Tag: Austin

Dog and Duck Pub

Seth Anderson0 comment

The Dog and Duck
The Dog and Duck, London

I saw this place in London, and wondered if it was related to one of my favorite Austin drinking establishments. Apparently so…

Dog and Duck might have opened as a British Pub, but it has evolved into something more. We have 42 beer taps, of various Texas, American, and International Brews. A Kitchen which has recently been voted Austin’s Best Pub Grub, and has everything from fish ‘n’ chips to Falafel, and almost anything else you could want. We even have some food that is healthy.

…

It would be nice to tell you that Dog and Duck is a long established Austin business that people have been going to for generations, but truthfully, it’s not even old enough to drink. Dog and Duck opened up in May of 1990 in it’s current location, it’s well known tin ceilings, slanted wood floor, and fireplace already there. The Building had been around for a long time, and was a restaurant called Mrs. Robinson’s in the 1970’s. In 1991, Dog and Duck sistered with one of The Dog and Duck pubs in London.

(click here to continue reading Dog and Duck Pub.)

Only took me 2 years to check.

Travis High School Reunion

Seth Anderson0 comment

City of Austin Power Plant

My high school is having an anniversary; 25 years ago we graduated from William B Travis High School1. Facebook became popular since the last time a reunion was held, thus some enterprising classmate set up a Facebook Group for the details of where and when, and who was attending. To be brutally honest, there weren’t many on the list of attendees that I’d like to have a beer with, seems like too many are Tea Baggers, religious zealots, or both. I’m sure some folks didn’t fall into this cynical trap, we are from Austin after all, but too many of the same schmoes that I didn’t like then, and hadn’t heard of in years, were going to attend.

Instead, I left the following RSVP which I’m saving for posterity:

I’m sorry but I cannot attend, even though I would like to see how some of you turned out after all these years. I’m just too afraid that Rick Perry is going to convince Texas to secede from the US, and institute some sort of 3rd world Tea Party Republic that won’t be friendly to liberal,  secular humanists like myself. Maybe when there’s high speed rail service from Chicago to Texas I’d reconsider.

I’d thought about being less abrasive, and just saying “sorry, couldn’t make it”, but then, why? Don’t care about my “reputation”, and those who even remember me will have a chuckle.

Seth and Josh 1986

Me and Joshua Starbuck in my first car, parked in front of Post Oak, back when my waist size was still 28…

Footnotes:
  1. apparently Roky Erickson also went to Travis – there should be a statue or something, no? But there is not. [↩]

Interview with Founder of The Meat Puppets

Seth Anderson0 comment

Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets answers a lot of questions for Andrew Perry, including:

You were the fourth or fifth band on Greg Ginn from Black Flag’s label, SST — was it a chaotic operation?

We were there real early on. We were from Phoenix which is like a faraway suburb of L.A., in our minds at least. It’s 400 miles away, it’s where you’re always looking when you’re kid. Disneyland is there, Hollywood is there, the ocean. We would go over there and play, and what Black Flag saw in us was, we were way more pissed off and crazy, and played a lot faster than all the other punk-rock bands around. We weren’t even that good, we just played really fast, and were completely out of our minds.

But we weren’t typical, in that none of us were aggressive bruisers. We would play stuff from Broadway shows, and stuff that I really liked from my childhood, like The King And I, then we’d go as far out on the other limb as we could, and just really try to hurt people mentally. It’s all completely valid in the art realm, and we could see that — there’s just so much canvas here to cover, we can do anything. It’s still that way. I don’t like to repeat myself ever. So we did a screaming punk-rock record, then I just went, “I can’t do that again.” Then I heard Metallica, and I was like, “Fuck, let them do it!” But you know, they didn’t have to keep doing it.

Was country music a big influence?

We always knew about it, and had dabbled in it — we did “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds” on our first record. Then I was just like, “Know what, we could use this stuff to really hurt punk rockers’ feelings.” Because I was starting to hate them. Like, “Oh yeah, freedom? As long as we don’t leave your box!” It has to be loud, fast, pissed off. It’s just like more classifications, that don’t really do you or your art any good. So, what we really need to do is not just be defiant, we have to actually hurt these people’s feelings. Let’s just do this as ass-backwards as we possibly can — like we thought Jimi Hendrix did it — get fucked up, and make a fucked-up fuckin’ record, exactly the way you want to.

How did the new direction go down with SST themselves?

