Photo by John Anderson

Much Respek to the brothers Vallejo and their 2nd annual Pachanga Latino Music fest this past weekend in East Austin.  The fest was huge success by all accounts…but more importantly, they managed to expand the definition of “a musical instrument” to include the BBQ Grill.

Serrano’s owner Adam Gonzales actually cooked fajitas LIVE, onstage during the Panchanga All Stars set – a super-group featuring members of Vallejo and Grupo Fantasma, with Michael Ramos, Willie Alvarado, Haydn Vitera and a bunch more…

Now TacoTown calls that innovation.

Full Festival Review here >

Idgy Vaughn : Austin, TX
We caught her short set at Ruta Maya on Saturday and were drawn in by her delicate voice and tasty instrumentation (Austin mainstay Will Sexton accompanied her on a reverb’d out dreadnaught acoustic). Turns out her folky story-songs are autobiographical- in a nutshell: midwestern girl ends up working at a truckstop in Buda, TX; a customer finances her album after winning the lottery; instant success is marred by a bitter custody battle for her daughter that leaves her estranged from her family. Its the stuff country music is made of…KUT did a nice audio-story on her here>

Liam Finn : New Zealand
We had already attempted to catch Liam, the eldest son of Neil Finn (lengendary leader of Crowded House and Split Enz) Thursday at The Ale House – but like I said 10 times this weekend, “if you’ve heard of them, the line’s too long.” Luckily, we had another chance Friday at the Paste/Stereogum Party. Armed with electric guitar, drumset, two Line-6 delay pedals, and one talented female sidekick, Finn proceeded to floor the 200 or so in attendance. Great hooky songs (instantly Finn-like) that build into layered sing-along anthems. The drumset was probably his most impressive talent – pulverizing finales over looped grooves / I suspect the album sounds very different- which makes his live act even more a MUST SEE.

just 1 night down at SXSW, but here’s 2 very good bands we stumbled onto:

Afenginn : Copenhagen, Denmark
We caught them by chance while grabbing dinner at Rio Grande – the brisket taco’s were bland, but these bad ass gypsy pickers brought the Danish Sabør – very melodic and inventive klezmer jams. And their bass player is disgusting/

…

AND

…

The Aggrolites : Los Angeles, CA
It was nearing 1AM, and the Black Keys showcase had an absurb line outside, so we took a chance on the Flamingo Cantina – IMHO the most reliable venue on 6th street. The Aggrolites dropped our jaws immediately with their air-tight Ska/Reggae/Funk stew- like The Specials meets James Brown in East LA. They had this vato on the B3 just rippin it up…really impressive live band/

-cabeza

Pastor Al’s heroes, the mighty gods of rock, Led Zeppelin reunited its 3 surviving members (plus late drummer John Bonham’s son Jason) today at London’s O2 arena for one of the most anticipated rock concerts in history. The whole thing was a benefit for their late friend and music industry pioneer Ahmet Ertegün. you better believe we’ll be scouring the torrent world for the bootlegs, but until then, here’s the first review from NME, or better yet, David Fricke’s account for Rolling Stone, and some nice flickr photos.

update: Just found a pretty good clip of Kashmir from the audience…

Behold the setlist:

Good Times Bad Times
Ramble On
Black Dog
In My Time of Dying
Trampled Under Foot
Nobody’s Fault but Mine
No Quarter
Since I’ve Been Loving You
Dazed and Confused
Stairway to Heaven
Song Remains the Same
Misty Mountain Hop
Kashmir
E: Whole Lotta Love, Rock n Roll

wooo! the festival life.. its like a microcosm brah…day 2 was stellar.. highlights were Toubab Crewe at the campground stage.. these guys are amazing musicians with a very unique sound..they are the real deal.. check’m out at all costs..i was pretty much blown away… RAQ whipped their cock-rock out at the Revival tent and we had a good time.. Galactic was their usual funky selves. .and had a little help at the end by JJ from Mofro.. sympathy for the devil i believe. Ben Harper put on an amazing set.. he was really into the performance and its awesome to see him when he’s on fire like that.. he ripped some sick slide guitar and sang his heart out..

this morning, we were treated to Wild Boar Breakfast Tacos courtesy of Brad.. who runs the camp chuckwagon here at Probing Station 51.. dems was good!

