Flanfire

Natalie Zoe had quite a night at Antone’s at a benefit to raise money to help with the costs of her hip replacement surgery (details are gruesome).  Players included her own band CandiLand (featuring Candy Sanders on vocals and keyboards), her daughter Sasha’s band (Blues Mafia), her old roommate Malford Milligan with John Gaar and the Hopeful Souls (that John Gaar is an awesome, yet humble, guitarist!), and the likes of LZ Love, Sarah Fox (with Joel Guzman), and much more.   [Check out the "divas" videos over at our Youtube site.]   Natalie has long been a good songwriter, and a pretty good singer herself, but with the powerful Ms. Sanders aboard, she is willing to take a back seat and let the sistah deliver!

But that is the way Natalie Zoe has always been (on stage, for sure) — supportive of the creative, the artistic, the energy of those around her.   For years, just about every month or so Natalie would be introducing some new to Austin musician and having him or her play a couple of shows with her … and then came the day she (and Sasha) volunteered to put on a benefit to raise funds for the Flanfire family during a time of crisis and illness.   Here’s hoping she will soon be able to scrap the cane and dance like she usta.  One thing fo sho — she can still bring the funk!  [Gaar, Zoe, Milligan below.]

Okay — my photos suck.  But here on the left are Forest Sun and Ingrid (like I can spell Swedish names).  And who is this Forest Sun dude?  Well, he served as priest at the wedding of Noelle Hampton and Andre Moran back in their Mill Valley days.  The singer-songwriter and healthy living guru was in town a couple of weeks back to host another in the “Songs for Laura” series — named in honor of his late mother, singer Laura Purusha, who lost her fight with cancer.   Forest is working on the third compilation of songs donated by friends who are songwriters, and proceeds from these concerts and the albums themeslves go to fund cancer treatment.  The 19-song Volume One alone has cuts from the likes of AJ Roach, Brett Dennen, Matt the Electrician, Libby Kirkpatrick, and Danny Schmidt, while the 22-song Volume 2 includes cuts from Carrie Elkin, Noelle Hampton, and many many more.  We were blessed to get out to the Wyldwood Concert series for THIS version of Songs for Laura.

The young woman in the middle is Miranda Dodson — and from what I heard of her set at Momo’s Club, I want to hear more.  Then on the right we have one of my personal favorites, Patrick Conway and the Lost and Nameless Orchestra out at Central Market (my favorite outdoor venue in town of course — see “Flanfire Favorites” and you will know why.]  Also in this band are Chris Petersen (fiddle, shown here) and my great friend Harmoni Kelley and a host of others.  At this show Patrick’s four? year old daughter hardly had to work to steal the show just as she had long ago stolen his heart.

Stay tuned for more — but the technology is being finicky so we are splitting this up.