Tag: Austin

BGS 5+5: Jonathan Terrell

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jonathan Terrell
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Latest EP: A Couple 2, 3 (out September 9 on Range Music)
Personal Nicknames: “Feral Terrell”

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I was driving back from busking in San Diego for a couple of months. I was out of money and a good friend of mine’s parents wired me $200 to get home to East Texas. I was very discouraged. I had a handful of songs that I thought were good and turned out playing for tips on the boardwalk wasn’t going to make me enough to eat and rent a couch, so on that long drive home I was somewhere in the Arizona desert on Interstate 10 and I pulled over and had a good cry. I knew at that moment I was going to be a songwriter, an artist and somebody that was going to leave an impression on this world. Before I made it to my parents’ house, I stopped at a junior college and enrolled in the music program. I got a free ride if I sang in the men’s choir because they were short of a dusty tenor. I dropped out a year and a half later to go on tour. I’ve pretty much been on tour since.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

My uncle was a big Nashville cat. He sang in Reba’s band and has sung high tenor harmonies on over 25,000 albums. I was obsessed with country music growing up and he was my only link from East Texas to the mecca of songwriting. I played him some terrible songs at 18 and he was very patient while listening. His advice was simple. “Don’t tell me about it. Paint it for me.”

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I think Kris Kristofferson has got to be right there at the top. When I moved to Austin in 2005 from Longview, Texas, I thought for sure I was destined to be the next Kris. It’s pretty hilariously naive looking back, but a kid’s gotta have heroes and he was and is still mine. I’ve probably studied his songs more than anyone’s. There’s a raw and exciting poetry to his work but also an approachable simplicity. It’s a master class in songwriting and composition every time I sit down with an album like Border Lord or The Silver Tongued Devil and I. I think about these albums when I paint a picture in a song. An easy close second would be Willie.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

A good friend once told me that there’s a huge difference between having no traction at all and a little bit of traction. I first saw a little bit of that traction while playing the White Horse in Austin, Texas, week after week. When the band is crushing it and the dancefloor is packed with amazing two steppers (which I do believe Austin has the best two-step culture in the country) it’s like being in the eye of a hurricane. It’s about 105 degrees and it’s all cowboy hats, naked knees, flipping skirts and sweaty bodies churning and churning to your song. There ain’t nothing like it.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I was doing a show up in Oklahoma with a songwriter named Butch Hancock and Turnpike Troubadours. I got to talking with Butch over a few beers in the parking lot of an old motor lodge where the venue put us up and he asked me what my hobbies were. I shrugged and said it was just writing songs. He kinda snapped at me like I was crazy and told me if I didn’t find another hobby I was going to shoot my songs in the foot. “One day your well is gonna dry up and if you don’t have another place to fill it, who knows if you’ll ever get it back.” Really terrifying words for a young songwriter. I bought a camera soon after and started studying portraits as well as documenting my tour life. Certain films and books have of course inspired many of my songs. I’m a huge Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry fan. Photography has become a serious passion for me and sometimes a camera can be a great way to meet people. I have my first gallery show October 28 in Lockhart, Texas, at the Commerce Gallery. I’m pretty excited about it and am definitely inviting Butch!

Photo Credit: Greg Giannukos

WATCH: The Western Express, “Honky Tonk Saints”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Western Express
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Honky Tonk Saints”
Album: Lunatics, Lovers & Poets
Release Date: August 5, 2022

In Their Words: “‘Honky Tonk Saints’ was one of the first country songs I wrote after playing church music for many years before. One night while I was riding home in an Uber, I thought, ‘What if the honky-tonk were our church? How would we take communion at the honky-tonk? What would the praise songs be? Who would be the saints of the honky-tonk?’ I originally wrote it for people like Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Kitty Wells. But in 2020 and 2021, James Hand and James White died — two Austin honky-tonk heroes who were larger than life to me. James White owned the Broken Spoke, and gave us our start by booking us in the very beginning. We recorded a great music video at that venue, and it’s dedicated to our two local heroes, Hand and White.” — Stephen Castillo, The Western Express

Photo Credit: Eryn Brooke

LISTEN: Nick Pagliari, “Down in a Rainstorm”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Nick Pagliari
Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Song: Down in a Rainstorm
Album: Hard Lessons
Release Date: July 22, 2022
Label: Ride the River Records

In Their Words: “The song was written during a jog one spring afternoon in my neighborhood of North Austin. I got caught in a torrential rain that came out of nowhere and at some point started humming what would become the chorus. I remember a feeling of excitement and liberation as I ran through the storm. This was pre-pandemic so it wasn’t until later that I realized that the whole thing was somewhat metaphorical.” — Nick Pagliari

Photo Credit: Barbara FG

The Show On The Road – Buffalo Nichols

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on the show, we talk to a startling new talent placing a gut-punch into the folk and blues scene, the Milwaukee-raised and now Austin-based singer-songwriter Buffalo Nichols.

 

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Growing up learning on his sister’s dreadnought guitar and then traveling widely through West Africa after high school drinking up the sounds of the kora and percussion players in Senegal, Carl Nichols began finding his voice and playing style in the haunting open and minor tunings first heard from bluesmen like Skip James, who he covers in his remarkable self-titled debut collection. Buffalo Nichols, which came in 2021, is a stark departure from what Carl would call the cheery “opinionless beer commercial blues” that has come to dominate the genre. Nichols’ work is often sparse and direct – just a man with his guitar and a microphone. The stories told in standout songs like “Another Man” and “Living Hell” don’t flinch from comparing how the experience of his elders a hundred years ago in the South may not look much different from men like George Floyd dying on that Minneapolis pavement. Is there catharsis or hope in the songs? Are they a call to action? Maybe that’s up to us to decide.