They got it. They always got it, even Black Flag. Greg Ginn and Chuck [Dukowski] and The Minutemen and Hüsker Dü were all our best buddies — and are still some of my best friends. They had to be taken seriously as punk rockers. Then you got Rollins. Then it’s, Look out! Things get real serious. Everything was drawing a lot of mosh pit stuff, but they liked it, because we could open for them, and their crowd would just spit all over us, and hate us, and they’d be good and pissed off by the time Black Flag came on.

They figured it out, too, though — like, “This is funny, you guys came in like a punk rock thing, but you’re so not,” so it was part of actually the growing ethos that that label had. The Minutemen were doing it. We just tried to take the jock, macho element out of our thing, initially. What I saw with punk rock, especially in L.A., it was becoming like an athletic event for people to slamdance to. So it was like, let’s just play stuff that’ll put these people to sleep. That’s when people were going [aggrieved dullard’s voice], “Pink Floyd! Neil Young! Grateful Dead!” I was like, “Yeah, I like that stuff!”

You recorded Up On The Sun in three days flat. You wouldn’t have believed at the time that you’d be playing it in full at a festival in 2011, at the behest of one of the world’s coolest bands, ATP curators Animal Collective…

I would’ve said no! We hardly ever played it live that much. I see why we didn’t. There’s a lot of guitar parts on it, and it’s very artsy, it needs to be examined. Once again: more thought than I like to put into something when I’m onstage. I don’t know: God bless Animal Collective, I don’t know ’em, I don’t know what their motivation is here, probably self-indulgence — they just wanna sit there and drink beers and hear Up On The Sun played live.

(click here to continue reading eMusic Q&A: The Meat Puppets – eMusic Spotlight.)

The Meat Puppets were one of my favorite SST bands back in my UT – Austin days, especially their second album (wikipedia entry). I liked them for the fact that they weren’t afraid to abandon the jock-rock aggressive music template and play some unusual genres.

Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase

Seth Anderson0 comment

I am an official backer of this project, mostly because Glass Eye was one of my favorite bands when I lived in Austin1. Seems like they often came to the Magnolia Cafe too, which happened to be the place that, indirectly, paid my tuition, but that might have been more because the drummer was dating a fellow employee there. Memories fade over time, what I do remember is seeing Glass Eye perform live multiple times, over a multi-year span, and always enjoying it.

Anyway, not the point.

Here’s what Brian Beattle says about his project:

I’ve written a musical called “Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase”. It’s an epic surreal musical audio drama, a low tech extravaganza whose story is told complete with tunes, dialogue, sound effects and incidental music, packaged inside a beautiful 31 page fully illustrated book, not unlike the old Disney gatefold Buena Vista records. My wife, Valerie Fowler, drew the book, and I’m making the record.

The story is based in Austin, Tx., in 1938. The first day of summer vacation. Hidden away down in her favorite creek, 10 year old Ivy Wire sits with her battered guitar singing to the birds and the trees. Suddenly the sky darkens and she follows a mockingbird into a nearby cave. She hears a monstrous roar and sees a tumbling wall of muddy water rushing towards her. “FLASH FLOOD!!”. She barely escapes by scampering into a hole, but she immediately starts plunging into darkness. Thus begins her descent into the Underworld.

About 2 years ago, when the bottom really dropped out and the economy tanked, I got the spark of the idea. I started, much to the chagrin of my family, to watch depression era musicals every single night. By late summer 2009, my “spark” was named “Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase”. I’ve been working on it on and off since then, and I’ve been lucky enough to enlist my “Dream Cast”.

Daniel Johnston plays “the Big Boss”, the Lord of the Underworld.

Bill Callahan Plays “Everything”, a supreme deity.

Will Sheff is “Mister Kirby”, the Chief Admissions Officer of the Eternal Incarceration System.

K. McCarty plays “Celia Wire”, Ivy’s momma.

James Hand plays “Cosmo Wire”, Ivy’s daddy.

Brian Beattie plays the “Omniscient Serenader”, and also “Org”, an employee of the Eternal Incarceration System.

Grace London plays “Ivy Wire”, the hero. She’s 11. I met her at the Zilker Elementary talent show, where she turned a bunch of dozing parents into a standing ovation.

The record also features performances by Amy Annelle, Matt the Electrician, and my daughter, Ramona Beattie.

As of right now, 14 and a half of the 16 songs are recorded. The artwork is almost completely finished as well. If we meet our kickstarter goal, you will have financed the finishing of the project, which includes the composition and recording of the incidental music, finishing the dialogue/ foley work (the elements which make this an “ear movie”),  paying musicians, the finalization and scanning of the drawings, and the mixing and mastering of the record. Mostly, it will involve a good 3 months of straight work for me, and I need to finish or I will tear out my remaining hair. All of the composition and most of the playing is done by me all by my lonesome, so it’s mostly just a matter of me slugging away at it for a little longer here in my home studio.

