Ants on the Melon
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I wrote this post on Sunday, Sept 4, a day after I saw The Greencards. The next morning (Labor Day) I got a phone call that resulted in 100% of my attention being focused on a single effort for the next three weeks; literally around the clock. This is the first chance I have had to come up for air since that day. Soon I’ll write about the crazy things that have been going on around here.

HOLY CRAP, that was awesome!

Saturday I drove up to Gruene Hall to see The Greencards, finally. I have been waiting to see this band for almost a year now, and let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

The Greencards are probably best described as “newgrass,” although like most bands I tend to follow, they probably could fit into any number of genres. They get a reasonable amount of airplay on KNBT, which is where I originally heard them. The show was scheduled to start at 1pm, but I arrived a little late, thanks mostly to an accident on I-35, and then a train afterwards. There was a large crowd there, especially for a Saturday afternoon, but I was able to grab a spot along the left wall with a great view of the band.

The music was simply amazing, I had no idea that this band could put on such a great show. Their most popular song on the radio right now is “Time” from the new Weather and Water album. If you are not familiar with the song, it’s a soft bluegrass tune, somewhat like Nickel Creek‘s “Reason’s Why.” So when they rocked the hall with upbeat bluegrass, everyone there had to wake up and pay attention. At the end of the second set (they played three, plus an encore), Eamon announced that they would now be “descending into shameless commercialism,” at which point they launched into the classic bluegrass song, “Orange Blossum Special.” After 7 or 8 minutes of Eamon’s incredible fiddle playing, Kym began playing the lead on his mandolin, and continued doing so for another 6 or 7 minutes; playing OBS on the mandolin is pretty insane, if you can imagine it. Even after these guys finished their riffs, Carol refused to halt the bassline. So the attention shifted to the guitar player, Robbie Gjersoe, who decided that rather than compete, he would innovate, and began playing a Beatles song. From there the band took turns playing all types of little gimmicks: the Flintstones theme song, Norwegian Wood, The Entertainer, Here Comes the Sun, and about 10 other songs that have escaped me. After about 35 minutes they finally wrapped up the jam session by returning to Orange Blossum Special and closing it to an erupting audience. At that point I was having more fun at Gruene Hall than ever before, and that is saying a lot.

The Greencards also invited two guest musicians to share the stage with them during the show. First, Sarah Jarosz, came on stage with her mandolin. Sarah appears to be in her early teens, but her musical skills suggest much more. The first song she played with The Greencards was a Bill Monroe tune. Bill Monroe. And she totally nailed the entire thing, it was amazing and the crowd went wild. After the applause died down Kym said “just wait until you hear her sing!” As they began playing Sarah revealed the secret that Kym was alluding to. I am not sure how it is possible for a person that young to possess such a bluesy, soulful voice, but she certainly has it. I would not be surprised if she gets much more spotlight in the coming years.

The second of the guests was equally impressive. Dennis Ludiker is the mandolin player for the South Austin Jug Band, and was previously their fiddle player, which is what he was playing on stage with The Greencards. I’ve been waiting to see the South Austin Jug Band for quite some time, so it was a great surprise to find him on stage with another band that I had been waiting to see. In my opinion Dennis has quite a recognizable playing style (if you’ve heard anything off of Jason Boland and The Straggler‘s new CD Somewhere in the Middle, you know what I am talking about), and I was excited to finally hear it live. At one point he and Eamon were playing the same lead at the same time, and it sounded terrific. I can tell when I am hearing exceptionally great music because I get cold chills and the hair on my arms stands up. The last time I remember it happening was on a Sunday afternoon when Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez played at Gruene Hall earlier this year. It happened again when Dennis and Sarah took the stage with The Greencards, great music indeed.

Since I had such a good view of the band, I was able to take several videos of the show:

• The Greencards with Sarah Jarosz – 2 songs, 10 minutes, 187 MB.
• The Greencards with Dennis Ludiker – 1 song, 5.5 minutes, 100MB.
• The Greencards with Sarah Jarosz and Dennis Ludiker – 1 song (encore), 5 minutes, 89MB.

This is just a sample of the terrific show these folks put on over the course of 4 hours. If you have a chance to go see any of these musicians, I definitely recommend it.

Friday night I drove up to Gruene Hall to see The Gourds. I was excited about this show because it was my favorite band at my favorite venue, and they only play there a few times a year.

