Flanfire

Okay, so (a) I have had a long vacation from writing because (b) I was working on my house a lot and (c) I was winning a cooking contest and such things.  Now I am backed up, CD’s stacked high on my desk (and more coming all the time), and LOTS of great shows to comment on.  I will warn that I will be posting SOME comments on my Facebook page (Duggan Flanakin) because that can be quick and easy (I will not say “dirty”).  OK, my other camera broke, too, and I have not yet mastered taking prime time photos on my new one.  But let’s get started.

THE TEXAS SAPPHIRES – As He Wanders

Billy Brent Malkus is a true Southern gentleman, and I fondly recall the startup of a “side project” (that is, away from Nathan Hamilton and No Deal) with old friend Rebecca Lucille Cannon of the punk rocker band Sincola.  The Sapphires (Texas was added because of an old soul band with the same name) went through a bunch of players until one day Brent and Lucy realized they had a headlining act.  The band’s debut CD, “Valley So Steep,” was just killer, and the studio followup, “As He Wanders,” picks up where the debut left off.  The band today is Brent, Rebecca and Slim Bawb Pearce, generally Scotty Matthews, and whoever else shows up. 

The new CD is chock full of “whoever shows up,” including Billy Dee (Donahue) playing bass, Nathan Fleming on pedal steel (often found with Jesse Dayton), Tommy Detamore on dobro, Justin Kolb on upright bass, and the incomparable Dennis Ludiker on fiddle (well, he IS the 2008 and 2009 Texas State Champion).  Fleming shines just about every time he is on a track, starting off with “Nashville Moon,” written by Brent’s Baltimore buddy Arty Hill.  Ludiker’s fiddling is always “ludicrous-ly” good.  Brent, who grew up on a Maryland hog farm, does not have to fake it to be a kicker icon — it’s in his blood!

“190,” the first of many Malkus cuts, features Rebecca on vocals, is another old-time country “standard” (notably because of the style of pedal steel Fleming uses here, and you have to realize the kid is still on the short side of thirty!).  “Riddled Days” is a Malkus standard that features Detamore’s dobro and Slim Bawb on mandolin — this waltz is just good songwriting.  “Stunt Double” gets back to honkytonking — and a great idea for a two-timing man who wants to avoid his woman’s wrath.  Rebecca ( aka Lucy) wrote “Teardrops or Rain,” an old style country ballad light years better than the “songs” Taylor Swift primps through on CMT.  I just LOVE THIS SONG!

It’s back to honkytonking with Brent’s fun song, ”How Did I Get So Sloppy Drunk (When I Was Drinking Neat)?” and back to Rebecca on Brent’s ballad “Make Him Make Me” (yup, she’s singing the harmony parts too).  Another great song with some great instrumental breaks … CLASSIC!  Just play this on every radio station that ever called itself country and the Texas Sapphires will suddenly be on the bigtime rodeo circuit and the Opry on the side. 

Next up is “Baltimore Cage,” which opens with Slim Bawb on mandolin and Dennis on fiddle — this is a song about being in jail.  Another great one to hear live (as I did at the band’s Continental Club CD release party a few weeks back).  Then it’s Slim Bawb’s “Farmers Tan,” a song that also appears on Pearce’s own CD (reviewed here earlier) — one that tests the ability of the human ear to keep up with (super?)human fingers.  Back to Rebecca on vocals on “Spirits,” and then “Freiheit Rag,” with Brent and Slim Bawb picking and Justin Kolb thumping away, before you get to “Pure Land,” the destination of choice.  This song cries out against littering, potholes, and other evidences of human debris that show our failure to appreciate the gifts we have been given by the Great Spirit.  This is a gospel song much moreso than “Bring Out the Bible (We Ain’t Got a Prayer)” from “Valley So Steep.”

The Sapphires are on tour in Colorado and New Mexico until March 18th, when they play a SXSW party at the Whip In (and play again at Roadhouse Rags on the 21st of March).  These guys (and gal) are the real deal!

HANK & SHAIDRI ALRICH with DOUG HARMAN — Carry Me Home

Hank Alrich is an Austin legend if for nothing less than his service managing the original Armadillo (taking over from longtime buddy Eddie Wilson), even though he left town decades ago and moved to California where he raised a passel of daughters and son.  The Austin American-Statesman quotes Wilson as saying that, “Hank is a hero.  If not for Hank, the Armadillo would have been closed in two years instead of open for 10.”

