Peglegasus
Tired of Adventures
Mad Entropic
Houstonians by way of Rhode Island, Peglegasus has been based in Austin for six of their ten years, though the group first took shape in 1979, when drummer Peter Voskamp and his guitarist sibling John acquired a stepbrother in guitarist Berke Marye. (Bryan Nelson, the unfortunate recipient of many parentheticals just like this one, recently replaced Henry Duys III as the bassist.) Tired of Adventures, Peglegasus' third CD, showcases an iconoclastic band that's thoroughly out of step with the times, which isn't a bad thing these days. With influences ranging from the Kinks to Pere Ubu to Jethro Tull ("To Cry You a Song" is covered here) and a sound that blends skittish rhythms and brainy pop energy with beautiful guitar interplay, Peglegasus would have been perfect college radio faves in the late eighties. Since those days have passed, they'll have to settle for being totally unique, the obvious inheritors of Texas Instruments' mantle as the longest running, best little barely noticed band in Austin. Jason Cohen (For more information contact pellmell@plainfield.bypass.com.)
The Barbers
You Know How It Is
GRACE RECORDS
877-59-GRACE
There's a looming spirituality that works its way through the cracks of the Barbers' second release, You Know How It Is. Perhaps it's because they recorded in a former Baptist church in Austin, perhaps it's their Southern roots, as thick as kudzu, perhaps it's the angelic plinking of Elaine Barber's harp. Yes, a harp. These are the buoys marking Lee Barber's wonderfully funny, insightful and twisted lyrics, which he sings with a voice eerily reminiscent of James McMurtry. "Tissue and Twine" is a ballad of love lost, nudged gently along by harp and slide guitar, an odd combination that works because the melody is so simple and beautiful Burt Bacharach might curse himself for not writing it. The rest is alternately gritty and sweet. The Flannery O'Connor-ish tropes of "Life Is Strange" are draped over harp, dobro, trumpet flourishes, and metronomic percussion. "Killed by Love" is a Southern Gothic molasses-thick blues threnody; "Mile Marker" is a country-tinged brush with death. The album ends quietly with "Next Time," a lullaby lovingly harmonized by Lee and Elaine. No doubt next time will be even better. Luann Williams
Blaze Foley
Live at the Austin Outhouse
Lost Art Records
One of Austin's most intriguing musical tribes over the years is what can be best described as the folk outlaws—a fringe element that drinks and drugs too much and lives on the street just this side of homeless, all for the sake of the song. In this realm, where Townes Van Zandt is the father figure and Calvin Russell is the success story, Blaze Foley is the heart and soul. He wrote and sang story songs so vividly full of ache, sadness, reflection, and the naked truth that I believe he may have attained that level of direct realism that songsmiths such as Kristofferson, Dylan, and Haggard are always trying to reach. He paid the ultimate price at the age of 39, shot and killed trying to protect a friend's welfare check. Live at the Austin Outhouse documents Foley in performance a month before his death eleven years ago. It would be easy to frame it in the usual tragedy-festered what-might-have-been context, but consider it as a fresh CD that holds up remarkably well. The guy can write, and no one covers his material better than he does. All the right ingredients to become a new sensation. Joe Nick Patoski (Also available at www.blazefoley.com.)
Ideal
Ideal
Virgin
Contemporary vocal albums often prove to be the aural equivalent of televised political ads: slickly packaged and hollow to the core. Talented singers and producers strut their stuff in slavish fashion. They look and sound great, but . . . where are the songs? Houston's Ideal are not immune to this trap on their recording debut. Treacly lyrics brim with teenage male posturing, and certain melodies usher the listener down a serpentine path to nowhere. Yet stripping away the studio sheen yields ample rewards: Ideal are not merely aping the trends of the day. Theirs is a mid-tempo soul groove all but devoid of dance bombastics. In their best moments, this R&B quartet achieves modern cool and reverence in the same breath. Ideal's roots are with Linda and Cecil Womack, Maze, the Manhattans; they're young (three of the four list PlayStation among their hobbies), but they get the difference between Stevie Wonder and Jamiroquai. When the songs deliver, particularly with the agile Maverick at the mike, the group generates genuine soul fire. Here's hoping it lights their way to success. Jeff McCord
The Texas Trumpets
The Texas Trumpets
DIALTONE
512-442-1384
This one's a groove thang. Except for the fact that four trumpets replace a full horn section, it recalls the classic black show bands that began with post-war jump-blues combos and ended with the breakup of James Brown's early-seventies funk powerhouse. Back then, blues and R&B musicians had to be able to play jazz (often doing so during warm-up numbers before the star came on), and jazzmen needed blues and R&B chops, if only to get session work. The résumés of Austin trumpeters Martin Banks, Ephraim Owens, Pat Patterson, and Donald Jennings include stints with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Etta James, and Joe Tex, so they've got the bases covered. And the Eastside Band—especially Larry D.C. Williams, who plays organ and provides horn arrangements, and guitarist Clarence Pierce, who usually fills in the holes but steps out fiercely on "Hully Gully Twist"—is razor-sharp on any rhythm the frontmen need. The Texas Trumpets opens with "JB Into," with Owens taking one of his charging solos over a James Brown rhythm figure, and ends with "JB Out," with each of the four stepping out. In between are down-home blues ("Rebecca, Rebecca," with Patterson singing and Owens blowing sweet and sad), the buoyant "Paige 'N T.C.," some instrumental vamps that sound like live-set intros or outros ("One Night Stand"), a killer shuffle of a B. B. King medley, and even a lilting romp with sonorous harmonies that echoes the classic Chicano R&B of early-sixties San Antonio ("Sassy"). Williams' horn charts are never dull. When the four play together, they riff hard; as soloists, Banks is punchy and Jennings saucy, while Patterson employs a slippery, muted sound. And like Owens and the Eastside Band, they all shoot from the hip. John Morthland
