local releases

Bluesy local supergroup Grackles time travels to mystical Old Austin on debut LP

Noah Lit, Grackles' songwriter, is balancing successful music and food careers around yet another cool new project.

Photo courtesy of Grackles

Love them or hate them, there's few things more authentically Austin than our friends the grackles. These gutsy little birds are our constant companions, unfazed by each new sushi restaurant or civic scandal. They're also the inspiration for "Austin's 234th best blues, rock rhythm and soul band," to use a phrase from Grackles' own Bandcamp bio.

Although the band has been playing together since 2022, a self-titled new release March 29 marks Grackles' official album-length debut. They're celebrating with a release show the next night, March 30, at the Continental Club. For Austinites entrenched in Austin's music and food scene, this will be the place to be on Saturday; Band members Jimmy Paxson (drums, touring with The Chicks), Jason Mozersky (guitar, bandmates with Ben Harper), and Noah Lit (guitar/vocals) are merging both worlds, and friends are sure to stop by.

Noah Lit, the project's main songwriter, is best known in music for his role in local group Megafauna; and in food for the bakery Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches, which he owns with his wife, Laura Lit. The two reached a milestone just weeks ago opening a brand-new venture that is higher profile than anything they've pulled off before: reviving the beloved old Contigo space as Redbud Ice House, with the original Contigo owners and local super-chef Michael Fojtasek of Olamaie.

"Well, we get to play here if I can't find another gig, so that's good," joked Lit in an interview with CultureMap in January. The musician-impresario hybrid says it's been easier to get Austin publications to write about food and beer; This editor says, we'll take it all.

Grackles album cover Album cover courtesy of Grackles

This deeply referential blues and Western album has tons of Southern charm that doesn't stop at "country," although that's the genre Lit has been using to describe it so far. The opening track, "It's Coming to Ya," opens with a dark, moody, and even slightly mystical tone. Lit sings in a Nick Cave-like low growl, Paxson lays down a funky clanging groove, and Mozersky gets extra soulful on guitar. All that could be pretty hokey, but under the expert production of Kyle Crusham (Paul Simon), it rides smoothly into a Chihuahan Desert night.

"San Antone," the next song up and the first single the group released (also featuring Charlie Musselwhite and Lauren Harris), is similarly well-suited for a contemporary spaghetti Western. Yet this Texan fantasy comes not from a clueless Italian movie producer, but Lit's actual childhood growing up in San Antonio.

“I wanted to tell a mystical noir story about a San Antonio that only existed in my high school imagination," he said in a press release announcing the single. "San Antonio is about the nicest city one could ever hope to visit, but perhaps there’s a dark witchy undertone; Robert Johnson sold his soul to record in the Gunter Hotel downtown off the Riverwalk, [so] what else could be hiding in its candle lit cobblestone alleys? Having Charlie Musselwhite play harmonica on the track is also a dream come true."

Aside from the Robert Johnson mythology, Lit references legendary singer Roy Orbison, poetic songwriter Leonard Coen, and blues guitarist Alan Wolf. Surely, others would pop up in any conversation with the self-proclaimed "music geek," who really backs up the claim. Although San Antonio inspired the single, the album as a whole nods to Austin's music scene 30 years ago.

"Even [in] 'San Antonio,' you're going down to San Antonio. So you're still coming from Austin," Lit muses. "My original thought was to try to make this a weird concept record about living in Austin in [that] time period... I moved here in '95, and people were complaining that Old Austin is dead. I think it's a kind of a national pastime here to complain about it, but over the past, say, five years, it has really hit a fevered pitch of change."

The track "Near Or Too Far," a simpler blues ballad with more romance and less mysticism, feels truer to the Austin many can relate to now. "Top Of The World," the other single on the record, feels straight out of Willie Nelson's catalog with a lazy vocal duet, languorous pedal steel, and pleasant piano accompaniment. "Grackles Barn Burner" is as described in the title, with extra fuel on the fire thanks to famous guitarist David Grissom, who lent his Austin-bred talents to Joe Ely, the Allman Brothers Band, and Buddy Guy.

There's much more to talk about, from the hopeful, shuffling "Far Away From Nothing" to the odd track out, the surprisingly glam rock-flavored "When I'm Gone"; But frankly, with all these genres and sonic references going by, this album is one Texans will have to listen to themselves — maybe with a friend, to compare notes. And the Continental Club show will be a good place to start.

"I really wanted it to be something [as if] you walked into the Continental or you walked in to C-Boy's, and this band was playing. If you paid attention, you'd think, 'Oh, these are pretty cool songs.' But you could also just sit there and drink your beer and talk to friends," says Lit. "Not that it's background music, but it's bar music, and that's by design. It's just about going out and having a good time, and playing with my friends."

Grackles are playing at Continental Club on March 30 with Pudge Zeppelin and Passiflora. No advance tickets will be made available for the 21+ show, which starts with Grackles at 10 pm. More information is available at continentalclub.com.

Pre-order Grackles on Bandcamp. Find streaming links via DistroKid, and vinyl records at Waterloo Records when they're available.

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Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

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