Tje Austin

Good ol' Free Week. I didn't want to write a recap, but a lot of people asked me if I was going to. So here I am, but I'll keep this brief.

Here's a quick list of bands I saw during Free Week: The Midgetmen, Franny & Zooey, Tactics, Oh Look Out, The Couch, The Nouns, Hour Band, Technicolor Hearts, Black Books, Marmalakes, Stereo is a Lie, missions, and The Tontons. I also saw Tje Austin, but his show wasn't officially part of Free Week.

Best performance of the week (because everyone kept asking me...): Hmm, that's a tough one. I saw a lot of great shows, but I guess the one that sticks out in my mind is definitely Franny & Zooey. This is Eric Green's (formally of Riverboat Gamblers and I followed him for my We Are The Lottery League story) new band. It's just him on drums and Mrs. Glass (real name: Jordan Webster) on guitar and vocals playing blues. Think The Black Keys but way way WAY better. I caught the end of the set, because set times for Free Week were frustrating, but that's another blog post for another day, but what I did catch was awesome. I will sit down with these guys in the future and tell you more about them. That plan is already in motion.

Honorable Mentions: Marmalakes, Black Books, Equals, Tactics and Sorne

The "It's About Time I Finally Saw This Band" Award: The Nouns. I interviewed them almost a year ago (You can read that article here). Timing just never worked out so I made sure to check them out this week. I wasn't disappointed as I dug their grungy garage rock. Singer/guitar Travis Beall's huge grin on his face just added more to the show. They even threw tamales at the crowd. I'm a fan.

Other bands I caught that I've been meaning to see: Oh Look Out, Hour Band and Zorch

Below you can check out the photos I took during the week, including a stupid amount of Equals. Sheesh. This is becoming a problem. I did take photos of Zorch, but they're on my friend's camera.

In case you aren't aware by all the Christmas lights around town, Christmas is coming (in exactly one week in fact)! And several Austin bands have released Christmas tunes to bring in that holiday cheer.

I haven't listened to that many Christmas tunes this year, because I, for one, am tired of Christmas music. It's a result when your former boss kept her radio on all day to whatever station plays Christmas tunes 24/7 from the Monday after Thanksgiving to Christmas day. There's only much Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera trying to outdiva each other a girl can take, you know what I'm saying?

But these Christmas tunes prevent me from acting like Scrooge.

First up is Little Lo's "Toyland" as part of Skank Family Collective & Chinquapin Records Presents: A Holiday Charity Jungler). Vocalist/guitarist Ryan McGill takes a step back as vocalist/keyboardist Bailey Glover takes over lead vocal duties in this dreamy lullaby. Makes me want to break out the eggnog and yearn for snow.

I love this Zorch interpretation of "Last Christmas." This song, originally written and performed by '80s duo Wham!, is usually covered in the pop world (Glee, Ashley Tisdale, etc.), but Zorch brings in their interesting style. This may be the best version ever, at least in my opinion.

Kris Keyz, professional pianist (you can see him perform with Tje Austin), released "Kris KeyZ Productions Presents: This Christmas" with 10 tracks of traditional Christmas tunes sung by local musicians.
Edited: The album was free to stream and download for a limited time. Contact Kris if you would like a copy.

Speaking of Tje Austin, he will perform with Nakia at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 at Zilker Park's Hillside Theatre. They will perform Christmas songs at this FREE show.

And SPEAK released an interactive SPEAKMAS card. So break out the artistic skills and doodle away here. It's in realtime too.

They are also selling a limited edition SPEAKMAS Singing Greeting Card which plays a SPEAK rendition of "O Holy Night," and the cover was drawn by guitarist Nick Hurt himself.

See? Isn't that cute?

I don't have a tune to share, but The Shears posted on Facebook on Dec. 11 that they are working on a Christmas tune. Come on guys and gal, stop the teasin' and get to releasin'. There's not much time left!

Added: A little bit after I posted this blog post, I got an email from Mobley with a Christmas tune of their own. Here's a video with 2/3 of the band, Anthony Watkins and Tim Shelburne, performing Wham!'s "Last Christmas." You can download a copy of the single here.

I can’t believe 2011 is already coming to an end. Where does the time go? 2011 was an interesting year for sure. I’m not a fan of top 10 lists, mainly because it’s hard for me to rank anything, so instead here are some highlights.

