No Fold

Both Steve Fromholz and Kinky Friedman make up a night of nothing short of Texas legend on a stage that is quickly gaining the same status.
The show starts at 8pm tonight, tickets are $40. A little steep for my blood, but a small price to pay for what you're sure to see & hear tonight.

There has been a lot of talk of touring lately, there usually is this time of year..
but what's different this time is that most of the talk is of canceling or postponing tours, or worse - ways to raise the thousands of dollars it would take just to pay for the gas.

I'm in the midst of planning a tour myself, so maybe I'm just painfully more aware of it right now, but recent discussions with my peers have left me believing there's just no way around it.

To a community of musicians that has advocated bicycling, carpooling, and shorter commutes to the day-job for environmental (and health reasons) the actual price of gas is normally a secondary factor at best.

I'm planning to follow a couple of tours this summer, just because this sort of thing interests me. I'll probably even share it with you, even if you're not interested in it. I mean hey, at least I'm writing again, right?

Our brethren at Quick have posted a link to footage shot for WFAA's Gordon Keith show of Record Hop doing what they do best - rocking out in an awkward environment.

Click here for the video.

I say WFAA should dump the talk show format all together & just fill those nifty Victory Park studios with rock bands.

deep Snapper
Into the Ugly
recorded January 2008 at The Echo Lab with Matt Barnhart
Mastered by David Willingham

Floating through the week on Tuesday's high, I can't help but relate the characteristics of everything I like to those of a certain presumptive Democratic nominee. My family physician, with her lanky hands and calm, listening eyes, gave me an update on her two young children -- one is a boy -- and I thought of the smiling Obama sisters. Choice sandwiches-on-the-run have tasted classic but fresh, hearty with straightforward whole wheat and hopeful, crisp spinach.

Though it'd be less of a stretch to introduce deep Snapper on such terms, I'll spare you. It's no good to assume the members' political leanings, and We Shot JR already called the band's style "sophisticated."

Into the Ugly is the second release proper by a few persistent dudes who use their supple brains to raise fists. I'll admit it up front: I'm partial to jazz-informed cerebral rock; I rolled down the windows and pumped the quotable, blistering sermons of Red Animal War's Black Phantom Crusades as a mode of social evangelism in the gated neighborhoods of my youth.
Deep Snapper's latest is not quite as face-melting as the aforementioned album, but its as thoughtful and more palatable. "Splitting the Differents (Sic)" represents Into the Ugly's overall cleverness. It's catchy, with dissonant punches in just the right spots and a sunny reference to west-coast punk.
Throughout, grown-up rants about "urban sprawl" with "competing dry cleaners across from each other" make this an album of record by musician dad-types turned scene regulars turned band to watch. Mixing courtesy of Tre Orsi's Matthew Barnhart treats deep Snapper as the articulate rhythm section and guitar machine that it is, and an introduction to Dallas jazzman Dave Willingham's work is just another of this record's gifts.
Luckily. dS plays out often. Check here for an old-fashioned Web site calendar; no June Denton dates are up yet. And yeah, don't forget this.

Not that I ever was. But hey, I didn't see you put a quarter in your disk drive. You're getting more than you paid for...
So for the past two weeks I've been immersed in the other side of music, the actual making of it. My newest band has been in the studio off & on the last couple of weeks, and that's been a great experience.. another band or two has kept me rehearsing and playing shows, which is the main reason I ended up in this town. So forgive me if I don't get the updates posted all the time.. it's easy to forget about writing about music when you're out playing it.

In the meantime, I have NO idea what tonight's show at Rubber Gloves is all about, but just look at this flier. LOOK AT IT. There's some cows... that's pretty awesome.