Flanfire

Lauren Bucherie and Lauren Bruno

Lauren Bucherie and Lauren Bruno are two of the smartest, most productive young women in Austin music — and we are not talking about on-stage performances. Bucherie, along with business partner CJ Vinson, started up The Sessions Music, LLC, in April2009 after meeting up at MediaTech. She is from Vegas, he from New York City — they began hosting shows at the Hideout Theater and people began talking about the atmosphere they were creating. Last summer the pair extended themselves to shows at One World Theatre, and now they are planning a BIG SURPRISE for everybody that they will be putting together during SXSW — something about live performance videos but we are not telling.  CJ is a musician .. I love it that he purports to love Phish while Lauren loves Portishead, or as CJ said last night, any band with a girl singer who also plays lead guitar and screams sometimes.  Oh, yeah — we were being blown away by White Dress, a two-member band featuring guitarist-singer Arum Rae Valkonen
and drummer Grant Van Amburgh.  Next show for them — 11 pm Sunday at the Hole in the Wall (this is a residency). 

And, yes, this was at a $2 Show at the U.S. Art Authority (now being renamed “The Ballroom”).  The place was packed — five bands, lots of artisans, even fire dancers, and the entire event a benefit for The Revival Fund, a new nonprofit which provides temporary financial assistance to Austin area musicians and their families in times of crisis.  [Note to friends -- the beloved Ginger Leigh may be in such a crisis, having just been diagnosed with breast cancer -- send her much love!]  For info about this nonprofit, email info@therevivalfund.org .  Lauren (Bruno) and Clayton have plans for a 20-band extravaganza during SXSW week — details to be found at their Facebook site.

Speaking of Lauren Bruno, she and Clayton met while studying music at Berklee in Boston.  Clayton is the San Antonio superkid who won a Presidential medal for starting a nonprofit venture to repair bicycles and donate them to the disadvantaged — over a thousand now since he started at 10 years old.  [Check out http://claytonsbackyardcrew.com/ for more details.]  Lauren hails from Portland, Oregon, and the pair started the band PolySky and the local $2 Shows long before they began to look more deeply into each other’s eyes.  

$2 Shows, Inc., is a grassroots nonprofit organization  (the parent entity is based in Los Angeles and is quite a story in itself — you can look it up!) that aims to create a renewed purpose for the arts in ordinary people’s lives by collaborating with other local nonprofits. Their aim is to produce affordable concerts and events, on a monthly basis, to help inform and engage the community about the artists and organizations around them.  And boy are they meeting that goal!

Lauren and Clayton began PolySky at Berklee and re-formed the band with new members once they arrived in Austin.  Clayton (who is also an excellent drummer in various bands about town) plays guitar and Lauren is the lead singer (though not the only one) — she is a little pixie on stage with bright eyes that connect with her audience, no matter what their age.  Their joint venture is social entrepreneurship of the highest order — two kids with a dream of fostering a creative, yet giving, environment that emanates joy far beyond the walls or backyards where the performances take place. 

Two Laurens with two creative visions — and two guys (CJ and Clayton) with equally creative visions who were wise enough to work with a Lauren to make great things happen.  Thanks to all four of you for helping make Austin a better community!

Once in a while you still hear the laments about “the good old daze” in Austin and the venues that once were — and people saying that live music here is dying out for whatever reason.  Yet every day it seems I am meeting musicians who just moved to Austin and every week I seem to find another new music venue — and new venues are opening faster than I can check out.  Even better, some of these new venues are some of the best in the city.

Let’s start with an old venue that has taken on new life thanks to the vision and a lot of hard work by partners CJ Vinson and Lauren Bucherie, who started the “Sessions at the Hideout” just a few months ago.  Months earlier, Brian Conway was booking Erin Ivey and special guests for shows at this old theatre in the back of the Hideout coffeehouse at 7th and Congress — that’s when I first learned that this old theatre, which seats maybe a hundred folks (if you add a lot of chairs), could become a fabulous listening room.

