Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 51

Wednesday, March 15, 1995 Television B10 Theater, opera E10 Awards show promises true diversity' 'fy fcg 2 By Michael Point Special to the American-Statesman "And the winner Well, you'll have to be there to find out. "There" is Palmer Auditorium, and the winners are the chosen honorees of the Austin Chronicle's readers polL The 13th annual Austin Music Awards Show, the local music scene's high-profile celebration of itself, is regarded as the kick-off event for South by Southwest, but it actually predates the festival. It also exists in its own entertainment universe, goffering fans and musicians 'alike unusual insights into the "Austin musical mindset. Longtime promotermanager and all-around music business entrepreneur Louis Meyers is the event's music director, and he promises an entertaining, and possibly even enlightening, evening. Meyers, a SXS co-founder, believes the show provides a solid sampler of the local scene.

"The lineup is a good representation of the true diversity of the Austin music scene," Meyers said. "It not only has a wide variety of music styles with everything from country to jazz to alternative rock, plus a few acts you can't put a label on it also has a cross section of experience. Some of the acts have decades of professional experience, and others are just beginning to make a name for themselves." KUT-FM disc jockey Paul Ray, career, and legendary Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez, a Grammy winner on his own and with the Texas Tornados, will supply more back-to-the-basics sounds. Jimenez will be joined by guest Radney Foster. Kathy McCarty, a guiding light with the late, great Glass Eye, will showcase songs from her album Dead Dog's Eyeball, a celebration of the songs of Daniel Johnston, who will do a guest stint.

Charlie Sexton, on the cusp of yet another career quantum leap wkh the release of his Under the Wishing Tree album, will lead his Sextet in a preview of his free Friday outdoor set. Singer Toni Price, backed by the all-star trio of Champ Hood, Jud Newcomb and Rich Brother-ton, is a pleasantly pervasive presence on the local club circuit whose performance should be a highlight. Storyville, powered by singer Malford Milligan's soulful voice and the twin guitars of David Holt and David Grissom with the Double Trouble rhythm section thundering along underneath, remains one of the city's most obvious picks for fame and fortune. Not far behind is Sinco-. la, no longer an Austin secret with the recent release of What the Nothinghead Said.

The evening's final act will be Ed Hall, the unapologetically alternative trio whose upcoming La La Land album could well serve as its springboard to national prominence. outside the awards show, while others some for calculated effect and others because they sincerely don't care will simply put on whatever is handy. Despite the fashion parade, it's still a music event. Trumpeter Martin Banks, arguably Austin's most accomplished jazz artist, will open the show. Banks returned to Austin in 1988 after a globe-trotting jazz career that included work with the Apollo Theatre house band and Motown Records.

Banks will be followed by a couple of energetic individual 1 performers; Hamell on Trial, a solo show of visceral post-punk folk, and Mary Cutrufello, an engaging singer whose sound successfully straddles country, rock and soul. Bandera's Robert Earl Keen, primarily known as a songwriter despite his own recording Sincola, pictured at Antone's during the Austin Music Awards Show. The Photo by Kevin Virobik-Adams one of the groups performing tonight at release of What the Nothinghead Said. last year's South by Southwest, will be band recently raised its profile with the senters, although since this is Austin the celebrities will be a little different. The more prominent among them are musicians such as Jimmie Vaughan and Arthur Brown, Slacker director Richard Linklater, and an assortment of radio personalities, including Jody Denberg, Andy Langer and Rachel Marisay SXSW repeats major est screenings the event's "emcee for life," will again attempt to provide a semblance of structure to the festivities, ushering the performers on and off stage and supervising the presentation of the awards.

He'll have humorous help from comic Kerry Awn. As in any awards show, there also will be celebrity award pre- Daniel Johnston 10:15 Charlie Sexton Sextet 10:50 Toni Price 11:10 Storyville 11:40 Sincola midnight Ed Hall Music Awards schedule Here's the performance schedule for tonight's Austin Music Awards Show at Palmer Auditorium. The show starts promptly, but long-winded acceptance speeches from award winners between sets usually push the later performances into the wee hours. General admission tickets are available for $12.50 at Star Tickets or for a dollar more at the door. 5:15 p.m.

j. documentary take, try George Plutonium Circus, a vivid depiction of between opposing sides on the debate of the Department of Energy's plant outside of Amarillo. at 5:30 p.m., the Luis Bunuel retrospective continues with Abismos de Pasion. Michael MacCambridge Today at the South by Southwest Film Festival are repeats of major special screenings. Tim Roth is a gangster in Little Odessa (Dobie, 10 p.m.), a film that played to mostly positive reviews at Sundance.

