Joe Sundell

I first heard Joe Sundell’s music when he was playing a small secret show in the woods. My friends and I hopped a creek bed and walked along some narrow animal trails. We followed the occasional tealight someone had placed in the dirt to let us know we were indeed still headed to the correct destination, and came to a small clearing where the audience and musicians were all circled ’round. Joe started his set and the audience got dead quiet. They, and I, were all ears. I was a fan from that night on.

Joe is an Arkansas native with a very easygoing way about him. It’s easy to imagine him sipping some iced tea and picking a banjo on a front porch in some rural part of Dixieland. He’s a soft spoken guy when he’s not in front of a microphone, but put a mic in front of him and he lights right up.

When we recorded this session we all hung out on the back porch, watched the sun go down, drank a little bourbon and had fun in the Texas heat. The shade from the big old Pecan trees sure didn’t hurt, either. Joe played some songs from his most recent album “Ramblin’ Mind”, a few new songs he had written while on tour, and some old traditional numbers too.

Here’s the link to the live session we did. As always, you can stream or download it for free. Please pass this music along, as it’s meant to be shared!

http://www.archive.org/details/JoeSundell-liveOnKaosRadio

Murry Hammond

Murry Hammond recently stopped by the studio to record a session with us. We talked a lot about old punk rock music and DIY shows, about the Central Texas punk and hardcore scene, and about his family. Murry loves his kids, and like the proud father he is, he loves to talk about them. We swapped stories and talked for awhile. Murry had just played a big gig in town and we wanted him to be able to have a little fun instead of just getting right down to business. He’s a very warm and welcoming Southern gentleman, and a pleasure to shoot the breeze with.

I’ll admit that I’ve been living under a rock because I have never really listened to Murry’s band, the Old 97s. I’ve had plenty of friends who were big fans and talked about them over the years, I just never got around to exploring them. It took me years to finally get around to Tom Waits and we all know how that turned out, so it’s nothing against the boys. My buddy El Demento, who set up this recording session, told me to check out Murry’s music. I looked him up on Grooveshark and found his solo album. I listened to it several times the day of the session we did with him, and was very impressed. There is a clarity and stillness in his songs which reminds me of spending Summers in Wimberley, TX growing up. They take me back to when life was simpler, and more cut-and-dry. I’m not really sure how to express my feelings other than that.

Please check out Murry’s solo album called “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m On My Way”. If you’re the type of person who reads this blog, I can confidently promise you that you WILL very much love this album.

Here’s a link to our recording session. You can stream or download everything for free. Thank you for listening!

http://www.archive.org/details/MurryHammond-liveOnKaosRadio2011

Reverend Glasseye

Reverend Glasseye stopped by the studio a couple of weeks ago to wow us with the newest songs he’s been working on.  It was just him with his guitar, and two cellists backing him up. Sounds like it’s going to be some sad music, yes? Well, mostly. It was a beautiful and sometimes melancholy rollercoaster ride of emotion.

Glasseye has been working with a local theater company scoring their production of Woyzeck. He played some songs from that, and some songs so new he has never recorded them before. The whole evening was bittersweet, because while it was a meeting between friends it was also a parting of friends. Well, at least for a time. The Rev is moving to India for awhile, hopefully not more than a year but then again, who knows where the world and life will take him? When he did this recording he only had about a week and a half before he hopped on a plane to leave all of his friends and live a new life among strangers in a land of beautiful poverty.

The music he has given us is wonderful and strange, just like the Rev himself.  I hope you enjoy what he gave us in the studio that night. I know I do.

Here’s a link to the Archive.org page where you can stream or download all of these songs for free. True to what I promised with the last post, these are all cut up into tracks (thanks Nick Dement!) so they are mp3-player-friendly.

http://www.archive.org/details/ReverendGlasseye-liveOnKaosRadio2011

Here’s a video shot during the session. A happysad song called Holocaust.

What a difference a year can make! Or, an update about upcoming updates.

In the last year I’ve been engaged, married, bought a house and now have a baby on the way. Yay me and wifey! (She and the house are both lovely and wonderful, by the way, and the baby’s healthy and due in December.) It’s been a busy year and I’m sorry about the lack of updates, but that is all changing!

With all of the whirlwind goings-on I have not had the time to do all of the editing required to support this page. I have, however, continued recording. Luckily, I took on a partner in crime to help with chopping up songs and doing some of the technical things which have kept me from updating. Welcome Nick Dement into the fold, ladies and gentlemen. He’s doing a fine job.

