KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts
KUT and KUTX news and music podcasts for Austin, Texas and beyond
If you’re craving some fresh, spicy Latin hip-hop, look no further than Chile’s Ambar Luna.
Ambar released her four-course debut EP CARNE today and for lack of better terms, it’s something fierce. Just check out one of CARNE‘s finest appetizers (but try not to burn your tongue in the process), “Trascender”!
–Jack Anderson
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Episode 3 of “72 Hours in Newport” features Austin-based alternative R&B crooner, Jake Lloyd! In this episode, our confessor shares an intimate story of discovering her bi-polar diagnosis while traveling through China and opens up about how she’s dealt with it since. Later; Walker hashes it out with Jake about some of the ways they manage their own mental health, mutual love of Nate Dogg, Bootsy Collins, and if the Austin music scene is rising up to be actively more inclusive for black artists.
For another episode dealing with mental health, revisit our Husky Loops episode here. Also check out Genomind, the experts starting point for your mental health.
The politics of policing part two: the mayor of Austin pushes back against the governor’s call to take a pledge not to defund police. Coming up our conversation with Austin mayor Steve Adler who says characterizations of major cutbacks in the Texas capital city’s police funding amount to GOP politics as usual. We’ll hear more Also, changes to the sex ed curriculum in Texas, LGBTQ students say proposals are woefully inadequate as social conservatives push an abstinence only message. And the threat to a burgeoning industry, Texas wineries teaming up. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
When you’ve got ten people in your band and your country’s facing major ecological damage, it can be tricky to focus on writing original music together. Enter Melbourne “heat beat” collective NO ZU, whose last record of originals came with 2016’s Afterlife followed by the 2017 remix EP BODY2BODY2BODY.
Last Friday however, the ten-piece released a double A-side of covers from some of their all-time favorites. Disco comes back to life on their rendition of Bryan Ferry’s “Sensation”, but NO ZU’s tribute to Oz-rock superstars Hunters & Collectors pulses with ’80s energy throughout their sleek, modern take on “Talking To A Stranger”!
–Jack Anderson
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“Pause/Play” will tell the pandemic stories of artists, venues, venue staff, festivals, sound technicians, music non-profits and more. What has the shutdown been like for them so far? What help have they received in order to survive? What adaptations have they been making, and what do they see as the future for Austin Music?
As many Texans struggle to make ends meet in a pandemic, politicians debate what sort of relief to offer. We’ll talk with Senator John Cornyn. Also, among the biggest cities in the US, residents of Houston appear to be facing the toughest challenges when it comes to personal finance and health. We’ll have details from a new survey by NPR and Harvard. Plus the politics of medicine amid a pandemic, how college campuses are trying to curb the spread amid rising COVID-19 numbers, the Fed changes its position on curbing inflation, what that might mean from most everyday folks and more today on the Texas Standard:
My friend, Jac Darsnek, owner of the always remarkable Traces of Texas webpage sent me a message recently. He asked if I had ever told the story of Dora Hand on the radio. I said, no, but I will. Thanks for the suggestion Jac. Here we go:
Dora Hand, many said, was the most beautiful woman in Dodge City, back in the seventies. That would be the 1870’s. To her rare beauty you may add an angelic, hypnotic voice that mesmerized all the cowboys who saw her perform at the Lady Gay Theater. She was a nightly singer there and performed also at the Alhambra Saloon. The cowboys coming in off the range from long cattle drives flocked to hear her. She sang in church, too, and those same cowboys, many of them strangers to church, would go just to hear her sing. Dora was much loved in the city for her singing and also because she shared her substantial income quite liberally with the less fortunate of Dodge.
Dodge City Mayor Jim “Dog” Kelley also owned the Alahambra and as such, was Hand’s benefactor and protector and probable boyfriend. One cowboy from Texas, the wealthy and handsome James “Spike” Kenedy came to hear her sing and was soon infatuated with her. Dog and Spike eventually got into a bar-room brawl over their dislike for one another and Mayor Kelley spiked, Spike, head-first embarrassingly into the dirt-street outside.
Spike Kenedy could not let this slight go unanswered. He left town a while and bought himself the fastest horse he could find so that he could outrun any posse that might pursue him. Then he returned one night to the mayor’s house and fired two shots through the plank wood at the spot where he knew Dog slept. Kenedy then raced off on his fast horse for what he thought was a clean get-away. Unbeknownst to him, Mayor Kelley was not home. Dora was house-sitting. Spike had killed her.
Famed Dodge City Sheriff Bat Masterson assembled a posse of lawmen including Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman, and Charley Bassett. Together, they took off after Spike Kenedy. It was kind of a dream-team posse, as if Superman, Batman, and Spiderman and Captain America got together to bring Spike to justice. They took a short-cut and caught up with Spike as he was ready to cross the Arkansas River. He turned his horse and ran, but Wyatt Earp shot Spike’s horse out from under him. Mastersno winged Spike in the shoulder. They took him back to Dodge and put him in jail, where Spike learned he had killed Dora, instead of Kelley , though he didn’t confess to the crime.