Bittersweet goodbye: SPEAK for a Year
Yep, the project that took over my life in 2010 is finally over. And it’s weird. On one hand, I’m sad. It’s like an end of an era. When I held that issue in my hands for the first time, I felt like I had just given birth and then gave the baby up for adoption. I put so much into this project that now that it’s done, I don’t know what to do with myself. On the other hand, I’m happy it’s done. I finally got to show the result of all that hard work and now I can move on. Although, who are we kidding? I will never move on from this band.

But I’ve been thinking about this… those that know me know that whenever I discovered a new-ish local band, I tend to cling to them and basically become their biggest cheerleader. It usually starts with an interview. Then I get the CD and that CD just becomes a drug that I can’t get enough of. Then I start going to as many shows as I can.

This has happened on many occasions with Firekills, The Drawing Board, Bankrupt and the Borrowers, Fireants, Oliver Future and most recently, SPEAK.

You can tell who my latest “baby band” is, which I mean in the most endearing way possible, by the sheer fact that I won’t shut up about them. Could be worse. If it weren’t for these bands, I would probably annoy my friends with conversations about Hanson and Glee (although, this season of Glee has been very hit or miss).

So basically what I’m saying is that since I’ve cover the local music beat for almost nine years (geezus), I’ve seen a lot of bands’ first shows, gotten their first EPs and full-lengths and gave them their first interviews. I’ve kept up with their growth afterwards.

SPEAK for a Year was the first time I documented this trend of mine extensively. Yeah, it’s over and I’ll still attend SPEAK shows when I can and turn into a fangirl whenever they release anything new, but there will always be a new band that grabs my attention.

On that note…

Best band discovery: Equals
As I mentioned in my post about them here, I was not expecting much from this assignment. I thought it was going to be in and out. I interview the band. I write the story. I move on.

Instead, I found myself listening to the album a lot. I hung out with the members a couple of times (of course, it didn’t help that the drummer ended up in one of my classes). And I ended up going to a lot of their shows. It felt like I was slowly starting Equals for a Year, because after all, that’s how SPEAK for a Year started, but I’m not. Though who knows… 2012 hasn’t started yet.

But all this was a complete surprise to me. It wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t create such damn good music and gave me one of the most entertaining interviews I did this year. This instrumental band won over a generally pop-centric music fan. That’s a big deal, y’all.

Getting my associate degree
I also didn’t expect to say I’m an ACC graduate this year. Hell, I didn’t expect to say I’m a college graduate, period. But I am and I’m the first in my dad’s immediate family to do so. It’s a pretty good feeling.

This only happened because always-curious me happened to glance at my degree audit and saw that I only needed one class to get a degree. Shoot, I’ve come this far, might as well go all the way.

I went to advising to see what I needed to take. I applied for graduation and now I have an actual college diploma. It’s insane to think I finally have a degree. Better late than never, right?

My family didn’t get to celebrate this achievement as much as we would have liked because immediately afterwards, I had to pack before I left for PCF11 the next day.

PCF11
When one door closes, another one opens. I applied for TCCJA’s Journalist of the Year award towards the end of the spring semester. The chosen one receives a 10-week paid summer internship for the Corpus Christi’s Caller Times. And I was devastated when I didn’t win.

But weeks later, I discovered I was one of the 30 journalism college students picked to study at Poynter Institute’s 2011 College Fellowship (PCF11) in St. Petersburg, FL. Whoa. I still remember when I got the email. I was waiting at the bus stop to start my day of interviews when my phone informed me “You got mail.”

I was in shock that I just put my phone back in my purse and told myself I’ll deal with this later. My main concern was figuring how on earth was I going to pay for this fellowship. It was a lot of money. But thanks to the support of my family and friends, I got there and had enough money to take care of all my expenses.

But we all know the rest of the story. I met 21 BFFs for life and spent two of the best weeks of my life. I’m ready to go back. I definitely miss the fellows and free coffee.

But mostly the fellows.

Backbeat Magazine
Being an editor for Backbeat Magazine was… an experience, but I learned from that experience, and it was nice to hold that debut issue in my hand knowing I had a huge part in putting that together. Not many people can say that.

Plus it came out sooooo pretty!

Good job team.

