The Old 97's show at Stubb's BBQ was a rainout . . .but the Small Stars were great!

click to enlarge The Small Stars

I went to Stubb's BBQ in Austin for the Old 97's/Small Stars show. Maybe twenty minutes after the last Small Stars tune, the skies opened with some fantastic Texas thunder & lightning and win and rain. The ticket-taker earlier told me no, it won't start raining until midnight. Now, I have some Seattle rain cred. and am, in fact, a rain fan. There was water in the air. It was about 80, with humidity in the high-90s. . .in other words a couple percentage points from being an actual mist. I was not shocked to see the rain.

I did not get to see the Old 97s, but I did get to see the Small Stars as the opening act. And they were great!

Small Stars are a quirky melange of influences. In a good way! Miles Zuniga, is in another band, Fastball. Small Stars have a great buzz in Austin. Read more about them and hear a song here. My favorite song title of the show: "That's What God Made Whiskey For." The Small Stars play funny, seriously rocking songs, with great chops and a lot of theater and vamping. With these guys, it's a nice schtick. . .a nice balance between hard rock and alt+country with maybe a whiff of Zappa and The Kinks and Big Star and The Beatles and even maybe a touch of Bongwater, the Dukes of Stratosphere, Wheezer, and finally a good-blast of Tex-Mex and the Austin sound. I liked them a lot. And they came across as really nice, guys. . .weird as they were. Christopher Gray wrote in the Austin Chronicle: "A rare example of a half-baked concept fermenting into a full-fledged band, Austin’s Small Stars smooth-talked noted L.A. engineer Bob Clearmountain (AC/DC, INXS) into brightening the edges of their self-released sophomore effort, Tijuana Dreams, out of pocket no less. Which would be all for pristine-sounding naught if their lounge-lizard tales of showbiz delusions and debauchery didn’t cut frighteningly close to home." Buy their record!
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