Two :Too hot to Handle

Yow, the things I do in the name of band-love!

Later in the evening, Rick Del Castillo told me in passing that temps in Austin had reached 108. That's nuts! Who in their right mind holds an outdoor event in potentially life threatening heat?! And I remember back when I was in school at UT that the average temp in Austin was always about 5 degrees cooler than San Antonio. no more I guess. They call all that damned cement and steel progress....I sure as hell don't.

Despite the heat, a cadre(sp?) of loyalist DC fans stuck it out for the boys. We darn near melted, but we stayed. I haven't eaten that much shaved ice since I was about 12. And I still needed water for many hours afterwards. Someone I know had a case of heat prostration from this day, and that is NOT good. It's supposed to be fun and enjoyable for all. Let's do it again guys, but not until cooler weather!

The guys were really on this particular evening, partly because they were home, and partly because of the film crew flitting around the stage all evening. Kudos to them for not interfering with the fans' view or priority, but I still hate being at these filmings. The groups always act differently, a bit more self-consious and such. Not to speak of we fans who would prefer to NOT end up on film. Leave that crap to Hollyweird. I came for the music only.
The boys have obviously had a lot of time on their hands on the road and have been productive. there was a new tune, which I had heard in El Campo, but cannot remember the name of. And they have seriously tighened up Bert's "Brotherhood" tune. Both pieces are decidedly more radio oriented, btu still very Dc. Catchy I must say! Now, if we could just get them on an ALBUM?! I know that's out of the question, at least for now. Maybe 2006. I think they are still waiting for a label to give them the big deal instead of just getting the music out there. It is driving those of us who have heard about this album-in-the-making now for well over a year nutz. I would settle for an EP of new stuff guys!

The one upside to the evening is that the film crew was supposedly making it for some public access channel to show. Please any one in austin who can tape it, do so! At the very least I would like to see what they made me not use my flash to capture. I do think the smoke machine was a bit of overkill, but we'll see. It just seems more Bonjovi than Del Castillo. My opinion of course. I just don't go for the frue-frue junk. If one is true to what one is, the only thing that kind shine through is the Truth.

Texas, Too Hot To Handle

Lesse........



over here and over here
we have we have

DEL CASTILLO BUTTERCUP

(Well, THAT didn't work! they were supposed to be on opposite sides of the page!)


It has been an exhausting weekend. I had made a mild promise to get up to Alice's Restaurant in Neiderwald today, but my head just won't allow it. Just as South Texas is getting an early taste of autumn in the air, the heat managed to give me another migraine. It is the price I sometimes pay for my music. I will stay quiet today, because there is always more to go see. I just have to stop trying to spread myself so thin. As it is, I am already working on my October schedule, adding back in a band I have yet to write about- E Muzeki. They are a gypsy duo (actually, now a trio)
from San Antonio who are playing the Texas Renaissance Faire that month. DC again is to blame for my hearing of them, and I am a dedicated fan of violin and bouzouki music now! but October is going to be a busy month all the way around.

Now, let's start with Friday evening. The day sucked royally, so I will try to forget about it and get on with the good stuff: Buttercup at the Hyde Park Theatre.

the one really neat thing Austin seems to have over SA is the number of smaller venues available. We go from too small to too big, with little in between. If one wants a more intimate setting, it can be tough down here. The guys in Buttercup seem to thrive on improvisation to some extent though. good thing!
They didn't have to do too much of that at the Hyde Park place, which has probably seen more intact days. It has obviously been redone inside more than once for various needs, with all the stuff from those changes hanging around out back.....along with the mangled 10 speed bike lashed to a set of burglar bars on a side window. ( I know there's a story there, but do I want to know?) It was a pleasant enough setting, and so intimate that those in the front row could've used the monitors as foot rests. Artist Robert Tatum was doing a live art show with both performers. Opening act was Billy Harvey, an Austin balladeer whose live performance tonight gave no indication of the intensity of his latest CD. When I have had a bit more time to digest it I will write on him. In the meantime check out his website www.billyharveymusic.com. Wild. And you can hear his sounds there.

