“Change of Plans”
What a difference a week makes in our situation and our outlook. We knew that SXSW was cancelled but didn’t expect Austin to become a ghost town over the course of a few days. This time last year the city was absolutely hopping with scooters zipping around everywhere and amazing pop up music shows on every corner. Today there’s nobody on the streets and the restaurants and clubs are very empty. Gatherings of more than 250 people are banned and I think the city will be in full lock down except for groceries and pharmacies in a week or so.
For the last year we’ve been looking forward to the Sun radio sessions that happen during SXSW. Those looked like the one thing that might proceed amidst the cancellations. They were canceled yesterday. Look at this amazing lineup on Thursday and Saturday in particular. We had both cleared our calendars to spend Thursday afternoon with the music.
Before things changed, we spent a quiet few days in McKinney. Penelope passed her annual inspection (MOT in the UK) with flying colours on Wednesday and is legal for another year. Such a good girl.
We made the long drive to Austin on Thursday in order to attend the Curtis Stigers concert at the Parker Jazz Club in the evening. We first saw him by chance at Birdland in New York a few years ago and loved the shows. The show at the Parker was equally great. What an amazing set of musicians Stigers has playing with him, particularly “Scrapper” on trumpet and the piano player. Stigers covered Nick Lowe’s “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding” on the Bodyguard movie soundtrack. That album sold 40 million copies and made him a lot of money and fame.
We really enjoy Stiger’s variety of repertoire and that was on full display – from Tom Waits and Randy Newman to Hayes Carll.
My favourite song in New York was “I’ll be home” by Randy Newman and I really wanted to hear it again. When it didn’t look like it would happen, my wonderful wife asked “Any chance of something by Randy Newman?” And the band went straight into it. Check out the skill of the pianist:
Can you tolerate one more song from the amazing show? Well here it is anyway, “Love is an anchor”:
Things started to change pretty dramatically on Friday, with a lot of cancellations and closures. We walked to Antone’s blues club for a music charity showcase and concert, including a performance by Western Youth, only to find a notice on the door that the event had been canceled at the last minute. Apparently Antone’s isn’t familiar with the concept of emailing its patrons when events cancel. I got this cool picture of two Wonder Women on the walk over. The Linc hotel has a very large mural to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote.
We walked around the corner to the Elephant Room and listened to some 
pleasant jazz with less than 10 other folks – starting to get weird. Swift’s Attic, one of our favourite restaurants, is right upstairs and so I checked to see if we could get a reservation. Weirder – wide open for any time I wanted – and you usually can’t get in on Friday unless booking at least a week in advance. We enjoyed an excellent meal with a less than half full restaurant and an empty bar – very weird. Swift’s had taken the smart proactive step of moving their tables further apart. Squid fries, brussel sprouts, pork belly baos and those perfectly cooked scallops (I took D here on her first night in Austin and she fell in love with them).
On Saturday I finally got to try the Discada food truck in the Rosewood neighborhood of East Austin. Discada is a style of cooking, also known as cowboy-wok cooking, that has been used in Mexico for generations. The food truck serves only two things – their signature tacos and elote (Mexican style street corn). The first bite of our tacos was underwhelming, but then all the amazing flavors caught up with us – delicious all around, and such a fun experience sitting at the picnic tables enjoying the day.
We passed Saturday evening with Chuck Prophet and his band at the Continental Club. A few years ago, at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton, there were only a handful of folks in attendance for Prophet’s show. There was a good crowd on Saturday although far from sold out. This was a very good, high energy, and interactive show indeed. I think Prophet is a very underrated songwriter and under appreciated performer. Charlie Sexton, Austin guitar royalty, waltzed in around 9pm and joined in with the band. Here are a couple of videos:
We are so fortunate to be able to walk to such an excellent music venue.
We finally braved the grocery store chaos early on Sunday morning. I suspected that the Randall’s on Bee Caves by my office would not be too busy. It was actually very quiet and had a good inventory of just about everything – no toilet paper or other paper goods. So we’re now stocked up with supplies to last a while.
After shopping we enjoyed a coffee and Taco Deli breakfast taco at Triannon coffee, had a workout, and then a quiet afternoon in the apartment. I rented the movie “Knives Out” but fell asleep very early and will have to start it again.
I started “Christmas in Austin” by Benjamin Markovits but haven’t progressed very far yet. The novel is set around a Christmas holiday and three generations of a family gathering in Austin. The four Essinger children bring with them their own stories and situations. I’m enjoying the writing and characters so far and think this book should be a good companion this week as we spend more time at home.
I can remember buying this Green on Red album when living in Basingstoke, England. I heard a song on the radio and liked the sound a lot – quite different than anything else on the radio at the time. Any guesses on who was a founding member of Green on Red? Well done – it was Chuck Prophet. Here’s a song from that album:
Now some more recent Chuck Prophet – quite a change in style as he’s aged.
John Sneider played trumpet with Curtis Stigers on Thursday night and has the nickname “The Scrapper”. Here’s something from his album by that same name. Scrapper’s son joined him on stage at the Parker for a song and did very well. We chuckled on seeing him getting into a minivan as we were standing in line to enter the Continental Club – the Parker Jazz Club t shirt confirmed D’s suspicion that it was him.
Curtis Stigers inspired me to listen to some Tom Waits – such a weird and varied catalog of work. The only guarantee is that scratchy voice and something far from the mainstream.