THE DELI

Local Music IS Sexy.  I can emphatically confirm this statement.  Friday’s local music night at the Mohawk was insanely entertaining.  I love all things Austin, but what was special about the night was the crowd.  Young hipsters, band geeks, and all those in between – like myself – all set the tone for a fun evening.
 
Going in, not knowing too much about the artists performing, I was pleasantly surprised with the caliber of the lineup.  Starting with the Minor Mishap Marching Band (above) and their grand entrance down the stairs and onto the stage like a funeral procession in New Orleans, I knew I was in for a treat.  Their melange of a marching band was like a French Bat Mitzvah, a Gypsy festival, a Cirque Du Soleil performance and they left me smiling and satisfied.  My cohort commented, "Have I seen them on Sesame Street?  I mean that in the BEST way!"
 
I haven’t listened to PIL in a long time, but when manikin hit the stage, they brought the angst and pissed off charm of a Jon Lydon that I loved.  Vocals were limited, like a Devo, but there was lots of reverb and LOUD bass that blasted the Mohawk when they hit the stage.  With a one man horn section, a sexy and talented woman drummer, lots of in your face rock and roll, manikin is a show not to missed. 
 
I made my way inside to catch Silent Land Time Machine.  A recent graduate of UT who has captured the young club scene.  Spinning decks relentlessly all the while playing over with his electric violin.  A unique blend of dance and experimental beats…
 
On to International Waters.  Buddy Holly vs. Weezer.  Ocean Blue vs. The Lightning Seeds.  Their sensibilities are similar and that’s a positive thing.  Lots of "anthemy" songs, but I would have liked a real break out tune.
 
TV Torso!  I am in love!  The best musicians I have seen always make their work look easy.  These guys are so tight, but relaxed and look like they are truly enjoying themselves.  A three piece band that…wait for it….sound to me like a modern version of the Everly Brothers with harmonies to die for and songs so catchy you find yourself dancing and humming along.  These guys could be playing for 10 or 10,000, it wouldn’t matter, their heart and souls were evident in every beat.  Definitely my favorite of the night!
 
I found at the end of the night that not only is Local Music Sexy, it’s really freaking good, too.  The lineup was stellar.  I was so impressed, I got online to look up bio information. I had to quench my music crushes.  The Mohawk was a great host, too.  The weather, the lights, the smell of cloves for God’s sake, made the night unique and special, but the fantastic music – that’s what I’ll remember. 

–Ellen Green

The Sad Accordions have bravely taken on the latest iteration of The Deli’s Five Questions, results are below…the Accordions play Emo’s Wednesday night the 11th in the company of Lake. Maybe you’ll hear "In My Tree"…

The Back to the Future/Butterfly Effect Question: You can travel back to 1955 and teach a local band one song: what do you teach them?
Our drummer Nathaniel has finally seen the light, and that light is called Pearl Jam! He’s all about spreading the gospel according to vedder to any time period, so he’d be teaching the kids "In My Tree" from Pearl Jam’s best record, No Code. Ben wanted to push the envelope a little further by playing "Teenage Riot" by Sonic Youth for them… "Thurston! This is your cousin… Marvin… Marvin Moore! You gotta hear this man…"
Best compliment you’ve ever gotten, on your music or otherwise?
 There’s this guy who will often drive up from San Antonio to see us play, on a fairly regular basis. We think that’s pretty weird, but it’s a huge compliment. Thanks Cullen!
Also, our moms all think we’re very handsome.
If you could get one local guest star on your next album, who would you pick?
 Monahans! The whole lot of em! (Rocky Erickson would be pretty cool though…)
Best breakfast in Austin?
Tamale House, without a doubt.
This set of questions made me ________.
a hungry slacker.

Let’s not get too lengthy with the preludes here and just cut right to the Q & A we were lucky enough to collect from recent poll winners The Tiny Tin Hearts. Take it away, Hearts…

You can travel back to 1955 and teach a local band one song: what do you teach them?

