Austin Sound

Austin Sound will be going on a temporary hiatus while we work through some site redesigns and re-organization. We’ll be back up to full speed on October 12, with expanded coverage of Ausitn’s music scene. In the meantime, enjoy ACL! Stay tuned…

It’s not uncommon these days to hear a story about how musicians, disillusioned by their local music scenes, will find themselves in Austin looking for something more. That’s exactly what happened Language Room’s front man, Todd Sapio. Not long after having made the transition from the City of Angels to the Lone Star State, Sapio bumped into his old friend Scott Graham (lead guitarist) during SXSW 2007. They began working on music together and were soon joined by Graham’s brother Matt (bassist) and Caleb Kelly (drums), thus completing the line-up of Language Room.

Now, I’m not going to lie; after reading that Blue October’s bassist Matt Noveskey served as the producer for Language Room’s debut album, I immediately became skeptical. This has more to do with my extreme disdain for the band Blue October and less to do with Noveskey’s producing skills.

This Thursday, October 1, another installment of the locally loaded Art Disaster shows will take place at the Beauty Bar, and one of the bands that we’re most excited to see are the White White Lights. The quartet throws down brashly fueled dance-punk riffs behind a core group of Lomita’s former lineup, while Jenny Gacy feverishly balances furiously jittery howls on songs like “Space Invaders” (available for download below) and sultry, delicately intricate pop on tunes like “It’s Cold Here In Japan.” The White White Lights are anticipating delivering their debut EP by the end of the year on local imprint Indierect Records, but there will be no better opportunity to catch them than at Art Disaster 9 running across two stages at the Beauty Bar on Thursday. Rounding out the bill are the Bright Light Social Hour, The Authors, Whitman, The Steps, Speak, Wallpaper, and headliners, The Lemurs. DJ Orion and DJ Tweedy will also be spinning between sets.

Here’s a word of advice: If you see Annie Clark walking down a deserted Texas road in a cocktail dress, we know your first instinct is to follow her, you know, beautiful damsel in distress, perhaps. Because you’re a good guy and you just want to help. And she WANTS your help, nay, NEEDS your help. We know you’re going to try to help her anyway, despite anything we say, but just know that this will end badly. How badly? Maybe in some weird Heroes time-freeze-kinda-way badly. Save the indie rock goddess, save the world! So try to help her all you want, but St. Vincent should very well know, we can’t help her until she helps herself. Greatest love of all, and all that. However, if you are going to be frozen in time staring at someone, you could do a lot worse than be stuck staring at Annie Clark. Check out St. Vincent’s pretty rad new video for “Marrow,” off of her excellent sophomore effort, Actor, below. The video was directed by Terri Timely, who thankfully is not a real person, but the name of directing partners Ian Kibbey and Corey Creasey. They do wonderfully weird stuff. Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, you are hereby obligated to watch this incredibly awesome performance of St. Vincent and Andrew Bird together courtesy of La Blogotheque. They’re currently touring together on a trek sure to make both the girls and boys swoon. Let’s just hope they don’t go off and get married or something - we just don’t think the poor indie kids will be able to handle it again.

Just a reminder to get your HAAM on today, as a number of area businesses are chipping in to help the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. So if you’ve been saving up for a splurge, today’s the day to hit up the following businesses, which will donate 5% of their sales.

Since We’ll Go Machete gladly proclaim “early 90’s dischord” and “touch and go” as influences, it seems redundant to repeatedly call out those seminal labels when discussing the local quartet’s self titled debut EP. Clocking at about twenty-two minutes spread over six tracks, We’ll Go Machete is a classic example of how a band can pay homage to its influences while still sounding fresh enough to warrant repeated playbacks.

There’s not much to particularly dissect across the six songs on the EP. We’ll Go Machete have a great formula, yet never sound formulaic. Vocalist Paul Warner screams with just the right amount of (teenage) angst that makes him sound like a cross between Ian MacKaye and The Offspring’s Dexter Holland.