The Cup came on in their unassuming way and started off what ended up being an amazing set. I can already say that they are going to probably surprise me everytime I get to see them. They seem to feed off the audience even more than most bands, which of course is going to make a diff. I will leave it up to them to put up the set list, as usual, on thier website. I want to relay the feeling.
This show was much heavier, in terms of music, than the last one I got to see. a stronger delivery, as well as stronger tunes. Everybody sang at least one tune, and the power in the delivery was tremendous. (And someone tell Joe he needs to use than voice more- yummy!;)
***************************************************************************
Headache under control.

ELVIS.

damn, should have seen it!

Joe Reyes reminds me of Elvis. I think it's something between the eyes and mouth (like his nose, stupid?!) (Sorry, talking to myself again....) I just saw a photo of him I took the other night and it hit me. Better voice and smile though. And I don't think Elvis ever played guitar quite like that.

oh well. on with the show description. Note I don't say review? Opinions are as numerous as lower bodily exit points......
I can't say exactly why this show was so much stronger than the first one. Maybe because it was a Friday? The crowd? Planetary alignment? I'm not sure. I had a couple of Austin friends turn up to experience the guys. That made it fun for me. The crowd at these things seems looser, more open to letting the band be flexible. We are almost part of the performance, which of course changes the possiblities with each show. The fellow passing out shots of kool-aid flavoured schnaps probably didn't hurt the mood.... I since come to find that the idea of coming to the show with a communal mentality is encouraged. How many bands do you know that work to get their audience to relate to each other? It is a first for me, even in the art community.

It a sign to me of a group's skill when they can play less than 3 bars of a song we haven't heard before and set a mood instantly. When the band is seperated by being on a stage, apart from the audience, almost like they are in a totally different world, some members of the audience are likely to be unmoved. Perhaps it is our closeness to the band, or a differnce of mindset that would draw us to such a performance, that makes this audience unusual Even those back on the wall, a few feet further away from the guys, reacted to the songs. There was respectful silence when the song called for it, which means they were paying attention. there has never been anything so irritating to me to hear DC playing Perdename or Porque and people yakking loudly right over it, like it was a jukebox. Buttercup's crowd doesn't do that. Well, not the ones I have been part of yet. They come for the music, pure and simple.

And the music is simple. This is not to say it is moronic or repetative. Simplicity can be deceiving. That pregnant pause....that sustained note...that one finishing word held back until you can't stand it anymore. Some how, some where, this becomes the part of art that no artist can explain. I've been trying to capture it as poetry for 35 years. It is probably the hardest thing to put to words I have ever found.

I think that's why I enjoy Buttercup. They aren't trying to write Billboard 100 hits. They write from the soul and play some songs that touched theirs. And they enjoy doing it to do it. I come away from the shows happy inside for a little while, and so far it has been a blast to remember too. Another batch of enigmatic smiles I can't explain to anyone, save by playing them Buttercup. I think I will go find one now, while I uplaod the newest batch of photos.

namaste.

DC gig will follow.

Oh goody goody!

I get to go stand out in 100 degree heat to catch Del Castillo and Vallejo....

didn't I do something like this last year in Victoria? Only hat was Chris Duarte and DC.

I gotta be nuts.

Between traveling for DC and now traveling for Buttercup, the price of gas right now, and the September heatwave of '05, I have to be crazy. Good thing I am on vacation for a week! I will need it to recover.

well, it's off into the blaze. I have much to write about Buttercup's Hyde Park gig, with notes about Billy Harvey, but they will have to wait. Gotta chug water and slather on the sunscreen in self defense. Irish blood should not have to hang out in the sun!
More on this weekend's insanity soon!

I Stand Accused

of musical infidelity.

Ya know, I'm not sure that's possible. Perhaps fickleness, but one would have to be the vilest of groupies to fall into that first category, and well, I just don't do that.
and I am not the love 'em and leave 'em type either. I still hold my dearest Moody Blues in my heart, despite finding out things about the people in the band that didn't settle well with me. It's where I learned to let artists also be humans.