The past couples times I have seen the Gourds I have noticed that they were playing more electric/rock style music than before. I know that bands need to play what they like in order to be creative and come up with new material, but I think the Gourds sound much better playing acoustic instruments than they do electric guitars. With the exception of 2 or 3 songs during the encore, Kev played electric guitar for the entire show. It seems to me that the crowd does not get as energized as they do when the guys are rocking out with the fiddle, mandolin and accordian. Anyway, it was still a decent show. I managed to record the entire encore (310MB zipped file), which was 17 minutes long. I have not identified the first song in the video, but after it are “I Like Drinking,” “Bottle and a Dime” and a cover of Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down.” (notice a theme?)

After the show ended I was able to get everyone in the band to sign a picture that Ethan gave me earlier this year. Everyone in the band was extremely cool and had great things to say about the picture, except Jimmy Smith, the bassist, who was drunk and acting the fool. He managed to write some filth on my precious picture, and for that I have placed a curse on him.

On my way home I stopped by the Broadway Bar where Mingo Fishtrap was playing. Mingo just may be the loudest band around, and combined with the fact that they always pack the house, their shows are crazy. I caught a couple songs, bought a cool sticker, then headed home to crash.

I was excited to learn that The Gourds will be playing at the Hot Sauce Festival on August 28th, along with another band I have been waiting to see, the South Austin Jug Band. Anyone else interested in going to this?

Last night I drove up to Austin to see The High Flyers (formerly known as Speedin’ West) perform at Threadgills North. The High Flyers are Elana Fremerman on fiddle, Cindy Cashdollar on dobro and pedal steel, Redd Volkaert playing a telecaster, and Jake Erwin on upright bass.

Although I saw Elana and Cindy with Doug Davis at Pacha a few weeks ago, this was my first chance to see the new band and it was a little different. Elana, Cindy and Jake all play in a free but refined style, while Redd seems to be a little more experimental in his approach. I thought it was a little too loud, but still it was a good show. I did not take any pictures since it was a bit dark in the restaurant, but I did film two songs. The music starts about a minute into this jam (after Elana tries to tell a joke and then rips on Redd for being Canadian ) The second video is of the last song they performed, The High Flyers Stomp. (Both videos are 77MB, so be sure to right click and download them rather than watching in the browser.)

They played some great songs including Bonaparte’s Retreat, and a beautiful version of Cotton-Eyed Joe. They have a few more shows scheduled, but I probably will not go back to Threadgill’s. It’s a restaurant and there are tables right up to the stage, so it is difficult to watch the musicians, although they did have terrific red beans & rice, and lime-aid.

Tuesday night I went down to The Sanctuary to see the Hank Williams III show. Tate suggested that I check it out, and since it was a Tuesday night and there wasn’t much else going on, I figured why not.

I arrived just before 10pm, grabbed a Shiner and walked into the music room. J.B. Beverley and The Wayward Drifters was the opening band and they were about halfway through their set when I got there. I was a little uneasy with the crowd that was there, but I chilled and focused on the band. They were playing some really great original music that J.B. composed himself. It reminded me of the Plum Hollow Band (Woodstick) that I used to see back when I was in college. The banjo player looked like he could even have been Barney Barnwell‘s long lost brother. They tore up a few bluegrass songs as well, but mostly stuck to anti-Nashville country stuff. I bought a live CD of their’s and its pretty good as well.

After J.B. and the boys finished up, there was about a 20 minute break before Hank III and his guys came on stage. I noticed during the setup that there was a white Gibson SG on stage that sounded a little rough for a country show, but whatever.

Hank III and his band came on stage and the place went wild. Normally that doesn’t mean much, but at The Sanctuary it does. This was not a normal crowd. These guys and gals were the roughest of the rough that San Antonio has to offer. Frankly, I was a little scared. During the break I had made my way up to about the 4th row of people from the stage. As soon as the band started playing the guy immediately in front of me started a fight with the guy in front of him. I gradually stepped back a row or two and tried to focus on the music. Hank III has a great stage presence, and is really fun to watch. As for the rest of the band, well, they are an animated bunch of unruly souls. I kept thinking that these guys looked like they belonged in a death metal band, not an old-school country band. They played a bunch of original songs, and a lot of covers from Johnny Cash, Hank Sr, Hank Jr, and even covered the classic “Wreck of the old 97“. Whenever he saw a fight about to break out, Hank told the crowd many times that he was going to come down and kick some ass. He never discouraged the fight, he just let them know that he was going to get involved if necessary. That seemed to be enough to make people chill out, temporarily. Nevertheless, I eventually ended up near the back because of all the fight-happy people there.

