This is also a test post to see how things flow from the blog to FB and elsewhere as I reevaluate how much content I want to send out onto social networks never to be seen again.

Here’s the ones that I went to over the years. I’ve got ticket stubs scanned for two of them along with pictures for one. Several of the Austin visits were for two nights. I don’t think I ever went to both nights. I was able to figure out which one I did via the ticket stub for the 1993 and 2002 shows. I’m not sure about the 1995 shows.

• 1991.05.25 – Liberty Lunch, Austin TX
• 1993.04.13 – Liberty Lunch, Austin TX – my ticket stub
• 1995.04.03 – Irving Plaza, NYC NY
• 1995.11.16 or 1995.11.17 – Liberty Lunch, Austin TX
• 1998.11.22 - Liberty Lunch, Austin TX
• 2002.03.30 – Emo’s, Austin TX – my ticket stub and photo set

If the site does go down completely, some of the images may be lost. I’m not sure that I’m motivated enough to go and fix that along with the internal links. I think I wrote some decent stuff over time, so I’m glad not to have lost it. Thanks to both Sean and Jason for starting it in the first place. I’ve met some pretty cool people through the site. I’m pretty sure that the original, Blogging LA, will continue on.

Well, speculate no more, and though it was a good guess, Corcoran was wrong. Austin City Limits has just announced that the final taping will be November 8th and the guest will be Lyle Lovett.

From the release:

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS is the longest-running music series in American television history. More than 500 episodes featuring more than 800 performers have originated from the modest and unassuming Studio 6A since tapings began in 1974. The AUSTIN CITY LIMITS story is one of unparalleled passion for music, commitment to excellence, and perseverance against many odds. What began as a modest Texas music series has gone on to become the only television series ever to be awarded the prestigious National Medal of the Arts. And it has made so much history in one small room that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum declared that it was one of the few rock and roll landmarks worthy of official recognition, an honor that was bestowed upon the show in March 2010.

Lyle Lovett’s history with AUSTIN CITY LIMITS runs deep. When he first came to Studio 6A it was as an audience member, and he made his first appearance on the show as a backing singer for Nanci Griffith in 1985. Since then, he has come to know the stage well, appearing on the show no less than 12 times, making him one of the most frequent guests in the show’s history.
When it comes to presenting live music, AUSTIN CITY LIMITS embodies its motto of “Great Music. No Limits.” Accomplishing what no other show has done in the history of American television, the series has, for nearly four decades, presented audiences with the most diverse, original, cutting-edge talent music has to offer. Past performers have included Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, John Fogerty, Robert Plant, Neil Young, The Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, R.E.M., Allen Toussaint, Arcade Fire, Patty Griffin, Spoon, Coldplay, Wilco, Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, The Dave Matthews Band, Jimmy Cliff and many, many more.

The show’s next chapter continues in early 2011 with Season 37, originating from its new home at The Moody Theater in downtown Austin. The new studio location will enable more fans to watch future live tapings and provide an enhanced experience for all future shows, while maintaining the intimacy, character and integrity that have been the hallmark of AUSTIN CITY LIMITS for more than three decades.

Since it’ll be pretty much impossible to get in to that taping, they’re offering a simulcast party at Hogg Auditorium as well. A new episode of Austin City Limits with Robert Earl Keen and Hayes Carll airs this Saturday at 7pm on KLRU (or you PBS affiliate).

Sonic Youth is one of , if not THE, elder statesman of alternative/indie/punk rock. I’ve followed them since the late 80s around the time that Steve Shelley joined. I was a big fan of his from the Crucif**ks days. The band has actually been around for over 30 years,  According to a trivia contest on their site for the La Zona Rosa show Saturday night, their first show in Austin was 08.27.1985 with Scratch Acid opening. Their most recent album, The Eternal (“Antenna”, “Sacred Trickster”, and “No Way” are stand outs), was released last summer on Matador Records after choosing not to renew on their 16 year major label relationship with Geffen/DGC records. For those of you old enough to remember, Sonic Youth played a role in Nirvana signing with Geffen in the early 90s. The two bands were featured in a documentary on their 1991 European tour that I think is out-of-print now, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. It’s a great documentary if you can track down a copy.

