When in need of positive reinforcement, Stoney LaRue turns to a source that probably is unusual among musicians — the self-actualization teachings of Dr. Wayne Dyer:

LaRue said reading Dyer's books has taught him to always think positively, whether it pertains to music or life in general.
 
"[I apply his teachings] every single moment," said LaRue, who was born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma. "It's no joke. You ask yourself how you're feeling, and if you're feeling bad, change the way you're thinking to positive. And then it attracts other positives, which you can pass off to other people whether it's through a smile or a handshake."
 
…
 
Dyer, LaRue said, is just as important as his musical influences.
 
The musician won't say his life would be different without the Dyer books, but LaRue knows that what he's learned has helped by teaching him how to handle the curveballs life has a tendency to throw.
 
"It's like getting an education," he said. "You know what two plus two is now instead of wishing you did."
 
LaRue's positive attitude is evident in his songs as well. He stays away from the tear-in-my-beer songs, choosing instead to shower his listeners with lyrics that are meant to inspire.
 
"I try not to focus on anything negative because it just wastes the time you could be spending on beautiful things you could be talking about. I don't write about heartache or world problems. I write about the solutions and how to love; things people needed to hear … I know I'm not the only person on this Earth who does."
 
…read the full article

Dyer is a near-fixture on PBS pledge drives (a fact that upsets some viewers) and has written more than a dozen books extolling the beneficial powers of positive thinking.

I posted a new review of Lyle Lovett's It's Not Big It's Large, which is out today on Lost Highway Records:

With his 50th birthday approaching this fall, it seems Lyle Lovett has been thinking about mortality. From the resistance of the downtrodden in "I Will Rise Up" to the dangers of his beloved Ducatis on "This Traveling Around," legacy and loss recur as themes throughout It's Not Big It's Large. But if anyone can make such weighty morsels easy to swallow, it's Lovett.
 
…read the full review

You can watch the "South Texas Girl" video at Yahoo! Music.

All sorts of flying machines will be launched over Austin's Lady Bird Lake as Red Bull Flugtag returns to Auditorium Shores this Saturday.

A celebration of man's eternal quest for flight, the event features homemade vessels ranging "from realistic plane replicas to anything the imagination can conjure up. Past crafts include a flying squirrel, Santa and his sleigh, '80s pop icon ALF, martini glasses…and, of course, Elvis."

30 teams spend weeks building their human-powered machines, and then seek to one-up each other in both flight distance and entertainment value. Winners are determined by a celebrity panel, which this week includes Houston rapper/DJ Paul Wall and Austin country singer Cory Morrow, as well as mayor Will Wynn, former Olympic champion Amanda Beard, and others.

Morrow will open the evening's festivities with a free concert at 5:30 pm. The first flight attempt will follow an hour later.

Red Bull Flugtag previously came through Austin in 2003, with a reported 35,000 people in attendance.

For more on the event, check out video from the Nashville Flugtag earlier this year:

It's going to be tough for any album to top Sam Baker's Pretty World (review) as the year's best. "Odessa" truly makes the album. I described it as "a rich novella, told in under 6 minutes." (Listen to mp3 sample.)

The Houston Chronicle's Tom Buckley also is captivated by the song:

The main character of "Odessa," a six-minute narrative on Sam Baker's extraordinary new CD, Pretty World, should be gloriously easy to dislike. A child of privilege, he's accustomed to getting what he wants while exhibiting a callous lack of appreciation for what he has — a life where everything, it seems, is disposable. When he rolls his Corvette and kills the girl he's with, his father's riches appease her lawyers.
 
But just as we're prepared to pass judgment on the former Mojo-playing footballer at Permian High, Baker turns the tables with a jolting hit, revealing a character who, years later, remains so tormented by the crash and the lingering image of the girl's face ("blood and diamonds") that "He never took a wife / Gonna die without a trace." In a pained, broken cadence, Baker intones, "See, he loved the girl who was pinned in the Vette / He talks to her every day."
 
Things are never simple or easy in Baker's songs, where one telling detail — one you may not see coming but, once revealed, seems almost inevitable — can bring new meaning to what's come before.
 
…more

Buckley paints a vivid portrait of Baker: his prolonged recovery from injuries sustained in a guerrilla attack on a Peruvian train in 1986; the growing realization that while the world is a messy place, it also harbors great beauty; a reclusive lifestyle he describes as "a Boo Radley existence."

I've never met Sam Baker, but I'm certainly drawn to his music and his life story. I just may try and arrange an interview this fall.

Listen to samples from Pretty World: "Juarez," "Odessa," "Sweetly Undone," "Broken Fingers."

(Photo by Terry Tammadge.)

posted by Patrick  # 8/17/2007 1 comments

The Las Cruces Sun-News profiles native son Josh Grider, who released his second album, Million Miles to Go, last week.

Grider is returning to Las Cruces for a special "listening show" this weekend at the New Mexico State Univ. Recital Hall.

He'll also be back for a couple shows in October, including one at NMSU's arena, the Pan American Center. That date sounds like a dream come true:

I saw Metallica, Garth Brooks, George Strait, Alan Jackson at the Pan Am when I was young. So, it's gonna be a trip to be on the big stage. It's weird, there's so much between now and then that's happening, it hasn't really sunk in. As it gets closer to the show date when I'm sound-checking in the Pan Am, I think I'm going go, "Wow." …
 
I remember watching Garth Brooks in there — just watching him wrap (the capacity crowd) around his finger for two hours. I thought Garth could go out there and pick his toes and everybody would go crazy; people just loved him that much. I sat in the sixth row watching Garth Brooks and I just turned around and looked at the whole place, and I'm like "Golly, that's crazy. Someday, I'm gonna play rooms like this." And of course, coming back to do it in Cruces is just really cool.
 
