Denny arrived for his Austin “scouting trip” on Tuesday afternoon. His flight was delayed a few hours and so we skipped the David Grissom show at the Saxon Pub and headed straight to the Odd Duck for dinner.
The weather was nice and so we sat on the patio and enjoyed an outstanding meal. Some of the highlights of the plates we shared were: egg noodles with goat chili and avocado crema, nachos with grilled mushrooms and tahini chili sauce, and bavette steak with mushroom conserva and charred onion salsa verde. So many amazing flavour combinations! The scouting was off to a great start.
I shared the Austin Chronicle daily live music list with Denny before he arrived and was wondering if he would choose the same post dinner show that I thought he might. We share very close musical tastes and so I wasn’t surprised when he picked James McMurtry at the Continental Club gallery. The gallery is a tiny music room above the larger Continental Club that feels like a living room and has excellent sound. We both loved the intimate, solo acoustic show and Diana appreciated it as well.
James is the son of Larry McMurtry, the famous Western author (best known for Lonesome Dove), and his songs feel more like short stories than songs – so much colour and detail. His 12 string guitar playing was also very impressive. Here’s a clip of “Choctaw Bingo”:
And here’s my favourite from the evening, “Red Dress”:
We enjoyed the short walk back to the Catherine and then introduced Denny to the view from the Sky Bar. What a great start to the visit and perfect weather. We snapped this picture in front of the mural at Jo’s coffee to send to Anne.
Poor Diana had to leave on the bus back to Dallas on Wednesday morning – leaving the two of us unsupervised. She’s had poor luck on the bus trips lately and that continued as a truck dumped an entire load of lumber a few trucks in front of the bus. This caused Diana to be late for her client meeting in Dallas but at least she had a good story and accompanying picture.
I met Denny at El Alma for a yummy Mexican lunch on the rooftop patio. I think he enjoyed the food as much as I do.
After work, we took an Uber over to East Austin, a funky neighborhood that is rapidly gentrifying (like most of old Austin). We enjoyed a happy hour cocktail on Whisler’s patio and then walked to Kitty Cohen’s, another great patio with a small outdoor swimming pool to dip your hot feet in.
Our next stop was Rainey street – an area of Austin that I’d heard a lot about but hadn’t visited yet. It’s a street of historic houses that have been converted into restaurants and bars. I’ll let the pictures tell the story of our Rainey street ramble:
Now it was time for dinner and we chose G’Raj Mahal for a nice Indian. The food was very good with my only complaint being the watery sauces that were being passed off as chutney to accompany poppadoms. Even showing the waiter Google search images of chutney didn’t yield any helpful results. I did enjoy the meal and the patio setting a lot and look forward to visiting again soon. G’Raj Mahal is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment – just right for walking off a rich Indian curry.
We made one last stop on Rainey to listen to the Canned Beets at the Half Step. Apparently they’ve been playing every Wednesday night for 5 years. Another great music option for Wednesday night:
We finished up Wednesday just as we did Tuesday – with a visit to the Sky Bar. This time my friends Issac and Damon joined us – they had just finished up a work dinner with a vendor and I was impressed with their ability to gain entry up to the Sky Bar without the concierge calling me. Very resourceful boys.
Denny’s visit finished up with a very pleasant and relaxing lunch on the patio at Shady Grove. Denny bought himself a Continental Club t shirt that he’s sporting in this picture – he must have enjoyed that venue. Such a great visit but too short – looking forward to a return visit with Anne included.
I rode back to Dallas with Vinod on Thursday evening. These trips are hilarious as we share stories and educate each other on a myriad of topics. Vinod dropped me at 
Perry’s in Grapevine and Diana and Penelope picked me up there. We (Penelope was left outside glaring at a Jaguar parked in front of her) enjoyed some of their excellent steak tartare and then headed home. I complained about how spread out everything is in Dallas and McKinney after the compact, walkable area around the Catherine.
After the usual workouts and coffee and crossword on Saturday, we drove down to the Dallas International Film Festival.
We saw a film called “Nothing Stays the Same: The Story of the Saxon Pub”. This is an excellent documentary about one of my favourite music clubs in Austin and it won the Audience award at the South by Southwest film festival a few weeks ago.
A few years ago the land where the Saxon sits was put up for sale and the operators were looking for a new place to host music. The film director decided to create a record of the club, the owners and the musicians who call it home. He described it as his “love letter to the Saxon Pub”.