Sonic Youth is one of those bands that I always meant to see live, but never had the chance. They impressively re-create the wall of guitars that marks many of their songs, many of which have two bass guitars. The band is notorious for odd guitar tunings and I noticed that a lot of their guitars have tape along the head stock at each of the tuning pegs, no doubt to help the guitar techs to know how to properly tune the guitar for the songs they’re playing. I’m guessing that means there can’t be a lot of spontaneity in the set list.

They stuck mostly to songs from The Eternal during the taping. There was a false start on “Leaky Lifeboat” and they ended up re-doing “Anti-Orgasm” and “Antenna” at the end of the set because they weren’t happy with the first takes.  The miscues, which I didn’t really notice other than the false start, prompted Thurston Moore to introduce them as “The Mistakes”. He said that was the original name of the band. I’m not sure if he was joking or not. Here’s a list of the songs they played:

• Schizophrenia
• No Way
• Sacred Trickster
• Calming the Snake
• Hey Joni
• Antenna
• Stereo Sanctity
• Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)
• Poison Arrow
• Anti-Orgasm
• What We Know
• Massage The History
• Sprawl
• Cross The Breeze

I was hoping for a little more variety. The majority of the songs that weren’t from The Eternal came from Daydream Nation. It’s a good album, but I would’ve loved to hear  ”Incinerate” or “Do You Believe in Rapture?” from Rather Ripped, “Sunday” from A Thousand Leaves, almost anything from Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star or their amazing cover of “Superstar” from the If I Were A Carpenter compilation.

I found myself getting reflective about halfway through the set. I suppose it’s part of getting old. I never would’ve guessed that Sonic Youth would be on Austin City Limits when I started listening to them as a freshman at UT in 1989. I’ve seen a lot written about how the ACL Festival has really revitalized the television show by bringing in newer bands and expanding the genres that it covers over the past few years. Terry Lickona, who celebrated a birthday yesterday as  pointed out by a staff member with a cardboard sign during his introductory comments, is the longtime producer of the show and deserves credit for steering the show to a wider audience.

This is the final season of Austin City Limits in the current location. The show will move to its new larger, downtown location in Block 21 at the beginning of 2011. This Saturday night’s airing features Spoon who will play the festival Friday night at 6pm, so you can get a double-helping. Local music writer Michael Corcoran posted a couple of notes about the last show at the current location. Rumor has it that Willie Nelson, who played the pilot episode, will close things out. Corcoran also  revealed that there won’t be free beer at the new location which makes me sad.

You can check out a couple of shots from the taping along with my other low quality camera phone ACL shots here.

Update: According to Matt from Austinist, the Sonic Youth / Black Keys episode will air on January 22, 2011. Since they’re sharing the hour, it means that you probably won’t see the entire performance. Here’s another take on the performance from Patrick Beach at AA-S/Austin360.

William Gibson made a stop at the Arboretum Barnes & Noble last night to promote his new book, Zero History. He read from Chapter 16 of the book and took some questions from the audience, some of which were enlightening. Not sure if he was just using it as an excuse, but he cut it short because the feedback from the sound system that the store provided was annoying him. I was disappointed because I was enjoying his answers. Someone asked him about a recent short story and why he didn’t do more of them. He answered that there’s no money in them these days and that he feels like he’s got a limited number of ideas and any that turn into short stories take away from the pool that he can use for novels. He also discussed his admiration for Inception. During the signing, the guy in front of me had him sign his electronic copy of Zero History on an iPad. That was a first, but fitting, I suppose, for the author who is credited with coining the term “cyberspace”. You can follow him on twitter @GreatDismal. He’s pretty active when he’s not busy writing. Zero History is the third book in a series. The first two were Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. I’d recommend starting with Pattern Recognition. I’ve really enjoyed the first two and am looking forward to reading the third.

