Benefitting

These posts are reserved for proclaiming the wealth of independent talent in the Austin, Texas area. This usually takes the form of a band "review", sometimes with vid, usually there's some music embedded. We focus the spotlight on somebodies, and the music of those somebodies.

Today though, we thought we'd take the zoom off our lens, pull back a bit, and take a more collage approach. Reason being, there's been a bit of loss here, what with the wild fires. If we were too busy jamming to notice, maybe that's OK. But if we DO lift our heads up from our music and notice that someone down the road has lost a lot, if not everything, then that's a little outside the norm of post-modern culture. And we oughta examine it, if just for a bit.

An entire group did that. Yeah. And we're not talking Dellionaires here, no, we're talking about indie musicians. Guys and gals who (in most cases) scratch out slave wages doing work they could care less for, then lose sleep at night pursuing their musical dreams.

So these guys, these not-paid-near-enough musicians, saw the fires. Smelled the smoke. Read the stories. And got in line to do something about it.

But write a big honking check they could not do. So they've ponied up with what they do have - Talent, and plenty of it.

We know of 2 such groups, though there's probably others. Up first, "A Skanky Benefit Show for Families in Bastrop", put together by those Sour Notes that we wrote about not too long ago:

This takes place Thursday, 9/15/2011, at Spiderhouse Ballroom. The bands giving away their best are Leatherbag, Shakey Graves, The Sour Notes, Marmalakes, Mother Falcon, Final Exam, No Mas Bodas, and Milezo.

You should go to this one. Your 5 buck cover goes to the American Red Cross of Central Texas Disaster Relief. They're also collecting non perishable food items, clothing, blankets, diapers, etc., and Conan's Pizza will be providing free pizza the first hour of the event. And the good folks at Cog-Dut will be screenprinting images onsite onto T-shirts, and the proceeds will go towards the Red Cross as well. Free pizza, good music, good cause. What's not to like?

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We also got some metallic-lovin' brethren cooking it up and giving it away at the "METAL & PUNKS UNITE FOR TEXAS WILDFIRE DISASTER BENEFIT SHOW":

This one's on Saturday, September 24, starting at 3 in the afternoon and stopping sometime around 4 the next morning (9/25/11). This is at The Music Ranch, 5220 FM 973, Austin, TX:

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There's lotsa talent showing up for this one: Machine 13, Faceless Preacher, Vile Aura, Anti-climax, Cronis, Gorehound, Blank Generation, Destructive Guerrilla Force, Necrofoxx and the Hounds, StrangeGun, Tank 17, Mistaken For Gentlemen, Vex, Polaris Breach, Anti-Scene, DoneDeal, Black Byrd, This Is A Joke Please Be Offended.... Buncha bands.

It's a 5 buck minimum, and they're taking item donations too - "anything you think a person that has lost everything would need". The proceeds go to the The Bastrop County Donation Distribution Center. If you're bringing a check, make it out to Smithville Ministrial Alliance.

$5 and a good cause and tons of music? Win and win again, say we.

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We've posted lotsa Austin independent music gigs, but we've never been prouder to do it than we are right now.

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