Archives for July 2020

Honeybush: “Northern Lights”

As a major figure in both Hong Kong Wigs and Black Basements as well as a continuing collaborator with Tyler Jordan and the Negative Space and Outskirts, bassist-vocalist Anastasia Wright clearly has her rock chops on lock. But never one to get glazed over by one genre, Wright’s begun to blossom out into soulful, synth-powered dream pop under the solo handle Honeybush.

Wright’s larger-than-life voice finds a welcome home on top of the decidedly different set of stems, where Honeybush can use her platform to empower, encourage, and offer compassion to all her feminine fellows. Last Friday Honeybush uprooted her outstanding debut single, and is donating half of all purchase proceeds to The Loveland Foundation, a non-profit that connects black women and girls with free therapy. Keep on the lookout for a corresponding music video when it drops within the next couple weeks, and get a whiff of Wright’s newfound sonic shrubbery on “Northern Lights”!

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Cheryl Grace (Ep. 31, 2020)

This week on In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Cheryl Grace, Senior Vice President of Strategic Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement with the Nielsen Company, discussing the cultural and technological influences behind the global proliferation of African American creativity in the entertainment industry.

KUT Weekend – July 3, 2020

Mandatory masking ordered in counties across Texas. Plus, a call to end arrests for minor crimes in Hays County. And some of the primary runoff races you’ll find on the ballot during early voting. Those stories and more in this edition of KUT Weekend!

Subscribe at https://weekend.kut.org

The Queen

It’s a big deal, so the Austin Music Minute wanted to get a head start on the celebration in honor of the undisputed blues queen of Austin.

Miss Lavelle White‘s 91st Birthday Live Stream comes to you at 7 p.m. (Central) this Sunday, July 5, from Wire Recording Studio via Mosaic Sound Collective and engineer extraordinaire Stuart Sullivan, who mixed White’s first-ever LP Miss Lavelle (1994).

White will perform, along with special guest Marcia Ball. You can see the show and send birthday greetings on Antone’s Facebook page.

-Photo courtesy of the artist.

Creative Masks

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has mandated most Texans wear masks for most activities outside the home. What that mask looks like — is up to you. That was the inspiration for this Typewriter Rodeo poem.

Texas Standard: July 3, 2020

After days of resisting calls from local leaders, governor Abbott imposes fines for those who refuse to use facial coverings in public, saying it’s a necessary step to avoid a return to another lockdown as virus cases set new records in Texas. We’ll have the latest. Also, a first person story of becoming a U.S. citizen in a period of pandemic. Plus the week in politics with the Texas Tribune and much more today on the Texas Standard:

Little Kid: “Losing”

It’s an almost demeaning handle that’s pretty easy to brush off on face value, but Toronto four-piece Little Kid is anything but immature when it comes to their songwriting skills. Having started in 2011, Little Kid spent their twenty-teens carving out shoegaze-leaning soundscape relatively under the radar, although the talented quartet has already amassed their own loyal following and shared the stage with the likes of Car Seat Headrest within that timeframe.

Today Little Kid shares Transfiguration Highway, an exploration of life’s dynamics along the road between calm and chaos, fascinating and bleak, silent and deafening. And at just shy of a dozen tunes, Transfiguration Highway truly does transport you into band’s van along the way and engulf you into its meditation on movement. Check out the full stretch if you have time, and if not, at least soak up the Pavement vibes on “Losing”!

-Jack Anderson

Garage Rock It

From the moment quarantine was put into effect, Eve Monsees decided the music would go on, pandemic be damned. So she and drummer/bandmate/hubs Mike Buck put together an awesome live stream series to keep the rock going. It may not be the in-person performance that the Antone’s mainstays usually deliver, but that shredder guitar-and drum ferocity is still in your face, coming to you directly from their garage. Quite literally, garage rock. Sometimes they’ll have show themes, other times it’s random spontaneity crackling through the amps.

Don’t miss Monsees and Buck as they continue their live stream series with a set at 7 p.m. (Central) tonight, Thursday July 2, on the Eve and The Exiles Facebook page and Instagram. Hell yeah.

-Photo courtesy of the artist.

Texas Standard: July 2, 2020

As new COVID-19 cases continue to set record highs in Texas, another statistic isn’t tracking the trend. Why are COVID-19 death rates in Texas moving lower? We’ll have the latest. Also, Texas teachers getting prepared for the first statewide public school elective on African American studies. How the past and present come together in the curriculum. And just how difficult is the process for obtaining a mail in ballot in Texas? Our own Shelly Brisbin puts it to the test. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:

Thiago Nassif: “Plástico”

The late-’00s/early-’10s multimedia art scene of Rio de Janeiro has stayed largely influential with many contemporary Brazilian musicians, but perhaps most of all for Thiago Nassif. Nassif’s interdisciplinary approach has escalated his already abstract creativity into a synesthetic experience, with original audio collages, sculptures, paintings, and architecture mirroring his complex musical palette.