Spike’s father, Texas rancher Mifflin Kenedy immediately made his way up to Dodge City to arrange defense for his son’s crime. His father was no stranger to Dodge City as he provided, from his ranches in Texas, a huge percentage of the cattle brought there each year. Mifflin Kenedy, was also the co-founder of the King Ranch. Kenedy, Texas is named for him, as is Kenedy County. Suffice it to say that he was quite rich and influential.
So he arrived, they say, with a satchel full of money, and arranged for his 23 year old son Spike to get the medical care he needed for his shoulder wound. A judge conducted an inquest into Hand’s death. But after a meeting that included Marshal Masterson, Mayor Kelley — the crime’s supposed target — deputies and the judge, they came to an understanding. Spike would be released for lack of evidence. No one saw him do it.
Some say that there was a good deal of money exchanged that day, because, in the year following, each of those attending suddenly had eyebrow-raising funds for the building of nice homes and purchasing of successful businesses. No one knows for sure, but that’s what many have deduced.
Dora, just 34, was not forgotten. She received a magnificent funeral with a grand escort from all levels of society. As many as 400 mounted cowboys escorted her funeral carriage to Boot Hill, the biggest ever seen in Dodge City.
Spike, or Santiago as his mother, Petra, called him, eventually lost most of his left arm due to infections within the wound. He returned to Texas and died six years later at the age of 29 of typhoid fever. He is buried in the family plot in the Brownsville cemetery.
For a more detailed story see Petra’s Legacy: The South Texas Ranching Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy by Jane Clements Monday and Frances Brannen Vick, 2007.
In 2017, Kevin Morby was ready to record an album he just completed writing, the one that would become Oh My God (2019). But the simple act of buying an old four track TASCAM (model 424, thank you) would lead to a chain of events inspiring yet another album, Sundowner, set for release October 16 via Dead Oceans. The title comes from a nickname Morby and songwriter/musician Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) gave themselves describing the melancholy seizing them both during every twilight gloom of sundown.
Morby is about to lead the way through loads of memories in a livestream series featuring music from his previous releases, leading up to his new album. The first show includes the music of Morby’s beautiful 2013 debut, Harlem River, starting at 8 p.m. (Central) tomorrow, Thursday September 10, on Noonchorus. Your virtual ticket gets you a link to the performance, and you can find the full livestream schedule on Morby’s website.
-Photo courtesy of the artist.
As a genderless, flashy, hyper-sexualized fashion designer, Brooklyn’s Ian Isiah has never been your run-of-the-mill crooner. For years now Isiah’s bouncing-off-the-walls vigor in studio and onstage have made this R&B singer a standout, even within New York’s heavily saturated artist community.
Starved of the usual nightlife due to COVID restrictions, the entrepreneur is taking this reservation to step things up to the next level, with the next move coming by way of AUNTIE, a long-form collaboration with renowned producer Chromeo. It’ll come as no surprise to Chromeo fans that the resulting seven tracks slap with the same synth-funk intensity of ’80s era ZAPP, while challenging R&B mega-giants like The Weeknd with Isiah’s prominent vocals, especially on the appropriately-titled “Princess Pouty”!
This week on The Breaks:
The governor’s plan for a DPS takeover of Austin Police, how would that work exactly? The politics of policing, it’s not just Austin in the spotlight: the Dallas police Chief facing calls for her removal after protests this summer over police brutality, we’ll have the latest. And back to school day for many statewide, many first time teachers and students eager to go bilingual. And the border wall on a pre-election day fast track, and fighting the scourge of mosquitoes with more mosquitoes? Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
The late Margaret Moser did this excellent interview with Austin-based artist Jean Caffeine for the Austin Chronicle twenty years ago that your Austin Music Minute host had way too much fun revisiting. Seriously, just to be a fly on the wall to soak in the awesome conversation between these two badasses would have been ridiculously cool.
The chat dives into Caffeine’s (Jean Leider) life experiences expanding those “punk rock horizons” as a curious teen, jolted awake by the power of live music (The Rolling Stones‘ 1975 It’s Only Rock & Roll tour, to be exact – and DAMN…), and discovering that punk was not only about the music, but a way of life – and creating. Though Caffeine will tell you straight up: She didn’t discover punk rock, it discovered her. That was the blow-torch flame igniting the eternal creative burn that’s been fueling her ever since, from playing in bands to making art and writing, from punk to punked-up country – before cowpunk or alt.-country was a thing with different labels.