Assuming this would be a Tiny Tin Hearts song, perhaps, "Love and Jet Engines". I think that it could shake up some suburbia folks that felt like 1955 was the golden age of America. Maybe confuse the rebels who knew better, a little, too…

Best compliment you’ve ever gotten, on your music or otherwise?

Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top) once said in his Billy Gibbons voice, "Man, that’s a dirty guitar." He didn’t mean "dirty", as in a distorted tone, but dirty as in filthy. It needed to be cleaned, so I’ve been making more of an effort to clean the thing, once in a while. I guess that’s more of a comment…

If you could get one local guest star on your next album, who would you pick?

Doug Sahm, without a doubt! Of course, if that were to happen, we might be pretty frightened, as well…

Best breakfast in Austin?

That’s asking for a full-out fist fight within the band! There’s a great place way East on Burleson Rd, called El Meson. It’s well overlooked, but if you do stop, you won’t regret it.

This set of questions made me:

…even more neurotic than I was before this set of questions.

…The Tiny Tin Hearts’ debut The Last Flight of the Martyr Aviator is available now. They are currently at work on new songs & plan to return to the studio in spring (when the world is mud-luscious, as some say).

We here at the Deli Austin are extraordinarily proud to present the first in our series of features profiling Austin venues. Our writer Resalin Rago brings us installment one, focused on the Red River hotspot the Mohawk, which you may call a hipster hangout at your own peril. Photos by Frances Lin.

A wooden sign hanging above the bar at the Mohawk reads “All are Welcome.” The motto, explained owner James Moody, is directed at artists. “Austin, having so much talent coming through, didn’t need to take that extra step. There were things in Austin that weren’t being done and we wanted to fill in gaps," Moody said. “When we started, the interactive scene wasn’t there. No one was using social networking on websites and there were no Green Rooms for artists to chill and relax before the show. ”

Bored at his desk job, Moody left the health care industry to open a club, soon christened The Mohawk, on Red River. The investors decided to build next to Club De Ville, hoping to piggyback off the elder’s success. Club De Ville had established itself (nine years prior to Mohawk’s opening night) as a strong rival against Stubbs, one block down the street. While the trifecta now compete against each other for bookings, they are reviving the downtown entertainment district that had grown quiet.

On a late summer afternoon, Mohawk co-managers Adrian Ace San Miguel and Renee Stokes tell me stories about the club between puffs of a shared Camel cigarette. The Camel sales rep loves the club so its patrons and employees have no problem sating their nicotine craving. They finish smoking and take me on a tour of the property.

We climb narrow wooden stairs off to the right of the indoor stage. Before coming into the Green Room, I pause to read Neil Young lyrics painted in Old English font:

My, my, hey, hey,
Rock & Roll is here to stay.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away.
My, my, hey, hey.

Public access to the Green Room Lounge is determined by the generosity of the headlining band, which is why it’s “open most of the time.” (This pertains to the venue as well since its doors open only if a band is playing on one of its two stages). A green light over 10th St. summons revelers into a room with walls the color of mowed grass. During late afternoons, however, the wooden floors don’t groan under footsteps or shake from the amps blasting below. The vintage Seeburg Stereo 160 jukebox is left alone. At these moments, the music is gone, and with it, the debauchery, lewdness, and unexpected rollicking antics of artists and Austinites cashing in on cheap prices and free cigarettes. All is quiet.

But here is where Too Short left with female co-eds and tequila bottle in hand. Here is where Michael Stipe (REM) supposedly puked his guts out.

“[Stipe] needed to go to the bathroom,” Moody said. “He was on the roof deck and it was jam packed with people so I asked an employee, an ex-Marine, to help Stipe. Not knowing that Stipe is a frail, nervous guy—grabs him and says ‘Come with me dude.’ He puts [him] in a headlock and starts yelling: ‘He’s gonna puke! He’s gonna puke!’ The crowd cleared out and Stipe got to the bathroom. For the longest time, the rumor was that Michael Stipe puked in the Green Room at the Mohawk.”

Stokes and San Miguel point out the new canopy, all of the re-claimed wood and metal, and new soundsystem. “What I like about working here is that rather than take home a paycheck, the owners re-invest back into the club,” San Miguel said. “I worked at Emo’s for five years and they still have the same shitty, broken toilet.”

