Austintacious! Live Music Capitol of the World- Artists and Texas Music

With the music threads going around I thought I would brag on Austin. You'd be surprised how many great bands we've had come out of here and have come here to live. Shinyribs is one of the latest making a big name for himself. Just noticed that he commented on the video here.

I'd like to go through the well known, Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray, to the lesser known, Roky Erickson, Flounders Without Eyes, and many bands who have been here for years and just play for fun, The Texas Instruments and...I guess the old ones are gone.

So, anything Texas, I guess, but you know me, I don't really care what you post. ZZ Top, Asleep at the Wheel, Alejandro Escoveda, Velvet Hammer, The Crickets, Bocephus and Waylon, why not, Pantera, Spoon, Old 97's, Fastball, Toadies, Butthole Surfers, MDC, Drowning Pool, The Afters, The Sword, Polyphonic Spree. I don't even know anything after Pantera here. I didn't know they were connected with Austin. It's from a list on 'Hello Music Theory dotcom'. I have a few things to learn. There's just too much music happening here to keep up and some of this is not my genre.

This should be fun.

This is Townes van Zandt, Pancho and Lefty. Willie's daughter turned Willie on to it when they were out of songs for their album.

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. Marianne Price, the woman on maracas, is an Austin resident. Wonderful woman. Although, I think she's been hanging out in New York lately. These guys are fun. Horrible video quality.

Armadillo World Headquarters was the club that started it all. This was the Austin Tabernacle.

Austintatious! Live Music Capitol of the World!

Leeann Atherton and Zhenya Rock.

Leeann came from Nashville with several of the other Powerful Women in Austin Music and has been a mainstay here for years.

Zhenya grew up north of Moscow near the Arctic Circle listening to American Rock and Roll. He came over with the Red Elvises and is now heading up The Flying Balalaika Brothers. I put him up there with Hendrix.

Zhenya even calls himself The Gypsy Hendrix. He is a madman. Can rip any stringed instrument and started playing Accordion around 10 or 15 years ago. Jammed with him once and am proud to call him a friend. He moved to Cali a few years back, but he comes back every once in awhile. He's pretty busy touring and roaming the world.

(Update/ Edit- I put the vids in.) Enjoy.

This one is filmed on the streets of Austin. This is what we do.

Austin also spawned many of the Rock Art Poster artists.

Kerry Awn is still active with the Uranium Savages, who have been around longer than I have. I got here in 1977. Gilbert Shelton, Jim Franklin, Micael Priest, Michael Arth, Guy Juke, Bill Narum, Danny Garrett.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/02/austin-music-history-music-posters-from-the-1960s-and-1970s.html

The opening of the Armadillo World Headquarters club in 1970 offered employment to poster artists left in the cold after Vulcan closed earlier that year, and, writes Jacobson, artists “began to exhibit a piquant, uniquely Texas flavor,” departing from the tripped-out San Francisco style and evolving a satirical point of view. “Production costs were kept to a minimum by forgoing halftones in favor of crosshatching and stippling,” as in Jim Franklin’s Springsteen and Zappa posters below. "

Berke Breathed, Bloom County, did cartoons for the Univ. of Texas paper. 

“Breathed was first published when he was hired part-time by the Austin American-Statesman to draw editorial cartoons for the newspaper. This job was short-lived; he was dismissed shortly after one of his cartoons caused outrage.[2] His first comic strip published regularly was The Academia Waltz, which appeared in the Daily Texan, in 1978 while he was a student at the University of Texas. During his time at the University of Texas, Breathed self-published two collections of The Academia Waltz, using the profits to pay his tuition. The comic strip attracted the notice of the editors of The Washington Post, who recruited him to do a nationally syndicated strip.” Wiki

"Much of this section is devoted to 1970s poster art advertising live music at the Armadillo World Headquarters, the Vulcan Gas Company, and the Soap Creek Saloon. These three Austin, Texas venues presented performers that included 13th Floor Elevators, Leo Kottke, Greasy Wheels, Joy of Cooking, It's a Beautiful Day, Bill Monroe & The Blue Grass Boys, Hoyt Axton, Dr. John, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Loudon Wainwright, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Asleep at the Wheel, Tracy Nelson & Mother Earth, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Boz Scaggs, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Gilbert Shelton, Jim Franklin, Michael Priest, Guy Juke, and Ken Featherston were the primary poster artists for the three venues.

Also listed in Miscellaneous is the famous Grateful Dead poster that was banned by the Radio City Music Hall, and a Bill Graham Presents 1995 poster from the BGP series (BGP-116) that features the Grateful Dead and the Dave Matthews Band. The central image is the front of a Las Vegas hotel with “Grateful Dead” spanning the top in lights."

https://www.classicposters.com/product-category/miscellaneous/armadillo-world-hq/

"It don't matter who's in Austin; Bob Wills is still the king."--Waylon Jennings

I really liked the Red Elvises--"The legendary legends of Siberian surf music." I'll have to check out the newer stuff you mention. Kolykhanov reminded me more of Dick Dale--the same techniques born out of their early Russian and Armenian instumental education.

I saw Commander Cody quite a few times--they were from Berkeley, where I lived during their heyday. Their guitarist Bill Kirchen has had a continuing rockabilly career. Many videos of his "Hot Rod Lincoln" performances on you-Tube.

Thanks, @mpaetz. More synchronicity. I ended up looking at Bill Kirchen because he was playing with Redd Volkaert who was connected to ???, someone I was researching. Western swing in general, I guess. Didn't know Kirchen played with Commander Cody, but I never followed them closely. I know I've heard Kirchen for years and never knew anything about him. He can rip it. Redd, too.

