Dirk Fowler - Texas Country Reporter

Texas Tech professor Dirk Fowler has been making concert posters for close to a decade now, at least as well as I remember, and during that time, he has come to be quite popular, making posters for national acts like Wilco, No Doubt, DeVotchKa, and the Raconteurs. Perhaps more importantly, he continues to support local music in West Texas and has brought a good deal of attention to many area artists through his poster art. Check out his Web site, or his Gigposters.com profile to see his amazing work. I was especially excited to see this recent clip featuring Fowler and his letter press printing on Texas Country Reporter. (It is no secret how well-liked he is on account of the fact that 106 people have already shared the link to this video on facebook.)

don't know where I'm going...

Perhaps in U.S. cultural terms, I may be headed to the exact opposite of Boulder, CO. I'm packed up and headed to Odessa, TX. Clearly not heading there for live music but rather following a job and moving back closer to family. As much as I loved living near Denver, I think this move is going to be for good.

So what does Odessa offer as far as music/culture? Great question, I'm glad you asked.

It's not all that uncommon for people to have no idea where or what Odessa is. Friday Night Lights ring a bell? Yes, that's the one. Indie icons Explosions in the Sky hail from nearby Midland. Also, Guy Clark and Roy Orbison came from Monahans and Wink, respectively, Hoyle Nix established western swing in Big Spring and all around West Texas, and of course there's Larry Gatlin, Odessa's own hometown boy. "All in the gold, in California..."

It's not hard to criticize the much lesser presence of live music in the area, but in my new home, it's all going to be about finding the diamonds in the rough. Oddly enough, I have had two great musical experiences in my life in Odessa.

The first time, on the same night that my ex was getting married (My advice - never go, even when you're invited), I took the trip to Odessa to see Modest Mouse play at Dos Amigos. The show was literally played in the middle of a rodeo arena in the back of the venue. This was around the time of Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and it was an awesome show, not to mention much better than going to a wedding you don't want to be at.

The second time, a small group of us made the trek down from Lubbock to see Anathallo and the Colour Revolt play a tiny little honky tonk called Earls II. Pretty crazy place to see two indie bands, but it's one of those places where, when the right person promotes the show, the indie kids just show up. Promoters in this area come and go, but most of the time, someone gets up the energy/courage to start hosting shows again and the shows do fairly well, because the kids want to see live music so badly. Hoping I can play a very small part in making good shows happen from time to time.

But wait, there's more. As it turns out Odessa is a bit less than 3 hours from Marfa, the tiny town in deep West Texas that has turned into a substantial artist community. Unbelievably, this little town has hosted shows by Bon Iver, Jeff Tweedy, The Secret Machines, Yo La Tengo, Califone, Yeasayer. The list goes on and on. This place truly is an oasis when it comes to music offerings in the middle of the desert. In addition, Railroad Blues in nearby Alpine has a solid regular music calendar as well.

My musical landscape is changing, not ending. The blog will probably also change a bit. Expect general interest material about the West Texas region in general. This may include, but is not limited to Midland/Odessa, San Angelo, Lubbock, Marfa, Alpine, and Terlingua. I won't make any broad and bold statements about what will come of Windfarm in the next few years, but I hope to promote arts and culture in West Texas as much as time will allow.

Any West Texans who run across this blog, please feel free to pass along West Texas music events to me.

From Nonesuch to Jeff Tweedy with love

Dear Jeff,

We wanted to take a moment to write you a letter of praise in regard to your band’s new album, Wilco (the album). It has been a genuine pleasure to release your albums over the past 8 or so years, and we take pride in the fact that our relationship with you and Wilco has lasted so long. We hope you love the artistic freedom we give you as much as we love the money you make us.

While you were not on our label for Being There (well, you were sort of, on a subsidiary of our parent company), I think we all know that Wilco was on the verge of going the way of the Jayhawks. However, given your big label affiliation at the time, you rode it out and made Summerteeth, which no one understood at the time, but importantly, it gave those of us in “the biz” a sign that Wilco might actually be far from finished. Thank goodness WB put out that album, or you very well could have fallen through the cracks before you found direction and began to hit your stride.

At that point, you still weren’t that big of a deal, but oh man, the Woody Guthrie business was the beginning of great things to come. The great things just got better when we got the opportunity to pick you up after our parent company dropped you. (Still not entirely sure, but did you really get paid twice for that album?) Anyway, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot really broke ground because it was so experimental (seems like a tiny bit too much noodling at times now, but that’s neither here nor there), and was coming from what people had previously thought was an alt country band. And then there was the documentary about all the drama in the band…a better script could not be written for an American rock band.