After about an hour, Hank took off his cowboy hat, dowsed himself with a bottle of water, and said to the crowd “Well, that was the first part of our show”, picked up the white Gibson SG and began playing death metal. The real thing. Some other gnarly dude got on stage and started growling and making all sorts of awful noises. Out of pure shock, I stayed for the first “song.” By the end of the first noise-piece there was a full blown mosh pit, with people hitting each other and all that mess. Yeah, this was definitely not the sort of thing I normally see on a Tuesday night. When the band started making noise again I decided that the music I was interested in was probably over for the night, so I headed home.

An interesting night to say the least.

Tuesday night I went up to the River Road Ice House in New Braunfels to see Drew Kennedy. Drew was a fellow history major at Hampden-Sydney College, and graduated a year after I did. Several months ago I read in the college newsletter that he was working on a career as a Texas musician. Well, Tuesday I finally had a free night so I made the trip up there to see him play.

I talked with Drew for a little while when I got there, and he mentioned that Matt Powell would be playing with him, and that he was one of the best songwriters around. Everyone has their own idea of greatness and “best”, so sometimes you just have to see for yourself. In this case, Drew was right.

The show was nice and laid back, just the way I like them. As they began getting ready to play, I grabbed a Negro Modelo and assumed a spot at the bar. There was a small, casual crowd there; apparently everyone there knew everyone else.

Drew and Matt alternated playing, with Matt occasionally dropping a lead into Drew’s songs, very nice. They mostly played their original music, with one or two covers mixed in (including “Sitting by the Dock of the Bay”). Not only are they both great songwriters, but the music was also excellent. At times Matt’s music and singing reminded me of Mofro, but then he’d throw a bluegrass song in there and tear it up. Matt is another Virginian (Franklin county) living in south Texas, so it should have been no surprise that what he was playing reminded me of music from back home. Besides the great music Drew and Matt also went the extra mile to perform comedy acts between songs, because as everyone knows, you can never have too many Chappelle’s Show references.

If you are into acoustic goodness, go ahead and make it out to one of Drew’s or Matt’s shows. Good listening, indeed.

Friday night I went out to Floore’s Country Store to see Eleven Hundred Springs. It was a pretty good show, although I was disappointed that Steve was playing an electric bass instead of his usual stand-up. Along with their normal setlist they played an amazing version of Orange Blossum Special and a few other surprise covers, including an Elvis tune. During their break I asked Matt what the chances were that they would ever play “Illegal Smile” again. Based on his response, I doubt we will ever heard EHS perform that one anymore. I set my alarm Saturday morning for 9am so that I could join the band for their float down the Guadalupe. I woke up when the alarm went off, considered the cold water and almost certain sunburn, then went back to sleep for another 5 hours.

On Saturday Elana Fremerman, of Hot Club of Cowtown fame, was playing with Cindy Cashdollar and Doug Davis at the Pacha Coffeeshop in Austin from 6-9pm. I’m a huge fan of Hot Club, so there was no way I was going to miss this. I arrived there around 6:30 to find a slightly crowed room with the 3 musicians right in the middle. I ordered a smoothie and found a place to stand where I could see the musicians. They played for about 30 more minutes and then took a break. During the break this older guy named Mel found a chair and sat down next to me. We started talking, and as it turned out he was from Sacramento California, but was in San Antonio visiting his sister. He received the email newsletter from Elana that morning and decided that he had no choice but to drive up to Austin for the show. This guy knew more about music than anyone I have ever met, and we ended up talking for a long time. He had looked at the setlist and said that there was a song titled “South” on the list. Apparently this song was written in the 30′s by a man named Ray Charles (not the blind pianist), and is pretty rare. Mel said that Chet Atkin’s performed it on an LP titled “A Session with Chet Atkins”, but that album has never been produced in CD form. Mel also told me how Bob Wills performed the song on what is called “The Tiffany Transcriptions,” which has an interesting history. Anyway, Mel was very excited to see that this song was on the list, so when he asked them to play it I had my camera ready, here’s the video of Cindy/Doug/Elana – South. I also was able to record another song, but I ran out of drive space with about 15 seconds left in the song, but the video is here anyway. When the show was over Mel and I took pictures with Elana, Cindy and Doug. Elana and Cindy are forming a new band called Speedin’ West with Redd Volkaert and Jake Erwin. I was upset to learn a few months ago that Hot Club was breaking up, but after seeing Elana and Cindy play together, I must say that I think there is something even better on the way.