What I am talking about it a somewhat serious, somewhat joking accusation from a member of Del Castillo ( I will keep his anonymity) of "being with another band" while they were gone. I actually fumbled around trying to explain my way out of it too! Apparently for some musicians, there isn't even a fine line to be drawn between fan and possession! ;)
Seriously though, DC is my true love right now, no matter who I write about. I was standing last night watching the brothers FLY through a couple of solos, and thought to myself, then to my friend Casey, they could wipe out Lara and Reyes. Yet I still played L&R's World Jazz Cd when I got up this morning. It is a wonderful, skillful jazz album, with tones of musical forms from around the world in it. I have NO doubt that Reyes could keep up with and even challenge Rick and Mark. Yet- what they make, the music they with their fellow band members create every time I see them so surpasses anything out there.... Perdename had me literally on my knees, in tears, AGAIN. Those harmonies just cut through all the bullshit roaming around in this confused little soul and put it on the line. The words I do know, because they come boiling up from inside me. They find expression in DC's most amazing tune, and the Truth in it burns away the mask for a brief moment, letting in light where I myself may not dare. None of the guitar duos in my collection, and there are many, have ever touched me in that way. And, once again, I know I am not alone in this. It is the force, the power of the soul in their music that draws a growing number of fans together.
You have much to do in this world, gentlemen. I cannot say what part I play in it, if any, but I will be there to support you as much as I can. If you think for one minute that I do not count the days, nay, even sometimes the minutes, between the times we get to spend together, you are wrong. Not to belittle anyone I would write about here, but I would throw over any gig I get to go to, if I knew I had time to spend with my brothers in Del Castillo. The fact I search for something to fill in the gap when they are out there letting the rest of the world know they exist should only be a sign to DC that I miss them. And I really do.


(Ps. Don't miss the Austin Buttercup gig this Friday if you can help it. There's a lot of soul there too, though a little different. Avant Garde, for sure.)

namaste.

Greek Brothers Oyster Bar

kicks butt. The food was terrific- enough to travel for- and the venue itself was pretty cool. El Campo walked home impressed by the band (Del Castillo) and there is already talk of them returning. It is worth the trip just for the band, but the Pasta Margarita makes it even more special.
On the way down, once we got off I 10, I would've sworn we had gotten into the twilight zone.I am just too much the big-city kid I guess. I don't know what to do with middle America any more than they know what to think of me. We do by all appearances have similar tastes in music. Finding that out made up for nearly clocking several chickens on the way into town!
It is after 5 AM though, and I am pooped. I have a birthday party for my 3 year old grandgirl to go to in a few hours, so I will relate more about the gig later. Just to leave it at this.....damn, I have missed you, guys. You take a piece of me with you every time. It was really good to have all the parts back together for awhile.
My love goes with you wherever you are.
namaste.

Buttercup, again....

I spent most of yesterday evening with my feet and ankles submerged in a wading pool, in the middle of which was a fairly typical bar table. On the table I had dumped an offering of chocolates, which were imbibed in by all who cared to. The only rule was you had to make a boat or other floaty thing to set free in the pool. We had many attempts still afloat at the end of the night, even after at least two dog-induced mini-tsunamis. For a group of near strangers, it was really relaxed evening. There was not even one attempt at a bar brawl, and no nasty tempers even seemed to be in the room. Quite a change for one used to working with a band that drew most of the local biker crowd. For a five foot three female, I got pretty good a few years back at intimidating big drunk bikers. I had to- it was them or me.
It was really a nice change to not feel even one bad vibe all night.

The location was an unassuming building called the Wiggle Room, Chances are you, like I, might drive right past it in the dark. The only thing that caught my ttention in that block was the big purple neon OM in a window. I didn't know until later that this was the Wiggle Room.
Inside is a bit more impressive than outside, though still quite low key. It fits the band a lot actually. It is really not a bar, but a performance place for the avant garde of SA I guess. It is a small but proud community. It was pretty obvious that some serious thought had gone into the placing of chairs, the structure on stage, and a few subtle side decorations. It was all to set a mood. I was pleasantly surprised. I had been listening to the CD for a few days, but still really didn't know what to expect live.