Also on tap: Kim Henkel's positively received Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Village, 7:30 p.m.) and Denys Arcand's quirky Love and Human Remains (Village, 9:30 p.m.). Also showing tonight is Hector Galan's Te-jano musical documentary Songs of the Home Then there's the audience and its infamous manicdepressive take on musical fashions. Although the sartorial surrealism has subsided somewhat in recent years, there's still massive entertainment value to be had in plain old-fashioned people-watching. Some will be wearing outfits that will never be seen ticipate. (Not that one could hear any bass within the clatter of the Erwin's nightmare acoustics.) Though Page was plainly the driving force when Zeppelin began, and Plant subsequently has enjoyed a more popularly and crit OPENS DONTMIZOUT! land (Dobie, For a wryer Ratliff 's the battle over the fate Pantex nuclear At the Union A house Plant turn Erwin Center Coverdale, former Whitesnake singer and would-be Plant clone.

"There's a man up there with a Coverdale-Page T-shirt, Jim, and he keeps pointing to it," said Plant. "He must be the one who bought one." 7:55 Martin Banks 8:20 Hamell on Trial 8:45 Mary Cutrufello 9:05 Robert Earl Keen 9:20 Flaco Jimenez with Radney Foster 9:55 Kathy McCarty with Page and BYhDON McLeese American-Statesman Staff Half a Zep is better than none. Ateast that was the popular consensus Monday at the Erwin where singer Robert Plant and gujtarist Jimmy Page, formerly the front line for Led Zeppelin, played an adventurous and ultimately triumphant show on their firt tour together in 14 years. While acknowledging the original band's overwhelming popularity and pervasive influence (on everything from heavy metal and Seattle grunge to world music), this reviewer found the '90s incarnation considerably more interesting than that of the '70s. After all, the sort of excess that so many downer-chomping zombies hailed as "heavy" a couple of decades ago, some of us simply found turgid.

Whole Lotta Love was more like a whole lotta bombast, put to the service of a man squealing; about his genitalia. Having buried that band along iTheater Dance 397-1450 AusTix Mi into holy ically acclaimed post-Zep career, the balance of power between the two seems to have evened out over the course of this tour. Plant, however, got the last laugh when he spied a souvenir from Page's ill-fated partnership with David 3-4 '4 1 the Egyptian percussion and the wash of strings. Throughout the evening, Page played riffmaster rather than solo exhibitionist, wbrking with second guitarist Porl Thompson (formerly of the Cure) to create textures against which Plant could unleash his pan-sexual wail. Instead of the brain-searing licks of old, Page turned one blues exercise into an abstract tone poem, a look-ma-no-hands lesson in feedback.

Where Dazed and Confused once took Led Zeppelin more than 30 minutes just to get warmed up, a snippet of the signature jam was dismissed at the Erwin in less than 30 seconds. At the other extreme, Gallows Pole began as part of the obligatory "unplugged" interlude, but built to an electrifying climax with the return of the full band. The rhythm section was the same as on Plant's last tour, bassist Charlie Jones and drummer Michael Lee, since original Zep bassist John Paul Jones wasn't invited to par Concert review with original drummer John Bon-ham in 1980, PlantPage showed little interest in lumbering through the dinosaur's graveyard of revivalism. Instead, they committed themselves to exploring and extending some of their more vital musical impulses. The Middle Easternisms that had been Implicit on the original band's definitive recordings became explicit at the Erwin with the addition of the Egyptian ensemble four percussionists, four violinists who joined with the local strings recruited at each stop on the tour (a dozen and a half members of the Austin Symphony at the Erwin) to build a wall of sound that stretched toward the heavens.

While Four Sticks, for example, was a minor slice of Zep on album, it was a tour de force at the Erwin, with Page's 12-string guitar providing propulsive counterpoint to He's coming to Austin! And he wants to see you! 1 by Pul Rudntek "The funniest play of this season and maybe last season, too." Frank Rich, New York Times "Explicit, provocative, and hilarious." New York Magazine MARCH 1 -APRIL 8 TUES. 8 P.M.; SELECTED SUNDAYS, 3 P.M. Complimantary Buffet Wads. Thurs. 7:16 p.m.

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