A big change you’re going to see around here (other than actually getting semi-regular updates again) is that the songs will be chopped up into tracks, instead of being presented as an entire recording session. As much as I love to present the entire session as one track (being an “album rocker” myself), the feedback I’ve received indicates that people wish it to be otherwise. People have ipods they put on shuffle and sometimes just don’t want to hear the same artist for that long. Alright. I listened.

We are currently uploading everything onto Archive.org instead of the old tried-and-true method of uploading it to the KAOS Radio Austin website. Archive.org is simply more conducive to saving individual tracks than the KAOS site is. If you guys & gals don’t like this method, let me know. With Archive.org you can click “play” and listen to the songs online, or you can download all of the songs to your computer and keep them forever. This, as always, is all free. Done for the  love of music, not for the love of money.

Nick has already helped out a lot, but there is a big backlog of recordings to get through so don’t worry, we have plenty of material to keep your ears humming with joy. Acoustic musicians remain kind enough to share their talents with us, and we remain determined to get the music out to the public.

Lots of love to all of the readers, and I am very happy to be able to update the blog again! I have Nick to thank for that.

One last thing for now: Don’t forget about the radio show!  My lovely wife and I do this together. We have a lot of live musicians (the source for the recordings in this blog) and also plenty of wonderful old LPs we dust off and spin for you. It’s every Friday night from 7 to 9pm Central. If you can’t listen live it’s archived for a couple of months and available for free downloading and/or streaming.

Radio station’s page (for listening live): http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/

Archive of the latest Annie Street Radio shows:  http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/station/archives/8790

Old Settler’s Music Festival campground recordings

The Old Settler’s Music Festival happens each April right by The Salt Lick barbecue joint in Driftwood, Texas. If you’re a fan of acoustic music, camping, swimming and friendly Texas faces then it’ll be something you very much look forward to each year. I leaped at the chance when offered a media pass. My friend and fellow DJ (El Demento) has been going out there for years to interview musicians. I let him concentrate on that while I did what I REALLY wanted to do out there… try to capture some of the magic in the campground. Country Willie was first to be recorded. As I’ve stated in this blog before, I’m a big fan. He took requests, played some new songs and played a killer set.

Camp Goodtimes was nice enough to allow me to set up a couple of condenser microphones and a small mixer at their after-hours shows. I caught Green Mountain Grass, Squinto, The Blue Hit, Danny Malone and to my happy surprise, a Billy Bright Super Group set. Man, that Billy can play! All of the sets were excellent.

I was supposed to hook up with Shinyribs (solo project of the singer for the Gourds) and also one of Slim Richey’s many incarnations, but alas- the rain and general crazy schedules of the musicians got in the way. Be on the lookout for new blog posts with sets from them pretty soon though, as I’m in touch with everybody to make these recording sessions happen.

If you go to Old Settlers and don’t camp then you’ll still get much more than your money’s worth. You’ll get three stages of musicians, songwriting and music workshops, youth talent competitions, YUMMY barbecue, hippie vendors and more. If you go and camp the whole four days though, you’ll get a WHOLE LOT more. Many of the musicians who play to thousands of people on the main stages play at night around campfires on makeshift stages or just sitting on logs- and they play to a crowd of 20 or 40 instead of thousands. And yes, the big names too. It’s a much more intimate experience. You’ll also get killer shows on Thursday and Sunday on the campground stage, great swimming in Onion Creek, friends who bring the best White Lightnin’ you’ve ever had (thanks, you know who you are!) or kegs of 4-year-old Bigfoot Barleywine (thanks Levi!) then give half of it away to anyone who’ll take it, and you’ll meet plenty of those weekend warrior hippies who just like to watch some good acoustic music with a beer in their hand, and really appreciate getting away from their big jobs running large companies. Those are some of the coolest people you’ll ever meet because it’s not often they get a chance to really let go and have fun. But most of all you’ll get to spend a few days in the Texas Hill Country with a big-ass grin on your face and great tunes floating through the air – away from any of the worries and responsibilities of your everyday life.

Below are links to complete sets from campground shows. As always, the music is free to download or stream. Pass the links along to everyone who’ll enjoy them!