Man, video sessions are totally the new blogs, which were the new ‘zines. Used to be way back in the day (say the 80s and 90s), trying your hand at amateur music writing and hanging out with your favorite bands required putting some work into a fanzine, printing it up, and passing it around. Yeah, we were all dorks. Then blogs made it easy, and everyone started writing about bands and even shared their music, cutting out the middle man. Now it seems everyone wants to do a quirky video session, cuz video’s the new mp3. Welcome to your Black Cab Sessions and La Blogotheque. And that concludes our lesson today on the obvious evolution of amateur music criticism. But now more professional music publications and outlets have gotten into the mix! Local UT student-run KVRX exists somewhere in the middle of that miasma - both pros at production and running a radio station, but decided amateurs in some of that crap that scrawls across the frequency late at night. Really, we love that you guys are stoned off your ass at 2:00am in the booth, but just spin some damn records already. (It’s still better than listening to KUT’s new “Undercurrents” syndication, though).

Anyway, the KVRX Local Live clan has started to do some video shoots that they’re calling The Austin Sessions, your typical (these days, anyway) put a band in a weird place and make them play kind of thing. Kinda like the ill-fated KUT and Super Alright “Retread Sessions” that was cool for all of the about 2 seconds it lasted. We’re impressed by what the KVRX kids have put together though, especially since Local Live is well established for showcasing some of the best Austin talent before they start getting any real attention. They’ve already brought in Wine and Revolution, and we hear they have the Eastern Sea on tap, too. It’s like they’re in our head!!!

The precise relation of Listenlisten’s stunning new album to Rhodesia (the former name of Zimbabwe), I can’t say for sure; the Houston group’s relation to “hymns,” however, is studied at extraordinary length on “Hymns from Rhodesia,” an album at times eerily reminiscent of the meandering low-fi hymns one might find on an early Microphones record, and at other times narrowly avoiding all out disaster (but, you know, in a good way).

The haunting waltz “Prologue” briefly introduces us initially-naïve listeners to the gothic pastoral scene the album channels, followed immediately by the equally downbeat (and three-beat) “Funeral Dirge; Burial Service.” Immediately we feel like a lost band of travelers, stumbling in on unknown small-town horrors, the worst of which only begin with funerals. And it’s definitely raining at this point.

Here’s a nice little scoop from the Chronicle’s music news column this morning: Will Johnson, who seems to, as always, have his hands in too many projects to count, has been helping out Jay Farrar along with Anders Parker and Jim James to create a new album of Woody Guthrie tunes in the vein of Wilco and Billy Bragg’s Mermaid Avenue. Like its predecessor, this album was created from unpublished Guthrie lyrics that his daughter entrusted to Farrar and Co. (she must be some kind of crazy Uncle Tupelo fan or something) to arrange and record. It was recorded back in March and is currently being mixed, but that seems to be about as far as they’ve gotten, with no word reported on when it might be released. Johnson, meanwhile, just continues to roll on, inspiring kids to depression with Centro-matic and South San Gabriel, and indulging in some kind of unfortunate artistic infatuation with baseball. Will, stick to the tunes, buddy, as much as the world really does need a painting exonerating Bill Buckner, you’re just a better songwriter. In more Johnson news though, because there is always more, he will also be touring with the Monsters of Folk, backing up Jim James, Conor Oberst, and M. Ward on drums, and in November will be releasing his inventingly titled collaboration with Jason Molina, Jason Molina & Will Johnson. We reckon that should keep all the Johnston fanatics drooling for a while.

It takes a really demented mind to look a band like Au Revoir Simone and think, “Hey, you know what would make this so much better? More synth!” Enter Alan Paloma, the Ghosthustlin’ Vega turned Neon Indian (going native?). We think this was really just a ploy by Paloma to get the attention of the lovely Simone ladies, cuz, ya know, chicks dig the remix, but he recently spiced up Au Revoir Simone’s song “Another Likely Story” with some tripped out Eighties flashbacks. This track comes via Gorilla Vs. Bear, who we’re pretty sure is under contractual obligation to cover all things Paloma, no matter how gratuitous. Neon Indian played Colorado’s Monolith Festival this past weekend and is now off to Europe, but will be back in Austin to show off his new Euro-trash influences for the !!! ACL afterparty at Emo’s on October 2, and of course the Fun Fun Fun Fest on November 7. He’ll also be dropping his debut album, Psychic Chasms, in between those dates on October 13.