If we exceed our goals, the money could go towards making videos based on Valerie’s drawings, and supporting the book and record store tours Valerie and I will be going on to support the record. We are soon going to look for a wonderful, savvy label to release the actual product, but if it seems appropriate, and if our kickstarter is very successful, we could release it ourselves.

Thanks for your curiosity. Please tell someone about “Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase”.

Project location: Austin, TX

If you’ve got a buck or two extra, throw it his way. What were you going to do with anyway? Piss it away on beer? Oh, that’s just me…

Footnotes:
  1. from 1981-1994, for the record [↩]

Coal Tar Toxic, EPA Indifferent

Seth Anderson0 comment

Everything Is Political

If only there was some regulatory agency that protected the interests of people and the environment…

Michael Hawthorne of the Trib writes:

If a company dumped the black goop behind a factory, it would violate all sorts of environmental laws and face an expensive hazardous-waste cleanup.

But playgrounds, parking lots and driveways in many communities are coated every spring and summer with coal tar, a toxic byproduct of steelmaking that contains high levels of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems.

Nearly two decades after industry pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to exempt coal tar-based pavement sealants from anti-pollution laws, a growing number of government and academic studies are questioning the safety of the widely used products. Research shows that the tar steadily wears off and crumbles into contaminated dust that is tracked into houses and washed into lakes.

In Lake in the Hills, a fast-growing McHenry County suburb about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey found that driveway dust was contaminated with extremely high levels of benzo(a)pyrene, one of the most toxic chemicals in coal tar. The amount was 5,300 times higher than the level that triggers an EPA Superfund cleanup at polluted industrial sites.

(click to continue reading New doubts cast on safety of common driveway sealant – Chicago Tribune.)

…because profits for industry always seem to trump petty health concerns as far as the EPA is concerned:

Despite the EPA’s long-standing worries about the chemicals, industry successfully lobbied to exempt coal tar pavement sealants when the agency tightened hazardous-waste rules for coke ovens during the early 1990s. The little-noticed change made it easier for manufacturers to keep selling the products, which can contain as much as 30 percent coal tar by weight.

Agency spokesmen declined to make anyone available to discuss the exemption, but said in a statement there are no plans to revise it. “EPA regulations allow for the legitimate recycling of coal tar under certain specified parameters,” the statement said.

Scientists started to track the movement of coal tar sealants into homes and lakes about a decade ago, after pinpointing the source of alarmingly high levels of PAHs in Barton Springs, a popular swimming hole in Austin, the Texas capital. Tom Bashara, an environmental investigator, noticed that pollution hotspots in a creek flowing into the pool were near parking lots coated with coal tar.

…

In Austin, the scientists also found that dust inside apartments next to parking lots coated with coal tar was 25 times more contaminated than the dust in units next to lots coated with asphalt or left unsealed. Young children could be the most vulnerable to exposure, the researchers concluded, because they play on or near floors where dust collects.

Sick kids? Who cares? Got to ensure quarterly profit margins increase…

Side note, home testing sounds fairly easy:

Q. Is there a test to check if I have coal tar sealant on my driveway?

A. A definitive test is expensive, but officials in Austin, Texas, came up with an alternative. Use a screwdriver or razor blade to scrape off a small amount of pavement sealant and place it in a glass vial filled with mineral spirits. Seal the vial, shake it and allow it to sit for 30 minutes. If the liquid is dark and coffee-colored, the sealant likely is asphalt-based. If it looks like amber-colored tea and remains more clear, assume it’s coal tar-based.

…

The only definitive way to tell is by checking the CAS number on the product’s material safety data sheet, usually available online or from contractors. The CAS number for coal tar is 65996-93-2.

Morley Brothers Drug Company

Seth Anderson0 comment

Morley Bro's

Stumbled upon this ghost sign in Austin, turns out to be a place where O. Henry worked for a time…

Morley+Brothers+Drug+Company-772140.jpg

Many do not know that William Sydney Porter worked in a drug store in Greensboro, North Carolina which enabled him to use his knowledge at the Morley Brothers Drug Company where he worked in 1884. This building housed a drug store until 1985. Source: Historic Walking / Driving Tour, Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, 201 East 2nd Street, Austin, Texas. Photo: PICH 03335, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library

(click to continue reading City of Austin – AHC: Morley Brothers Drug Company.)

