Brownout – The Pleasurecraft

December 8, 2010

Austin Music Hall

Mental health is a bit of a sticky wicket – especially where musicians are concerned. It’s no wonder. The constant vacillation between unbridled egomania and soul-crushing self-doubt is bound to leave a few frayed ends. It’s difficult enough for the average person to cobble together a sense of identity and self-worth. Musicians tend to compound the difficulty by pressuring themselves to be much more interesting than they really are – to be larger than life. The type of wacky, harebrained behavior that would land the average person in the loony bin (if such bins still existed) is actually tolerated and even encouraged in musicians. After all, normal isn’t very entertaining is it? The result is a whole slew of aberrant dress and bizarre behavior. Consider the questionably pedophiliac, body-mutilating, androgynous insanity of Michael Jackson (arguably one of the greatest entertainers of all time), or the karate chopping, UFO-sighting, rhinestone jumpsuit-wearing (also questionably pedophiliac) Elvis, who may or may not have been involved with the FBI, CIA, and extraterrestrials. Throw in a goat, a monkey, and a 50-gallon drum of Vaseline, and you have one seriously bizarre clusterfuck. Unfortunately, in the music world that’s the kind of thing it takes to get noticed. Liberace was probably at one time a fairly unremarkable Polish kid from Wisconsin; Madonna was just a high school cheerleader from Pontiac, Mich.; the members of Kiss were just hardworking metal musicians from the boroughs; and GG Allin was just a boy from Vermont who was born with the name Jesus Christ Allin, cross-dressed for the last three years of high school, did a stint at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and made a career(?) out of urinating, defecating, flinging feces, bleeding, and vomiting onstage. OK, so maybe Jesus was crazier than a shit-house rat from start to finish, but he still managed to get gigs, and that’s the point really. In the music business, there is always someone willing to encourage and reward insanity. Lady Gaga is a pretty good singer and all, but could she make it without the meat dress? Or the bubble dress? Or the Kermit the Frog dress? At some point her career will slow down and she’ll end up paying Franc Fernandez to design her a dress out of dalmatian puppy hides, human placentas, or maybe circumcised foreskins. At some point you either decide to wear the hamster carcass earrings or end up doing matinee shows in Branson, Mo. In music, you’re either on your way up or on your way down. In one night you can go from windmilling power chords in front of a club full of screaming fans to washing your underwear in a gas station restroom on the interstate. One month your album is at the top of the charts; the next month it’s not even on the charts. One night you’re on Leno, the next night you’re on Leno. It’s no surprise that many musicians try to even out the peaks and valleys with drugs and alcohol, which are always easily available. Often as not, they only amp up the insanity, and bartenders and drug dealers aren’t necessarily predisposed or trained to deal with complex emotional and psychological issues – especially if they’re not getting paid. Thankfully Austin has an organization that offers musicians opportunities to seek help from people who are trained to deal with psychological and substance abuse issues. It’s called the SIMS Foundation, and this Saturday it’s hosting the SIMS Benefit Bash at the Austin Music Hall, a fundraising concert featuring a who’s who of Austin Musicians: Eliza Gilkyson, Ian McLagan, Will Sexton, David Garza, Graham Reynolds, Kat Edmonson, Don Harvey, Brownout, Lauren Larson, Ruby Jane Smith, Amy Cook, Mark Andes, and Scrappy Jud Newcomb, among others. For less than the price of a round of Jäger shots, you can show some musicians how much you appreciate them in a way that actually does them some good.

May 27, 2009

Good move Pachanga! What better place to have a Latin-party music festival than in a place called Fiesta Gardens? Waterloo Park is nice and all, but it’s a little Limey sounding and ultimately doesn’t have the zest of “fiesta,” does it? The “gardens” thing is also a bit confusing. What’s with the pidgin? Would it really have been that challenging for the city to just go whole hog (swine?) and call it “Fiesta Jardines?” Yes, it’s exhausting reading that much Spanish strung together, but Austin is a fairly open-minded city. We’ve been spitting out Auditorium Shores for years now – same number of syllables plus two extra letters. That may not seem important in the big picture, but when you need your sorority sisters to come rescue you from a Porta-Potty disaster, Auditorium Shores is an egregious amount to text. It’s really difficult to tap in “I HV SHT MYSLF N PP @ AS. HLP ME” on your Razor and have people actually understand what you mean – especially when it’s dark, you’re literally shitfaced, and there’s a decent chance they’ll read the first half of your text and decide to pretend not to understand it even though they did. Wouldn’t you? Of course you would. After all, Auditorium Shores is a big place that affords a certain amount of anonymity. At most it’s only a 200-yard dash to Lady Bird Lake. Even with the wind in your face and wearing flip-flops, you should be able to make it to the water in less than 30 seconds – faster if you’re barefoot and buck naked, plus you’ll get extra cool points for keeping it weird. You could do the same at Fiesta Gardens in less than 20 seconds, but there are a few more obstacles. Most importantly, you’ll need enough hops to clear the reeds and flotsam at the water’s edge, because that’s where the snakes and flushed pet alligators hang out. Or do they? Don’t sweat it. Chances are if you avoid the refritos con chorizo and really low-rent tequilas, you won’t have any Porta-Potty emergencies. After all, you may be at a Pachanga Festival, but it’s not like you’re actually en Mexico. Musically, however, you should be pretty close. Headlining the bill are Tejano star Michael Salgado and Mexican Institute of Sound, aka “the Mexican Moby,” aka Instituto Mexicano del Sonido – which is infinitely more poetic than its American counterpart. Salgado and Instituto are miles apart musically, but will be only a few hundred yards from each other geographically this Saturday. The same is true of the rest of the festival, which offers a diverse array of artists sharing their unique take on Latin music: Los Bad Apples, Chris Perez, Brownout, Charanga Cakewalk, and David Garza, among others. And if you can’t get your Latin fix without seeing musicians in matching costumes, Mariachi Altenas, Texas’ all-female mariachi band, are scheduled for the Pavillion Stage at 7:30pm. This might just be the event that changes the gardens into jardines. Regardless, it will definitely be a fiesta.