ACL Update - Thursday Pre Shows

While Maria went looking for a museum, Deb and I headed out for more music. There is a PR firm called Sin City. Along with the standard PR they have been putting on shows in L.A. and Nashville. Thursday was their inaugural show in Austin. And where better to kick things off then at a taco joint. So, off Deb and I went to Taco X Press. Although things seemed a bit ragged (it started 40 minutes late), everything actually went very smooth. In fact, before we left, two and a half hours later, we had seen seven bands. But I'm getting ahead of myself. When we arrived there were about twenty people in the back patio of this award winning taco stand. Most of the people there had come to play.

Up first was Sin City's Austin house band (they don't have a name yet but are made up of some top local talent (most of them later fronted heir own band). The house bands are there to play spirited alt-country covers and we got a nice selection from them including: Willin’, Dead Flowers and Ryan Adam's classic, The Strip. They also played a cool Wilco song called Passenger Side. For a band working with one rehearsal, they were really tight. Part way through the set Deb said, "Where else but in Austin can you sit and listen to music at 4pm in the afternoon, and get some good steal guitar on top of that?"
Up next was Kristy Kruger. What can I say about Kristy? I woman with a kazoo always wins me over. Her vocals and style reminded me a bit of Shivaree except a bit more... normal. I bought her CD and may chat about her later.
Merle Jagger did a nice set of uhmmm, let's call it rockin’ Texas almost surf music. It was fun. Sorry, no picture here.
The L.A. Sin City Social Band was up next with a batch of covers including a Doug Sahm number and more Wilco.
Dead Rock West was up next. We really liked the female vocalist ( the guy wasn’t bad either) who had a sexy, almost Bonnie Raitt sound. This was the least country sound so far.
West Coast Grand did a 3 song rockabilly/alt country set that had us tapping our feet.
During all of this, some players would leave the stage and some would stay. The steel guitar player, who was very tasty, played with every band; even when he wasn't supposed to play: "Hey, come up here and play with these guys. They're fun. Only three chords" And he did: and played well.