Whatever your relationship status, this Valentine’s Day weekend in Austin is packed with events you’re sure to love. Get swept up in the “mostly-true” love and crime story of Bonnie and Clyde or celebrate the end of all things mushy with a Bloody Mary at Love Hangover Market. For a full list of events, visit our calendar.
Thursday, February 13
Texas Comedies presents Bonnie and Clyde: A Musical Comedy The infamous love story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow comes to life at the Dougherty Arts Center. The new musical comedy highlights the “mostly-true” details of the duo's fated spree accompanied by music from a live band. Audiences can get a glimpse into this bad romance characterized by newspaper and crime magazine stories of the 1930s and scenes depicted in a memoir by Ted Hinton, part of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde. Performances through February 15.
Friday, February 14
Ballet Austin presents Restless Hearts Enjoy a selection of passionate, romantic ballets by two of the world’s most decorated choreographers at The Long Center for the Performing Arts. Restless Hearts feature sGeorge Balanchine's Rubies, as imagined by artistic director Stephen Mills, and Ghost by Broadway choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. Both productions include a live score performed by the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Restless Hearts is recommended for all ages.
Saturday, February 15
Bullock Texas State History Museum presents "This Light of Ours: Activist Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement" opening day An intimate view into the day-to-day struggles of citizens working toward equality in the 1960s debuts at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. “This Light of Ours” is a collection of more than 150 black-and-white photos depicting the activities of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The efforts of those students, along with the local citizens and unsung heroes who joined them, helped further the fight against segregation, race-based disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow laws. Following the opening day, visitors can explore the exhibition through May 31.
Grace Potter in concert American singer-songwriter Grace Potter performs at ACL Live in support of her new album, Daylight. Since her first solo record, Original Soul, debuted in 2004 Potter has continued to forge an enduring rock career with songs like “Stars” and “Medicine.” A limited number of balcony tickets are still available.
Sunday, February 16
Bat City Artisans presents Love Hangover Market Shop, browse, and get boozed up in the wake of Valentine’s Day weekend at Shangri-La. Love Hangover Market offers a variety of specialty vendors, live portrait drawings, palm readings, music, and more. Guests can fuel up on vegan brunch specials and a Bloody Mary bar in between shopping sprees. Admission is free.
Head to Shangri-La on Sunday for an artisan market, palm reading, vegan eats, and a Bloody Mary bar.
Bat City Artisans/Facebook
Head to Shangri-La on Sunday for an artisan market, palm reading, vegan eats, and a Bloody Mary bar.
Only in Austin does recording in a tin can create excellent sound. Specifically, this "tin can" is a 1955 Spartan Imperial Mansion trailer, a spacious mobile home converted into a relatively cramped studio. But the unconventional setup is no match for producer and engineer James Westley Essary.
Essary and his videographer brother, Brantley, have been using the space to build up their inner circle of musicians, capturing intimate performances in professional recordings available on YouTube. Live From The Tin Can premiered its second season on April 15, 2024, and is looking forward to a long string of diverse performances to come. Right now listeners can enjoy Ron Gallo, David Ramirez, Vondré, John Calvin Abney, Angel White, and more on the YouTube channel.
First up this season was Worn-Tin (an amazing coincidence of a name), performing "Hard Ease," "Bitter," and "Kid Changed," a pleasantly lackadaisical series of alt-rock romps, somehow squeezing in two drum sets. Worn-Tin, like many other artists this season on the YouTube series, performed live at South by Southwest in March. The festival, along with the concurrent Luck Reunion, brought a wealth of artists to the Live Music Capital, so the Tin Can crew took advantage of the easy scheduling.
"South By's website is actually a great way to find out who was coming into town," says Brantley. "So we started thinking about things like, what is what is their sound like? What is their performance like, and will that translate into our space? ... [We] just started contacting managers: 'Hey, do you have a free morning, free afternoon? Want to come by?' The sessions only take about a couple of hours."
Although the Essarys are hoping to get more national acts into the Tin Can to boost views, their hope is that over time they can narrow their focus back to local artists. (The series premiere featured Austin band Kelly Doyle.) Beyond the view counts, these recordings are mutually beneficial; Artists don't just get exposure, but lasting high-quality recordings for free, and the brothers get to build a portfolio. Westley, who just goes by his second name in conversation, appreciates the stylistic challenge.
Producer and engineer James Westley Essary does the auditory impossible.Photo courtesy of Live From The Tin Can
"I get to create a little calling card, [and] they get a way to push their new record when they're rolling through town and on tour," says Westley. "As you put out records you get pigeonholed ... I want to make a punk record, and I want to make a metal record. I want to make a country record. So it allows me to be able to dabble in whatever I want — whatever we book in the studio."
Making these connections was Westley's main goal in creating the series during the pandemic. It'd been a loose idea at the producer's prior studio, with occasional shoots for social media. As we all remember, 2019 was not famous for its sense of urgency. But when the studio was "sold out from under" Westley in October, he got tired of hopping from one rental to another.
He bought the trailer in December 2019 and spent the following year working on it. The end of his work coincided with Brantley's desire to move back to Austin from Seattle, so the returning brother provided the property to park the trailer on. The rest was good, old-fashioned pandemic restlessness.
The Tin Can in all its metallic glory.Photo courtesy of Live From The Tin Can
"When you're on the road all the time, you're meeting new bands every day, because you have a different opener or something," says Westley. "And I was like, 'How can I bring that to me?' It's a lot of fun when there's not really any money involved. You're not dedicating a ton of time, necessarily, to it. Bands come here, they have a really great time, [and] it's really nice to be able to host them."
Of course, recording in such a small space has its challenges. Most of the solution was in arranging; not the music, but the musicians. Placing everyone just right minimizes the bleed of certain instruments into other microphones, and as long as the singer stays relatively still, the drums — the biggest culprit — mostly keep their sound to themselves.
Some issues are also fixed with slightly quieter playing, unintentionally creating a sort of sonic brand for the series. It's not all bedroom pop, but the combination of a cozy recording environment and slightly restrained volume makes for some homey performances. This also works nicely for Westley — isn't that happening a lot? — who says he usually prefers listening at home to watching in a crowd.
Still, live recordings add a certain spice to the music. Many music fans will attribute it to the organic mystery of musicians clicking together, but Westley thinks there's something else at play. There's no substitute for practice, and by the time musicians are making live recordings, they've probably played the song live dozens or even hundreds of times. That allows for improvements on the original ideas — sometimes ones that originated in the studio at the time of the first recording.
Ron Gallo squeezes into the Tin Can.Still from Live From The Tin Can
It's also an easy way to make additional income without writing more, he says. Brantley points out that live music has always been at the core of the business.
"Live music has been at the top for forever," says Brantley. "Now we've got artists selling out huge arenas. They're competing with the NFL; They're not competing with movies or TV as much anymore. ... So I love the opportunity to not just record live music, but also film it. You're getting a full experience of both the really compelling live recording [and] even more compelling video to watch them in their element — really playing it live rather than just in a box in the studio."
The next frontier for the Tin Can crew will be hosting live shows onsite. Westley will be in the trailer recording while the band plays outside, and eventually Brantley might start capturing video, too. Also down the pipeline are audio-only live recordings, so listeners can enjoy the tunes without relying on YouTube.
One episode featuring NOBRO from Montreal, Quebec, is out now, with more to come. Next up is Evangeline from Los Angeles. Follow along with Live From The Tin Can ("Like and subscribe," says Brantley with a smile) on YouTube.