Flanfire

Marshall and Marshall - what bookends for a fine evening (on top of good medical news of sorts). First, it was down to The Saxon Pub to catch a solo acoustic set by the pride of Nacogdoches, Sheila Marshall (and her longtime squeeze Scott Steinsiek on guitar). Sheila - who gained national exposure on Nashville Star two years ago - has a voice as pretty as her face, and writes some beautiful songs. I had not seen her live in far too long. Sheila's latest CD, "Makes Perfect Sense," was released a while back, and Sheila says she is already working on songs for a new record. The band is about to release "Makes Perfect Sense To Me" as a single, and maybe also a new song about snake handling, "The Big Revival." Somewhere between Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry, Sheila belts out song after song with grace in motion -- Believe, Radio, Wrong, Intrigued, Angel without Wings, How Long, Beautiful, Sun's Gonna Rise, The Garden, and Heaven -- and more besides, including her own version of "High Road Easy," the Sass Jordan song covered by Austin's Patrice Pike a while back on Rockstar:Supernova.




It got a little rowdy at at the Saxon during Sheila's set - thanks to fellow Nakanowherean (and former bandmate) Heather Webb and Adrian Conner - two-thirds of Adrian and the Sickness! Heather also mentioned something about a party and a very interesting photo of El Goins on his myspace page (and other photos not suitable for public viewing. {www.myspace.com/eldridgegoins}






After Sheila's set, I moved on over to Ego's to catch up with my bud Bryce Clifford and his band mates (who had helped out at our benefit a week ago). Sitting in with Bryce, Grubdog Mitchell and Zachary Firnhaber were Kim Deschamps (pedal steel, lap steel) and Ray Strucker (who also plays in Mr. Brown with Kris Brown and a whole bunch of other local bands) on trumpet. As you can see, Bryce was having a pretty good time ... and the set was rockin'.

[see THESE photos at the top]

But the highlight of the evening had to be the very late acoustic guitar, mostly solo set by Craig Marshall (with help from Strucker on a couple of songs and HUGE PROPS for his golden-toned Gibson guitar). I had caught the tail end of Craig's set (with a backing band) last week at Woody's South and wanted to hear much more -- and there he was! This guy could be Tony Bennett's favorite songwriter ... with songs like "Take a Good Look," "The Corner of Lost and Found," "Radio Girl," "Popular Crime" - the title cut from his recent CD --- and the brand-new "Lost in Space," which Craig performed for the first time ever last week at Woody's. I could listen to this guy all night long (and in fact I did, I guess).

I had missed an earlier set by the new band, Son of Man, which won a first-round battle of the bands over at the Red-Eyed Fly and is gearing up for round 2. Ronnie, Carter, and Moshe have an acoustic soung that brings out lots of their friends to cheer them on.