While Moody is not the sole owner (Mike Terraza is another), he is responsible for crafting and maintaining Mohawk’s personality through design, social networking, and booking (Transmission Entertainment). Mohawk dabbles in different music genres as evidenced by its eclectic lineup. However, its taste prefers underground and emerging bands over the mainstream. The crowd that warms the white swivel stools in the lounge on a regular basis didn’t buy tickets to Cracker a month ago. They choose skinny jeans over pleated khakis. They are clever enough to appreciate the clashing interior decor motifs—the stuffed animals heads hanging over a retro couch, yellow-gold frames gilding portraits of woodsmen with coiffed facial hair. They read blogs, or have one. They listened to Bon Iver before he made it on the Where the Wild Things soundtrack and they probably stood in line at the Alamo Drafthouse to see the film opening night. Of course their taste in music is above average. They are, after all, hipsters.

It’s a stereotype Moody opposes.

“We were a hipster location at first but that faded,” Moody said. "Our scene is based on events. We don’t have hipsters, but Austin music heads.”

Mohawk may not be a hipster scene, but it’s hip to be seen there.

–Resalin Rago

The Boxing Lesson ran away with our latest poll and shall shortly bask in the rectangle above as late October champions. Congrats! Now (or soon) awaiting your decision are our current nominees, Corto Maltese (pictured above), Drew Smith’s Lonely Choir, Matt the Electrician, The Low Lows, and TV Torso – those last two will be entertaining you this coming Friday at Local Music is Sexy. We do hope the serious business of being pitted against one another in the Deli Artist Poll will not make things tense at LMIS.

Looking forward to the FFF-related annual event Local Music Is Sexy, taking place over in the Red River hip zone of the Mohawk and Club de Ville on November the 6th (that’s next Friday). It does seem sexy this year, as it includes TV Torso,The Low Lows, International Waters, Watch Out for Rockets, Beautiful Supermachines, Air Traffic Controllers, Distant Seconds, Silent Land Time Machine, Black Before Red, Manikin, The Authors, My Milky Way Arms, and Minor Mishap Marching Band. We here pay verbal fealty to the organizing force Austinist, who’ve put together a good one. The Deli will be represented & we’ll report back for those who miss out…

…and that very nifty photo collage above, of TV Torso, is by Tim Murray

We are fast approaching All Hallow’s Eve, which coincides neatly with the end of our poll; at this point, The Boxing Lesson is resting easy out front. If you’re a fan of Death is Not a Joyride, Single Frame, The Lovely Sparrows, or When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, then take a moment away from the body-painting you’ve settled on as this year’s costume, and vote!

But, when the lord closes a poll, he opens a blog: wanted to remind the bands out there that our Open Blog remains, well, open. Check it out here, and post up news, bios, what have you about your own band or a band that is near and dear to you (so long as they’re Austin-based) using this form right here. We will quite often pull posts over to our main blog.

A Mr. Ben Kweller will play the Pablove benefit tonight at Emo’s; if there’s a more unimpeachably good cause out there, I don’t know of it. You want to hear some extraordinarily good music while feeling extraordinarily good about the money changing hands? Head on down.

Mr. Kweller recently returned to his home state of Texas, to the city of Austin, after a nine-year exile in New York. He released Changing Horses early this year to mucho acclaimo. Austin is happy to have him.

It’s a matter of some debate whether they are Major Major or Major Major Major; we’re also wondering if the name derives from the Catch-22 character – it must, yeah? – who was, in fact, Major Major Major Major. No matter how many times you say it, they’ll be at Red 7 this Tuesday, accompanied by Wine & Revolution and the Seattle band Black Whales.

Following what we’re calling the opening acts of Dinosaur Jr. and Built to Spill (they both show potential), Austin’s own Midgetmen will take the stage at Stubb’s this Saturday the 24th. You get in free with your ticket to Dino Jr./BTS. Some may call this an ‘afterparty’, but then again, some say "sofa" when they mean "couch". Some are just plain crazy.