Why We Go to SXSW

Seth Godin summed it up pretty well recently:

The music industry is really focused on the ‘industry’ part and not so much on the ‘music’ part. This is the greatest moment in the history of music if your dream is to distribute as much music as possible to as many people as possible, or if your goal is to make it as easy as possible to become heard as a musician. There’s never been a time like this before. So if your focus is on music, it’s great. If your focus is on the industry part and the limos, the advances, the lawyers, polycarbonate and vinyl, it’s horrible. The shift that is happening right now is that the people who insist on keeping the world as it was are going to get more and more frustrated until they lose their jobs. People who want to invent a whole new set of rules, a new paradigm, can’t believe their good fortune and how lucky they are that the people in the industry aren’t noticing an opportunity...

The annual gathering of like-minded music folks is two weeks away. Hope to see you there.

-Ben Krech
@MusicFog

Click to read more ...

Jessie, the Big Apple, and the Hubbard's

It's always a trip for me to go back to my hometown, NYC. And in this case, even more special, as Bowery Presents put a Texas Independence Day concert together with Robert Earl Keen, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Charlie Robison (pictured), and Ray Wylie Hubbard at Terminal 5 on W. 56th Street in New York this past Saturday night. Five kick-ass hours of music, and lots of Texas Longhorn logos in the audience, with people singing along to every song.

The evening started with my bro picking me up at Penn Station, only to be pulled over by the cops two minutes later for seat belt checks...you gotta think there are more important things for them to be doing, but whatever. After they let us go--because we DID have out seat belts on--we shot over to the far west side, had good parking karma, braved the chilly temperature, and the ID and bag check, and were finally inside! Big place!!! And filling rapidly for the 7 pm start of Ray Wylie Hubbard's set with Rick Richards on stripped down drums, and the NYC debut of Lucas Hubbard (pictured)! It is such a joy to listen to RWH, irreverent, and bluesy, and, as he likes to say crediting Gurf Morlix, with tone, taste, and Grit and Groove (which is the name of his upcoming festival at Luckenbach on April 4th). Lucas provides some wonderful texture, and some in-the-pocket lead riffing, too. 

When we were in Memphis for Folk Alliance, I promised Ray I would take him to the restaurant in Chinatown I have been going to since I was 19 years old! So after his set, we headed down to feast at Wo Hop on Mott Street. We talked about life, liberty, politics, the new album Ray will be recording (the first since Snake Farm), the movie he's is working on, and of course his wife Judy Hubbard, who is simply a force of nature.

We drove through the city back to the hotel, past the lower East Side, where CBGB's used to be on the Bowery, through the East Village, up Park Avenue South and into midtown. My brother Mitch and I got to play tour guide to the ghosts of what used to be where. My has New York changed from those days, but it's always wonderful revisiting.

-Jessie Scott

Click to read more ...