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| Bands |
 White Denim
You’ve never seen three men happier to be onstage than James Petralli, Steve Terebecki and Josh Block.
The trio first formed White Denim scarcely more than a year ago, rocking unsuspecting locals within an inch of their lives. With a jangly, lo-fi ‘60s garage rock sound, White Denim made a name for itself as one of the most fun bands in the city. Petralli, Terebecki and Block wore constant grins on their faces, appearing as if they could hardly believe they were making such glorious noise.
Word spread quickly, buoyed by blog buzz and a steady stream of leaked songs via the band’s MySpace. One year later, White Denim received a full page in Rolling Stone, sold out countless shows and has had write-ups in everything from Pitchfork to Spin. But drop by one of its occasional shows at the Mohawk, and you’ll quickly notice the group is the same bunch it’s always been — at the end of the day, these boys are just playing rock and roll, and loving every minute of it. – Patrick Caldwell
 The Mother Truckers
You won’t find the Mother Truckers on Pitchfork or in Spin. You won’t see their music on MTV, and it’s unlikely your hipster friends are going to start dropping their name to impress you. And it doesn’t matter how hard you listen — their tracks aren’t going to be closing out any episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” anytime soon, either.
Why not? Simple — they’re way too busy rocking out to bother with that kind of nonsense.
A harmony-driven country rock band bolstered by blistering guitars, the Mother Truckers, who have the singing/songwriting team of Josh Zee and Teal Collins at their core, put on unapologetically sizzling and vibrant live sets. While they may have formed in San Francisco, the Mother Truckers relocated to Austin, where they have been regularly rocking local venues ever since. The group has also toured with a virtual who’s-who of country greats, from Asleep at the Wheel to Willie Nelson and Reba McIntire. – Patrick Caldwell
 Ghostland Observatory
Aaron Behrens and Thomas Turner, the one-two electro tag team that harbors the sort of seamless symbiosis most of their contemporaries only dream of realizing, are honestly simple. The duo’s wacky vocals and cool beats lead fields of people to flip their shit in Burning-Man-DJ-tent-at-4-a.m. fashion.
Turner wears capes; Behrens braids Willie Nelson locks; bare bones instrumentation sometimes flips into a less effective garage guitar and four-piece Pearl kit punk oddity changeup. Whatever — whenever a capable emcee spits sickness over Turner’s production, it’ll be over.
Since unsheathing the thumping, intergalactic “Paparazzi Lightning” back in January 2006, Austin has responded to Ghostland Observatory like a hopeful dog at an animal shelter every time the band feels like selling out a club and pocketing 20 grand. Are they really, as so much of the music press seems to believe, space cowboys? Try mob-scene warlords. - Ramon Ramirez
 The Octopus Project
The Octopus Project don’t need no stinkin’ lyrics. The indietronica trio foregoes things like verses and choruses in lieu of a unique song structure that melds catchy pop hooks and guitar riffs with techno elements. The resulting concoction appeals to both indie and electronica fans.
Fortunately, the group’s instrumental tunes are kept fresh with the incorporation of a number of atypical tools, most famously the theremin, played to perfection by multi-instrumentalist Yvonne Lambert, she of the masterfully flipped hair and stylish dresses. And the live shows are an experience unto themselves, with costumes, piñatas, lasers and every other trick in the book. The Octopus Project’s 2007 album “Hello, Avalanche” serves as a perfect introduction to this giddy, inventive pop group. – Patrick Caldwell
 Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
Black Joe Lewis can be best described as a modern day fusion of Bobby
Byrd and Willy Dixon -- a blues-rocker with the grimy post-war Chicago sound that made Muddy Waters famous, but with a “talkin’ blues” vocal delivery that’s more James Brown than Howlin’ Wolf.
Black Joe himself provides blues guitar and vocals, while his backing band, the Honey Bears, succeeds in capturing the mellow rise and fall of the blues genre. The grit of the Black Joe Lewis sound calls up the punk background, as do songs like “Bitch, I Love You,” but the real attraction of this music lies in Black Joe’s yelling delivery, shouting that mimics and builds upon a long line of great blues shouters, reaching all the way back to Lightnin’ Hopkins and the call-and-response roots of the earliest blues masters. - Cass Luskin
 Boombox ATX
MC Overlord oversaw the limited, left-field Austin hip-hop scene throughout the ‘90s. Nearly retired, he jammed one night with Carlos Sosa and Sosa’s friends – a cluster of 30-something badasses with towering resumes. We’re talking Grammys and touring with Kelly Clarkson here. Weeks later, their Tuesday night residency – Tuesday, the most boring night of the week! – at Lucky Lounge packed patrons to the windows and to the walls.