The film does a great job of telling the story of how people are attracted to Austin because of the great music and cultural scene. That drives up prices of everything and the musicians can’t afford to live there anymore. And the club owners can’t afford the rent either. It really is a tough problem. Many of our favourite performers are featured in the film and there wan’t a bad musical performance anywhere to be found.
There is a very happy ending to this particular story. Mr. Keller of Keller Williams realty steps in at the final hour and buys the land and tells the owner that he can continue to operate there as long as he wants. He also worked with the Austin mayor to put together a fund to help do the same for other iconic music venues. I look at Keller Williams in a whole new light now.
The documentary director, Jeff Sandman, and his team were on hand for a Question and Answer session after the film. This was an unexpected treat and it was obvious how much Jeff cares for the venue. A very nice experience and well worth the trouble we took to drive in extended thunder storms to get to the theater.
After the usual Sunday morning routine, we watched Tiger Woods pull off the amazing feat of winning his 5th Masters tournament. After that relaxation, I fixed Penelope’s windshield wipers and did some light weeding and trimming around the pool. Everything is in full bloom with all the rain and warmer weather. Our maple in front of the house seems particularly happy:
With all the activity this week, I was pleased to find a couple of hours of 
quiet time to finish up a book that I’ve been reading for several weeks. “The Unwinding of the Miracle” by Julie-Yip Williams is not a positive, uplifting book by any stretch. I won’t bring everyone down with a lengthy review, but it tells the story of Williams childhood in Vietnam, with cataracts that render her mostly blind, the family’s escape on a barely seaworthy boat, ultimate arrival in America, surgery to restore most of her sight, her graduation from Harvard Law and then, in her early forties, a 4 year battle with colon cancer. The book is very well written and brutally honest about all the challenges. The Epilogue by her husband is heart-breakingly hard to read. Let’s pick things back up now with some new music discoveries.
I love this song by Aretha Franlin with Duane Allman on guitar. It’s been on repeat play all week:
This live Ray LaMontagne song captured my attention and it sounds great on my home office system – I miss the Linn sound in my home office very much:
This Mellencamp song featured prominently in the excellent episode of “Billions” on TV this week:
And finally, an amazing song from Lukas Nelson and his band. You can certainly hear what they’ve learned from the last few years as Neil Young’s band:
Thursday was another quiet evening – I spent my first evening on the bedroom balcony, enjoying the great weather and reading, while Diana finished up work calls.
The evening began with a pleasant walk over the 1st Street bridge to Le Politique. When we found this place last week, the gentleman next to me at the bar was raving about the Texas quail dish he was having. I opted to give it a try and was very happy with it – stuffed with a mushroom mix and perfectly cooked. We appreciated the way the food was described as it was served – a very detailed and enthusiastic run down on everything on the plate and how the sauces were made. The best presentation that I’ve seen yet.
After dinner, we attempted to execute Shu’s recommendation at the Elephant Room – it was too busy with a line waiting for seats to free up. No worries, Antone’s was just around the corner and we caught the end of Shamarr Allen’s opening set and some of Flow Tribe before walking back home. Shamarr’s “Weekend Dance” song was particularly entertaining as he picked random crowd members to show him their “weekend dances”.
Saturday was very wet and dark – Austin recorded 5 inches of rain over the weekend – and so we stayed indoors with morning workouts and lots of quality reading time. We did take a few minutes to decorate the guest bedroom ahead of Denny’s visit.
Apartment decorating was rounded out by hanging (with some really nifty new hanging hardware) the beautiful snuggling penguins painting that Patty and Brent had made for us. We think it looks great in this location where we have a good view from the sofa.
My arrival at the Catherine on Monday night was greeted by six packages that needed hauling up to the apartment. Thank goodness for the hotel valet style trolley that they make available. This time most of the boxes were of my own doing – cushions, a painting, and a lampshade to finish out my interior decorating. I think they all look quite nice.
Patty, Brent and Diana all arrived in Austin on Thursday for a long weekend. They share our love for good and interesting food, and we ate well all weekend long.
Saturday started with workouts and some of my special breakfast tacos, which seemed to be well received. We enjoyed looking down on the “National Taco Championship” in the parking lot of the Austin American Statesman. This not only included a taco championship, but also Mexican wrestling and a chihuahua beauty parade. You can almost spot the wrestlers with their masks in the picture.
