Austin Sound

For those of you who haven’t noticed, SXSW has started already. The music kickoff comes Wednesday night, but there have been free shows going on downtown since Saturday (like when I was at Harlem, the Strange Boys, and Blair at the Red Eyed Fly for free) including local garage rockers Woven Bones, the Octopus Project, and second-city R&B duo Flosstradamus at the Mohawk on Sunday night—one that I regret to have missed. So here is the SXSW Music Tuesday unofficial preview.

Before we get to drunk on SXSW action, keep in mind you’ll need to save some brain cells to kill during the Austin Psych Fest next month. The now-annual reverb rendezvous will be happening this year at the Mohawk over the three days of April 24 - 26. Three day passes are on sale now for $45 (drugs and rolling papers not included) and you can pick those up here. So what do you get for that $15/day price? Well, the Black Angels, of course, but also the Raveonettes, Warpaint, Pink Mountaintops, Spindrift, and YaHoWa 13, just to get you started. Not a bad initial roll out! There are about 20 bands listed right now, with more to be announced soon, though hopefully not till the SXSW madness subsides. Check out http://www.austinpsychfest.com for more info and updates.

The Mess With Texas Fest, probably the best free public event at SXSW every year, has been booted out of Waterloo Park. They are still continuing undeterred, however, and just like all the cool stuff in Austin, are moving to East Side. This year’s MWTX event will go down in lot at 1001 East 6th St. on Friday and Saturday, March 19th and 20th. As expected, they have one helluva lineup, including GWAR headlining on Saturday. HA! It will run from Noon to 9:00pm each day. It doesn’t appear that they have actual set times listed yet, but you can check out the full lineup on their site, which features Man Man, Frightened Rabbit, Andrew WK with a full band, Fucked Up, Crystal Antlers, and one Billy Bragg’s many annual SXSW shows. Seriously, every year that guy makes SXSW his own personal party. This year’s event will also benefit Marbridge, a community just south of Austin for adults with various cognitive challenges. That’s cool. More info here.

Chris Brecht, we assume, has what they call a brown thumb. His debut album, The Great Ride, was put out by his Dead Leaf records, and his upcoming album is called Dead Flower Motel. Seriously man, all you need is a little water and sunshine in your life! Valentine’s Day must kinda suck around the Brecht household. So, happy spring! Brecht will be playing some his new tunes tonight at the Ghost Room, which if you haven’t been to yet, you need to check out. It’s hands down our pick for best new venue in Austin. The sound is amazing, and Brecht and his band will likely blow it out with their slant of alt. country rockers. In fact, the band he has recruited for the new album is impressive in its own right, featuring a deep roster of some our favorite rootsy players around town (including Scott Davis from Hayes Carll’s band and the Trishas, Matt Mollica from recent Sound Off-ers Deadman, John Michael Dayspring from the Happin-Ins, and Ricky Ray Jackson from anyone that needs some solid steel behind them). Low and behold, it seems we have a bit of new roots scene developing!! Anyway, check out the track “Not Where You Are” which the band has shared with us, and you! below.

What the hell is exactly going on around here? First Will Sexton has stroke at 39, and now Nick Curran, who is in his early 30s is being treated for cancer. The 30s are clearly when your 20s come back to fuck you. Thankfully, Curran is expected to make a full recovery (as is Sexton), but for the love of God, can we get some universal health care around here? Oh right, this is Texas - so even if something (anything, please!?) manages to pass through Congress, this state will probably secede before it helps out the uninsured. But this isn’t about soapboxing, it’s about benefiting. And when punks get together for a benefit, it’s the best kind of benefit, if for no other reason than for one person’s hospital bills that your helping alleviate, there’s the chance the mosh pit will send three more to the ER. It’s an exponential thing. Thursday night at Emo’s, though, the punk and rockabilly scene will rally to help Curran, who actually has a new CD, Reform School Girl, out now. (Download the track “Kill My Baby” here!). On tap for the benefit are Lower Class Brats, Krum Bums, The Chumps, and Flash Boys, with a minimum donation of $6 at the door.