Carl will admit that it can be tricky trying play his songs like the searing album opener “Lost And Lonesome” in loud bars where people may just want to have a good time and not dive into the backroad history of racial injustice and institutionalized police violence. Thankfully his writing doesn’t hide behind niceties and the recordings aren’t veiled by sonic artifice – Nichols speaks directly to the isolation and danger of being a young Black man in America, and trying to navigate the unease of bringing his stories to an often mostly white Americana-adjacent audience. Even more upbeat numbers like “Back On Top” call to mind the ominous juke-joint growl of John Lee Hooker, bringing us into dimly lit scenes where even late-night pleasure may have its next-morning consequences.

If there’s one thing we learned during this taping, it’s that Carl doesn’t want to just “write songs to make people feel good” – but he does want to tell stories that make the isolated and lost feel less so. Maybe that is the most important function of music truly steeped in the blues tradition: the ability to transform pain into progress. The messages may not be what people always want to hear, but the groundswell rising behind Carl’s stark timeless tales is indeed growing. With recent appearances on Late Night With Stephen Colbert, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and big time dates like Lollapalooza on the books for the summer, folks will be hearing a lot more from Buffalo Nichols.

Photo Credit: Merrick Ales

WATCH: Abigail Lapell, “All Dressed Up”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Abigail Lapell
Hometown: Toronto
Song: “All Dressed Up”
Album: Stolen Time
Release Date: April 22, 2022
Label: Outside Music

In Their Words: “‘All Dressed Up’ is a fever dream of isolation and claustrophobia, circumscribed by all these obsolete media machines — but with a semi-hopeful note, too, about making the best of an absurd situation, or at least, ‘this too shall pass.’ And spring will come again. The video was shot in Austin, Texas during SXSW, with local filmmaker Max Conru. It was my first time at South-by, and first time out on the road in quite a while, so it was super fun getting to capture the early days of spring and visit some iconic Austin sightseeing spots.” — Abigail Lapell

Photo Credit: Jen Squires

LISTEN: Tody Castillo, “What It Means to Be a Man”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Tody Castillo
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “What It Means to Be a Man”
Album: Old Rodriguez
Release Date: April 8, 2022
Label: Strolling Bones Records

In Their Words: “This is a song about a person dealing with depression and anxiety without a playbook. It touches on the second-guessing nature of someone who is emotionally damaged. It deals with overcoming fear and uncertainty through bravery. It’s a story about a person hanging onto their dreams with what feels like the weight of the world on their back. ‘What It Means To Be a Man’ is the third tune on the album and I believe it sets the tone for the remaining songs. I love the dreamy soundscape that engineer/mixing engineer Steve Christensen (Steve Earle, Khruangbin, Paul McCartney) creates during the bridge. I was also able to use a 12 string Rickenbacker throughout the tune which ties it all together. Who doesn’t love a 12 string?!” — Tody Castillo

Photo Credit: Justin Cook

BGS Top 50 Moments: SXSW Brooklyn Country Cantina

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

It was a collaboration that quickly became one of our favorite events of the year (and definitely the best part of every marathon SXSW week): The Brooklyn Country Cantina was held for five years at Licha’s Cantina in East Austin in partnership with BGS. Featuring an ever-evolving rotation of talent, it was a launch pad for so many artists in the BGS fam, and a special laid-back underplay for those buzzworthy artists wrapping up a crazy week.

Instead of being another schmoozy networking event at SXSW, the BCC was always a reprieve away from the chaotic cacophony of downtown Austin or Congress Street — an all-ages affair where artists and fans alike got to see their friends, take a breather, and eat some really good tacos.

Below, rediscover some of our favorite moments from the Brooklyn Country Cantina, as captured by BGS photographers:

 

LISTEN: Darden Smith, “Western Skies”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Darden Smith
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Western Skies”
Album: Western Skies
Release Date: March 25, 2022

In Their Words: “Sometime in the spring of 2020, I found a set of lyrics in my piano bench. They’d been hiding there for over 10 years and were originally for an album and theater show I was working on called Marathon. The title ‘Western Skies’ had been hanging around for even longer. There was something like 12 verses, which might explain why I never recorded it back then. I scrubbed those down to two verses and a chorus, with a new melody that came out of nowhere. I’d spent years trying to work out the other version. This one came together in about 30 minutes.

“Like the rest of the songs on the album, they were just songs. There wasn’t a unifying theme at first. It was only after the second day of recording out at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, that it all fell together and the songs made sense. I was watching the sun go down in the desert and it hit me — the songs went together with the photos I’d been taking and essays I’d been working on. It was a book and an album. And the whole thing was Western Skies.” — Darden Smith

Photo Credit: Jeff Fasano

LISTEN: Jesse Daniel, “You Asked Me To” (Ft. Jodi Lyford)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jesse Daniel ft. Jodi Lyford
Hometown: Ben Lomond, California, and Austin, Texas
Song: “You Asked Me To” (written by Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver)
Release Date: February 4, 2022
Label: Die True Records

In Their Words: “Everyone has a ‘song’ … A tune that brings them back to the time they met a significant other and fell in love that stays with them through the years. People play these songs at weddings, on anniversaries and to even rekindle that old feeling long after the fire is gone. Love songs bring out such pure human emotion in us and that’s what makes this song special for Jodi and I. It was one that we just had to record at some point and I’m glad we did.” — Jesse Daniel

Photo Credit: Alan Mercer