Just one of Hank’s many daughters is the quiet Shaidri, whose talent is just off the chart.   Doug Harman makes it a trio on cello.  I will defer all of the GOOD details about Hank and Shaidri to my pal John Conquest — you should really read HIS review of this delightful recording at Third Coast Music.  This is old timey music … I can only say I am grateful to get to hear Shaidri when her dad comes to town and that I am still hopeful that she will get out more (or that Hank will just start playing a LOT more shows here), because her voice (and her fiddle and guitar playing) takes you back to a simpler, sweeter time — even when she is singing the sad ballad, “The Death of Ellenton,” about a town “that’s gone forevermore.”  Conquest reminds us that Shaidri was winning fiddle contests at age 6 and that “she glows in the dark.”  I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!  The trio cover songs from Utah Phillips, Peter Rowan, and others but include four Hank Alrich originals, including “Austin City Limits,” which opens the CD.  You get a taste of Shaidri’s Celtic music prowess on “Blarney’s Ghost Medley,” six minutes of pure joy.  Hank’s vocals shine on ”If I Don’t Get You” and Shaidri’s glisten on “Carry Me Home,” just two of the many songs Hank has written over the years.  This stuff is Carter Family good — and Shaidri joyously is beginning to get out more into the Austin music community, a light destined to shine VERY brightly over our city.

Now Hank is promoting a second valuable release — In this, the 40th Birthday year of Armadillo World Headquarters, Armadillo Records will release Taking Turns, a song swap from Austin artists, musicians, engineers and studios. It has always been Armadillo’s mission to present a wide range of quality talents, musicians and styles to satisfy and provoke the adventurous and discriminating tastes of our audiences.  Leading off this new CD is (who else?) Shaidri Alrich, but the CD also includes songs from Beto y los Fairlanes, Denim, Michael Durbin, Tommy Elskes, Greezy Wheels, Lindsay Haisley, Mady Kaye, Maryann Price, Shake Russell, Craig Toungate, and Elizabeth Wills.  Fans of old-time Austin music will line up to get this jewel.

It seems that just about every day (or night) I run into yet another musician (like Brett Randell or Colin de los Santos) or music lover who has just moved to Austin to add to our city’s chorus of song.  Maybe that’s why just about every week I also get out to a brand-new (at least to me) bar, restaurant, and/or music venue — for example, Lustre Pearl (behind IHOP at IH-35 and Cesar Chavez) or Quoffer’s out in Elgin, where I recently caught up with Slim Bawb and Gator Bait (northern California music veterans who moved here a few years back).  I could also write volumes (if I ever had time) about emerging bands in Austin (like The Canvas Waiting or Bus to Brooklyn) who are playing good music.

But this column will begin by talking about the band whose members I knew long before I ever got to hear them play together as a band — I have no idea why it took so long for me to get to a porterdavis show, but I will see this amazing trio any time I can. 

PORTERDAVIS – THAT’S SIMON WALLACE, DANIEL BARRETT,AND MIKE MEADOWS (l-r)

You have to feel for Daniel Barrett.  I mean, bandmate Simon Wallace wins the Austin Music Award for best miscellaneous instrument (harmonica, in his case), and bandmate Mike Meadows wins the Austin Music Award hands down for best drummer/percussionist.  Meanwhile Daniel comes in sixth for best electric guitarist — and yet he plays acoustic guitar (and some electric slide) in porterdavis.  An all-star lineup may not always generate great music, but this band grabs at you when you hear them live, and their debut studio album (can this really be?) of music (simply titled porterdavis) is just as captivating.  [There was this "Live at Eddie's Attic" (that's in Atlanta) disc the lads used to tote around, I am told.]

It is not exactly a secret that the band’s name originates in Boston, where Daniel and Mike busked at Porter Square and Davis Square subway stations (according to the band bio), or that the lads have been in Austin since 2004 (where they found this Brit who played Chicago style blues harp).  FIVE years later Ray Wylie Hubbard gets the trio into the studio with the legendary Gurf Morlix, and at long last there is portable porterdavis for the IPOD or the late night spin using older technology (appropriate, given that this recording was done without ProTools).

Stunning!  Beautiful songs!  Yada Yada.  How do you describe this music?  I like what blogger KellieDeAnn in Louisiana said: “Their music can be classified as rootsy blues rock something or ‘nother…or just simply – good stuff!”  As Kellie DeAnn says, Meadows “can make so many differents sounds and keep various beats and rhythms going at the same time…it truly is amazing! Something you have to see to really appreciate. Now he has developed a fancier version of his instrument – the Black Swan Drum – but back then I used to tell folks, ‘He sits on and plays a wooden box!’”

Well, an acoustic guitar is also sort of a wooden box, and Daniel Barrett has darn good skills and writes (sometimes with his bandmates) some darn good songs.  Even so, two of the best songs here are from longtime friends. Atlanta native Brian Webb moved to Boston and busked at the same subway stations as Dan and Mike, and his “Strange Way to Grieve” is but one of his many powerful songs — and, oh yeah, he just might be the guy who turned our lads onto Eddie’s Attic.   “Heaven help me when I think I’m not enough, heaven help me when I think I am,” Webb wrote, and who has not felt both inadequate and overconfident at the same time?  The punch in this number is Wallace’s bouncy solo.

But my clear favorite here is “Grass (Growing Through Concrete),” from Bill Davis (aka William U. Davis or Bill Davis of Underwood), whom you may find on a Tuesday night at Trophy’s helping run the open mike.  If Austinites celebrate the songs of the late Blaze Foley, they ought to recognize in this great rendering of just one of many powerful songs from this UT grad who calls himself “positively unemployed.”  “It’s been different since you left me, some sucker stole them shackles from my feet, left me stronger than when you found me, now I feel like grass growing through concrete….”

Which is not to say that Barrett’s songs are weak — “Carter’s Tune,” which features Eliza Gilkyson on harmony vocals, sings of a wanderer who “found a home,” where he “sang my sadness, sang my love.”  But he is “never going home, tell my mama I love her so …. sometimes a man gotta make the world his own.”  When Barrett sings about reaching Baton Rouge driving down Highway 61, he notes that this is the “Old Man River of which the Gospel spoke” — and having lived there for eight years, and driven up and down Highway 61, I feel a special kinship to this delta blues influenced ballad.

But then again, there is “That Way,” which Daniel co-wrote with my pal Kevin Carroll – and this, too, is a tender love song that reaches deep inside.  “Smack You Back,” “Hey Now Jack,” and other cuts step up the beat and get you grooving as sometimes live the trio extends a number without ever sounding like a jam band.  Fittingly, the record ends with a Muddy Waters song, “Can’t Be Satisfied.”

SLIM BAWB – Hillbilly Fellini

Slim Bawb (Bob Pearce on national steel, mandolin, banjo, bass, and sometimes pedal steel and who knows what all else) and Gator Bait (James Curry, who once played with Blue Cheer, on drums) are still members of the Bay Area (that’s California) band the Beer Dogs (they play at least one show a year to roaring crowds).  But the gold in California has turned to pyrite, and so our adventurous duo wagon trained to Austin a few years back.  Bob plays often with the Texas Sapphires, and Rebecca Lucille Cannon and Justin Kolb both lend their talents to “Hillbilly Fellini,” which opens the disc with Bawb on banjo (I would swear this is a song about the Beer Dogs):  “First they play a two-step, then they play a Cajun waltz … if you don’t dance, it’s your own fault.”  And, yeah, Bawb plays banjo!

Slim Bawb’s gruff voice sounds like another instrument when he sings and plays live — as I saw the duo out in Elgin the other night.  These guys are seasoned musicians (grizzled and travel-worn) who are a lot of fun and have a lot to sing about.  With so many weapons at his disposal, Slim Bawb can make the twosome sound like Scott H. Biram sometimes and like Tom Waits at others.

Musicians on this record include Bastrop’s Tres Womack (Slim Bawb does live in Cedar Creek), Charlie Irwin, fiddler Josh Drogemueller, Perry Rowe, Kat Kairns, Bo Ely, Dave Moats, Ron Sherrod, Steve Stizzo, and Flaco Jimenez on “Barcelona Rain.”  The record is strewn through and through with Cajun music (”Louisiana,” notably — and quite a story can be found in this song), even though Bob has never lived there or even (so he says) played a Slim Bawb show in the Bayou State.

“Sophistikuts” is another song about a music venue, “a small town place” where “you can drink and you can cuss and you can know who you can really trust.”  Sounds like Sam’s Town Point, a joint that this band ought to KILL in.  “Black Jack Road” gets busy with the pedal steel and dobro — and Gator Bait’s percussive drumming (never overpowers, just keeps the beat interesting).  One of my favorites here is “Bourbon Cowboy,” even though I only drink Irish whiskey (and that for medicinal purposes).  Beer lovers get “I Need a Beer,” “No Bar Too Far,” and really the whole record.  This is danceable music, drinking music, and music to laugh and tell tall tales with your friends to.  As the boys close the bar, the final song of the night (choose your partner and hold her close) is a rendition of “Georgia on My Mind” heavily laden with Bawb’s dobro.  One final note — Bawb says that Rebecca Lucille is back with the Texas Sapphires after a “brief” leave of absence (girls just gotta have fun).  And that, too, is very good news.      

STEVE BERNAL – Decibels

I just realized I had not yet written about this other recording I have had around for a few weeks — by cello virtuoso Steve Bernal (whom I well remember holding a Scoot Inn audience gaspingly quiet one evening as he played solo).  Darwin Smith produced with Steve, with the recordings done in summer 2008 — but you may not have seen Steve perform this music or even the CD itself.  But given the number of cellists now finding work in town, and the even larger number of fans of this wonderful instrument (Steve also plays bass here), I just had to write something for all of you.

One highlight is a 19-minute piece, “Dreams and Concrete,” written with Loren Dent, which was commissioned by First Night Austin 2008 — for solo cello, electric guitar, computer and drum set.  Another is the “suite for solo cello and subsonic continuo” which Steve wrote to accompany the art of Michael Wutz.  A third set, “Pluto: Requiem for an Icy World,” was written by William Meadows and recorded at Real & Imaginary Music Studios.  The piece I most want to hear live, though, is Bernal’s “Hidden,” for three cellos and bass, which opens this recording.  Steve as been playing some shows with Aimee Bobruk, but will showcase his own music for solo cello and electronics at Flipnotics on November 12th (at 8 pm).  Lovers of the cello and just good music would be wise to attend.