I drove over to downtown to pick up the shoppers who had spent quite a bit of money on jewelry and ceramic bats. We had a small naming contest for the blue ceramic bat that now nests in our desk area. After some initial rejections, Brent came up with a winner. “He’s into the blues, so he must be Bats Domino”. Perfect! And another example of that amazing piece of human anatomy that is Brent’s brain.
Dinner was at Juliet Italian, which fortunately is almost a mile walk from the Catherine. We all loved our food and had lots of leftovers to carry home. The cioppino was a particular highlight and I loved my mushroom fettuccine. A night at Juliet wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Carpenter next door to play a record. This time, Al Green was Patty’s choice.
After the long walk back (at least a mile and a half), we enjoyed a low key dinner and a movie. Then we ventured across the street to see if we could see the bats flying for the first time. There is a colony of over 500,000 bats that nest under the Congress Street bridge and are quite the tourist attraction. No bats flew on Saturday night due to the cold, blustery weather and so we weren’t sure we’d see any on Sunday either. The sun had almost set by the time the first few bats ventured out and then many more of them took flight. It’s tough to capture them in a photo due to the flight speed but you can see some little smudges (if you zoom way in) in the picture where they are moving.
Baby Penguin (BP) was my company in Austin Monday through Thursday while McD toiled away in Dallas. I found a new coffee shop reasonably close to the office, Trianon Coffee, and guess what? They serve TacoDeli breakfast tacos – perfect! I’ll have a Jess Special please. What’s that you ask? A delicious mix of eggs, cheese, avocado and some peppers.
have dinner with my boss and me. Our new colleague Damon joined as well. We started with a drink at the apartment Sky Bar and then walked across the 1st Street bridge to III Forks for a delicious steak dinner. Thanks Ron! What a great time we had reminiscing on work experiences, folks we worked with, and just generally catching up. We finished up at the apartment with some music and banter.
My favourite sunrise this week was Wednesday morning and yes, I was awake in time to see it after all the fun with the boys the night before. Pretty impressive I think.
We met Jens and Glenda for dinner on Saturday night at a restaurant that was new to us – Mexican Bar Co. at Willowbend mall. The food and company were excellent. We spent over 3 hours catching up on all that had happened in our lives in the 4 or 5 months since Jens’ 60th birthday party. I enjoyed a perfect chile relleno and elote (Mexican style corn on the cob with aioli). I had the leftovers just before finishing up this post.
listening to music. A couple of light rain showers, while the sun was out and the sky clear blue, interrupted us for a few minutes at a time. I went inside to take a shower before dinner and heard the tornado sirens going off – time to get out, put on some clothes and check the TV weather update. We believe the siren was warning us of heavy hail approaching. Heavy indeed:
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Weight of a Piano” by Chris Cander this week. Cander lives in Houston and has been a writer in residence for Writers in the Schools there. She also stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community.
The final two pages of the book are a piece of piano music named “Die Riese” (The Trip). I just tried out the first few bars and it’s a pleasant piece that builds in speed and intensity. The piece is in B major with 5 sharps – not my favourite as I typically play pieces with 3 or less flats and sharps.
I just finished up “Infinite Tuesday” by Michael Nesmith. There’s a special prize for the first of you to tell me what he’s most famous for. No takers? Ok, I’ll tell you – he was one of the Monkees, and was dubbed the brainy Monkee. The title is based on this cartoon (I love it):
The next band was local to Austin, Tomar and the FCs, with a retro funky soul sound that we both enjoyed very much. These guys popped up all over town this week – even playing the Yeti showcase next to our apartment on Wednesday afternoon.
We checked out the outside pool area before leaving to walk home and snapped this picture of our apartment behind the fireplace. We have a great view of the Van Zandt hotel from our living room.
One of our very favourite bands, the Band of Heathens, followed Hood and Warner around 9am. They sounded better than ever with the full band crammed into a corner of the restaurant – a great sound job by Sun Radio. Here they are doing their version of “Heaven Help Us All” from the recent release, “A Message from the People” (originally released by Ray Charles):
What an amazing way to start the day!
I escaped work a bit early and we continued our SXSW sampling by walking down to Guero’s on South Congress. JM Stevens, the musician we chatted with last Saturday, was playing with his full band. We enjoyed the show and another taco. It’s very nice to be able to walk to so many lively destinations. This event was actually called “SXSF – South by Soup Fest” as it raised money for various Austin charities. This is Stevens’ song “Fire in the Wind” – it’s the one with the video filmed in Iceland.