Just recently, Caffeine and label Modern Harmonic rereleased the self-titled LP by post-punk bass and percussion outfit Pulsallama, which Caffeine drummed for back in the ‘80s in New York City (a band that opened for The Clash, FYI). Swing by Jean Caffeine’s Bandcamp to check out the gleeful cacophonous din. Fierce and fun. And make sure you catch Jean on her livestream show, I Always Cry On Thursday, occurring every other week. The next show’s coming up at 7 p.m. (Central) Thursday, September 10, on Facebook Live.
-Photo courtesy of the artist.
When it comes to hip-hop production, it’s almost always a given that you start with the rhythm. And for percussionist Michael Longoria, his home-brewed beats have laid the foundation for a large scale collaboration. Under the collective handle Universal Seedz, Longoria’s sowed up thirty collaborators for their debut EP Rise Up, highlighting shades of black and brown across six rich tracks backed with live drum recordings.
All proceeds generated from Rise Up will go directly to non-profits benefitting asylum seekers, so not only is it an outstanding record that’d leave Kamasi Washington’s mouth agape, it’s also for a great cause. Making its appearance two thirds through Rise Up, “Ovídalo” touts the album’s most guest vocals, with Tee Double, Tray God, and Bavu Blakes rounding out this already gorgeous arrangement that evokes elements of both classic hip-hop and modern jazz.
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It’s Labor Day and we have a special show for you- “Overlooked No More: How Asian Texans Shape the State. Here on the Texas Standard.
We’ll talk about How the Asian American community has changed from 1870, the first time the US census counted people from China to today.
We’ll meet a group called the “Pershing Chinese”. A story of Chinese immigration through Mexico.
Then we’ll travel to the border where a vibrant Filipino community settled.
Is it time to re-evaluate the holidays we celebrate in Texas???
Plus, K-pop and activism. And the state of jobs and healthcare during COVID.
It’s been awesome to revisit Matthew Logan Vasquez‘s 2019 LP Light’n Up. And much like its predecessor, Does What He Wants (2017), there’s no taming the spirit that leaps from genre to genre. As it should be. There are glimpses into his personal life on this multi-dimensional work, soul-searching with no formula to follow. It just is, and it’s badass.
Leave it to Bud’s Recording to put the spotlight on Vasquez to wrap up your Labor Day weekend. Matthew Logan Vasquez will do a livestream performance on Bud’s Live and Direct livestream series, starting at 7:05 p.m. (Central) tonight, Monday September 7, on Facebook Live and on Bud’s YouTube Channel.
-Photo courtesy of the artist.
This week on In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. begins a conversation with Cathy Hughes, veteran radio and television professional and founder and Chairwoman of Urban One, Inc., the largest African American owned and operated media company in America.
For bedroom producers, a world in isolation isn’t all that different from the norm. Just look at Toronto alt-pop multi-instrumentalist GRAE, who recently released her sophomore EP, Permanent Maniac, created in the comfort and safety of her own home.
Alongside the record’s remaining five songs, the album opener and title track came packaged with a half-animated/half-live action video filmed right where the EP was recorded. And even if you’re not the biggest Smiths aficionado, you’ll find something that resonates with you in this upbeat yet anguished love letter to fellow weirdo Robert Smith, “Permanent Maniac”.
–Photo: Lizzie O’Donnell
Though Labor Day weekend is looking…significantly different this year, and with good reason, there’s still some live music to keep you relatively sane. Three up-and-coming artists that need to be on your radar are part of an excellent line-up this evening: Torre Blake, Eimaral Sol and KUTX July Artist of the Month, Jake Lloyd.
See all three Austin artists at a Labor Day weekend show kicking off at 8 p.m. tonight, Saturday September 5, at The Far Out Lounge, 8504 S. Congress Ave. The venue is upholding guidelines for safe social distancing; please be mindful that seating is limited, and don’t forget your mask. Be safe out there – and buy the artists’ merch!
-Photo of Torre Blake courtesy of the artist.
A UT-Austin professor says the school’s history of segregation and racism still complicates campus life today. No solution is permanent for an Austin mom struggling with child care during the pandemic, And, Austin could ‘decouple’ Victim Services from the police department.
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Wicked cool. Mark your calendar for October. 2. That’s when LA garage rockers Death Valley Girls release their new LP, Under The Spell of Joy. Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Bloomgarden calls it a “space gospel record,” the title of which was inspired by San Diego spaced-out heavy-psych outfit JOY. And the album’s influences run the gamut from Ethiopian funk to spacey grooves to the dark jams of Black Sabbath.
Levitation recently premiered Death Valley Girls’ “Dream Cleaver” with a most cosmic video that just so happens to be a part of their “Live From the Astral Plane” performance on LEVITATION SESSIONS. Catch the entire livestream show starting at 7 p.m. Central tomorrow night, Saturday September 5, at Levitation’s website. Your virtual ticket gets you a link to the show.
Get the music. Get the merch. Get the vibe.
-Photo courtesy of Levitation.