Austin City Limits is moving to its new location downtown at the beginning of next year, so there will probably only be a handful of performances at Studio 6A before the move. Bob Schneider tapes a set tonight and I’m assuming there will be a few tapings with the ACL Festival coming up at the beginning of October. There were the usual ACL taping amusements last night: people spilling the free beer (the only time I’ll drink Ziegenbock because it’s at least a little better than Budweiser – pro tip: always get two on the way in, it’s too hard to go back and get more) and watching people narrowly miss getting bonked in the head with the boom camera. The most adept at avoiding the camera is the official ACL photographer, Scott Newton, who just released a book collecting 35 years of photos from the show on UT Press.

Black Thought, who was present at the GMA Central Park performance that I linked in my preview post, wasn’t there for last night’s taping. They played pretty much straight through the set without too much talking in between songs and obviously the rap portions of the songs were dropped with the absence of Black Thought. “Captain” Kirk Douglas had a blistering guitar solo at the end of the Bill Withers cover “I Can’t Write Left Handed” and ?uestlove got pretty animated by the end of that song, definitely the best one of the set. I’ve heard “Hard Times” twice now and it’s been stuck in my head all morning.

Being a drumming nerd, I situated myself stage left so I’d have a better view of ?uestlove during the taping. Watch for some elaborate duct tape muffling during Legend’s solo performance of “Ordinary People” though I doubt that will make it into the editing. There was a lot of eye contact between ?uestlove and the rest of the band for the endings and build ups of the songs.

Here’s the set list from my own notes so it may not be completely accurate:

• Hard Times
• Compared to What?
• Little Ghetto Boy
• Our Generation
• Hang On In There
• Wake Up Everybody
• Ordinary People
• I Can’t Write Left Handed
• Stay With You
• Green Light
• Shine (theme from Waiting for Superman)

I pretend to be a drummer on occasion and had always admired ?uestlove (aka Ahmir Thompson), drummer for The Roots, but developed a serious man crush after seeing him at a live show during SXSW in 2006 for Before the Music Dies. I didn’t know about his bandleading skills until that performance, something that would become much more evident when The Roots began their stint as the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s takeover of Late Night from Conan O’Brien  (the only redeeming aspect of that change, in my opinion).

?uestlove also does guest DJ stints displaying his encyclopedic knowledge of music and will do one tonight immediately following the Austin City Limits taping at Red 7 at 9pm. It’s $8 in advance (try End of An Ear records) and $10 at the door and probably will sell out.

Tonight’s Austin City Limits taping will be with John Legend. Their collaboration, Wake Up, will be released on September 21st. I caught one song at a Central Park performance on Good Morning America a couple of weeks ago. The collaboration is inspired by the presidential election campaign of 2008 and is a mix of covers and originals. VH1 has a bunch of behind the scenes videos promoting the album. I’ll post a review of the taping tomorrow.

Here are the air dates for Season 36 of Austin City Limits which airs locally on KLRU on Saturday nights at 7pm:

October 2, 2010         Jimmy Cliff
October 9, 2010         Spoon
October 16, 2010      Patty Griffin & Friends
October 23, 2010      Alejandro Escovedo / Trombone Shorty
October 30, 2010      Robert Earl Keen / Hayes Carll
November 6, 2010     Steve Martin / Sarah Jarosz
November 13, 2010   Rosanne Cash / Brandi Carlile
November 20, 2010   John Legend & The Roots

07.07.2009

07.06.2010

I’ve really been trying to pay more attention and not miss moments with this last kid, but it seems to have gone by even faster than I thought it would. It’s inevitable that your perception of time changes as you grow older. I just didn’t think I’d experience it so soon.