The Stacks – Songs from the Oasis, various artists (2018, Brash Tracks)

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This year in Lazy-i I’m filling in the holes when nothing’s happening locally with record reviews (mostly local), gossip, and stories like the one below, which are pretty cool. Plus, I like Austin…

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So I’m about 100 pages into the novel Ready Player One, which I picked up at the library (Yes, some of us still go to the library) after I saw the trailer for the upcoming Spielberg film and then read a brief review of the novel. It’s pretty good so far, certainly something someone from my generation can relate to (as it’s about a tech genius who deifies ’80s pop culture).

I bring it up because yesterday I got an email from Brian McKinney of Brash Tracks cluing me in on a new record called The Stacks, Songs from the Oasis. It’s an album of 18 classic ’80s songs covered by 16 Austin-based bands, with part of the proceeds going to help foster kids get free music lessons and mentorship — could the charity be any more heart-tugging?

The record was actually inspired by the novel Ready Player One by Austin dude Ernest Cline (“The Stacks” are stacked up mobile-home trailers — sometimes stacked 25 high — where poor people live in the future). After reading the book, McKinney got that bright idea of tapping Austin bands to record versions of songs mentioned in the book, like “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol, “The Wild Boys” by Duran Duran, and “Dirty Deeds” by AC/DC, etc.  Austin artists involved include BOOHER (ex-Zykos), Pocket Sounds (Mike St. Clair ex-Polyphonic Spree), Mobley, Belcurve, Obscured by Echoes and more.

You hear about these kinds of multi-band charity efforts all the time, and I always wonder how the producers manage to pick the bands from the crowd, so I asked McKinney.

“I was managing (Mike) Booher the last couple years – Mike Booher used to front Zykos and I met him on tour with The Good Life in Chapel Hill around 2002,” McKinney wrote. “Through him I met Robyn (Foxworth) who’s one of the biggest supporters of Austin music that I know. We put together a list of bands and started contacting them. The 16 that are on the album we’re the ones who were interested and had the time and resources to record something. Since it was for charity and we’re giving 50 percent to Kids In a New Groove (KING) and the bands split the other 50 percent, we didn’t have a budget to pay for studio time or anything.”

The record comes out Feb. 2, but you can see the track listing and pre-order it at their Bandcamp page here, and hear samples below.

Here’s a sample mix…

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Got news? Send it to me, and read it here…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2018 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.

Looking down on Sixth Street from Maggie Mays at South By Southwest 2015.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

This will go down as the least impressive, least satisfying year I’ve attended South By Southwest. Sure there were a lot of bands, but not nearly as many as year’s past and even fewer legends. Still, I had fun and didn’t get beat up, and that’s always a good thing.

This year I tried to podcast from Austin. The results are below. I’ll probably never try it again, based solely on the number of hits each stream has gotten. That said, there’s probably no where else online that has snippets of this many performances. Each podcast is only about 10 minutes long and includes bits from every band I saw. Check them out:

Day 1: Performances by White Mystery, Twin Shadow, Dotan and Speedy Ortiz.

Day 2: Performances by PUJOL, Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds), Icky Blossoms, Viet Cong, Krill and Natalie Prass.

Day 3: Performances by Courtney Barnett, Best Coast, LITE, Drivin’ and Cryin’, The Pop Group and Will Butler.

And here are the photos. If you follow me in Instagram or on social media you’ve seen most of these, but here they are again, in living color.

White Mystery at Beerland Patio, March 18, 2015.

Twin Shadow at Iron Castle, March 18, 2015.

Dotan at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 18, 2015.

Speedy Ortiz at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 18, 2015.

Josh Berwenger Band at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

PUJOL at Stay Gold March 19, 2015.

Laura Burhenn (Mynabirds) at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

Icky Blossoms at Stay Gold, March 19, 2015.

Viet Cong at Cedar Street Courtyard, March 19, 2015.

Krill at the 720 Club, March 19, 2015.

Natalie Prass at Maggie Mae’s, March 19, 2015.

Best Coast at the SXSW Convention Center, March 20, 2015.

Courtney Barnett at the SXSW Convention Center, March 20, 2015.

LITE at The Ginger Man, March 20, 2015.

Drivin’ and Cryin’ at The Ginger Man, March 20, 2015.

The Residents at The Paramount Theater, March 20, 2015.

The Church at Buffalo Billiards, March 20, 2015.

The Pop Group at Maggie Mae’s Rooftop, March 20, 2015.

Will Butler at Maggie Mae’s Rooftop, March 20, 2015.

There may or may not be a formal review of each gig to come. Check back tomorrow. There will be a column in the April issue of The Reader about SXSW. Watch for it.

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Tonight at the Sweatshop Gallery Darren Keen headlines with Calm Fur and Just Jace. $5, 9 p.m. Say goodbye to Darren before he flies back to Gotham City…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2015 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.