Austin Sound

Chris Brecht and Dead Flowers second album and follow-up to 2008’s
The Great Ride, leads the listener through a musty corridor with a flashlight, opens a door and flips a switch to reveal stained floral curtains and yellowing lampshades. Slowly, with every listen, the curtains swish and the lampshades crack revealing the deliberate and delicate lace-like arrangements of the room: the Wurlitzer’s exacting pulse, the pedal steel’s reckless extension, the vocals’ penetrating reverberations. The assumption of what one thinks Motel is shrivels and falls off, and a song called “Living Twice as Hard” isn’t just a cliché for the grief and befalls of reckless living. Dead Flower Motel betters with each listen, revealing unseen turns and crevices. But like all motels, it is embedded with a sense of impermanence and the moments of revelation are constantly fleeting too fast.

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.

Chris Brecht’s long-awaited 2008 debut, The Great Ride, raked in folk and country roots behind the local songwriter’s winding narratives and distinctive nasally drawl. Brecht’s tunes reel with the lure of the late night open highway, steeped in a poignant and personal loneliness and longing, braced against a wonder for the road. Since The Great Ride’s release, Brecht has expanded his band and sound, and while his characteristic Dylanisms remain strong in the new material, the Dead Flowers buck with a more polished country rock vibe in the vein of the Band or Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds, folding in impressive flourishes from the group that includes, among others, Ricky Ray Jackson (Lomita; Brothers and Sisters) on pedal steel and John Michael Schoepf of the Happen Ins. Chris Brecht and the Dead Flowers will be holding down the Belmont downtown next week on Wednesday, September 9, and they’ve offered up a taste of some of their new material below in the form of both a lo-fi demo and full band take in the studio.

Even though this video was self-made, it’s pretty good. Some of that credit has to surely just go to the quality Chris Brecht’s songwriting itself, with “Night Highway 99″ one of the more impressive songs on his debut from last year, The Great Ride. (Some of the credit also should probably go to Brecht’s girlfriend who was apparently ok with him filming her in the bathroom, ahem.) Brecht’s imagistic narratives and languid drawl reel the listener in with a Dylan-esque aplomb, and backed by his band of Dead Flowers, he’s been known to throw down some kick ass country-rock. That will likely be the case tonight, June 30, when he takes over the Mohawk with an awesome lineup that includes Leo Rondeau, who impressed us with tales Down at the End of the Bar, and former Sound Off featured artist, Mike and the Moonpies. As an added bonus, we just discovered that Brecht has put up a bunch of older recordings on his Myspace page for download, including some unreleased stuff. Video for “Night Highway 99″ below:

If Bob Dylan and Mason Jennings had a baby, it’d be a boy, and he’d be named Chris Brecht. Brecht brings alt-folk-country to Austin with scruffiness, Woody Guthrie and beat poet lyrical undertones that make you feel like you are sitting shotgun with Kerouac at the wheel. The Great Ride, Brecht’s first full-length studio album release on Dead Leaf Records, hit the airwaves earlier this year and combines a nasal folkiness with guitar strums and lines of unfeigned poetry while sliding in harmonica, fiddle, Hammond B3 organ, and background harmony. The album has a freedom and restlessness with a folksy, bluesy, rock backbone.

Although Austin has its share of artists revamping “Blonde on Blonde,” Brecht brings something else to the table. He straddles a line gracefully, keeping a foot in the 1960s and another firmly planted in the present - in both appearance and sound - using vintage elements authentically.