On Saturday, Cactus in Houston hosted the band Evanescence for a meet-and-greet autograph session, and a live solo performance by Old 97s frontman Rhett Miller. And for all of you who didn’t make it on Saturday – visit your friendly neighborhood record store on Monday … you’ll be surprised what is left over! And of course, I’m there when the good folks at Cactus want to set up a fine in-store performance with free beer. I’d rather go to my hometown independent record store – that’s Cactus Musicin Houston – on a non-special day when I can peruse the stacks of used vinyl at my leisure. These prices are seeming more than ever like a gouge, for limited-edition stuff that most likely winds up on eBay an hour or two later. (Ha ha, that item was long gone by the time I got to the table – we purchased a Mastodon/Flaming Lips 45 single instead, for 10 bucks.)įor me, Record Store Day is starting to lose its charm. Likewise with the longer offerings – I bought a Miles Davis LP with five unreleased songs for $25 … but passed on the Flaming Lips’ The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, a double LP that went for upwards of $35 and which may or may not have contained an autograph from band frontman Wayne Coyne. Seven-inch singles by classic bands like the Byrds and the Small Faces, as well as by current artists like Jack White and the Flaming Lips, reached into the $12 range this year … I found that a bit much to pay for a couple songs on a 45-rpm single. I still have a bit of a hangover from Record Store Dayyesterday … what about you? The fifth annual event, staged to help music fans remember their independent music stores, took place yesterday at record shops across the country, and people walked away with armloads of exclusive, rare vinyl and CD items made just for the occasion.Īs someone who’s faithfully patronized RSD every year since its inception,I found that the asking prices for this year’s exclusive items have gotten a bit steep. Thanks to Bob Knauffor the video.Įvanescence with Amy Lee (far right) showed up to sign autographs for Record Store Day in Houston. YouTube: Ryan Bingham plays an in-store at Waterloo Records, Austin. YouTube: “The Road I’m On,” live at Cactus Music, Houston, Or catch him at another tour stop, click here for a list. If you want to see Bingham with his full band, he plays March 10 in Houston at House of Blues. We didn’t get the surprise treat that Bingham offered the Austin audience, a cover of Robert Earl Keen’s “The Road Goes On Forever.” But you can see it on the YouTube video below, at about the 36:30 mark. The payoff was a rollicking version of early song “Bread and Water” with the lyric “Houston always brings me down” delivered with a big smile from Bingham. The people who really were there for the music were early and up front, one even offered Bingham a swig from his whiskey flask which the singer happily obliged. Bingham seemed to sense this, so his set at Cactus was a bit shorter than the one he performed the day before in Austin.īingham took some time to meet the fans and sign autographs afterward. Still, there were pockets of people who’d rather stand and gab with their bros and ugly girlfriends, instead of relinquishing 30 minutes of attention to this fine artist. People in Houston kill me: this capacity show at the record store (complete with firemen on hand, ostensibly to prevent too many people breaking the fire code) required a purchase and a bit of trouble to enter. “Too Deep To Fill” is perhaps the album’s best song, Bingham’s mission statement of why he’s hitting the road again: “I’m going out to the country/I’m going to see if I can find out why,” while reminding the listener he will won’t stray forever with “I hope to be home by supper time.” “Never Ending Show” is one of his many road songs, declaring “I don’t need the marquee lights/I don’t need my name in lights” while all he wants is to “hopefully make it home.” At the in-store on Friday, Bingham stripped the songs down to their acoustic underpinnings but the boy’s a heck of a guitar player, so they rocked nevertheless. Tomorrowland, Bingham’s fourth studio album, is a bit of a rocker that’s earned good reviews. This was a bit of a homecoming for Bingham, because he spent his high school years in Houston before taking off to join the rodeo circuit. There’s Ryan Bingham in Houston, back there with the gimme cap.īingham is, of course, the Academy Award-winning writer and singer of “The Weary Kind,” from the movie Crazy Heart, and the latest in a long line of fine singer-songwriters of the Texas tradition.
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