Song of the Day

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January 29, 2024

Shakey Graves & Jess Williamson: “True Love Will Find You In The End” (Live at Longhorn Cavern)

By: Jack Anderson

When it comes to natural landmarks, Texas is absolutely teeming with them. From meteor craters and sinkholes to canyons, rivers, forests, mountain ranges, lakes, and caverns, our vast landscape offers a ton of variety to make up for those long car rides. And none of that Earth-born beauty could be conserved as well as it has been without the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation, who just celebrated the centennial of Texas State Parks last year.

If you missed it, TPWF recently teamed up with KUTX favorite Walker Lukens to produce Texas Wild, a collection of iconic Texas tunes performed by some of the Lone Star’s finest to commemorate that hundred-year legacy of astonishing state parks. That eleven-track vinyl packs a wallop on its own, no doubt, but because everything’s bigger when you’re here, the Texas Wild team just had to make some extra hay for this salute.

So, alongside the KUTX Multimedia Crew, Walker, The Bright Light Social Hour, Shakey Graves, and Jess Williamson took a field trip out to Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet to bask in the ancestral acoustics and primal reverb that only an eon-old limestone cave can provide. Their chamber-filling rendition of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End” can haunt any home stereo, but to fully immerse yourself in this one-of-a-kind space, you gotta check out the video. Because like witnessing all-star set of stalagmites suddenly come to life, with outward reverence for their surroundings and instruments at the ready, it’s a visual treat that plants you into a truly magical habitat, one you won’t want to leave when the music’s over.


Episodes

April 30, 2024

Grandmaster: “Castle Door”

Watch out, Golden Dawn Arkestra…there’s a new costumed collective in town, and they’re hunting for for fresh converts! But instead of frenetic Afro-inspired dance grooves, these fanatics have so far stuck to the slower side of ’70s-style jazz funk rock; think War whisked together with Steely Dan. Not that you’d be able to tell from […]

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April 29, 2024

Trip Cigs: “Comeback Kid”

When a seasoned musician wades out of their genre comfort zone, you love to hear it. Because the technical expertise, jam stamina, and songwriting skills are already in place, but opening the gate to different inspirations and influences is always a welcome breath of fresh air. So let’s talk Rod Gator, who – as you […]

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April 24, 2024

Viben: “Pablo Picasso”

Lyrics are a fickle field. You can be wordy as hell, hoping that at least one line sticks in listener’s minds. Or, you could just loop the hell out of some barebones sentences – guaranteed to have a lot more hypnotic staying power through sheer repetition, especially in the realm of dance music. Now let’s […]

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April 24, 2024

Rett Smith: “Sunsets”

In terms of musical association, at least outside the world of film soundtracks, U.S. southwestern scenery often gets associated with country. But there’s a certain psychedelic quality to our regional deserts that we just love to see artists embrace. Folks like Rett Smith, based here in Austin, but bred out of West Texas, so you […]

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April 23, 2024

Ruel Thomas: “I Am Today”

Any profession requires quotas…whether that’s how many tickets you write or how many kids pass your class. And when music is your source of income, the obvious metric to measure by is quantity of shows played. But as with any creative endeavor, there’s an opportunity to move the needle in many directions, which makes “success” […]

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April 22, 2024

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors: “Suffering”

The very nature of Americana is rooted in traditional music. But it also lies at the crossroads between folk, country, and rock. So if an Americana act decides to veer into new lanes, the choices are limited and somewhat predictable. And yet it’s still such a joy to hear an artist explore new sonic territory, […]

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April 19, 2024

Melotheory: “Breathe”

When you have roommates, at least good ones you get along with, group activities naturally arise around the house. For most folks, it’s watching TV, recreational smoking and drinking, or maybe the occasional board game. For musicians, however, having a practice space within eyeshot of your bedroom door is too good of a scenario to […]

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April 17, 2024

Rhythm&Truth and Sakari: “Bring It All Back”

We won’t say that successful collaborations should mandate a solo artist’s trajectory. But if something built together leaves people wanting more, it’s not a bad idea to get back together and sate those desires, right? Because what’s unachievable on the individual level often just needs to get catalyzed by some good collabo chemistry. So let’s […]

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