In the way of casual gatherings, the band waited until there was a small crowd before they started their first set. I was pleased to hear harmonies done live just as they were on the CD. That is one of the things about them that charmed me from the beginning. I am a sucker for harmonies in vocals. The music is complex enough to intrigue, but does not make great demands of the ear. Instead, again, it tries to create a mood. The lyrics go the full range from sad to funny, seriously to tongue-in-cheek. The general feel of the whole event is "we are going to do what we do best, and we hope you come along for the ride."
Like my dear Del Castillo, they have some very dedicated fans, many of whom have seen at least a years worth of performances like this. I chatted with a few, but relaying the experience is tough. It isn't really about words. It is about feelings. And they make me feel good. I wish I could keep it with me a lot more than I can. But I pull it back up when life gets a little rough. Sorta like DC.

I was going to write down a set list, but they rarely called out song titles. I knew the Neil Young tunes they covered, and one or two from the CD, but almost everything else was new material. It was cool to hear something new, and still find it moving. I anxiously await the next CD, due out at the end of the year. The live and the studio both held up. One or the other always seems to fall short, but not this time.
****************************************************************************

Well.....
I got caught up with work and haven't been able to write on this again yet. Such is life. to my surprise, some fellow DCites were glad to hear about Buttercup coming to Austin in a letter I wrote earlier this week, so...here I advertise for them:
26 august, Hyde Park Theatre, about 8 PM for the doors. Also, check the guys out at www.myspace.com/buttercup, as well as their own website, which is now back up after a 24 hr down. There are two names: www.buttercup.com and www.buttercult.com. I am kind of partial to the second one.
I am going to publish this one, and get back to describing them as I can. Seriously though, go find the Borders in Austin or Hogwild in SA, and take a listen to the CD. I am partial to cutting daisies and downslide...and most everything in between!

ciao for now.

THIS is what Austin THINKS it is.

Austin has gotten blase. It is too easy to proclaim oneself Live Music Capital when one has so many bands that there must be music every night of the week for anyone to get a chance to be heard. Good luck catching a crowd that isn't so bored out of its mind by all the possibilities that it fails to recognize the truly original in the vast sea of the mundane.
Soon, very soon, they will be potential witness to a truly original band, one that knows no boundaries placed upon it by local critics, one that stretches where it needs to and lets things be simple where is best suited. This is Buttercup.

Someone's pet lamb became the unwitting name of this most original pop band out of San Antonio. Rarely, since the early 1980's, have any tread upon the ground of social and personal observation with such clarity and humour. Never let it be said that Buttercup takes itself too seriously. When things get too uptight, the joke is ever there to lighten up the mood. It is a bad thing when one forgets how to look at one's self and laugh. In the middle of some of the most intense and profound pop music since Rank and File, Buttercup finds time to let old wounds heal through humour. It is to be commended.

I am currently investigating the career of one Joe Reyes. This guy has got to be the busiest musician I know of.He has so many things going on that the owner of Hogwild Records recently joked with me as I was buying a couple of CDs about "Joe Reyes' 89 bands." I haven't actually counted but I don't think Dave is far off! And what a talent. I do not doubt for a second the talent of the other members of Buttercup one ounce, but I know from many years of experience that a person like Joe can make others reach out for what they might not have otherwise tried for.
I had bought the band's first CD a few days prior to this Monday night performance and by the time they got on stage, I was pretty sure I had it memorized. I was singing where I knew the lyrics and reveling in whatever I didn't know. They did things to Neil Young songs that man could only dream of. They played new stuff I heard during sound check and old stuff off the album and still left me wanting them not to stop. It wasn't the most bombastic. It wasn't the deepest of lyrics. It probably didn't come close to Grammy material, but that's because most folks don't wanna feel that deep. It might mean they have to wake up.


