Want to bring in the New Year on a real low-down and rowdy note? Then your best bet in the Austin, TX area is to head over to Emo’s New Years Eve to catch the Dirty One-Man Band with 9-lives Scott H. Biram. Flame Trick Subs and Hotrod Hillbillies Support.
Tickets available at Waterloo records.
I had this article from the Dallas Morning News forwarded to me. I love Jeff Griffith’s music, it’s like the classic sounds of Charlie Rich and Charlie Pride. It’s refreshing when someone in the business has the cajones to say something like this:
“You’ve got to stand for something, and I stand for good country music,” he says by phone from his San Antonio home. “I’m
not going to let nobody come in and mold me into what I should do. I can only sing and do what I feel. Every time I travel
and perform, people are starved to death for that traditional sound.”
He’s eager to feed.
“There are people out there loving this. It ain’t got nothing to do with the money. It ain’t got nothing to do with being a
star. It’s about Jeff Griffith being known for doing traditional country music.”
Amen, hoss. Amen…
Another country great has left us. Hank Thompson died from lung cancer late Tuesday at his home in the Fort Worth suburb of Keller. Thompson died just days after canceling his tour and announcing his retirement.
The last show Thompson played was Oct. 8 in his native Waco. That day was declared “Hank Thompson Day” by Gov. Rick Perry and Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy.
Fans loved Thompson’s distinctive voice and his musical style, which drew on the Western swing first developed in the 1930s by fellow Texan Bob Wills. Thompson was named to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989.
His first hit record was “Whoa, Sailor” in 1946. That year, he started a band called the Brazos Valley Boys, which won Billboard magazine’s touring band of the year award 14 consecutive times.
A “celebration of life,” open to fans and friends, will be held Nov. 14 at Billy Bob’s Texas, a Fort Worth honky-tonk.
Survivors include his wife, Ann. He had no children.
The good folks at the country music blog 9513.com are giving away tickets to the Big State Festival. Now I lived in Texas most of my life and never heard of the Big State Festival. Well turns out this is the first year it’s being put on.
The Festival is held on October 13 & 14 at the Texas World Speedway; Bryan-College Station, Texas (Gig ‘em!) and will have more than 50 country music stars on 5 stages over 2 days as well as stock car racing as (this is my favorite part) a Barbecue Showdown. The performers will include Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Drive-By Truckers, Leon Russell, Billy Joe Shaver, Charlie Louvin , Gary Allan, Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert, Bruce and Charlie Robison, Luke Bryan, Kelly Willis, Sunny Sweeney and more. Head over to the official Big State Festival website to see a full lineup.
The festival will benefit the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation.
Hey Dallas and San Antonio homies, do yourself a favor and get out this weekend and check out that honky-tonk sweetheart and CMT.com blogger Sunny Sweeney at a show near you.
Sep 7 2007 9:00P Sons of Hermann Hall Dallas, TX
Sep 8 2007 9:00P Leon Springs Dancehall w/ Rodney Hayden San Antonio, TX
Sunny Sweeney - East Texas Pines
Billy Joe Shaver - August 16, 1939 in Corsicana, Texas
New Release - “Everybody’s Brother” coming 9/25
“No Fool Like an Old Fool”
If you find yourself in Austin this Friday and want to make a statement against the so-called drug war and the political idiocy and the abuse of the our countries’ legal system that has resulted from it, then mosey on over to the Austin Freedom Fest at The Backyard. The concert will benefit MPP, NORML and WAMM, and will feature Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling, Carolyn Wonderland, Paula Nelson, Mark Stepnoski and others to be announced.
Bourbon Crow, the country side project of North Carolina’s horror punk band Wednesday 13 (ex-Murderdolls frontman) and his former bassist Rayen Belchere, will embark on a short tour of Texas between September 9 and Sepember 15. According
to a press release, “these will be stripped down, acoustic shows. “The first confirmed performance is September 15 in Houston, Texas at The Reverend Horton Heat pre-party at the Red Room (Meridian). The Reverend Horton Heat will perform later that night with The Gore Gore Girls and The Phantom Rockers.
Bourbon Crow released its debut CD, “Highway to Hangovers”, on Horror High, LLC in October 2006. The band will return to the studio later this year to record its sophomore effort.
9.11.07 - San Antonio, TX - Rock Bottom
9.12.07 – Austin, TX – Room 710 w/ Rhoades D’Ablo & The Devil’s Right Hand
9.13.07 - Dallas, TX - DarkSide Lounge w/ GHOULTOWN, John Chaos Sideshow and the Spook City All Stars
9.14.07 - Fort Worth, TX - Wreck Room w/ GHOULTOWN
9.15.07 - Houston, TX at The Reverend Horton Heat Pre-Party at the Red Room (Meridian)
Thanks to the 9513 for putting this on my radar. Inspired by the Johnny Cash song of the same name, Austin’s one-of-a-kind Mean Eyed Cat bar is facing possible closure.
The property that the bar occupies is zoned as a retail space and thus is required to earn 51 percent of its revenue from food sales - The space has no kitchen so that’spretty much out of the question.
Owner Chris Marsh has taken the issue to the city council to ask that the property be rezoned. The council is set to vote on June 21.
Go to the Mean Eyed Cat and spend your hard-earned cash.
Go here to support the rezoning.
In its continuing quest not to completely suck CMT has a nice write up on Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas. Gruene Hall, Texas’ oldest dance hall, was opened by Pat Molak in1974 and then featured a young unknown named George Strait and his Ace in the Hole band who played one or two shows a month there starting in 1975.
“I have many great memories of playing at Gruene Hall,” Strait says. “It was definitely one of the highlights of my early career. Pat Molak, who owns it and I still consider a friend, let us play there one Sunday afternoon for, I think, 50 cents at the door. He had never heard us and wanted to check us out before he let us do a weekend night. This led to many great nights at one of Texas’ greatest dancehalls.”