellent addition to the Iguanas canon.
AD:Have you all recovered from the storm?
RC:I think we’ve recovered about as much as we are going to any time soon. The easier parts have been done. The rest may take a while.
AD:What’s next for the Iguanas?
RC:If anything, the last few years have proven that you never know what’s around the next corner. One thing I know is we’ll be playing music. Keep an ear out for us.
Nite Jewel is touted as one of SXSW 2009’s Top Ten Acts to Watch. Austin Daze got to have a little chat with the star that’s making recording on an eight-track cassette recorder cool.
Interview by Rosie Gomez.
AUSTIN DAZE: What made you pursue this particular sound?
NITE JEWEL: As a result of being isolated and broke.
Fight Like Apes is a band from Dublin that you need to acquaint yourself with and fast! Austin Daze chatted with lead singer MayKay before they have the chance to rock your socks off at this year’s SXSW.
AUSTIN DAZE: This is your second time playing at SXSW. Anything you want to do this year that you missed out on last year?
FLA: We’re actually only here for 3 days this year which isn’t nearly enough to do as much as we’d like to. I think we should definitely get to see more bands this year. We were very laid back about it all last year & missed loads of great bands but there are loads of bands like Devo & Passion Pit that are playing this time round that we’d be gutted to miss. I also need to eat loads more meat this time. There wasn’t nearly enough meat eaten last time.
WALLIS BIRD: Nope, but friends of mine who are seasoned attendees have been getting onto me for the last few years to come over… so my time has come! I’m very excited about it.
AD: Any particular artists you’re looking forward to seeing at SXSW?
WB: The line up is insane! I’ll be falling in and out of gigs every days, but here’s a few of the artists I want to see:
Andrew Bird
Easy Star All Stars
Lisa Hannigan
Hamell on Trial
The Indigo Girls
Ida Maria
One Day International
Tara Jane O’Neill
Republic of Loose
U Can Unlearn Guitar- just for the name!
AD: I know you’ve been touring all over Ireland, Germany, and the UK for your album “Spoons” with artists like Billy Bragg and Gabrielle. How’s that been going?
WB: It’s cool supporting bands for the things you learn about other productions and standards of professionalism and seeing the backstage to bigger tours, but my heart lies in my own gigs. Be it my solo gigs or with my band. Touring my shows is my purest form of expression. Last year I played over 100 gigs so it seemed like I was existing on the stage only! It’s funny when you play so many gigs, they can all roll into one so It’s important for me to find the time after the touring to reflect on everything that just happened.. Every gig takes a little piece of my life with it because I give so much personally and physically, so I write in my diary, a blog, a song, a poem to remind me.
AD: Any crazy stories from the road?
WB: Ah Man, too many- you’ll have to wait for the book!
AD: You’ve been compared to artists like Ani DeFranco and Janis Joplin. What do you think about that?
WB: I’ve so often been lazily compared to other female artists where the only thing we had in common was a pair of tits, so to be compared to Ani Difranco or Janis Joplin is an honor as they are phenomenal women who have changed the face of music and the industry.
AD: You did a cover of Depeche Mode’s big hit “Just Can’t Get Enough” for an advertisement for The Sun. Did you think that it would be such a big deal?
WB: Not at all, I enjoyed putting my own spin on the song, but to be honest I didn’t expect to get the gig, and all my instruments were in other countries, so the recording was charmingly shabby! The product was, then, a personal compromise for me, but it helped finance the recording of my second album so I find any recognition from it a little hilarious and kept humble on my part!
AD: I read that you received your first guitar at 6 months old from your dad and after an accident you switched from left handed playing to right. Was that a difficult switch?
WB: Not that I recall, I was only a baby. I just remember being annoyed that I couldn’t play the normal way so had to change it around. Babies are more able to adapt to situations like that, they don’t know any different. Adults are often the same though the older you get the harder it sometimes is to pass easily through an adversity like losing fingers or a limb, but having that accident so young definitely shaped me into the determined and stubborn person I am today!