They call it Grackle Mundy. A grackle is one of the noisiest birds one could ever hope to come across. They inhabit South Texas for many months of the year, making one of the most god-awful rackets one ever heard out of a bird, and living in every tree left on what was once their migratory path. It is only in the silence of winter that one finds relief from the crackling screech of their call.
I am hoping for a warm winter, if only to keep Buttercup from migrating away. I have, in a single evening, become a dedicated follower of this odd ritual of a Monday evening celebration. It is born in the music created by Buttercup. You won't find them in many stores. You probably won't hear them on the radio quite yet. They are, however, worth whatever effort you choose to put into discovering the new and different. \they are one of those groups that rarely come around, but leave an indeliable trail wherever they go. It isn't something they have control of. Sometimes the total is greater than the sum of its parts. I dare you to take that leap.
If you are openminded enough to read this blog, you owe to yourself to find out about this band.
The name is BUTTERCUP.



www.buttercup.com

Lara & Reyes

Ah-ha!
I have found a new distraction!

To my embarrassment, I had never heard of this San Antonio duo in all their years together, though I know one of them from his other ventures in the music scene around here.
Sergio Lara and Joe Reyes are two of the best guitarists San Antonio has ever produced and their vibrant Latin- tinged jazz has been repeatedly compared to the best on the biz. I feel no need to name names, as I am here to talk about this “new” old duo’s work.

I am called Jazz, a self-given nickname of more than 30 years. I love the music form, because it usually challenges the artist to a higher degree than rock or even blues does. It also has yet to conform to any rules, which gives one the ability to stretch out.
Lara and Reyes could easily end up lumped into the New Age category, or maybe world music, because of the diversity they aim for. Their percussionists come from totally different backgrounds than the two Spanish styled guitar players, while the bassist, playing no less than six strings, is obviously a jazzer from the beginning. Yet their interplay was the stuff of legends. There are many guitar duos out there, some these two have already been compared to, but I really think they are in a place all their own.
Right now I have the CD “World Jazz” on. I have listened to squibs of other CDs on Amazon, but this one caught my ear. I will have to see them a few more times before I could start ranting like I do about the brothers in DC, but I daresay these two, like Monty, could easily give the boys a run for their money. I have now an ideal gig in my brain: Lara & Reyes, Del Castillo, Monty Montgomery, and to top the night off, a guitar jam session the likes of which have not been seen in this city since 1984. That was McLaughlin, di Meola, De Lucia, and Steve Morse, at the Majestic Theater. God what a night that was.

Incidentally, I have found that too many guitar fans have yet to hear of that ground breaking album, which is beyond sad. Do yourself a favour; go find “A Friday Night In San Francisco,” by the first three in that last list. It is, as yet, untouched, by any other group I have heard. It was quite probably a majour influence in many bands’ worlds. I knew rockers who would stand in silent awe in my record store while those amazing guitars blared out of our woefully inadequate speakers. That is the true test of music- can it still sound good when the system playing it is crap?

I have seen Joe Reyes play with Patricia Vonne, the Swindles, this duo, and come Monday, a band called Buttercup. I also think now that we have crossed paths before. His work over the last 25 years or so has had just reason to cross mine, though I will leave those stories for some other time. I just know that he has become one of the best guitar players to EVER come out of San Antonio. If you hear of any of these groups in your area, especially Lara & Reyes, don’t miss ‘em. you will not be disappointed.

namaste.

Happy Birthday, Satchmo!

Satchmo was a nickname.

My nickname is Jazz, and that has it’s roots in the birthday boy for August 4th. Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, trumpet wailer and jazz crooner, was born on this day. When I was just a kid, being bombarded by music on all sides (Beatles, Bob Dylan, Stravinsky, Glenn Miller,and the list goes on,....) I found a new form of music on my own: jazz.
I heard Louis singing one day on the radio and was smitten. That rich, deep voice started me down a path that eventually led to Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius.
I cannot thank Louis enough for opening a door that might not have been. I know many in my age group didn’t hear of him til a movie called “Good Morning Vietnam”, but he’s a old standby in my house.
As a matter of fact, I think I will go put on a CD right now......

Immortality doesn’t necessarily mean living forever in flesh, but rather in the world’s heart.
Happy birthday,Louis.