…more

Grider also has a number of CD release shows scheduled around central Texas. He now calls the Austin area home.

On September 22, Doug Moreland will host the 5th annual Cattlelacs Calffry at his workshop/gallery just outside Austin.

The fall tradition features horseshoe and washer tournaments plus live music from Moreland and friends. And this year there's a couple new additions — a bull riding exhibition, and the inaugural calf fry cooking contest.

Yes, you too can whip up a batch of cowboy caviar and let the judges determine whose balls are best. Winners will receive trophies chainsaw-carved by the host himself.

The family-friendly fun begins with the bull riding at 4 p.m., and the general festivities run 'til midnight. Admission is $10. Cattlelacs is located off FM 1626 in Manchaca, just south of Austin and west of I-35.

Roger Creager, Joe Ely, the Derailers, and Stoney LaRue helped bring a little Texas spirit to southern France last week.

The annual Country Rendez-Vous Festival in Craponne-sur-Arzon is among the "dozens of country music and Wild West festivals" gaining popularity in France, according to the International Herald Tribune:

Founded in 1988, the Craponne Country Rendez-Vous is the oldest French country festival. In its first year it drew just 250 spectators. This year marked the festival's 20th year, and the crowd was estimated at about 30,000 men, women and children. They included country music addicts, Wild West and "American lifestyle" enthusiasts, line dancers, bikers and families out for a day of open-air entertainment.
 
"For us, 'American' represents the westerns, Texas, the Indians, freedom," said Dominique, who lived near Dijon and was dressed in jeans, boots, a shirt emblazoned with American flags, a cowboy hat and carried a pistol strapped to her hips. Her husband, a retired railway worker, was outfitted in similar garb. "For decades we've only listened to country music," she added. "No French music, only country music and bluegrass."
 
Unlike most other festivals, Country Rendez-Vous organizers shun most add-ons, concentrating their resources on bringing over as many original American acts as they can, rather than staging side events.
 
"We are the only festival that does this - that keeps the music and only the music as the primary goal of the festival," said Georges Carrier, a professor of English in Lyon who has directed the Rendez-Vous for more than a decade and established close links with the music scenes in Nashville, Tennessee, and in Austin, Texas. "Who better than Americans can play their own music?"
 
...more

Other artists with Texas ties appearing in this year's lineup include the Lucky Tomblin Band, Trent Willmon, Redd Volkaert, Dallas Wayne, Tommy Alverson, and Jon Emery. Organizers have posted some photos from the event.

Steve Earle, Dale Watson, Guy Clark, Jack Ingram, Jason Boland, Wayne Hancock, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Randy Rogers, Kevin Fowler, Reckless Kelly, Billy Joe Shaver, South Austin Jug Band, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, and Cory Morrow are among a large contingent of Texans who appeared in previous years.

Versatile tunesmith Guy Forsyth is expanding his repertoire with the Hot Nut Riveters. Already beloved for his solo and band shows as well as the Asylum Street Spankers, the multi-talented multi-instrumentalist debuted his new creation earlier this summer.

On his blog — and in his own inimitable style — Forsyth describes the band as "champions of song, longed for long, to right all the wrongs, snatch joy from time's tongs, and bring you along. Leaving our worries behind in our pants pocket, we will jump head first into the swing spring to find the songs that got our grandparents laid. Don't forget to bring the kids, the entendres will be doubled."

Meanwhile, his publicist puts it this way: "Though difficult to describe, the Riveters are a wildly energetic six-piece band whose music is built from a variety of odds and ends found on recent expeditions into American music of the 1920s and 1930s."

Still confused? Me too. Perhaps the only way to understand the Hot Nut Riveters is to see them for yourself.

The band plays the Parish with the White Ghost Shivers on August 11, in a show variously themed as "Dirty Jazz from an Innocent Time" and "Prohibition Party." You can win tickets through the Austin Chronicle.

This Labor Day weekend, Austin's own "Rockstar Princess" Aunty E will headline the first Austin Kids Day festival. Trout Fishing in America, the Biscuit Brothers, and Joe McDermott (my own kids' favorite) also will take the stage. And when they're not listening to the live music, kids can enjoy the bouncy house, crafts, and other kid-centric activities.

The Glenn at the Backyard will host the event. Tickets are $12 kids, $17 for adults. The fun begins at 1 p.m. on Sunday, September 2.

About the performers:

Aunty E is a groovy, fun-loving role model. She introduces kids to variations of music by incorporating different genres with fun characters and a variety of instruments, creating a rockin’ sound fit for parents and children alike. Her sound paired with her wonder-filled lyrics make Aunty E an energetic, exciting performer ready to rock out with kids!
 
Trout Fishing in America, an acoustic folk-rock duo who earned two Grammy nominations, has been entertaining children for more than three decades! The Biscuit Brothers earned a children’s programming Emmy for their TV show, which gives children an opportunity to explore values and appreciate the world around them through music! Joe McDermott has made five national children’s recordings, awarded by parents nation-wide, and creates groovy music inspired by children!

Don't let the over-abundance of exclamation points (!!!) and the doubling-up on "groovy" scare you away — this looks to be a fun event for families and a great way to celebrate the end of summer. Organizers hope to make Austin Kids Day an annual event.