Well, CJ and Lauren have turned this musty old room into a warm and friendly gathering place where people come just because the doors are open.  I finally got over to the Sessions to see my friends Justin and Tiffani (who are old friends of CJ’s during their days in Brooklyn) and their duo Justif.  Now I had first met this couple back in February at the impromptu Stonehoney show at Threadgill’s on North Lamar (the day Justin told the lads he would gladly play drums for them and did NOT mention he had quit playing drums for real a decade earlier).  Well, Justin did play with Stonehoney at the Saxon Pub, and that was not his only show with the band.  I did not know at that time that they were singing together (Justin on guitar), but ran into the couple at the Monday night House Wine open mike where everybody who gets on stage is pretty darn good.  And they were too!.  What a joy to catch their set at the Hideout, and then to hang out for the rest of the evening.

Vanessa Peters was up second — I remembered meeting her at a Melissa Mullins showcase at El Mercado years ago, and I had seen her more recently at Momo’s Club.  The bandleader of “Ice Cream on Mondays” has put out two more records since our first encounter (at which I immediately pegged her as a Dallas gal) and is touring (including in Europe) extensively.  Then it was another Brooklyn buddy of CJ — Ted Hefko, a Wisconsin native who spent nine years in the Crescent City before heading north long before Katrina hit town.  I really liked Ted’s music, and that is good as he does get to Austin here and now (sometimes playing sax with CJ’s band), and his songs impressed me quite a bit.  His brand-new record, Egyptland, was recorded partly here in Austin (at Trampa Studios under the direction of Adam Ahrens).  Indeed, Ted gives kudos to my friend Rose Reyes “for opening up the Austin music scene to me.”  Last but hardly least on this night’s bill was Jess Klein — in town for a short while before hitting the road again with her brand new CD, Bound to Love.

The next “Sessions” event will be November 5th — with Aimee Bobruk (fresh from her sister’s wedding), The Blue Hit (love that Grace Rowland), Jason Poe (of the band Jets Under Fire), and Bethany Solonika (maybe on autoharp and vocals).  Judging by the talented friends who have already played the Sessions, I would recommend that any time CJ and Lauren and friends open the doors the show will be well worth the small cover charge — and then some.

One night a while back at the House Wine open mike, I got to hear this gal Lauren Bruno (just here from Berklee School of Music) sing a song or three and she kept talking about this benefit concert she was throwing at her house (which turned out to be in far northeast Austin, even north of my humble abode).  So my new pal Brett Randell and I drive up, find the place, and walk into this trippy backyard with a video screen, a mini-stage that sits at the doorway of an outdoor shed that has been turned into a music room (compleat with soundproofing all around) — and that, we learned, is where they put the drum kit and bass amp so that the noise does not escape into the neighborhood. 

We pay the two dollars, which we learn is going to Clayton Lillard’s Backyard Crew project — since he was a ten-year-old in San Antonio, Clayton has been repairing bicycles to give to children with at least one parent incarcerated.  Yeah, this guy (who just moved to Austin after two years at Berklee) has been fixing about 100 bicycles a year — and has been written up in a whole bunch of newspapers, magazines, and oh yeah just got to speak at Texas A & M with two U.S. Presidents in the house.  No big deal — he just loves to play good music — mostly drums and guitar.

Lauren and Clayton have started up the Austin expansion of “$2 Shows,” a concept begun in Los Angeles by the equally renowned Spencer Ludwig, who one day decided to throw a benefit concert where all the proceeds would go to a charity of his choosing, musicians could play without hassles from the club scene, and a community might be created.  $2 Shows is now an official nonprofit that is also expanding into Louisiana — you can learn more at www.twodollarshows.com . 

So at this music event, we also get to see a video of Spencer Ludwig welcoming the Austin audience to his little idea made flesh.  Clayton played drums for the band Salesman and guitar with Lauren in their band — Anna Noel was there, and there were several others who performed before the night ended with an acoustic jam.  The event  raised 146 dollars for Clayton’s Backyard Crew.  Lauren and Clayton hope to have a second $2 Show the third week in November.