Anyone Wanna Go See The Theater Fire?

They are playing on The Wreck Room's next to last night. Anyone wanna go with me?

The Week That Was in Cowtown

Enjoyed a great dinner with a dear old friend, Rick Poss and his lovely wife, Marianne, at Benito's on Magnolia last night. Rick is pretty well known in Austin music circles for his guitar work with Jimmy LaFave, Alejandro Escovedo and others. Now he has his solo CD coming out in July. I got a first listen last night and I LOVE IT!

Not to sound like a broken record, but I want to encourage everyone in District 9 to get out and vote for Bernie Scheffler. He's an important candidate that we need on the city council. Bernie e-mailed the other day to tell me they will be walking neighborhoods on Sunday, starting at 4 p.m. Visit his blog for more info. If you can't do anything else, do these two things: 1) Vote early at these locations. 2) Send an e-mail to everybody you know in Fort Worth, and ask them to vote in this city election. There were a total of 1349 votes in the last District 9 election. It is not a cliche to say every vote counts. Also, if you are so inclined, grab a Bernie yard sign or print your own Bernie flyers.

The Stash Dauber knows the real reason Willie's picnic isn't coming back to Cowtown.

There's an old joke that goes everybody talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it. Not true for Tammy Gomez. I talk about it, but she turns it into art. She also had another fantastic poem this week on one of my favorite topics: what does it mean to be a Texan.

Once again on the weather, I'd like to thank Pete at Cowtown Chronicles for confirming that our weather this week was typhoon-like in its intensity. Hope your power's back on, Pete. Mine is.

Check out Big D little d for a bad-ass podcast featuring, among others, The Theater Fire, Midlake, and Bosque Brown. It's got 20 hard-to-find, rare or otherwise obscure tracks total from local artists.

PSA: PrairieFest on Saturday

Just a reminder: PrairieFest is this Saturday starting at 11 a.m. For those of you so inclined, you can get your bike on and get your Rahr on with these guys. Saturday's musical lineup is:

11AM - Event Opens

11:15 - MONDO Drummers (Drum ensemble)

Noon - The Ackermans (Cowboy/cowgirl music)

1PM - Theater Fire (Eclectic acoustic)

1:45 - Politicians (Lon Burnam, Kathleen Hicks, Mark Veasey, introduced by Louis McBee

2:00 - Howard Garrett (Dirt Doctor)

2:15PM - Trigger Fish (oldies rock)

3:00 - Jim Sargent (Green builder)

3:30PM - Darrin Kobetich (solo guitar)

4:15 - Mimi/Rhett/Darrin (Dance/Poetry/Guitar)

4:30PM - Electric Mt. Rotten Apple Gang (Bluegrass)

5:15 - Jarid Manos - Keynote speaker (GPRC)

5:30PM - Brave Combo

See y'all there.

Prairie Fest Rocking the East Side

If you hear the sound of granola crunching on the horizon, that just the Second Annual Fort Worth Prairie Fest bringing a little bit of green to Funkytown. The Fest is scheduled for Saturday, April 28 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Tandy Hills Nature Area. Brave Combo, The Theater Fire, The Ackermans and some other bands will be playing. And there will be lots of earth-friendly products for you to consume. Huzzah!

Theater Fire at The Grenada

Above is a cool video shot by justinlloyd2 at the Theater Fire’s gig last week at the Grenada. The Theater Fire plays this Saturday at the Chat Room Pub down on Magnolia. See you there.

Telling Stories

Jessica Peters is a 27-year-old single mom from Hurst who makes her living as a data entry clerk for an oil and gas company. But in her spare time she’s making a documentary about the late great Dallas singer-songwriter Elliott Smith (above) -- and she’s close to finishing. The project is titled Strange Butterflies and there’s a cool story about her efforts on the Big D Little d blog.

“Peters' goal is to tell Smith's story through the people he impacted in the cities he lived; to that end, she put out a call for musicians from Smith's various home cities--Portland, NYC, Dallas and LA--to record Elliott Smith covers that would fit each city's footage,” writes Sam Machkovech on Big D Little d. Fort Worth’s own The Theater Fire has put together a cut for the project, “Say Yes” from Smith’s Either/Or. You can visit the Strange Butterflies MySpace page and find out more or make a contribution if you are so inclined.