Though the studio stuff has yet to translate, Boombox ATX is a rowdy, technically and sonically masterful windmill of classic hip-hop break beats, soul, accented horn stabs and stable rhymes. The Box leads a renaissance of cool bands, comprised of career journeymen and mercenary session guys, whose outfits beget a sophisticated scene of evolved, smoothly creative music blasting from the equally grown 4th Street clubs. -- Ramon Ramirez
 Zeale & Phranchyze
Zeale 32 and Phranchyze 1 are the most skilled rappers in the new generation of ATX’s scene, a generation defined by a more intelligent and conscious feel. The Bavu Blakes theory of rap composition – universally accessible raps united around a theme – is brought to bear by the Texas duo, whose “oral demonstration[s],” in the immortal words of Andre 3000, “be like clitoral stimulation to the female gender.” Zeale’s command of the southern double-time flow is evident, but he waxes when he really takes a shine to a beat, while his colleague Phranchyze never, ever falls off beat. The adlibs and interplay among the two between songs is genuinely funny, albeit a little corny sometimes. But perhaps most importantly, their lyrical focus is more closely related to that new Chicago shit, like Cool Kids and Lupe, than to the screwed-up style that has become a Texas stereotype. –Cass Luskin
 Brazos
Martin Crane is the guy that should always win singer/songwriter contests but invariably fails to place because some idiot judge never “gets” him. His five-piece band, Brazos, curtailed his indifference towards conventional structure, and the outfit now leads a flowery, though firmly earned, existence since it recently began birthing user-friendly, forward-thinking and cathartic folk rock.
Enter cuts like “Miss Virginia” as exhibit A: old-school engineering outclasses hoards of throwback city slickers outfitted with wilderness flannel, flea market frames and black coffee because its melodies walk the walk – building tension, slyly gabbing, stumbling across muddy lawns minutes before the paper boy’s route awakens a spouse. -- Ramon Ramirez
 Scott H. Biram
For years, in dive bars and saloons across America, Scott H. Biram, the self-proclaimed "dirty old one-man band," has been diligently cranking out his world-weary, occasionally violent mixture of blues, country and rock, with all the gumption of an entire gang of Old West outlaws. In 2003, one month after a perilous traffic accident, he played the Continental Club in a wheelchair, IV dangling from his arm, and packing more than a few broken bones.
It's exactly that kind of passion he brings to each show, particularly here in his hometown, where the crowds are always large, rough and rowdy. With a gritty, rootsy sound of rockabilly perfection, Biram’s shows recall harsh living and spit on authority at every chance. His 2006 album “Graveyard Shift” is the kind of record manufactured for afternoons of sitting on the porch and drinking beer. Blistering guitar and harmonica make numbers like "No Way" into anthems. It's packed with authentic preachin' from a man who knows of what he speaks.
Can I get an "Amen?" – Patrick Caldwell
 Grupo Fantasma
In short, Grupo Fantasma is the toast of the town.
Guitarist Adrian Quesada consciously plotted his Colombian, Cumba-based Latin rock vehicle to rise above the largely irrelevant, coffee house crowd. Quesada and his brethren smartly aimed for mass appeal; to look cool; to get hipsters gyrating and spilling their Lone Star beers.
Then Prince took Grupo to the Super Bowl.
Grupo’s local presence is rampant. The group will play the most important stages of every medium’s foremost clubs. It does City Hall, voter registration rallies, cultural events, Longhorn-related festivals, groundbreakings.
2006’s stellar live album, “Grupo Fantasma Comes Alive,” showcases the group’s meaty chops, its authenticity. Nine of Grupo’s 12 members also pull double-duty in the decidedly funkier Brownout – meaning Grupo often opens sold-out affairs for itself. -- Ramon Ramirez
 Tosca String Quartet
Forget what you think you know about Austin music – it ain’t all thick-rimmed glasses and Converse-wearing indie hipsters, or grizzled old blues and country veterans. Fortunately, River City has a trick or two up its sleeve, and you need look no further then the Tosca String Quartet to see that.
The quartet’s four lovely ladies began playing together in 1996, quickly rising to prominence for their skill with the strings and their distinctive “nuevo tango” style, a dizzying, passionate modern take on the tango sound. Before long they were packing orchestra halls, doing session work for everyone from Willie Nelson to the Dixie Chicks to Voxtrot, and even composing and performing the score for Richard Linklater’s 2001 film “Waking Life.” Somehow or another they found time to tour with the Talking Heads’ David Byrne and play late night talk shows, as well.
Everybody loves a booze-soaked club show, but for Austinites looking to mix it up with the occasional touch of class, no outfit in town fuses the classical and the modern quite like Tosca. Long may they break their strings and hit spellbinding crescendos for our amusement. – Patrick Caldwell
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This section's contents are produced entirely by student journalists, brought to Billboard.com by UWIRE, the leading provider of student-generated content. UWIRE aims to identify and promote the brightest young content creators and deliver their work to a larger audience via professional media partners such as Billboard.com. Visit UWIRE.com to learn more. |
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University of Texas, Austin
This town profile was produced entirely by student journalists from The Daily Texan, the leading news source for the University of Texas community. You can learn more about the individual student contributors by visiting their profiles on UWIRE.com:
Text: Patrick Caldwell, Cass Luskin, Ramon Ramirez
Photos:Patrick Caldwell, Kim Espinosa, Eliot Myers, Callie Richmond
Video: Callie Richmond, Vikram Swaruup, Ranjana Thomas
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