Euterpe’s evil stepsister

A month ago, Clifford Antone died in Austin. Antone wasn’t perfect by any contemporary standard, but, without his influence, the “Austin sound” would’ve been just more grunge, another local music scene in another provincial college town. Antone brought the blues to Austin, and—even if you don’t dig the blues—you’ve reaped the benefits, if you listen to Texas music at all. (If you don’t, screw you.) For the music alone, Antone deserves forgiveness for his sins, such as they were.

I’m by no means what you’d call a blues aficionado, but one of the best shows I’ve attended to date was at the Gwadaloop incarnation of Antone’s in 1989. Albert Collins played his guitar and laughed maniacally. He resembled nothing so much as Jimmy Hendrix’s demented grandpa, and when he headed out into the parking lot—a stage attendant unrolling his guitar’s massive extension cord behind him—I blindly followed. I completely forgot that I had a Shiner Bock in my hand until a bouncer grabbed my shoulder. I handed the beer to the bouncer, and he actually held it for me until Albert came back inside.

Occasionally, in this cubicle Hell that we call a civilization, you run into people who have no music in their soul. I don’t really listen to anything, they say. They shrug in what they imagine to be condescension but which comes off as the most pathetic sort of cluelessness. I’m just not into all that, they say.

I pity such people. As I write this, a song by Urban Species feat. Imogene Heap is playing on Sirius Disorder out of New York City. It’s a gorgeous little bit of trip-hop on this summer morning as I prepare to go to the lake with my fiancée and son. I’ve never heard the song before, but in some strange serendipitous connection the lyrics run, “Music is my sanctuary; music is my blanket.” Music is that of course, but it is also the opposite: it connects you with the world, with other people, with generations dead and generations unborn. The serendipity of hearing lyrics that perfectly match one’s mood is actually not so strange at all; it is a commonplace. Music makes your life three—and four—dimensional.

So how much music do the Texas gubernatorial candidates have? Kinky, obviously, has the most music. His many flaws do not arise from a lack of soul. Rick Perry hosts the Governor's Annual Salute to Texas Music. Chris Bell sang for Big Star before he tragically died in a car crash. That leaves the One-Who-Would-Be-Grandma.

In 1999, as the headline act prepared to take the stage at the Sixth Street incarnation of Antone’s, Carole Keeton then-Rylander burst in with a squadron of goons, cleared about 400 blues-lovers out of the club, and collected $8,221 in delinquent mixed beverage taxes. The venerated club, it turned out, was about (only?) two months behind on its taxes. Clifford Antone admitted that the club was at fault for not paying but pointed out that the One-Who-Would-Be-Grandma could have collected even more if her goons would’ve only stood by the register waiting until the end of the night.

But, had she and her jackbooted government thugs done that, the reporters and cameramen she brought along for the show might have gotten restless and gone home. Or, worse: hit the dance floor.

The Antone’s raid was an unnecessary media event that could only have been conducted by the most vile sort of bureaucratic bean counter. As for me, I’d vote for Kinky before I voted for Carole Whatever. And I’ll take Jimmy Hendrix’s demented Grandpa any day over an incompetent publicity-seeking “Grandma” with no music in her soul.

spacedark