im writing to you from my shady tent here at Wakarusa music fest.. day 1 was a long one…we pulled into the fest at 5am on a straight 12hr drive from Austin ..early bird gets the worm.. and we scored a great camping spot and let the festivities begin..things didnt wind down until 24hrs later the last late-night show concluded..

highlights were Pnuma Trio in the revival tent.. a hippy rave complete with lasers and projections.. pnuma is a young band, quickly proving themselves as live-tronica masters.. great stuff from their keyboard player especially.. killer tones and he is able to cover 2 and 3 separate parts of a song, making the music powerful, tight and deep..deep funky grooves…

the last jam of the night was Green Lemon with Charlie Hitchcock of particle sittin in on guitar…shredfest 2007!

we’ve been eating good thanks to Brad’s cooking….another report tomorrow…theres still time to get down here and see the next 3 days!

Amon Tobin brought in a full 7.1 channel, surround sound subwoofer setup for his show at the Parish on Saturday. Talk about bowel moving bass. Unbelievable.. it was very intense and surprisingly musical..

C-Mon and Kypski brought the heat to a private party on Wed. and rocked the Enchanted Forest on Fri. The Holland natives wielded a live band/hip-hop/dj sound that was fresh and energetic. check’m out in NYC and LA in the coming days.. http://www.myspace.com/cmonandkypski

Ozomatli and Public Enemy were very entertaining.. Flava Flav has a knack for coming off loveable and obnoxious at the same time.. Chuck D dropped some great political protest raps.. (Fuck that War!) Ozomatli is the quintessential outdoor festival party band..

twas an interesting weekend on the road with our band Groovin Ground..friday night was a co-bill with Grass at the Vortex in Beaumont… our first time there and we were received well by the hippies. On Saturday we played the Santomojo Music Fest at the Meridian in H-Town, which had a lineup of midrange prog/jam rock stallwarts from around the country… unfortunately it seems not many peeps in houston cared enough to show up..but the day was chock full of great music, and I for one had a good time.

my highlights were The Greyhounds, Mooshine Still, Lazlo Hollyfeld.. cant forget to thank Thomas for saving the Red Stage from total PA meltdown… special props to Dirty Dave and Dean Daniel’s crunked out photo shown here slathered in 5 dolla bills..oh yeah- check out Ian Varley’s review of the fest here

Instrumental Dissent
by The Motet (2006)
Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars
The latest release from the Motet IS VERY GOOD. Imagine if Fela Kuti and Weather Report recorded a jam session full of tag-team grooves, then Thievery Corporation remixed the whole thing, complete with trancy dancefloor bombs a DJ-style song transitions. Then, have a modern day jam-band learn the CD note-for note and play it back with a trump-tight but organic energy only possible with in-the-moment performance. that’s close to the sound. Very impressive junk and you can tell they that successfully merges their already trademark sound of Afro/latin/Jazz fusion with some trippy shape-shifting electronic textures. The track “Anew’ reminds me of an AIR tune with its bleeby resonating synths over sweet rhodes piano comps. Its the kinda sound that could easily fit them in with the other post-rockers like Tortoise or the Album Leaf. But a chill-out record this IS NOT. This is a party record, full of bumpin grooves and disco basslines. Im not saying these guys don’t jam. They are master improvisseurs. But I will say the Motet approaches the electronica flavors a bit differently than other jam-acts that’ve gone in a similar direction. Its well worth a listen for fans of anything from fusion to jamtronica to indie-electro to latin-groove stuff like Ozomatli. Dig in!

1. Afro Disco Beat [See post to listen to audio]

2. Anew [See post to listen to audio]

Just in from Grady at The Flamingo Cantina – Colorado’s the MOTET will stop through Austin this Saturday for a 2 set show at the Flam Can in support of their new disc Instrumental Dissent, their first ATX appearance in at least a couple years. The Motet is hot off the heels of a Halloween tour in which they performed a Madonna tribute set complete with costumes and halter-wearing front-woman vocalist. If you remember a few years back, they did a similar tribute show dedicated to PRINCE. Shit was hot!…the TacoTown Execs plan on walking over to this show immediately after the My Morning Jacket show at Stubb’s, which is also a MUST SEE PERFORMANCE. I had a chance to absorb this new CD and here’s my thoughts.