The spirit of experimentation lives on in Thiago’s latest heady multilingual record, Mente, brushing broad strokes through bossa nova, funk, jazz, rock, and electronic styles over ten tracks. Mente is out tomorrow and to give you a sense of what you’re getting into, enjoy a taste of the wacky brilliance on one of the album’s centerpieces, “Plástico”.

-Jack Anderson

–Photo: Nick Duarte

Jefferson Davis Highway: The Persistence Of A Confederate Memorial

By W.F. Strong

On July 29, 1925 — a full 60 years after the American Civil War — Miss Decca Lamar West of Waco, Texas, wrote a strongly worded letter to Chief Thomas H. MacDonald, the head of what was then the Federal Bureau of Public Roads. Miss West was an influential member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy who was lobbying for a coast to coast highway to honor the Former President of the Confederate States. After all, President Abraham Lincoln had a highway already that stretched from New York City to San Francisco. She wrote:

The Jefferson Davis Highway directors are doing constructive work in every state, and patriotically the women of the United States feel that nothing could tend to the greater unity and understanding of the people than that two transcontinental highways should be named for the two great leaders of the critical period of American history.

The honorary highway of which she wrote was almost fully realized. Today, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway still exists – but only in bits and pieces – from Virginia to California. You’ll find United Daughters of the Confederacy markers along highways in Georgia and Louisiana and Arizona. But New Mexico had them all removed from along I-10 two years ago. You can see the Texas markers along U.S. 90 and 290 and I-35 and along Highways 59 and 77 South toward the border. Others have been removed — including those in Elgin, San Antonio, and San Marcos.

Brownsville just removed its marker after a contentious debate. The marker, originally placed on Palm Boulevard by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1927, was later moved to a city park after the state passed on certifying that memorial route. It was a simple, large boulder with a plaque praising Jefferson Davis. Some wanted the boulder removed altogether because it honored Davis who was a traitor to the U.S. Others felt that removing it would be an attempt to erase history.

My contention is that the monument itself tried to erase history. It was one of at least 250 markers placed along U. S. roadways which tried to re-brand Jefferson Davis, to make the enslaver equal to the emancipator. The plaque on the boulder in Brownsville was stone cold propaganda.

The plaque identifies Davis as President of the C.S.A. The word “Confederacy” is not spelled out there. Were they hiding the word from Davis’s resume? He is lauded as a United States soldier and Senator. It says he resigned as Senator, but it omits the fact that he resigned to create a new country where slavery would be forever legal. Finally, he is declared a martyr, but a martyr for what? Hundreds of thousands died for his cause but he didn’t.

President Ulysses S. Grant believed the contentiousness that resulted from the Civil War would, in time, pass. In 1885, in his famous memoirs, he wrote: “As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.” And yet these arguments over monuments persist.

Presenting Nick Clark

If you haven’t heard by now, put it on your radar. Multi-talented musician Nick Clark is a big deal. He may not shout it from the rooftops, but in the industry, this is an in-demand artist for good reason.

The bassist and producer, who’s expanding his work into TV and film (there’s also a Masters in Physics from Texas State University on his resume, in case you were curious), has performed with several of the best musicians in Austin and beyond, from Tameca Jones to Carrie Rodriguez, Jackie Venson, Gina Chavez, and this dude named Kanye West, if that rings a bell…

Catch Nick Clark on the PDE Masters Series, hosted by Paul Deemer, at 7:30 p.m. (Central) tonight, Wednesday July 1, on a Zoom webinar presented by LORO Management. You can click on this link to get your virtual ticket, which will provide a link to the event.

-Photo courtesy of the artist.

Texas Standard: July 1, 2020

In what would normally be the height of the summer season for Corpus Christi, new restrictions go into effect. But do they go far enough? Our conversation with the mayor of Corpus Christi as regional ICU bed space reaches single digit levels, and also an update on the situation in Dallas. Plus a surprising backyard trend during the pandemic: and why it has some Texans crying fowl over the mesh of rules. And another profile in one of the key races during primary runoff season plus a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:

The Holy Knives: “Always Gone” (Jamie Hince Remix)

With Saharan dust making an unwelcome appearance here in the states, maybe we ought to turn to some psychedelic-minded downtempo desert-dwellers. Originally from NOLA and now calling San Antonio home, brothers Kody and Kyle Valentine provide a sharp escape from day-to-day monotony with their near-cultish cowboy presence as The Holy Knives.

A fresh set of tracks from The Holy Knives recently came in a four-track block with the impressive Always Gone EP and the pair continue to offer a new release each month. And as luck would have it, one half of chart-topping duo The Kills, Jamie Hince, took a stab at remixing the record’s title track and setting a prime example of taking something great and making it even better.

-Jack Anderson