Jets Under Fire

Appeared: September 4, 2008 on www.austin360.com

Alpha Rev: Social Connectors

Social connection is one of the least understood qualities about live music.

Any follower of an Austin band is linked to other followers of the same band, though they be strangers, through invisible threads of sensibility and experience. Put those followers in the same physical space, viscerally plugged into that musical act’s visual and aural wavelengths, and no dialog is necessary to weave those social threads together.

I’ve noticed that certain Austin acts – Alpha Rev, Jets Under Fire, Ghost of the Russian Empire, Ghostland Observatory, Pompeii, Explosions in the Sky -share some of the same connectors, as well as certain instrumental webbing. Alpha Rev is clearly the next band with a chance to break to a wider national audience, having just signed with Hollywood Records. A new CD is in the offing.

They play Saturday at Antone’s – once the preserver of Old Austin music, now the promoter of New Austin genres – with Jets Under Fire and Beaux Loy. Doors at 8 p.m.; show at 9 p.m.

By Michael Barnes – Entertainment Editor Austin American-Statesman

Appeared: April 29, 2008

11 Bands I Adore

Back during my first Austin club phase in the 1980s, I dickered with late psycho-punk (Butthole Surfers), more disciplined rock (Zeitgeist/Rievers), novelty pop (Poi Dog Pondering), singer-songwriters (David Garza), blues guitar (yes, devoutly, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and even country crossover (Ricky Trevino, but just to flirt). Notice any threads among these local acts?

For 15 years, occupied as arts critics for the American Statesman, I missed almost a generation of Austin club music. It was not until 2005, when I toured 100 Central Texas music venues in a single month for a pair of XL cover stories that I discovered the next wave of club talent. I even encountered some acts well before the official music critics began to write about them. My most recent crush: Alpha Rev, whose pop rock “The Greatest Thing I Ever Learned” is alarmingly sophisticated.

Here go 11 Austin acts I adore right now, in alphabetical order: Alpha Rev, Band of Heathens, Explosions in the Sky, Ghostland Observatory, Ghost of the Russian Empire, Grupo Fantasma, Jets Under Fire, Meridianwest, Nelo, Pompeii and White Ghost Shivers.

Notice that three have “ghost” in their names. I suspect you will hear a lot about this sweet almost dozen in our various publications soon.

By Michael Barnes – Entertainment Editor for the Austin American-Statesman.