South Austin Jug Band plays MacHenrys in Fort Worth Texas - Saturday 20th August
Craig Scotland
South Austin Jug Band
Show starts at 9pm
Tickets are $12
http://www.southaustinjugband.com/
MacHenry's
7618 Camp Bowie West Blvd.
Fort Worth, TX 76116
817-377-0202
www.machenrys.com
MacHenry's is located two blocks east of Cherry Lane which is exit
7A of I 30 West.
Tickets remain at www.machenrys.com (http://www.machenrys.com/)
What makes the South Austin Jug Band - a quintet of young
Austin-based players that entered the bursting-at-the-seams "Americana"
ranks a little over three years ago - interesting is not so much that
their fiddle- and mandolin-heavy music is unique. It's more that, for
such a young band, they play it so well.
There's actually no "jug" in the band (their name comes from the
Muppets movie Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas), but they do hail
from Austin, an Americana music mecca. Their acoustic-based roots stew,
an eclectic mix of originals and covers (from traditional instrumentals
to countrified Hendrix tunes), isn't exactly bluegrass (no banjo, you
see), nor is it country or folk.
"We're an acoustic roots band," says upright bassist-vocalist Will
Dupuy, clearly struggling to come up with his own definition of the
band's sound. "We play bluegrass, some blues, some country. We play
the music that we have the instruments for, you know, whatever comes
out."
"It's an organized campfire acoustic jam session with a few of the
rough edges knocked off," adds mandolin player Matt Slusher.
Regardless of how difficult it is to classify, the band's
enthusiastic, down-home sound has carried them a very long way in a
very short period of time. They started out playing to small local
audiences; now they're regularly booked at the nation's biggest
festivals: Yosemite, High Sierra, Strawberry and the Austin City Limits
Festival among them.
"We've had good karma," says Dupuy. "We're road dogs. We play four
or five times a week, so that helps." The band, in fact, has picked and
fiddled its way across 130,000 miles in two years. Their endless road
trip brings them to White Rock at 7 pm this evening, July 16, for a
free outdoor concert.
The group initially came together in 2000 when singer-songwriter and
guitarist James Hyland, whose band at the time was falling apart, was
desperate for a rhythm section. He asked Dupuy and Slusher to join him,
guitarist Willie Pipkin and fiddler Warren Hood (son of well-known
Austin fiddler Champ Hood) for a gig. That led to more gigs, more
jamming, and a natural group inclination to dig deeper into bluegrass,
string band and swing influences.
In no time the band had landed a weekly gig at Momo's in Austin,
building a strong local following and releasing the self-produced live
album Pickin' & Grinnin', a high-energy collection of traditionals,
originals, and covers that tapped into the songbooks of Walter Hyatt,
Bob Wills, Jerry Garcia, Ernest Tubb and Townes Van Zandt.
Hood eventually left the band and was replaced by fiddler Dennis
Ludiker, who arrived just in time to hit the road with a band that had
outgrown its local constraints. Soon thereafter SAJB won the new band
contest at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in addition to Ludiker
taking top honors at the prestigious Winfield fiddle competition. That
good fortune led to an opening slot on some Lyle Lovett shows.
That same year, 2002, the band recorded its self-titled debut. It was
produced by the legendary producer Lloyd Maines (Dixie Chicks, Robert
Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard), whose daughter Natalie, of Dixie Chicks
fame, had seen the band open for Lovett and recommended them to her
dad. In addition to producing, Maines played dobro on the record.
"He's a really laid back old dude, who reminds you of a really cool
old uncle," says Dupuy in his typical ain't this cool manner. "He
makes you feel so relaxed in the studio."
The band is currently writing songs for a new record, which Dupuy says
will include more originals as well as an all-round tighter sound based
on so much experience together on the road. In addition to playing
their respective instruments, all the band members write and sing.
Dupuy is also working on a solo record.
"Riding around in a car with the same six guys all the time changes the
sound of a band," he says. "We've matured in the songwriting and
grown as a band.... We've been trying to hone our sound; we're
always tinkering with ideas. It's great."
We also have a brand new batch of shows booked and up on our box
office at:
www.machenrys.com_ (http://www.machenrys.com/)
Just follow the box office link.....................have a look at
who's coming:
THE GRASSY KNOLL BOYS FRI 8/26 $10.00
OLD BLIND DOGS THURS 9/8 $20.00
KEVIN WELCH THURS 10/6 $10.00
ANDY M. STEWART & GERRY O'BIERNE WED 10/12 $20.00
ED MILLER SAT 10/15 $10.00
LIZ CARROLL & JOHN DOYLE FRI 10/28 $20.00
Thanks
Craig Scotland
Smith Scotland Productions
smith_scotlan...@hotmail.com