It was back down to Austin again early on Monday morning. I found a new podcast, “My Favorite Album” with Jeremy Dylan, that made a good portion of the trip pass quickly. Dylan interviews folks from all walks of life about their most treasured albums. I started with Brian Koppelman, creator of the TV show “Billions”. I’ve commmented a few times to Diana about how impressed I am with the music selections on this show and enjoyed Koppelman talking about how they were selected and why. See the bottom of this posting for several examples. The next episode was the drummer from Australian band Augie March talking about Dire Straits first album (also one of my favourites). I really enjoyed his thoughts on Pick Withers nuanced drumming on this album and his views on Mark Knopfler’s guitar work. The first half of my bus ride finished up with Amanda Shires (wife of Jason Isbell) talking about Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate”. Amanda had quite different views about Cohen’s music than Jeremy (the interviewer) which made for an interesting listen. She’s clearly spent a lot of time thinking about Cohen’s songs.
The other highlight of my bus trip was receiving this picture of Will’s new car by the Golden Gate bridge on Sunday afternoon. I think he did an amazingly professional job.
Monday night brought a classic Austin music experience my way. The band “Sis DeVille” was playing at the “One to One” music club.
We’ve enjoyed Carolyn, Shelley, and Floramay at the Kessler and Poor David’s Pub and I had never seen them all together in this incarnation.
This was much more of a rock ‘n roll band than the folkier versions of Shelley and Floramay in particular. I had dinner at a Korean barbecue place next to the music venue and was pleased to have Carolyn and Floramay at the table next to me. They left around 7:30pm and so I expected an on time 8pm start and wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a couple of videos to give you a flavour of the evening. The ladies clearly enjoyed playing together very much.
I was entertained to see Marcia Ball sitting in the audience as the show finished up and told her how much I was looking forward to seeing her, Carolyn, and Shelley at Poor David’s Pub later in December for their Christmas show.
The “revealer” clue from the New York Times crossword on Tuesday gave me a chuckle. “Parting words” from Fried Egg, Candidate, Computer Program, and Editorial -“Gotta Run”.
The boss decided to have an impromptu Christmas dinner on Wednesday. Most folks won’t see him again until after the holiday and so I made a reservation for us at Swift’s Attic. This is the tapas restaurant that I enjoyed so much a few weeks ago and it was great to go with a group and get to enjoy so many more dishes. All the food was wonderful and we had a very enjoyable celebration.
After dinner we enjoyed a trombone fest at the Elephant Room downstairs. Two separate groups of five trombones performed. A rare treat.
After all of those trombones, a couple of us went for a quick wander down Sixth Street to find some other kinds of music.
To round out the trombone section this week, here’s an amazing video of 28 tromobonists collaborating remotely with each other to play Bohemian Rhapsody:
I caught the bus back to Dallas on Thursday and the evening brought the much anticipated football matchup of the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints. What a great game from the Cowboys! Most fans were very nervous that the 10-1 Saints would establish a big lead quickly, but the Cowboys defense played an excellent game. The Saints couldn’t get anything going offensively at all. The final score Cowboys 13 Saints 10, bringing the winning streak to 4 games in a row.
Saturday was a lovely 72 degree day, and so we had an early dinner on the patio of Rick’s Chophouse in downtown McKinney. This was probably the last al fresco dining day of the year, before winter sets in.
Sunday was a relaxing day at home catching up on things after a morning workout followed by coffee and crossword.
I didn’t know much about any of these artists until listening to the podcasts that I started this post discussing. A good week for new music finds. An appropriate song in here for Finn from Garrett T. Capps.