When it’s time to place a call to Texas singer/songwriter/guitarist Dub Miller at the appointed interview time, a recording says that the number is unavailable. He quickly calls back about 30 seconds later, but wonders aloud if others calling him get the same message. “It could be Willie Nelson calling to record a duet and you’d miss it!” I offer. But it turns out, that’s not too crazy a thought. Miller recalls how he was booked for a show years ago by Pat Butler, whose husband songwriter/producer Larry Butler was a running buddy of Nelson’s back in day. He also produced massive hits for Kenny Rogers and co-wrote with Chips Moman the B.J. Thomas hit “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.”
University of Texas Press On September 29, 2001, just a little over two weeks after the terrorist attack on 9/11, the New York Friars Club and Comedy Central went ahead with a planned “roast” of Hugh Hefner. As expected, some of the comedians slipped in references to recent events. UT Press book cover Social activist Dick Gregory made an inspirational plea for unity. TV host Drew Carey took some potty-mouthed potshots at Osama Bin Laden. Both very easy. But then when the unpredictable screamer Gilbert Gottfried took the stage, his material included this bit: “I have to leave early tonight. I have to fly out to L.A. I couldn’t get a direct flight. I have to make a stop at the Empire State Building.”
As live concerts slowly start up again and bands cautiously plot summer and fall tours, it may be hard to tell who will be more excited: those standing in front of the stage, or those on it. For Jack Blades, singer/bassist for classic rockers Night Ranger, their upcoming Houston show this Saturday (the first in a series of May dates) can’t come soon enough. “We did our last [pre-pandemic] show on March 12, 2020. And we call March 13 ‘The Day the Music Died.’ Because on that day, everybody on the planet cancelled everything!” Blades laughs. “We’re chomping at the bit to get out there again.”
Update 3:30 p.m. 4-30-21: Because of inclement weather (all that rain with more expected) festival organizers have announced the Rails & Tails Mudbug Festival has been canceled for this year. While the phrase “May Day” typically signals a distress call from a ship or boat, it’s also the traditional nomenclature for May 1 in the calendar year. And for Ted Lee, co-founder/bassist for the Cajun-centric band Bayou Roux, this year’s May Day will be anything but stressful. In fact, he’s looking forward to taking the stage at the Rails & Tails Mudbug Festival in downtown Tomball. And he already knows how he’ll feel.
Ronald Brownstein has spent most of his life as a professional reporter in Washington, D.C., and today is a frequent political analyst for CNN and a senior editor at The Atlantic. But he also holds a deep interest in pop culture and more importantly how it relates to and connects with history and society. He brings together a confluence of media, time, and place in his latest book, Rock Me On the Water: 1974 The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics (448 pp., $29.99, Harper). Book cover Brownstein was familiar with some of the topic, having lived in Los Angeles in the ‘80s/early ‘90s, and written
Come with us, children, back to the magical, mystical land of the 1980s. Where for a brief but shining span of time the hair was high, the riffs were righteous, the lead singers preening, the flashpots fiery, the colors popping, and the party never stopped on Sunset Strip or at the strip club. Whether its called Hair Metal, Glam Metal, or Pop Metal (and how you feel about those terms), it filled the charts and screen time on MTV with bands like Guns n’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Poison, Def Leppard, Twisted Sister, Warrant, Winger, L.A. Guns, Skid Row, Tesla, W.A.S.P., Dokken, Vixen, Quiet Riot, Stryper, Ratt,, Cinderella, Whitesnake and Great White.
Berg Hospitality is uniting with Ancorian to bring two new restaurants to W. 11th in the Heights. Owner and founder Benjamin Berg is teaming up with the Houston-based Ancorian, a regional investment and development company, to open Trattoria Sofia, an Italian restaurant at 911 W. 11th in the space formerly occupied by Presidio, which closed in October 2018. Berg is completely remodeling the existing 2,500 square feet with all-new interiors, lighting and furnishings. The restaurateur is also adding an outdoor patio and bar with landscaping meant to evoke a feeling of a lost garden. Named after his firstborn daughter, Trattoria Sofia is slated to open in May 2021.
It’s hard to fathom today, but in the 1960s and 70s, many record companies weren’t run by corporate boards, faceless businessmen, and bean counters. There were charismatic leaders installed in positions of power, real “music men” who could catch a new band or one of their established acts at a club or concert hall, party with them until the wee hours, then show up at the office the next morning for a finance meeting and do it all again. Larger-than-life execs with names known only to music heads and liner note readers included Ahmet Ertegun, Walter Yetnikoff, Jerry Wexler, Al Bell, Seymour Stein, David Geffen, Clive Davis, Jac Holzman, Joe Smith and Mo Ostin.
In high school, most World History classes teach that Athens, Greece was the epicenter of culture back in the day when there was a lot of sculpture chiseling going on and Harry Hamlin was trying to kill Medusa. But in Music History class, its unlikely namesake of Athens, Georgia held similar cred for its own thriving scene. From the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s, Athens was a breeding ground where bands like R.E.M., the B-52’s, Pylon, Love Tractor, Oh-OK, Vic Chesnutt, the Squalls, the Bar-B-Q Killers, Guadalcanal Diary, Widespread Panic, and the Drive-By Truckers got their start before embarking on careers with varying degrees of wider fame, success, and critical evaluation. Also home to the University of Georgia, its low cost of living and thriving DIY art community made it an unlikely home for a Southern Bohemia.