NBC’s The Voice
I briefly watched the first season of American Idol with Kelly Clarkson, but that’s where it ended with singing competitions for me. So when I found out my then-roommate, Tje Austin, was going to be on NBC’s The Voice, I tuned in to see him. Of course, the moment Karissa found out, I was assigned to write a story. Tje welcomed the opportunity.

Once the show started, I found myself immersed it. Because there were other Austin contestants, it seemed that a lot of people were talking about the show too. Tje and I would have intellectual conversations (and sometimes debates) after each episode, and we became more than just roommates. We became good friends. Aww.

Through him I interviewed other contestants, including the winner himself, Javier Colon, who by the way is one of the nicest guys ever. My favorite memory from that interview was watching him catch up with Tje on the phone.

I witnessed how this show affected Tje and his music career and yes, an article is coming about that. Mainly because I’ve had to tell the same story over and over again when people find out. “Your roommate was on The Voice!?! What was it like?” It was pretty awesome.

Becoming a Bobcat again
So I’ll be honest. I was not supposed to start at Texas State this semester. I hadn’t applied for financial aid, because I was still waiting for the school to accept me back. ACC took forever to send my transcript. I made them wait until my final grade came in after graduation in May, but still I think it took over a month for Texas State to get my transcript and process it.

As soon as I got accepted, I rushed through the financial aid, advising AND registration process. Luckily, they still had money so close to the first day of classes to cover my tuition. The catch was that I had to enroll in a minimum of 12 hours, which I hadn’t done in a very long time.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep this semester and pushed my coffee addiction to the limit that I might seriously need to enroll in CA, but I adjusted accordingly.

Meeting Jason Dohring
I MET JASON DOHRING! And his face was super close to mine! Ah-maz-ing.

That weekend was seriously the best weekend of my life for sure. I don’t need to rehash that here though. You can read my nerdy blog post here.

Hanson

Yes, I finally saw Hanson perform live at this year’s SXSW, which you can read here. Fifteen-year-old Sarah is very happy about that.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

I can’t believe I almost forgot to include this movie on this list. I freaking love this movie. I first saw it during SXSW and seem to watch it every chance I get. A lot of journalists’ dream is to write for the New York Times. I know it’s one of mine. It’s the freaking New York Times.

And watching this movie gave me hope for the future of journalism during its current state of evolution. Journalists aren’t one-trick ponies anymore. We have to know how to do more than just write an article, thanks to the Internet. So this film gave me some hope.

But seriously, any journalism nerd will love this movie. I love getting that peek behind the curtain, seeing the reporters conduct interviews just like I do: waiting for sources to call back, trying to get them to open up, balancing the phone between their ear and shoulder while they type their notes as quickly as they can (spelling errors and all) during phone interviews.

They’re people just like us. The difference here is that they work for the New York Times.

Albums of the Year (in no particular order):
Mother Falcon “Alhambra”
Sphynx “Human Beast”
SPEAK “I Believe in Everything”
Equals "Equals”
Marmalakes “Even Clothed”
Final Exam “Final Exam”
Payne “Late Night Thoughts”
Quiet Company “We Are All Where We Belong”
The Couch “Old and Touchin’ Blue”
The Nouns “Party With The Nouns” (This also wins Best Album Cover.)

The roommate, Tje Austin, is battling with Austin singer Nakia in tonight's episode. So I'm going to tweet during the show. No, I don't know if he wins. No matter how much I pry, the boy keeps his lips shut. Stay on this page to see my thoughts below or just follow me on Twitter. :) This should be interesting.

EDIT: Live tweeting is done. Here are the tweets:

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Ahh! It's time! #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
I have to admit. I'm behind on the episodes. I've only see the first episode because I had class. I need to catch up. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
I sat next to @tjeaustinmusic when we watch his blind audition on TV. There was a lot of cheering and laughing involved. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
@tjeaustinmusic I'm so jealous you met her! #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Aww I'm nervous for you @tjeaustinmusic #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Here we go... #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
I gotta give props to @Nakia for singing this song. Tje seems more natural for this song, but Nakia is definitely working it. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Haha. @tjeaustinmusic just blushed. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Come on Cee Lo! ah, what a tease! #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
My heart seriously just stopped. Haha! I'm way too invested in this show. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
@tjeaustinmusic, your friends went to the show to support you!? And I stil didn't realize you were gone. Geez. #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
And we're back #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Come on @tjeaustinmusic #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Oh no. :( #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
Congrats @nakia! #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
@tjeaustinmusic, you know I'll still root for you. Does that mean the paparazzi will leave our house alone? ;) #thevoice
1 hour ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
I do find it funny that @tjeaustinmusic wouldn't tell me if he would move on or not. #thevoice
55 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
But he would also say things like "IF I were to move on, I would probably leave..." I was totally not expecting the outcome. #thevoice
54 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
However, @VicciMartinez made it the next round! I interviewed her in 2009. http://tinyurl.com/3w8va7f #thevoice
51 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
@tjeaustinmusic I bet you're relieved now. :)
50 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
What's awesome is that @tjeaustinmusic left for a month to do this show and I never noticed. I figured he was touring. Ha. #thevoice
46 minutes ago

