Alejandro City Limits - E Swanson

     When Alejandro’s new record Street Songs of Love drops in late June, expect lots of “each album keeps getting better than the last” reviews. Al and his band previewed a batch of the new material during his Austin City Limits taping last night. Opening up with Real Animal‘s “Always A Friend”, the set was flat out rocking with a few lush ballads thrown in. Like performers of all ACL tapings, Escovedo’s sound benefited from the studio’s superb acoustics. The ACL studio sound is Read the rest of this entry »

reposted from    examiner.com

There is much to be thankful for after day one of Austin City Limits 2009 edition. The Spring-like weather made outdoors at  ACL a pleasureable experience as opposed to previous years oppression. Some great performances were turned in by Medeski Martin and Wood, The Knux, Them Crooked Vultures, Kings of Leon and special guest, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.

Medeski Martin and Wood actually played two sets on Friday. The first was part of the breakfast time, KGSR Live series held at Threadgills downtown during the festival. The short time format was not ideal for MMW as they tend improvise and play longer songs. The music was spectacular though, with John Medeski leading tight-knit threesome through two rollicking, jamming songs.If fans were not already awake with excitement at the first day of ACL, they were after MMW’s set. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Thursday and I’m just getting around to wrapping up my ACL experience (the NY Times only put theirs out yesterday so I’m thinking I’m not the only one that needed some time to recover). “Wrap up” means “highlights” which means whipping out the trusty old “category sections” (it’s all particularly effective for a writer whose brain is still functioning at half-mast). Here we go:

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[fa:p:id=1067583450,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: What drew you to music? Was it your first choice for a career?

ZAP MAMA: My first choice as a teenager was to become an Olympic champion. Music was the second love for me because it was so deep inside. I never thought it was possible to get money for this profession, especially with the training that I had. But when I did a trip to Africa it made me realize who the African woman is, who my mother was, and who I could be. I found a part of myself. I realized in Africa there is a huge culture of music that should be known in the western world. That’s when I really started to have a new view of music. And then I discovered all the new vocal techniques and harmony and new rhythms. You can’t really explain what that is—especially the oral tradition. It has a lot of spirituality and soul that is passed along only from mother to mother or family to family from generation to generation. All this helped me to put together a music group. I put together an acappela group of four other singers to talk about all these sounds and this culture. That was 17 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1066713593,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: Where does the name Ghostland Observatory come from?

GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY: When National Geographic would come out with new telescope pictures of space I would always cut out pictures and tape them all over the room. Around the same time we were working on music for a play by August Strindberg called Ghost Sonata. With all that mixed in, one day I was at my former job in the bathroom and it just came into my head. I wasn’t even thinking about the band—it just came to me. So I ran back out of my bathroom stall and told my coworkers and they thought it was awesome. There is a guy at work who I would always bounce things off of. He’s an older gentleman who grew up in the 60s and he would tell me if something was stupid, and he thought it was pretty awesome. So I was like, “This is banging, let’s stick with this.” It was an astrological dumping in my mind. Read the rest of this entry »

Chances are you have been to a show this guy has put on. Amidst an office full of vinyls, we had a good conversation with the man behind the music at ACL, Stubb’s and more. Get to know Charles Attal with us.interview By Russ and Wendy

AD: I thought you were different.

CA: Oh, yeah? You thought I was like an old fogy? People come in and they are like, I thought you were like 55! I’m like, no; I’m still in my thirties.

AD: Are you from Austin? Read the rest of this entry »