Saturday began with a workout and then crossword and coffee – nice to get back into that routine. We’ve been sampling all the independent local coffee shops and this time chose Irie Bean Coffee on South Lamar which had a nice rear patio.
We had a Saturday dinner reservation at Juliet Italian and walked down (almost a mile) to House Wine next door before eating. Guess what? Yes, another music showcase underway. We enjoyed a band called “Sedona Skies” and were educated about an organization named “Women Crushing Music”. WCM helps aspiring female singer songwriters get ahead in the music business.
Sunday also started with a workout followed by coffee and a crossword. This time we chose Merit coffee on South Lamar which also has a nice patio – albeit a bit noisier on the street. To continue the reprise of Saturday, we made another trip to Target to get the second chair. This time it was in and out of the car without too much trouble – all about knowing the right technique.
Will sent me this picture (a classic Will stance) with some street art in Oakland, where he was trying bikram yoga for the first time – this is where you do a subset of yoga moves in a very hot room – no thanks!
Lamb Vindaloo was the perfect dinner on a freezing cold evening. I also got some art together for the apartment – a picture of the Continental Club and a canvas of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s classic guitar that he played to fame in Austin. I tease McD that the guitar picture is the same size as her.
I was able to enjoy a late lunch at El Alma, my new favourite Mexican restaurant. The fresh ingredients, flavorful sauces and unique ambiance make this a superior place – and it’s close to both the apartment and work.
Diana hosted my boss at “Wine down Wednesday” at the Catherine sky bar and then we walked across to Peche for another delicious dinner.
On Saturday evening, Diana wandered across the parking lot to get some of the excellent ceviche that the Hyatt offers. She texted me that there was a good musician playing and so I walked over and joined her at the bar. The musician, JM Stevens, was very good indeed. He joined us at the bar after his set and we had a great chat for about an hour. Here’s his latest video for a new song. The video was recorded by a cinematographer based in Iceland at an abandoned air strip and JM’s part was added via Skype.
instruments in his studio and particularly a vintage Hammond B3 and a 1930s era double high Leslie speaker. I liked his description of the B3 sounding like some “fog rolling into a recording’s landscape”. I’ll include a link to this album in the music section at the end of this post. JM recommended Cosmic coffee as a new venue that treated local musicians well and so we put it on our list for Sunday.
Sunday began with workouts, followed by a delicious brunch at El Alma. Diana’s crab Benedict with chipotle hollandaise sauce and corn cake base was amazing.
Diana spent most of the week in Boston for a client visit. It was very cold there and we know that McD really, really doesn’t like the cold wintry weather. Fortunately she had some colleagues with her to scrape off the rental car and get it all warmed up before she joined.
Back in Austin, the guest bedroom mattress, desk chair, and bar stools were all delivered on Monday. I wrestled the boxes up to the apartment and assembled the chair and stools – they look good in position. The good news is that the trash room for recycled boxes is right outside our door.
My boss had a dinner recommendation from his Uber driver and so my friend Issac and I joined him at Lin Dim Sum. The food was very creative and tasty. They are known for soup dumplings but I didn’t think I’d be able to consume those without making a mess – particularly with chopsticks. We sat at the bar and I watched a couple of girls very skillfully manage an order. We shared a number of dishes and they were all very good. I’m looking forward to seeing what Diana thinks of this West 6th Street restaurant.
afternoon. We timed the drive to arrive just as Diana was returning from Boston and we were able to drive Penelope home from the airport together. I laughed as Vinod and I passed the Vonlane bus half way into our drive – I had been considering the big comfortable bus chair as compared to the sporty seat in Vinod’s BMW. We took the Fort Worth branch of Interstate 35 and I was able to check out the building at Gearhart where I first worked in Texas (back in 1987). It was fun to see what has become of all the lunch places that we used to frequent there. The Rig, a burger and steak restaurant, seemed to be a Mexican place. Nothing else had changed too much and the Gearhart building was occupied by another oil related business.
