Flanfire

Jovita's on Sunday afternoons (soon to be Saturdays) has become THE place for teenager rock and roll. This day, it was The Frets (whom I missed but heard good things about --- they'll be back on Saturday, July 29; The Steps - cousins Will and Sam Thompson on guitars, the fabulous "Z" (Alex Lynch) on drums, and new bassist Stephen (I will get his last name soon) -- Austin High boys all (though Will is off to college here in Austin very soon); and Joyride - of which I will soon say more. Also present were members of the Pickpockets, who I am told will be playing at Swerve Coffeehouse very soon. [Other bands playing Jovita's soon are Rubber Monster and the award-winning Misspent Youth.]

Will and the boys will be off to New Orleans soon to open for Dash Rip Rock and play a couple other gigs (this IS summer vacation!), and they are wrapping up some demos in studio. This band has rocked Antone's on numerous occasions with their own original songs (whose lyrics may well be audible on CD but sometimes get buried in the wall of sound at live shows). Will, BTW, just landed a gig at South Austin Music, so drop in, buy some gear, and give props. The Steps will be back at Jovita's next Sunday before heading into the floodzone that once was a great American city.

Joyride came together thanks to the Austin Rock and Roll Music Camp -- about seven months ago, I am told. Drummer Chris Copeland (the pride of Anderson High) is sixteen - the old man of the band; on bass it's Kai Roach, who will be at Austin High soon; the hotshot (and I do mean prodigy!) guitarist is Max Frost, who will be in ninth grade but is still thirteen -- this kid is already playing interesting add-ons to the Hendrix and other licks he has been working on -- and he is brave enough to sing some backing vocals even as his voice is in the process of changing. I was not totally floored -- after all, Jonny Lang was about the same age when he emerged from the Keller Brothers basement in Fargo to become an overnight sensation, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd was just 15 when he broke into the bigtime music scene. So Max has at least a year or two before he should be blowing people away (and after his voice restructures itself). Max just "has it" - and he has been playing guitar for five years already (and studying under Sid Sanchez).

Okay, so good so far. But none of this is the reason I absolutely IMPLORE my music-loving friends to spend next Sunday afternoon (July 23) AND the following Saturday (July 29). After The Steps left the stage this afternoon, this little brunette wearing a top with a cross I think it was fake embroidered on the front started setting up her band. Cute kid - about (it turns out she will be in eighth grade this coming year and is indeed thirteen -- the same age Leeann Rimes was when she hit the big time!). Learned her name is Althea Capra (Soucie-Garza, but only to her friends and family -- mom and dad are my sources for much of the following information.

Okay -- Joyride just won the South Texas Ten Under Twenty competition held by the Texas Music Project (back in late April). That was shortly after Althea spent a week learning songwriting at a workshop taught by Jimmie Dale Gilmore (who acknowledged that even though she was decades younger than anyone else in the class, she is not a "kid" as a musician!) but long after she began taking voice lessons from Kelly Gray (whom the fam credits with helping Althea make HUGE strides in her vocal performance). Althea's stage presence reminded me of Shelley King - she is totally in charge! Her vocals, however, I described as Maria Muldaur meets Bonnie Bramlett (meets Grace Slick -- this gal LOVES classic rock!).

All of a sudden Althea was belting out "Jesus Just left Chicago" -- the ZZ Top classic -- and I staggered back out of the side room (well, actually, the main dining room) to get in front of the amps to hear her better -- to make sure I was hearing what I was hearing. Then she said the band was shifting gears - and she squeezed out the lyrics to one of her own songs that reminded me of the old Jefferson Airplane. [The band is named after a song she and Max wrote - Joyride - which sounds like a hit to me. ] This is what happens when music-loving parents take their four-year-old daughters to ZZ Top concerts! Althea's voice is a joy to behold - and her songwriting is way beyond her years.... And, yes, the band did a bunch of shows at Antone's that gave Clifford himself opportunity to mentor her and her bandmates - maybe his final proteges!

Joyride has been invited to a gig opening for Greezy Wheels later this fall (details once they are firmed up) -- and yes I love the Greezys very very much -- and maybe Sweet Mary will persuade Althea to pick up the fiddle (violin it used to be) that she laid down a while back (she's now working on guitar and piano). Now it would be nice if this lovely young woman has the luxury of time to have a real life as she learns the art of singing to audiences of all ages ... but somehow I suspect this is not just another kid's band. There's too much talent here.

On a side note -- what a weekend. Watching the Neil Young Ryman Auditorium show as filmed by Jonathan Demme and listening over and over to my brand-new replacement copies of all of my Gram Parsons music. Every time I listen to songs like "A Song for You," "The New Soft Shoe," "$1000 Wedding," and all of the other songs he wrote, co-wrote, or just made his own (like "Love Hurts" and all the other Boudleaux Bryant tunes he covered, or the Tompball Glazer-Harlan Howard classic, also recorded by Kinky Friedman, "Streets of Baltimore"), I just have to get on my soapbox and remind folks that this is the man who gave us so much of the music we enjoy today ... he was, to me, the Vincent Van Gogh of alt-country music.

The wonderful Emmylou Harris sang with Neil Young at Ryman and of course was Dolly Parton to Gram's Porter Wagoner (for all you old folks - that's Faith Hill to Tim McGraw to younger country fans, or Kelly to Justin to you American Idolators) -- and I have loved Emmylou since she moved to Washington, DC, over 35 years ago and started a music club where I first heard Richard Thompson and Ray Benson (and many others).... My pal Dee Miller was her babysitter on nights she would sit in with the Seldom Scene at The Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland -- and what treats those nights still are in my memory.