Austin Sound

The Riverboat Gamblers have been out on tour for the past the past month or so (actually, it seems their always on tour!), so the video for “Victory Lap” feels especially appropriate, capturing the local punks on stage and on the road. We’ve been following the Gambler’s tour adventures through Mike Wiebe’s twitter (@mikewiebe) and have decided that of all the local bands and musicians we follow, Wiebe has to be the most amusing. Of course, it helps when you are constantly getting pulled over and stripped searched at the Canadian border! And yes, a cop makes an appearance in the “Victory Lap” video.

The song is off of the band’s latest, Underneath the Owl, and premiered on Altpress.com. It was directed by Jose Jones, and we love the live footage capturing the Gamblers in all their flailing glory. They’ll be rolling back home here to Austin on July 15 with a show Antone’s, and then heading over tour Europe. We should also mention that you can download the Gamblers’ cover of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” as part of the Purplish Rain tribute over at Spin, so there’s that, too.

The Riverboat Gamblers are planning the release of their fourth album, Underneath the Owl, for March of 2009, but they recently unloaded a taste of the new LP to Spin. “A Choppy, Yet Sincere Apology” delves into the poppier side of the notoriously stage flinging punks, but it’s hooky as hell. Check out the download below, and you can sign up on their myspace to receive the download for the B-side “Don’t Jinx” as well.

3/5/07
The Riverboat Gamblers’ new video may be on par with ToD’s most recent “Naked Sun” in sheer lasar guided craziness. “Don’t Bury Me…I’m Already Dead” is such a wonderful B-Movie romp, all that’s missing is…well, it actually manages to incorporate everything camp into it’s folds.

The video was directed by Chris Rose and produced by the super alright Super! Alright! guys, so it comes with a great deal of vid Bcred already. But no need to take our word for it - check it out for yourself below.

The Gamblers are currently out on tour with against me, but you can catch them next week when the come to town for that littel industry get-together thing.

12/20/06
There is certainly no shortage of New Year’s Festivities this year in Austin. The Starlight Mints are going to ringing in the new at Emo’s and Urban Pollution is sponsoring a heck of a show at the Mohawk for their New Year’s Party with both stages going (featuring The Blow, A Hawk and a Handsaw, Jonathan Meiberg, Loxly and a whole lot more!). But perhaps the most interesting of the events that have been set up so far is the Riverboat Gamblers taking over Spiderhouse Coffee Shop for the evening. Given the number of random things to climb on and throw around there, who knows what will happen.

12/8/06
It sucks when the cops are called in, but if they’re coming, you might as well be blaring the Riverboat Gamblers. The group recently released their video for “True Crime,” which features Mike Wiebe with his usual burst of microphone flinging, amp climbing energy. One day he’s gonna take somebody out with that mic and then the cops are really gonna come calling.

Riverboat Gamblers True Crime Video

It appears some assholes broke into the Riverboat Gamblers’ trailer and made off with a bunch of gear. Sad to say this happened right here in the ATX. The Gamblers are also getting ready to head out on a national headlining tour, which makes the situation even worse. If anyone has any information, please contact them from the info below.

Here’s their post:
Riverboat Gamblers— Stolen Guitars Please REPOST (ATX)
From FADI/Riverboat Gamblers:

Our trailer got broken into last night (or the night before) and these fuckers took almost all of our guitars.

To anyone in Austin, I’m asking that you keep your eyes and ears open for any information on this. Here’s what we lost:

1976 Gibson Grabber Bass-black with huge Zorlac sticker on back.
Fender ‘72 Deluxe Telecaster - black-mexican made

8/17/06
Austin’s Riverboat Gamblers are currently on tour with Henry Rollins and 80’s punk legends X. Their most recent stop landed them in the hardcore haven of Washington DC, where they took the time to swing by a local kid’s show. Needless to say, glorious hilarity ensued.

We’re just going to put up the Gambler’s recent blog post on their myspace because there’s not much we can add to this:

“So here in DC before the show I witnessed a cool thing. X did a song for a children’s program. Something kind of like Seasame Street, but clearly cooler. It was X onstage with about 25 eight year old boys and girls. There was a guy dressed up like a professor who said “Kids…Kids, we lost a letter of the alphabet!…….What letter did we lose?” And at once all the kids screamed “X!!!!!!!!!!!” and X went into a song as everyone, including a puppet behind Billy Zooms amp, danced along. Here is the capper to the story…..I am sitting and watching all this from the balcony right next to Henry Rollins and Ian Mackaye just laughing at how much fun X and the kids are having. It was a cool moment that I’ll probably remember forever….”