 


O Henry

 

Antone’s on Lavaca

Seth Anderson0 comment

Antone's on Lavaca

can’t be as cool as the former Antone’s location on Guadalupe1 where I witnessed Otis Rush and Stevie Ray Vaughan have an extended guitar duel (SRV won, even though Otis Rush was the headline act), or John Lee Hooker delve into grunge2

Too bad Clifford Antone has passed on. RIP.

Antone was like the music scene’s maitre d’, greeting friends and strangers warmly, always ready to help in any way he could. He was known for paying acts more than they took in at the door, dipping into his own wallet to help both aging bluesmen and young, broke enthusiasts who moved to Austin from all over the world because they had heard that the world’s greatest blues club was here.

One by one, Antone’s heroes passed away — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Jimmy Reed, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown — but not before they played the club Antone opened as a 25-year-old in 1975 on Sixth Street, back before Sixth Street was known as an entertainment district. At that first of four locations, he’d often book them for a week at a time so the original electric blues cats wouldn’t have to travel between gigs. Every night, Antone would stand at the side of the stage with a broad smile. His gushy introductions were almost as legendary as his club.

While much of the Austin population became aware of Antone mainly through two high-profile marijuana busts — in 1984 and 1997 — for which he served two stints in federal prison, those who knew him personally describe a warm, big-hearted blues encyclopedia who truly did it all for the music more than the money. “He loved to book the big names, but he also liked to turn folks on to the great sidemen,” said Connie Hancock of the Texana Dames. Eddie Taylor, Wayne Bennett, Hubert Sumlin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy and Luther Tucker may have been better known for backing others, but at Antone’s they were superstars. “Playing at Antone’s for the first time was an incredible thrill,” said guitarist Eve Monsees, who was called up to join a blues jam when she was just 15. “Clifford had never heard me play, but when he asked me who I liked and I said ‘Magic Sam’ he figured I’d be OK.” “He was a giant,” said blues musician Jon Blondell. “He lived for the music, and if you were a musician, that meant he existed for you.”

He backed his affinity with an unmatched knowledge of the blues and taught a class on the subject at the University of Texas for the past two years. “How many other teachers at the University of Texas got their name in the title of the course?” said Kevin Mooney, the music professor who organized “Blues According to Clifford Antone.” “He adored the students and loved giving back to them. He didn’t want that class to end every day; there was so much material he wanted to share with them.” If you liked the music of Lightnin’ Slim, Snooky Pryor or Sunnyland Slim, you had a good friend in Antone, the cherubic Lebanese American with the askew hair, who grew up in Port Arthur and came to love the blues when he traced the roots of acts such as Cream and Fleetwood Mac.

(click to continue reading Austin TX music: Music listings, bands, music news, reviews, SXSW and ACL | Austin360.com.)

Footnotes:
  1. 2915 Guadalupe St. [↩]
  2. JLH turned up the distortion on his guitar, and really let it ring out [↩]

Thanksgiving Tryptophan Supreme

Seth Anderson0 comment

Tryptophan Supreme

Am back, in body, if not spirit, from 6 days spent luxuriating with family in Austin. Haven’t felt the urge to blog for a while, but I have uploaded 40 or so photos from the trip to my Flickr account. Take a look if you’re bored, or intrigued. There is a slideshow option as well.

Texas Conservatives Vote To Join Taliban

Seth Anderson2 Comments

The Christian Taliban, that is.

Garfield Dino Dali

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.

[Click to continue reading Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards – NYTimes.com]

For all of the charms of Texas1, the power of the Christian Taliban over Texas politics is certainly in my top five reasons for moving away. There are just too many of these anti-21st century, anti-intellectual, anti-free thinking radicals in positions of authority. The Texas Board of Education is an elected position, and the Texas Board of Education believes in a 6,000 year old Earth, hence the majority of voters in Texas also believe2 that humans rode around on dinosaurs. Scary, scary people.

George W. Bush was an honorary member, at the least, but the current Governor of Texas is a founding member of the Texas Flat Earth Party of the Christian Taliban. And Governor Good Hair is about to be elected for a third term. The will of the people indeed, just not people I wish to affiliate with.

Dinosaur Invasion

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”3

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

…

Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

Evolutionary Moment

I wouldn’t be sad if Texas actually did secede, as long as there is a bullet train that goes to Austin so I can visit family.

Footnotes:
  1. and there are quite a few [↩]
  2. or don’t care [↩]
  3. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [↩]