Friday night:

Country Willie at base camp: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27369

Squinto! at Camp Goodtimes: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27370

Green Mountain Grass at Camp Goodtimes: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27376

Saturday night:

Danny Malone: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27379

The Blue Hit: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27378

Billy Bright Supergroup: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27377

I hope you enjoy the live recordings. I rigged up some portable power via a deep cycle marine battery and a power inverter so I could record in the campground with a mixer and some decent condenser mics without any electricity. These would, of course, sound better if I had a bunch of microphones etc… but I think that kind of kills the vibe for some of the musicians. It’s supposed to be a fun, laid-back time and that’s exactly how I wanted it to be for everyone involved.  The whole thing was an experiment. I think these recordings could sound better with some tweaking, but I’m pretty critical of my own methods. Hopefully these tracks will suffice for you folks. I wanted to get these up ASAP so hopefully you all will share the music with your friends. Thanks for tuning in!

Serious Sam Barrett

Thanks to my good buddy Nick I got to meet and record Serious Sam Barrett on his short trip through the States (Sam hails from Leeds, UK) while he was on holiday for SXSW. I ended up recording Sam twice and will post the other session here later.

One thing I must mention first and foremost is HOLY CHRIST I can’t believe the tone his guitar gets. It’s a 12 string Stella, the same kind of guitar reportedly used by Barbecue Bob, Son House, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Furry Lewis, Leadbelly, Charlie Patton…and I’m gonna stop there. Anyhow, listen to the recording and you’ll hear it. When Sam bought that guitar from a pawn shop in Tennessee on a previous trip to the States (for a few notes less than a King’s ransom, I might add)… he found a treasure, let’s leave it at that.

Beyond the guitar, though, you’ll find in him an excellent songwriter and a rather memorable singer. Sam sings some of  his originals, some songs a friend wrote for him, and some old folk songs he grew up with. Enjoy this set he recorded for us. It was so good that I invited him back for another to be recorded two days later. Since he had to fly across the pond to get to us I had to take every opportunity I could get – it may be awhile before he makes it back here.

I hope he enjoyed a successful SXSW. I sure am glad he came over to record some tunes. Here’s a link to the first session. Again, I’ll upload the 2nd session to this post as soon as I can. I have a ton of recording to do this week so it may be a bit before I can get there… but stay tuned, not only for Sam but for plenty more great sessions I’ll post here. For now, though, this is a great one to get you by ’til the next update. Sam, thanks for coming. You’re welcome back anytime.

Follow the link below to download his live set for free, or follow the link and click “play” to stream it for free. Just listen to it, you’ll be happy you did.

http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27187

Scott H. Biram

Scott H Biram is the real deal. When he stopped by the house to play some songs I hadn’t yet met him. I was (and of course still am) a fan of his music, and given the hard work he put in on the local Austin music scene to get where he’s at I figured he’d be a down-to-Earth kind of guy. Yep.

Scott has lived through some seriously hard times and come through not limping, but completely victorious. I don’t think he’s ever had it easy, but he’s been very persistent and has always got right back up when life knocked the wind (or more) out of him. I guess none of this so far is really saying anything about his music, but I personally put much more support behind an artist when I know their songs are their life and not just something made up to sell more records. This is very much the case with Scott. If you haven’t yet heard his music (and of course especially if you have), you WILL be delighted upon downloading the set he played for us. I don’t want to try to put him into a genre, because in my opinion he dances between a few of them- and I also generally have a disdain for genres. I personally have two of them I put music into (when not forced to specify one): “good” and “bad”.

Anyhow, I had a great time listening to stories from the road and learning a new drink called a Child Abuse- courtesy of Scott H. Biram. Apparently Scott had a bad bout with the whiskey a while back so nowadays he won’t touch the stuff. When he goes on the road he needs a drink he can order that people won’t call him a pansy (not the actual word he used) when he orders one. Thus, the Child Abuse was born. It’s equal parts vodka and olive juice, and it is certainly not a pansy drink. Some of the folks around the studio cringed when presented with it, but I  was digging it. Then again, it’s like a generous vodka martini so if that’s your thing then you’ll like it too. Scott will likely come to your town sometime soon, as he’s on the road about 200 days each year. When he does come to your town go see his show, buy his merch, and buy him a Child Abuse. He’s a very interesting dude, very warm and happy to sit and talk a spell (unless he has to immediately hit the road for his next gig, that is.)

Anyhow, here’s the link to the excellent session he did for us. As always, you can download the whole session for free or just click “play” on the link and stream it for free. I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/27181

James Hyland

A friend of mine who goes by El Demento has a show called Smooth & Demented on the same radio station I DJ on. He asked if he could use my studio for a musician he had scheduled, James Hyland of the South Austin Jug Band. I of course agreed. I had never heard James’s solo stuff before but I liked it. He was a really nice and friendly guy too.