Sugar Bacon in downtown McKinney. We thought it was just going to be the four of us to listen to one of Steve’s friends providing the music, but there two other couples (Brian, Evelyn, Jeremy, and Diane) who also joined. Brian provided some unexpected entertainment when he asked to take over as the musician so that he could serenade Evelyn. I had ribs and have several left over for dinner tonight. They were very well cooked and tasty.
inconsequential details. After that, I became very invested in Tara’s journey to gain an education. When the Holocaust was mentioned in a BYU college history class, she raised her hand because she didn’t know what it was. She hadn’t been in a classroom until the age of seventeen. Her religious fanactic father was dubious of public education, believing it was the way the government brainwashes its citizens. Her mother was not at all diligent with homeschooling and Tara had to ultimately teach herself to gain the necessary score on the ACT to attend BYU. She eventually earns a PhD from Cambridge. The strength of Westover and the sacrifices she makes are phenomenal. This book really underscores the value and power of an education, something so many of us take for granted. I highly recommend this book and ask you to be patient in the first section as the middle and conclusion are worth it.
ay morning and picked up the keys to our new apartment in a building called “The Catherine”. This is a 19 story facility on the south side of the Colorado river in downtown Austin. Our unit is on the 14th floor corner (left hand side of the picture) and looks out over downtown and the river.
Continental Club on South Congress avenue. The Peterson Brothers play there every Monday at 6:30pm. I covered the details on this excellent band a month or so ago so won’t go into too much detail. Diana really enjoyed the positive energy and interaction between the brothers. She just came back to the apartment as I’m writing this to report that she had been chatting with a musician in the elevator (there was music in the Sky Room bar on Sunday afternoon). She asked him about his favorite music venue in Austin and he replied with the Continental Club and mentioned that he had been watching the Peterson Brothers since they were very young kids. Here’s a short video of the performance:
Here’s Alicia’s contribution to the apartment and my belated Christmas present – a Keurig 2.0 – so that I’m all ready to go with coffee in the morning. Thanks for the great gift Alicia!
Our friend Vinod, who’s working with me in Austin now, met us at Shady Grove for dinner on Thursday. He worked with both of us at AIG and Diana hadn’t seen him in 3 years. It was great to catch up on family and life in general over a delicious dinner. Vinod is vegetarian and enjoys the veggie plate at this restaurant – and it doesn’t have mushrooms (one of the few veggies that he won’t touch). He’s one of the smartest guys we know and has an endless amount of energy.
On Friday evening, we walked across the 1st avenue bridge to Peche (French for “sin”, if I could find the acute accent feature) for dinner. This turned out to be an excellent French restaurant/absinthe bar. We loved our drinks and meals. Diana tried a Manhattan with fig foam and loved it. The steak tartare and charcuterie platter were some of the best we’ve had. Our entree of braised short ribs over mashed potatoes and mushrooms was also delicious.
Saturday started with workouts – our chance to try out the new gym – all good with the elliptical machine passing Diana’s requirements. We walked across to Second Bar and Kitchen for a late lunch and had an early night in. There was a lovely sunset view from the balcony on Saturday night.
Sunday started with a beautiful sunrise view from the master bedroom. Diana went down for a workout while I read my book for a while – I’m way behind on my reading for the week.
It was a gorgeous afternoon on Sunday and we enjoyed a walk down South Congress for a coffee at Jo’s – just missing the live music on their patio. Lots of folks were out enjoying the day. By contrast, my friend Greg in Minnesota was ploughing a route across the lake to his ice fishing camp after a blizzard.
Work occupied most of my bus ride down to Austin on Monday morning. An AIG colleague, Vinod, joined my new company and I arranged a welcome aboard dinner with him on Monday night. He’s vegetarian and likes Thai food, so I suggested Thai Fresh, a restaurant that came recommended that’s located in a neighborhood close to the office and the Carpenter hotel. Vinod was early to the restaurant and texted me to let me know he was outside. I asked him if the place looked okay. His reply made me chuckle – “It does not look 
good”. Thai Fresh is a bit of a hole in the wall kind of place and is located in a residential neighborhood – not what Vinod is used to in the Dallas area but quite typical of Austin, and part of the charm of the city. He enjoyed dinner a lot and we may have another convert to the excellent off the beaten path Austin restaurant scene. Another plus is that I walked to the restaurant and back – a 2.5 mile round trip that gave us some good exercise early in the week.
I was able to sneak out of work early on Tuesday evening to catch the happy hour show at the Saxon Pub. I’ve been trying to catch David Grissom’s regular Tuesday night performance since I started working in Austin, but something always gets in the way. Here’s an excerpt from Grissom’s online bio that indicates what an amazing guitar player and musician he is:
After the concert, I met another colleague, Jeff, for dinner at Shady Grove on Barton Springs road close to the hotel. This is another classic Austin restaurant that’s been around for over 20 years with an amazing patio. Jeff told me a story about watching a kid who got his head stuck in one of the wagon wheels surrounding the patio, while eating there with his family. Apparently it ultimately took a visit from the EMTs to free the head from the wheel. I really enjoyed my green chili chicken a lot and the ambiance was great – amazing to be sitting outside eating at 8pm in February.