@michaelcorcoran michaelcorcoran
by sarahmvasquez
Nakia beats fellow Austinite Tje Austin in the Voice battle round. Love Nakia, but I would've picked Tje.
42 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
BTW @tjeaustinmusic, I bought a shirt with your face on it. That's gonna be weird around the house. http://tinyurl.com/6jyyod6 #thevoice
37 minutes ago

@sarahmvasquez Sarah M. Vasquez
.@LisaKCarter just texted me: "MY roommate is freaking out about how YOUR roommate gave her chills." Nice! #thevoice
16 minutes ago

Here’s the latest news from my inbox.

Tonight is the first of four nights of the Echotone premiere. I saw this film during the Austin Film Festival back in September, and instantly fell in love with it. No surprise as it’s about our local music scene. Seriously, if you can see one of the screenings, go see it. It's beautifully shot and showcases from our favorites bands in Austin.

If you haven’t seen the trailer by now, here you go.



Click here to purchase tickets.

Zlam Dunk has a chance to win an Unsigned Artist Competition. But in order to win, they have to get the most votes. Usually I don’t promote these competitions, because we all know it’s a popularity contest, but what the hell, right?

This competition could earn them a chance to perform in front of some very important people in the music biz. Now you wouldn’t want to deny them that, right?

Zlam is up against other Austin bands such as Dertybird, Fulton Read and Schmillion. Click this link to vote.

Then a reminder that the roommate Tje Austin will make his debut on NBC’s The Voice at 8 p.m. on Tuesday (April 26). Sadly, I have class that night, and if this class wasn’t needed for graduation, I would just skip. Damn responsibilities. Hopefully, my professor will be understand and let me miss.

In the meantime, check out this preview about one of the judges, Cee-Lo, that also features our afro-sporting R&B singer.

Then... Motel Aviv (one of my favorite bands) is finally releasing their album, Post Modern Nation. I’m so excited about this. I first saw them during Free Week for a Red River Noise showcase and they just won all of us over. It’s incredibly hard to resist dancing to that bass line.

The album will be released through online stores (iTunes and Amazon) on April 26, but the album release show is May 6 at Beauty Bar with synth-pop Sphynx.

RSVP on this Do512 page for a $5 cover and a chance to win a free copy of the album. Again, I can’t wait to listen to it. I’m pretty sure it’s going to get a great review from me. :)

And last but not least, here’s a free album download:
Free mixtape from the Manateam Group
Enjoy.

So the roommate Tje Austin has been teasing me about this new show premiering on NBC called The Voice. I don’t know details as he's being hush hush about it, but I do know he auditioned for it.

Basically, the show features four judges, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine (Maroon 5), and Cee Lo Green with host Carson Daly, who will decide which up-and-coming singers will make it to the next level. The catch is that they will sit with their backs against the singer, so they will only judge by the voice.

This should be interesting. Again, I don’t know details, but I can say that everyone needs to catch the premiere on April 26 to see how Tje did. Gotta represent our Austin musicians!

Here’s a track from his upcoming album called “City of Me.” What do you think? Think Tje has "the voice?" Yeah, I totally went there.

Here's an endearing song about our Live Music Capital of the World from my roommate Tje Austin. Not many people know that I share a house with this R&B (yes, Austin isn't just about the rock music) singer, but I do. One of the perks? Hearing him practice in his room.

Anyway, Tje had the pleasure of performing during Austin's New Year party this past weekend and shared the stage with bands such as Mother Falcon and Charanga Cakewalk. He ended his set with this new song of his called "City of Me." Check it out.