After you reinvented the Wilco wheel, we have to say we couldn’t be more pleased with the direction things have gone since then. A Ghost is Born worked to push the envelope just a bit more, but not enough to scare away any of your ever expanding fanbase. And honestly Jeff, when you listen to some of the musical shenanigans on Kicking Television, don't you wonder how you get away with some of that stuff yourself? Whatever the case, you can take a song like "Via Chicago" and play the skillet and wooden spoon on it in your live show, and the crowd just eats it up. After that, Sky Blue Sky continued the path of changing things up just enough to make people still feel like it was cool to blast "Impossible Germany" out of their Subaru factory speakers. The addition of Nels brought such an amazing dimension to the band, and thankfully, the rest of your personnel changes have never been so drastic as to alienate any substantial segment of your fanbase. Remember when you included one of John Stirratt's songs on A.M? It's almost funny to think about now.

Sure, you have never gotten much radio play over the years, but it just hasn’t mattered. You’ve steadily grown into one of the most respected American rock bands, with virtually complete control over your artistic integrity, and we just couldn’t be happier that you’re going stronger now than ever before. The pleasure is all on this side of the table, trust us.

More adeptly than most bands of your kind, you have found a way to stay relevant enough to your fans that they stick with you. All those hipster kids in 2001 who fell in love with YHF are mostly out of college and/or have families and good jobs now. And as you well know, those are the same people who pay to download songs from their favorite artists like nobody's business. Downloads basically cost us nothing, and we don’t even have to go to the bank to cash in on them, since the money just drops straight into our (and your) offshore accounts. Turns out your fans aren’t quite as hip as they used to be, but the key is, your music is just far enough out of the mainstream that they still believe they’re listening to cutting edge music. Good for us, and doubly good for you, since they pay $35 & up (plus typically $25 in service fees) to see you live at huge venues across the country. Hipsters would rather spend that money on PBR and silly hats, but they aren’t vital to your success anymore, so no reason to change what you're doing now.

In fact, what better to keep your fans energized than to make your 7^th album such a tongue-in-cheek affair by naming it Wilco (the album), with “Wilco (the song)” as the lead off track? Whether intentional or not, you’ve created a blogger's dream, as blogs have already begun to proliferate the internet with clever titles such as “Wilco (the review)” and “Wilco (the blog post).” This has prompted those of us around the office to refer to the album in-house as “Wilco (the cash cow).” Can we also say that the Feist guest appearance was a brilliant move that we think will see you continue to gain new fans in the ITunes demographic? We’re actually in talks with Toyota to have “You and I” preprogrammed into every new Prius sound system. Just as expected though, this album is not a one trick pony, given that "I'll Fight," "Country Disappeared," and "One Wing" are likely to become instant Wilco staples as well, because after all, you're the one making the rules. The album is accessible, but appropriately, not instantly accessible to the casual listener. After a few listens, your core fans will start reminiscing about the days when they listened to really cool music, and remember why they got that "I am an American aquarium drinker" ankle tattoo. Admittedly, we get a little sentimental too, when we think about how much money we were making off of you back then. Let's keep this gravy train going, why don't we?

For future reference, we’d love it if Spencer is ready to put out an album in the next few years, so please keep us in mind. Otherwise, we'll leave you alone for now, as we've got to get back to our layoffs, but please let us know if there's anything we can do for you.

Sincerely,

Nonesuch Records (the label)

Warner Brothers Records (the parent label)

Warner Music Group (the corporation)

Weakly stuff

If you remember my Wovenhand acoustic show review:
You’ll recall the mention of Elin Palmer. Just ran across a live show recording from her Westword Music Showcase set here, so check it out.

Only in Boulder:
Newspaper headline – “Police return marijuana clinic's drugs”

New Fleet Foxes song:
here.

Remember when news (usually) involved verified sources?:
It seems now that news institutions are really taking a hit from celebrity blogs, who take the approach of “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.” Or “throw every possible rumor at the wall and wait to see which ones are actually true.” Case in point has been TMZ being the first to break the MJ story. Quite an advantage they have to be able to print things before they know if they are true.

What does this mean?:
I don’t have a clue, but I'm pretty glad I'm not a journalist.

New Wilco tomorrow:
if you're into that kind of thing.

I'm sure this is old news to all the cool kids:
but I was just told about this amazing Tiny Desk Concert performance by the Avett Brothers. Now they are saying September for their new album release. Please don't push it back any further guys.

Finally:

saw True Stories all the way through and am afraid I'm now on the search for the Talking Heads' album True Stories, and also the version of "People Like Us" sung by John Goodman, which apparently exists. I'm not sure if it's just a B-side on a record, or if it's more widely available than that, but I'll keep you posted on all the uninteresting details.

Oddly, there's a common link between these

This is Awesome

Apparently Wilco is offering a full stream of the new album here. So stop reading and go check it out.

I'm pretty sure everyone at Pitchfork had to throw away their drawers (pronounced "draws") after they found out about this.