On Wednesday, I had dinner with a potential new partner company at the Carpenter hotel restaurant. I was pleased to find blood sausage on the menu as an appetizer. It wasn’t quite the same as the Stornaway black pudding that my Mum gets for my breakfasts when I visit Scotland, but very tasty nonetheless.
trying to ration myself to once a week now. Jeff and Greg joined me and we all enjoyed the breakfast snacks. I should mention that breakfast tacos from Taco Deli were served before and after a Town Hall at the office on Tuesday morning where I delivered a presentation on an exciting new business opportunity that we’re presenting. I did enjoy a migas taco after my presentation.
I can’t claim to be that smart and driven, but I did score a personal best time on the USA Today crossword on Wednesday during a coffee break- 5 mins and 36 seconds. Things were back to normal on Thursday – over 11 minutes.
This was an amazing musical performance. The band was comprised mostly of jazz musicians with Jon Cowherd (piano) and Brian Blade (drums) as co-musical directors. I have a recent album by both Cowherd and Blade form a french jazz label that I really enjoy and to find them leading the band was a nice treat. Seal’s performance of “Both Sides Now” was an outstanding highlight of the show. Chaka khan did a couple of songs and I was surprised by her faithful interpretations. Diana Krall’s control of 
both vocal and piano dynamics was amazing on her two contributions. Lastly, Los Lobos with La Marisoul on vocals was another outstanding performance. I highly recommend this show (available now on DVD) to anyone who enjoys the music of Joni Mitchell – the musicianship is superb. Joni herself looked very frail (she suffered a brain aneurysm a few years ago and has not spoken or appeared in public for a while). Kris Kristofferson (now 82 years old) also looked a bit confused in his performance with Brandi Carlisle – apparently he has some memory issues due to Lyme disease.
One of our favourite musicians, Delbert McClinton, received a Marquee Star in front of the Austin Paramount theatre on Friday. This is only the third star given to a musician, with previous honorees including Lyle Lovett and Jerry Jeff Walker (see my post a couple of week ago where I talked about Jerry Jeff’s biography). Lyle Lovett wrote, “If we could all sing like we wanted to, we’d all sing like Delbert.” McClinton also received the Nobelity Projects “Feed the Peace” award at the Four Seasons on Saturday for his support of many great charitable causes.
I read “What Belongs to You” by Garth Greenwell this week. I can’t remember where I picked up the recommendation for this book but it was named a best book of the year by over fifty publications in nine countries, including the New Yorker, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Guardian.
I also very much enjoyed the short story “What Can You Do With a General” by Emma Cline that was published in the New Yorker magazine this week. The dialogue and descriptions of family interactions are perfectly done. I read that Cline received a $2 million 3 book advance in 2016 around her first novel, “The Girls”. I’ll have to put that book on my future reading list.
I dropped my bag in the rental car at the Hyatt and walked to the Continental Club on South Congress (SoCo) to enjoy the free show by the Peterson Brothers. This was less than a 10 minute walk and so will be easily accessible from the new apartment.
I had read that the Peterson Brothers were the next big band in Austin and about to make it big. They put on an excellent show that was a gumbo of soul, blues, jazz and funk. Imagine Weather Report, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Miles Davis and Al Green mixed up in a band and that’s a bit of what they sound like.
The weekend was nice and relaxing with workouts, coffee and crossword sessions, and time for reading. We had a nice late lunch at Toulouse in Legacy West on Sunday. This is the place that Diana and Anne visited for champagne and steak tartare on their visit in October. We started with steak tartare and then we both had great salads. My whipped goat cheese and beets salad was delicious.
I read the book “At Home with the Armadillo” by Gary P. Nunn this week. This was an excellent review of the Austin music scene in the 1970s and 80s. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the stories about all the characters involved in developing the Texas music movement. Nunn played in the bands of both Jerry Jeff Walker and Michael Martin Murphy in the 70s and tells a great story about opening for Elton John at the Palmer auditorium, a building that I drive by every day on my short commute to the office each morning. Another story I enjoyed was of Nunn seeing a very young Joe Ely play in Lubbock and thinking that he was going to be a big star. He worked to arrange Ely’s first record contract with MCA. It’s interesting that we just saw Joe Ely last weekend (in his seventies now) and I’m reading this week about how he got his first recording contract.