As if that was not enough music for a single 24 hour period, before I left San Antonio I checked Pollstar to see who else was playing up there last night. After all, the Elana show was scheduled to end at 9, which is just about when everyone else starts playing. Sure enough, The Derailers were playing at The Broken Spoke. It had been several months since I had last seen Brian and the gang, so I figured I might as well stop by and see the show. I had never been to The Broken Spoke before, but now that I have been I do not think I care for it as a music venue. The space is totally geared for dancers, and it’s difficult to see the musicians if you aren’t out on the dance floor. I watched the show from the side for about an hour and then decided to make my way back home.

All in all, a great weekend of music.

Ok, so it’s been a week and a half since I last posted anything. I’ve been really busy, and haven’t been in the writing mood. Anyway, here’s the news…

Friday, June 1 was my last day with the CORE Team. I was with the group for almost 2 years and I enjoyed working there, but it was time for something new. Last Monday I started at my new position (still at Rackspace) where I will eventually be administering the DNS servers. This is much closer to what I am interested in, and I am excited to have the opportunity to work on something like this.

Last Saturday I went to see War of the Worlds with some friends. I was really disappointed with the movie. That’s all I’ll say about that.

On Sunday Brandon and I went over to Pepper and Ethan’s house to play nickel-and-dime poker. I had never played poker before, but I can totally see how that could become addictive. I think I ended the night down a dollar or two, which bothered me enough to know that I would never want to seriously gamble. Speaking of that…

This week I bought plane tickets to go to DefCon, which is in Las Vegas from July 28 – August 1. DefCon is the big hacker conference where all sorts of interesting ideas make their way to the public. I know of 6 friends that will be out there for the conference, so it should be a good time. I’ll be back in Vegas 2 weeks later for my college roomate’s bachelor party, after spending 3 days in Reno to work. On the subject of travel, I bought plane tickets this week to go to Tampa, Fl to visit Sarah. I’ll be out there Sept 9 – 12.

On July 4th I played music with Evan and Issac for a couple hours, and then headed over to Brett‘s house for the pool party. After 5 or 6 hours in the pool and hot tub, I was exhausted. I went home and crashed early that night.

Tuesday Brandon come over for cigars and movies. We watched two more episodes of Band of Brothers. We have watched through episode 7 now, and I’m really into it. Winters and Spears are my favorites so far, and Lipton is pretty cool as well. We’ve got 4 more episodes to go.

On Wednesday I went over to Issac’s for the Wednesday Night Dinner and had a great time. I took Crawfish Etouffee and rice, which tasted pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Evan, Issac and I played music for the crowd for almost an hour, including a soon-to-be-famous acoustic version of “Ice Ice Baby.”

Thursday I had to relax after being social for like 10 days straight. But it started all over on Friday night…

A few months ago when Chris was in town a bunch of people showed up at Rebar to hang out and catch up with him. I ended up talking with his friend Isaac quite a bit that night, and I remembered that he mentioned something about Wednesday Night Dinner. That was all I had heard about it until last night.

Chris is back in town this week, and he got a bunch of people together at Gruene Hall last night for the live DVD that Two Tons of Steel was recording. Isaac was there again and was telling us the story behind the WND. Apparently some people in Austin started the original Wednesday Night Dinner as a way to meet friends of friends, enjoy music, art, and of course, good food. Isaac started up the WND thing in San Antonio earlier this year, and last night he invited us to come over. Everyone brings something: food, drinks, supplies, or if you are Brett, cigarettes. Music is also a big part of the night, so he suggested that I come prepared to play something.

Lately I’ve been trying to make an effort to meet more people outside of work, so this sounded like a good opportunity. After work I stopped and bought some red beans & rice mix and a jalapeno smoked sausage, headed home and cooked it up. I showed up at their place around 9 (when things were supposed to get started) with the beans, my guitar, and my mandolin. Pretty much everyone was there by the time I arrived, which was great because I only knew like 3 or 4 people to begin with. Immediately it was time to eat, and let me just say how great it was to see some real food on the table. Green bean casserole, another type of bean casserole, and about 6 or 7 other types of casseroles (it was casserole night, if you didn’t pick that up). I ate a plateful of casserole and loved it. I topped it off with some sort of Oreo and whipped cream dessert, at Richard‘s recommendation. Whoa, it was all good.