I always confuse Commander Cody with Colonel Bruce Hampton and His Lost Planet Airmen. Edit- I'm really messing this up. Col. Bruce and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. Oteil, the great bass player, was playing with Col. Bruce when they came to my buddy's club. Great folks. Lotta fun.

I had to verify that Kolykhanov was Zee. We just call him Zee. Zee Rock. I can't keep myself from gushing over him. I met him at a local semi-private party and bands played, Zee played, people jammed and we partied all night. The next day I was helping clean up and he offered me a ride home. I found out he was Russian and started telling him all about this great Russian band, The Red Elves (sic- transcriber, but cute), I had seen at The Saxon Pub years ago, how they did all the Russian dances and could all rip their instruments. They would dance around the middle of the audience, all over the club. What a show. He let me go on for about ten minutes before he sort of eyed me sideways while driving, "That was me." I'm like, OK, I'll shut up now and you can talk.

He collaborated with Leeann for several years and they would play every Friday for free at Marias, another great piece of Austin lost to the void. They keep chipping away at us. The Broken Spoke is surrounded by condos. Ugh. Around 10(?) years ago he got married and moved to Cali not long afterward. I really only know him casually, but he knows my name and I can't tell you how good that felt when he remembered me after meeting him only once. We have a huge crowd and I hung out a lot with those folks.

He really is in a class with Hendrix. I would sit in front of him on Fridays with my jaw on the ground. All my buddy's were in the band. He came and jammed with us one night. One of the guys calls and tells us, "I'm bringing an accordion player." "Collective Groan." Zee had just started playing accordion and we had a good laugh when they walked in. I guess he wasn't impressed with my bass playing. He kind of jumped when I said I wanted to be his bass player. LOL

Six String Samurai- 1998, Heartbreakers-2001, Fastlane- 2002 are listed on IMDB as Red Elvis movies. They also appear in Pitch- 1997, Melrose Place, Live 8, Marty's corner and did soundtracks for several others.

The Red Elvises are still touring. I think they are based in the NW. Zee is still good friends with them and they talk. I don't think there was any enmity when he split. I think he wanted to do his own thing and we get two for the price of one.

As mpaetz said, Bob Wills is still the King. Western Swing is King.

Well, it's not letting me post any of the shorts, so here's a way too long one hour plus compilation. I was going to cover more Austin artists before Texas music in general, but this pretty much covers Texas music. Bob and the Playboys were all over the movies. You can find all the rest on YouBube. Everyone was influenced by Bob Wills. Asleep at the Wheel is coming up in future posts.

Hopefully, all of you are familiar with Austin City Limits. You can spend the rest of your life trying to listen to all the good music, and I think I will.

I used to try watch Austin City Limits when I could but it came on pretty late on the east coast. Posting just to keep track of this thread so I can find it later. No time to read it now.

Probably the best Texas Playboys recordings are the Tiffany Transcriptions, made by Tiffany Records in the late 1940s in San Francisco. All the band members that were in military service during the war were back and the emphasis was on the "hot jazz" aspect of their style. Wills had come to California and by the 1950s was playing at rodeos and "cowboy" venues throughout the Central Valley as well as making short westerns in Hollywood.

I bought the LPs years ago--I'm not sure of the availability on other media.

Got to talking about all the cities in Texas named after European cities, Paris, Moscow, Naples, and I thought how Europe doesn't have a Luckenbach. I didn't think Jakob Luckenbach would have been a name in the Old Country, but it turns out he was. After some wrangling the town was ultimately named after Carl Albert Luckenbach. Jakob was a nobleman and there is a strong connection between the two Luchenbachs, German and Texan, as sister cities. We had Germans, Poles, Czechs, Swedes, Norwegians and Irish moving here before the Civil War. After the war many people left the South and went to Texas.

One of my friends is Hondo Crouch, the nephew of the original Honda who bought Luckenbach back in the 70s for $30k. I've only recently been able to hang around with him and he says we knew each other in the old days, but the old days may be a little hazy for me. I need to quiz him about Luckenback and his uncle. Hondo produces small intimate musical and poetry gatherings at various venues and people's homes. Hondo Presents. It's part of what Austin is all about. Check out his YouBube channel. I've been so immersed in the music scene here for years that I don't know anything about the trees for the forest. I'm getting an education here and circles upon circles of friends are, as always, coming together. I love this place.

Here's to more great Texas Mucis.

Once again it won't let me put the vid. The first one to come up and it's Waylon, Willie, Kristofferson and Johnny Cash! The Highwaymen. Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_HoB6RRKI

Jumping around in Texas Musci, here's one for the British. Not the best sound and from a tape, so there's tape noise. LOL

There are several tragic figures in Austin Music including Roky Erickson, Townes van Zandt and Blaze Foley. Lonnie Mack wasn't here for long but his brother, Billy, will go on for hours about him. Haven't seen Billy in awhile. He's probably still around. Lonnie's career never really took off. HIs Wiki Bio is a must read.

Here he is when Stevie Ray Vaughn worked with him to get back into the biz.

Wow. I cant believe I forgot about Austin City Limits. Thank you for reminding me.

Steve Earle - 2019

Thanks, Panda. Think I posted this somewhere. Maybe not. I might be repeating myself. My girlfriend went to High School with Steve. He was always getting called to the Principle's office on the loud speaker in the mornings. Another Austin favorite.

I never went to ACL. It's free, but you have to stand in line and I hear the wait time and the number of people trying to get in now is ridiculous. I'm too old for some of this stuff. Now ACL hosts huge music fests in the park. People come from all over the world.

Update on the ACL live show taping tickets. They are on a lottery system, you sign up and are notified by email if you won. Otherwise, it looks like there may be a thriving Black Market. Not sure if you can really buy your way into the show. The articles are mainly about tickets to the festivals and special concerts where you just buy tickets.