We’ve been waiting to hear what the former Haunting Oboe Music boys would produce with their new band, Lean Hounds. Today we finally got an official taste, and the preliminary verdict: PROMISING! We know that’s not really much of verdict, because technically everything could “promising”, but you can listen for yourself below with the song “Tryfecta.” Lean Hounds seems to retain some the “out there-ness” of Haunting Oboe Music, not surprising since all three members (Ian Hunt, Nick Whitfield, and David Shackelford) are all ex-HOM, but it is also really quite melodic. We’ll see how the tunes play live when the trio has their first show on March 17 at the Tangled Snark SXSW party at Gallery Black Lagoon. You can listen to the other song they have hammered out, “On Donner”, on their myspace page.

Some time ago after we let him Sound Off, Jack Gibson wandered away from Austin and seems to have found himself in LA. Surprisingly, it appears to have served him well. We’re not sure what exactly to make of a Tenlons Fort album that is, if not uplifting, at least hopeful. Gibson’s pop has always cut bittersweet, and while all those tender crooning elements remain potent on his fourth (and quite possibly his best) album, Shelters, we kinda miss the downtrodden ditties (after all, misery loves company!). Apparently in LA, Gibson has given up drinking, which is good we suppose, though not a lifestyle choice that we necessarily condone. He also seems to have reunited with an old buddy - fellow former Austinite Will Courtney, who produced Shelters and is playing with Tenlons Fort at the LA release show for the album tomorrow night. You should probably know that Shelters is getting a limited pressing, and 50% of the sales go to help the homeless via what Gibson is calling the “Tenlons Fort Shelters Fund.” You can get a taste of the release below, and also pick up a copy when Gibson rolls into town for a show next Monday at the Cactus Cafe, with the Eastern Sea opening.

Throw another one on the pyre of 2010 band breakups. The Always Already, after 2 EPs, the latest of which was last year’s The Science is New, is calling it quits this weekend with one final show at the Beauty Bar. If you dig your synthy rhythms and Cure-esque crooning, you’ll probably want to be there. The local quartet offered some parting words to us when we inquired what was up, frontman Dustin Withers declaring: “Well after 5 years of playing shows, an east coast tour and west coast tour we have just grown a little tired of all the energy it takes to sustain the band. We still love each other, but when you start to grow apart it seems to take even more energy to make it work. We are also very poor and the band is a money hole, not the good kind.” True! But let’s not dwell too much on the past, as the quartet has other projects they’re working on - Louis Lemuz is playing bass with some fellow former Clap! Clap! folks in Love at Twenty, and Travis Austin is working on his next album as Mediums. As for Withers, he’s “working on my karaoke persona, PARTY DIP! and I have also begain my recoding a solo record.” Word. Get your last heady philosophical fix of the Always Already this Saturday, February 27, along with DJ Mel and Zorch.

Our friends over at Austin Town Hall (who, by the way, have a nice SXSX dayshow this year) caught this last week: the Wooden Birds, Andrew Kenny’s new outfit that released their debut, Magnolia, last year, are offering a new EP for free download called Montague Street. The songs are different versions of four tunes from the LP (”Believe in Love”; “Bad”; “The Other One”; “Choke”) that were actually laid down back when Kenny was living in New York, on Montague Street, natch. So we suppose these are not so much re-recordings as pre-recordings! But you can download the EP here, from Insound. In perhaps even more intriguing Wooden Birds news, however, Kenny is also apparently suffering from writer’s block, or something, because he wants you to send him your stories so that he might possibly write a song based on it. It doesn’t look like you necessarily win anything if he chooses your story, except having a song written about you, of course. But this is Austin - everybody in this town has had a song written about them! You have until March 30 to email your stories, so get a-scribin’!

And by crazy, we mean crazy awesome! Maybe. We’ve read through this damned email that the Octopus Project sent out, and we’re still not exactly sure what the hell they’re doing. So we’ll just let them explain below. But the gist of it is that it’s been a while since we’ve really heard anything from the O-Pro, but they’re coming back out in a big way at SXSW this year with some kind of Flaming Lips-ian show stunt on the roof of Whole Foods downtown. They’ll be giving two performances on Friday, March 19, (at 7:30 and 9:00pm) and, egalitarians that they are, no wristbands or badges will help you - it’s free, and on a first come, first serve basis. The roof only holds about 600 people, so if you miss the old days of camping out for hours and standing in line at Waterloo Records to get your SXSW wristband, this will surely make up for it! So what is the crazy “Hexadecagon” show? Check out the details below: