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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Austin

Posted by david_o at 8:17 AM

So my wife and I had to go to Austin – for a conference being thrown by an Indian company that I do work with. The last time I was in Austin was in the very early 80’s. It was a great town then. I’d heard that it had been ruined by the technology boom. That the traffic was awful. That it had lost its charm. That’s all partly true. We arrived on Saturday morning and thought we’d check out the town before the conference started on Sunday. The first thing I noticed is that it’s grown. It’s grown a lot. It was a small town when I was last there. It’s still a town – not a city in my mind (LA is a city, NY is a city). The most noticeable things were – that the town is split, south and north of the river. The south end (SoCo) is pretty cool, more like Austin used to be. The north end is modern, canyon like, and pretty soulless – except, of course, 6th and 4th Street and the area past the State house, when you get into the University campus area – which has also changed. Just how many Chase banks do you need near a college campus? Also it was obvious that the houses that students would rent – and typically trash – had for the most part gone. To be replaced by generic apartment buildings. The other thing you really notice in Austin – compared to the past – is the lack of record stores. These used to be the place to hang in town. Now they’re all gone. What seems to have replaced them is a huge – and I mean huge – number of bars. More than any other place I’ve been. And each has some kind of music playing.


So we wandered around the south side, into this groovy little art gallery (after eating barbequed wheat stuff over Fritos – don’t ask). Turns out to be a major surprise from a number of aspects. The first thing we noticed was a bunch of Jon Langford art work on the wall – the same artwork that was heavily featured at the Marty Stuart Sparkle and Twang show – and which I must say I’m kind of partial too. The second thing was that there was some noise coming from the back of the store. Turns out there was a celebration of Bloodshot records anniversary – or some such thing - going on with some of their artists. Exene Cervenka as playing as we came in – doing, what has to be said a pretty awful version of You are my Sunshine. It wasn’t packed but it was busy. The next thing we noticed was Ian Mclagan standing at the back of the “garden”. Wild. He was tiny (hence the “Small” Faces moniker I guess), he still had the hair (how come all the Faces still have good hair? Looked real too. The next thing was that they were giving away free beer (Rolling Rock – not bad). If this had been NYC the place would have been packed to the gills but in Austin it seemed like a normal occurrence. No big deal. Noone overdoing it. No mad rush. Wow. What a town.

Then the problems started. Turns out it was football day – University of Texas vs. Texas Tech. I’d wondered why there were a bunch of guys in orange T-Shirts on the plane. I don’t know much about American Football. At least English football (soccer to you guys) isn’t so family oriented. Sure kids go but not three or four generations. It’s all so wholesome – and jocky. Not my idea of fun I have to say. Anyway Austin was basically done – there were 100,000 people out for a great time – and we hadn’t thought to get tickets for Joe Ely or Jeaneane Garafolo so we went to an Irish bar and drank 250th year anniversary Guinness (it’s not the same actually).

Next day we’re off to the corporate world. I’d come because I had to speak at this conference – but also because the entertainment was Los Lobos. I will go to my grave laughing about the memory of a couple of hundred Indians shouting out for La Bamba – the only reference they (and to be honest, almost all, of the audience) had of the band. They put on a great show. Although it took them a while to read the audience. They seemed to be doing OK playing some pretty Mexican stuff and some Buddy Holly. I think I threw them when I shouted out for “Dear Mr Fantasy” (I’ve heard bootlegs of them doing this before). David Hidalgo looked at me and asked “are serious?”. Of course I said and off they went. We were on a hillside (a pretty step hillside, on the banks of the Colorado River and it felt like a private performance for the front row (who were just 10 feet from the band). They ended up playing for about an hour and a half – doing I Feel Fine, Donna, Good Loving, and anything else they could think of – and they did La Bamba (or was it La Bombay) at least three times – to rapturous applause ever time. You just can’t make this stuff up. Unbelievable time. David Hidalgo came out after the show for a drink and we chatted – about The Grease band, his love for Henry McCullough and Heads, Hand and Feet actually. Really nice guy. Then this very pretty blonde came over to join us. I can’t possibly try to compete with that – so we went to bed.

Next day we left Austin and went to the airport. Where we were greeted by Ray Benson’s (the erstwhile Asleep At The Wheel leader) Roadhouse – with, of course, a country band playing Gram Parsons (they sort of murdered his stuff actually – there’s a lot of great musicians in Austin but some of them are really reaching and don’t quite make it). We made our flight to LA – and I was reading the local free paper (I always do that in every town) and saw that Ian McLagen was playing the night we left unfortunately – at a Whole Foods! What a town.

 

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