Austin Sound

Leatherbag’s Randy Reynolds has never shied away from his influences, highlighting them and pushing them to the fore even as he transforms them into his own style. That certainly remains the case with Hey Day, Leatherbag’s third LP and follow up to last year’s two excellent EPs, Tomorrow and Everything I Once Knew. The album sets its tone and conscience with lead-off track “Start All Over Again,” opening with a hefty bassline that sounds lifted straight from the Feelies’ “It’s Only Life” and Reynolds chiming in with lines like “It’s time for you to come full circle, and start all over again.” As Leatherbag continues to - by his own accord - resurface the aesthetic of Austin’s Eighties New Sincerity, he seems to do so as a brace against the mercurial fads of fleeting scenes, proposing with this Neo Sincerity is something that doesn’t purport to be timeless, but that it is above all genuine in its constant evolution as a work in progress. So when Reynolds calls on the opener “recognize that the past is still fiction,” it’s not a statement of trying to break from the past as much as not be bound and beholden to it, which would apply equally to Hey Day’s relationship to the present.

Leatherbag, our frontrunner for the worst named band that you should actually be listening to (apparently it’s a Finnegan’s Wake allusion, so we guess they get a pass just for being smarter than us), will have a new album coming out sometime in the next few months. Titled Hey Day, it’s their first full length effort since 2008’s Love and Harm, and since then, frontman Randy Reynolds has put together a pretty crack band behind him. If you haven’t caught the quartet lately, they’re definitely worth checking in on, like perhaps next month when they play Lambert’s. In the meantime, you can catch up with this track, “Lines”, which leads off the new album and which Leatherbag has shared with us to download below. And no, it’s not about those kind of lines, but we still think you’ll like it. They also have a Big Star cover up on their myspace page that is worth checking out (what’s up with everyone covering Big Star these days?). Download “Lines” below:

We’ve been waiting for the videos from the recent tapings for KLRU’s new web project, ACL Stage Left, to finally emerge. Last month they filmed local standouts David Garza, Leatherbag, and Brazos on the big Austin City Limits stage, and though the shoot was intended “only for the web,” they gave it the full ACL production. It was absolutely fantastic to see some of our local young guns (though Garza is of course pretty well established!) get to hold their own in the ACL studios, and the sound for the shows was amazing. But now the fine public tv folks have finally gotten the shows through post production and made some videos available, which premiered today on the Austinist. More videos are coming to the new klru.tv site soon, but you can also check out shows from KLRU like Texas Monthly Talks online. Jump below to watch Leatherbag lay out “On Down the Line” and Brazos unload “Mary Jo.”

There seems to be a general contention these days between the single and EP. We love that the single is making a comeback, especially in 7″ form as we get from Sunset and the Black below, but we have to continue to take issue with the idea of a three song EP. We’ll let our hangups over the issue of EP vs single slide with Leatherbag and Corto Maltese, though, as both are excellent and welcome offerings that compact their distinctive sounds into great releases. Leatherbag’s Everything I Once Knew encapsulates the range of styles that he has progressed through over the years, while the Corto Maltese’ Answer, Answer proves appropriately more polished than their much acclaimed demo while still retaining their unbridled edge. Okkervil River offers up a new song, “Millionaire,” on their single to The Stand Ins’s, “Pop Lie,” along with an alternate take on the song, and the recent 7″ vinyl releases from Sunset (Loveshines II) and the Black (Little Hits) are must have local singles.

Daytrotter has been impressively mining Austin talent for a couple of years now, ever since connecting with Sound Team back in the day to set up at their Big Orange studio for SXSW. While in town, Daytrotter makes sure to record as many local acts as they can, and have also been welcoming to a number of Austinites touring through the website’s Midwest home base. Case in point of how tuned in to the local scene Daytrotter remains is this weekend’s posting of Leatherbag’s recent set. The band recorded four tunes, all of which are excellent, and we posted up an mp3 of the unreleased tune “Maria” below. It’s a haunting, lovely tune, hearkening back to Leatherbag’s earliest songwriting sound with shades of both Springsteen and Townes Van Zandt.

As our so-called winter quickly turns into a short-lived spring, we wanted to catch up on a batch of recent local EPs that certainly deserve attention. Wine and Revolution deliver their debut effort with the noble 6 track Edward the Magneficent, and The Georgian Company drops their much anticipated first eponymous album. We also couldn’t overlook Leatherbag’s quick four tune disc released in February, which finds one of our favorite songwriters continuing to delve deeper into the classic rock and power pop archives with a new ensemble, the Pretty Tuffs. In his usual prolific fashion, he’s already working up another EP to be released soon. And finally, we revisit the geographically challenged and multiply imbalanced Wax Museum Pandemonium for their attempt to fuse their split ends into a 5 song 7″.

Set as a local cd release for Tom Schraeder, a Chicago songwriter who spent a spell down here in Austin last spring to record his new EP, Lying Through Dinner, the show managed to bring out a solid crowd for a Wednesday night at the Mohawk. While Schraeder’s headlining return was the primary draw, he was supported by two of Austin’s best up-and-coming artists whose praises we have been singing for while now: Leatherbag and Dana Falconberry. Falconberry was celebrating her own new release, Oh Skies of Grey, and Leatherbag had several new songs to deliver for the evening as well.

This past month, both Leatherbag and Danny Malone hit the road on separate tours, but managed to cross paths in Chicago to record a studio session for the great blog Hearya.com. The session was posted on Hearya’s site recently, and we recommend you head over there asap to download the new, unreleased Leatherbag tune “Here Comes Change.” Among the cuts from the session, though, our favorite is the take of “White Doves” with Danny Malone adding his distinctive vocal harmony to Randy Reynolds lead. Watch a video of the session below, and download the mp3 from Hearya.

Dana Falconberry

with: Leatherbag and Jude Ross
at: Stubb’s
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2008
Doors: 9pm
Tickets: $6-$8 (via FrontGate)

A good rule of thumb: anytime Leatherbag plays a show, you generally want to be there. That being said, when Leatherbag plays a show with Golden Bear as his backing band, well, you damn well better drop whatever it is you might otherwise have planned and make arrangements to head down to the show, which just so happens to be Thursday night at Stubb’s.

“It’s over, I got nowhere left to run,” confides Randy Reynolds on his latest album Love & Harm, and it’s almost true; after moving to Austin in 2005 in the wake of Hurricae Rita, Reynolds, or rather “Leatherbag,” began to carve out a home for himself in the Austin music scene, releasing his debut album Nowhere Left To Run after two excellent EPs for local label Superpop!, as well manning the producer knobs on Graham Weber’s Door To The Morning. So it’s safe to say Reynolds has quit running and found his place in the creation of his second LP, Love & Harm. But when it comes to settling down, the album does no such thing.