AD: Do you think that it has had a major effect on your sound?
WB: Yes, I think so. I’m playing from the top E string to the low E string so that gives it a different range in tones and timbre. I also realized a few years ago that i have a penchant to a little pain, because after my accident I immediately connected pain with being lavished with love and affection, so when I split my finger or the nail in two because I’m bashing the guitar so hard, I enjoy it because I love my guitar so much and I love what it has given me over the years.
AD: Any more touring planned for the US?
WB: Yeah, I’m definitely hoping to come back to the US as soon as possible
as I’m really excited by the idea of touring in the States….watch this space!
AD: When can we expect a new album?
WB: I’m going to be releasing the album in Europe around the end of the summer, so hopefully an American release will follow before too long. But either way you should be able to get it on Amazon and those kind of sites. Catch Wallis Bird: Saturday, March 21 5:00 p.m, SESAC Day Stage Cafe Austin Convention Center (500 E Cesar Chavez St), Saturday, March 21 12:00 a.m, Habana Calle 6 Patio (709 E 6th St)
We try and keep our interviewees at a distance. Our identities a secret. However, with Jonathan Katz, famously known as the lovable, squiggly psychotherapist on Comedy Central’s Dr. Katz, there was no avoiding it. Before we could say, “The Dr. will see you now” he had turned the tables on his interviewer, and things got personal.
Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir will be playing during SXSW. Check out times and days at www.myspace.com/drewsmithmusic.
Let’s talk SXSW. Are you excited, nervous, over the hype…what are your thoughts?
We have played SXSW before, so I have first hand experience with getting lost in the sea
of bands. The way I look at it is to concentrate on getting a few good day shows to go
along with the showcase, talk about our music as much as we can, and enjoy the fact
that we are in the festival. We’re not looking to come out of this thing famous or
anything. I just want to make a good time of it.
There is a man named Louis Black. Not the comedian…
Nobody ever says to me, “Oh, Louis Black, you’re the editor of the Chronicle.” Never. But what I do get, “Do you know there is a comedian that has your name?” I really hate that. I’m working on this, my comeback, because I’ve gotten nasty a couple of times.
AUSTIN DAZE: How has the economy affected your business?
JODY DENBERG: It’s just brutal. We’ve lost people. People that have worked here for a long time and it has just broken my heart. Advertising is down. People are cutting back on what they are advertising, then they all want ads for much cheaper, than you have to try to run enough ads to cover your budget-from that point of view it’s been brutal. And really, regardless of whether you are a number 1 rated station or a number 12 rated station, it’s just difficult all the way around. Read the rest of this entry »
Fwd: Petition to Obama to Appoint a Secretary of the Arts
“Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this and the country needs the arts–now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.”
Then I received it again. And again after that. By week’s end it appeared in my inbox 7 times. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. The internet was flexing its virile muscle in a way that could not be ignored: community people calling to action a community movement.
Obama, are you listening?
I tracked down the man (there are two, actually) behind this thing and a couple of emails later, the Daze had an interview with Peter Weitzner, a professional musician in New York City. Below is the story of the little petition that could.
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 2nd 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 Bazaarguys 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 ofbeing 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?
“Rock and Roll will live forever-but can it float?”
Are you looking for something sexy AND entertaining? Well you’re in luck! The 2nd Annual Texas Burlesque Festival is being held tonight and the 16th at Emo’s (603 Red River). The festival is described on the website as a “two-day hoedown and showdown celebrating the raucous revival of Texas burlesque and vaudeville”. There are at least 50 different performers from around the nation coming to our dear old Austin to entertain you. Austin Daze was able to sneak a few moments with two stars from Chicago who will be performing at the festival on Saturday. 
Lee Leffingwell is a City Council member dedicated to Austin.
REE PERLMAN: Hi, I’m calling for…
There is a man named Louis Black. Not the comedian…
USTIN DAZE: How has the economy affected your business?