Once the eating slowed down it was time for music. There were several guitar players there, so I grabbed my mandolin and handed my guitar to someone else. We played some Gourds songs (El Paso, Gin and Juice, and Ants on the Melon, of course), Friend of the Devil, and a few other things for about 20 minutes or so until some of the other musicians wanted to play stuff from other genres. That was cool too, because I wanted to hang out with people anyway. The rest of the guys continued to play on and off for the next 3+ hours, and it was fantastic. I really enjoyed just sitting back and listening to the music.

I guess around 20 people showed up this week, maybe more, but overall it was a great night. I hope to attend the WND as often as possible from now on, it’s just the type of social gathering I like: laid back with good food, good music and good people.

Over the past few months I have become a big fan of Eleven Hundred Springs, one of Texas’ great young country bands. I bought their newest release, Bandwagon, several months ago at one of their shows at Floore’s Country Store. It’s now one of the best CD’s I own. I also bought their No Stranger To The Blues CD and I like it as well.

So a couple weeks ago I was in my truck flipping through the radio stations when I landed on KNBT. A song was playing and a female was singing and then it went to a pedal steel solo, I immediately recognized the style as Aaron Wynne’s. A couple seconds later I heard Matt Hillyer’s voice and knew then that it was an Eleven Hundred Spring’s song that I had never heard. As it turns out, it was a song from the Broken Dreams CD that they recorded with Kim Pendleton. I’ve since bought the CD, and although there are only 5 songs on the CD, it is extremely good. “Depends On You” is one of those songs that will get stuck in your head and be there all day, which is great because it is terrific. It’s definitely worth the $7.

Matt and the boys will be playing at Floore’s on Friday, July 8th. I’ll be there for sure. The following day they are inviting everyone to float down the Guadalupe with them, if the weather is nice I may head out there for that as well.

Last night I traveled to Austin with Pepper and Ethan to see Neko Case at Antones. I had never seen her before, but had heard a lot of her music on KSYM and at Pepper and Ethan’s house. The show was scheduled to start at 8:30, with doors opening at 8:00. As it turned out, we had two extra tickets, so we got there a few minutes before 8:00 so that we could sell our extra tickets. After entering we found out that Neko was not going on until 11:00, and that there was an opening act going on at 10:00. Soooo, we had a few hours on our hands.

We walked down to Waterloo Records and looked around there for a while. I decided to buy Mofro’s Lochloosa CD, after all, it is on Chris’s approved live music list.

After leaving Waterloo we walked over to an Asian restuarant for dinner, then headed back to Antone’s for the opening act. This may or may not have been a good idea because the dude simply could not sing. And he was weird. His drummer and keyboard players were excellent, so he had that going in his favor. Anyway, before he began playing his second-to-last song he mumbled something about a young girl asking to sing with him, and that she had never performed before. So this normal looking girl goes on stage and in the middle of the song begins to sing, I couldn’t believe it, this girl had an amazing voice! She stayed on stage for his last song as well, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just any girl, it was Neko!

When Neko and her band came on stage we were all ready, and the venue was almost full. It’s really awesome to hear something so original and unique. Neko has this great voice that is both extremely powerful and lofty, it’s pretty hard to imagine. If you have never heard her you should head over to amazon.com and listen to some samples of her music. The show was terrific and lasted about an hour and a half, during which I was able to record video for two songs. I don’t know the names of either of the songs, but she preceded one by saying that it was a story her grandmother told her, and the other is apparently a Hank Williams song. Here are the videos: Grandma’s Story (65MB), Hank Williams song (48MB, missing the last 20-25 seconds of the song). If anyone can help me identify either of these two songs I would appreciate it. After the show Neko signed a poster for Pepper, and we got a picture of them together. It was an excellent evening overall, and I can’t wait for Neko to perform in this area again.

We left Austin about 12:45, which put me at home a little after 2am, and I was asleep by 2:30. Just enough time for 4.5 hours of sleep to power me through the RHCE exam the next day at work.