We all got together, had a few drinks, sat around a comfy sofa and James played us some tunes. In this recording you’ll hear El Demento doing bits of interview-type-stuff between songs. From where I was at the mixing board it was hard to twiddle knobs and at the same time see when Demento was going to talk so sometimes you can tell that his mic isn’t on when it should be etc… I just moved into a new studio so I still have to work out where all the equipment will actually end up in the space I have.

Here’s a link to James’s Myspace page, where you can learn more about him, his upcoming solo CD, and hear more of his music: http://www.myspace.com/jameshyland

Here’s a link to the live session we recorded for the Smooth & Demented show (which airs 9-11pm on Tuesday nights on KAOS Radio): http://kaosradioaustin.org/node/24389

Dan Grissom

Dan Grissom is a buddy of mine who also happens to be my favorite songwriter in Austin. I’ve been wanting to do a session with him for awhile, but probably because we’re always talking about something else it just didn’t get done. Dan and I co-host Annie Street Radio every Friday, so that seemed like a good day to finally take care of recording him solo. On the Friday we aired the Raina Rose live session I had already pre-recorded (so you could call it the Raina Rose kinda live session) we turned down the monitor volume in the studio and recorded Dan playing banjo, guitar and singing. Dan had a hot date right after the  session (you’ll hear about it on the recording) so we knocked out what we could while still getting him to his date on time.

Dan leads a band named some say Leland. Yes, just the Leland part is capitalized. The Austin Chronicle called them “sad and sublime folk”, and I like that description. He also plays banjo for a local band called The McMercy Family Band. Both are some of the best bands to see live in Austin, in my opinion.

For this recording, though, it’s Dan all by his lonesome. You’ll still hear him talking to our buddy Sweet Charlie Moses and to me during the recording, explaining where some of his songs came from and such, but musically it’s just Dan sitting in front of the Edirol playing and singing some songs he wrote.

Here’s the link to the recording session. It’s a hell of a session, you’re bound to enjoy it: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/24323

Here’s Dan’s Myspace page, where you can learn more about his music & painting. http://www.myspace.com/dangrissom

I wish I could get him to play more solo shows. Maybe this post will help.

New Year’s Day folk-style

New Year’s Day found about half of Austin (it seems) packed into Flipnotics on Barton Springs road to see Sick’s Pack, Raina Rose & Jack Wilson kick off the new year with friends, family and random strangers. It also found me doing my first ever live remote broadcast.

I’ll skip all the hairy details about not being able to set up equipment for an hour and a half because of an early show I didn’t know about, technical difficulties, slow-to-nonexistant internet connections, etc… and just say that the bar staff was VERY supportive, VERY helpful, had great attitudes and were all around good people. They wanted to do anything they could to help out. Very refreshing.

The venue was more packed than I’ve ever seen it. Good thing the Fire Marshals didn’t stop by, we’d have had to run for cover. Management made sure people actually paid to get in (not an easy task with this place when it’s asses and elbows & has two separate entrances to boot) and were cheerful about it the whole time. Nice.

Instead of giving you the play-by-play on the bands I’ll just let you hear ‘em yourselves. I will say, though, that Jack Wilson and Raina Rose had the same musicians onstage for their respective sets. It was one big incestuous love-a-thon in there… in a good way. Raina even sang backup for Jack during his set and vice versa.

Sick’s Pack came out singing an old field holler-sounding song that I thought was a nice touch. This is a different lineup than when I recorded them last and a bit of a different sound. It’s good, good stuff. That sick is a showman, for sure. This recording (Sick’s Pack’s set) is a bit loud but don’t let that turn you off of it. Great stuff. Tune it in. Wild.

Anyhow, here are the links to each set. Sadly, Jack’s set got cut a little short. I won’t go into details. Let’s just say “bummer” and be done with it.

Oh, one more thing- since these are live recordings they don’t sound as good as the studio stuff which makes up the rest of the blog so far. They still rock, though, don’t worry.

Jack Wilson: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/23982

Raina Rose: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/23986

Sick’s Pack: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/24005

Happy new year to everyone. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. If you like the music you read about on here, please tell your friends about it. Buy the musicians’ albums. Spread the word. Hell, buy the album then copy it for 10 of your friends. If these bands come to your town, go see them. Buy them a beer. Get some merch. Life’s not all about money, but if you  support these bands they just might be able to stick around in the future to entertain us some more.

I’ll be back soon with more music. Free music isn’t exactly rare these days, but this kind of free music is.

Best wishes in 2010 to all.