FOUNDERS’ KEEPERS: Straight Outta Austin, Seattle, and Beyond

I left Austin, the town where my family moved when I was 4 years old, three times in the 1980s. That was for summer internships (in California, New York, and Alaska), and I knew I’d be back. But even then, it was often hard to be away from a music community that had become my tribe. When I left in 1991, I knew it was a much longer-term departure, though I did wonder if I might be back someday. That happened in 2014, when I returned to write about music for the Austin American-Statesman. A year ago this month, I left the Statesman; when we moved to California shortly after, I knew I was likely leaving Austin for the last time.

But the city’s music will always be a part of me. One of my first writing assignments in California was reviewing Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday bash in Hollywood, and if you saw my first two Founders’ Keepers columns for No Depression, you probably noticed a couple of Austin or Austin-associated acts in the mix each time. That continues with November’s batch, which includes three records straight outta the Live Music Capital.

Harvest Thieves — As the Sparks Fly Upward

Those of us who go out to see lots of music in clubs inevitably find a few favorites. When I landed back in Austin a decade ago, the first newer band to draw me in was this rootsy outfit that wore their proto-alt-country influences on their sleeve (covering early Whiskeytown and late Uncle Tupelo, along with Doug Sahm). But it was their own songs that firmly won me over, and when their 2016 debut Rivals came out, the Statesman dubbed them our very first “Artist of the Month” as part of a new local series. It took seven years for a full-length follow-up to coalesce, but it was worth the wait. Frontman Cory Reinisch continues to walk a tightrope between Americana songcraft and indie sensibilities on highlights such as the album-opening “Birth of a Salesman” and the ode-to-his-home-turf “McCulloch County Wind Chimes.” But the real eye-opener is the increased role of Annah Fisette, a multi-instrumentalist secret weapon who proves to be a compelling songwriter as well on the darkly rocking “Gaslighter” and the more contemplative “Unrequited.” Harvest Thieves is at its best when Reinisch and Fisette sing together, whether trading verses on twang-centric “Mercy Kill” or teaming in sweet harmony on the lovely “Golden Age.” When in Austin, go see them in the local clubs, or visit Reinisch by day at Waterloo Records.

Terry Klein — Leave the Light On

Klein first registered on my radar through an act of kindness: En route to Nashville’s AmericanaFest in 2017, he helped a fellow songwriter traveling with him get vital medical attention. Then I heard his music, and realized this mild-mannered Clark Kent with a law degree had an impressive way with words. (Perhaps it runs in the family: Terry’s father is Joe Klein, who wrote the definitive Woody Guthrie biography.) Leave the Light On is his fourth album. Recorded all in one day with producer Thomm Jutz this past summer, it’s “my most personal and vulnerable album yet,” Klein says. These 10 songs draw upon country, folk, and blues in equal measure, drawing their power from the keenly detailed observations in the stories Klein tells. In my Austin years, Klein largely was heard in venues off the beaten path; here’s hoping he soon gets slots in the major clubs more regularly, because he’s earned it.

Wilson Marks — Won’t Fit in a Song

Though he plays often around Austin as both a solo artist and a jazz guitar accompanist, my encounters with Marks have mostly been on social media, where he’s maybe the most prolific punster I’ve ever come across. So it wasn’t all that surprising when a book arrived in the mail this summer, quickly followed by the Bandcamp release of a musical companion piece. The first half of the book features lyrics “drawn from many years and several albums’ worth of work,” Marks writes in the foreword. But wait: Flip the book over and start from the back cover for Won’t Fit in a Pun, which collects hundreds of his witticisms. (Example: “I really wanted to sing some early church music, but I never got the chants.”) The record is short and sweet jazz-tinged pop: Four of its seven tracks clock in under two minutes, with stripped-down arrangements featuring Marks on guitar and piano plus Josh Flowers on upright bass. Well into the 21st century, it’s become increasingly difficult for my hometown to follow its “keep Austin weird” mantra. Artists such as Marks give the city a fighting chance to stay that course.

I mentioned earlier that I left Austin for the first time in 1991 — bound for Seattle, as it happens, where a whole other vibrant music community was in full bloom. And not just grunge. Hungry for the rootsy acts I’d left behind in Austin, I found a small but tight-knit batch of proto-Americana bands in the Emerald City. Ramadillo, The Picketts, Lazy Susan, The Cheap Ones, Hominy, and a few others helped me feel at home in my new city. Soon enough, The Rocket’s managing editor Grant Alden and I were plotting the launch of an alt-country magazine right there in home of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam.

Seattle didn’t have as deep an insurgent-country community as Chicago or Austin or North Carolina, but there was real roots talent in town. Most of those early ’90s roots acts faded away as time marched on, but recently a Northwest label called Between the Cracks has released split singles that reissued some of those bands’ finest songs. That resurgent interest helped motivate one of them to reissue their first demo:

Kitchen Radio — At House of Leisure

Formed in 1993 by former Ramadillo drummer Mark Boquist, firebrand guitarist Mark Notermann, bassist Mark Patterson, and frontman Dave Schmitt, Kitchen Radio had enough songs and stage presence to get an overseas record deal. Stateside stardom eluded them, but their mid-’90s Seattle shows remain a fond memory. So it was a joy to find they recently put their seven-song At House of Leisure demo up on Bandcamp. The song that should have been a hit is the instantly catchy “Another Tuesday,” but raw passion rises from just about every tune here. This was a tight band with a charismatic frontman and quality songwriting, and it’s comforting to know that those who didn’t get a chance to see them back then can still hear their music now.

The Third Mind — 2

Hominy is another early ’90s Seattle group that didn’t last but provided a launching pad for a mesmerizing singer-songwriter named Jesse Solomon Sykes. She soon had a new group, The Sweet Hereafter, with former Whiskeytown guitarist Phil Wandscher that had a good run of several albums. But it was an intriguing surprise when Sykes emerged in 2020 as part of The Third Mind, a fascinating supergroup that includes the Americana king of my current home state, Dave Alvin, as well as Victor Krummenacher and David Immergluck from Camper Van Beethoven and well-traveled drummer Michael Jerome. Now there’s a second album, cut from a similar mold: Six long songs (the whole thing runs nearly 47 minutes) that stress adventurous exploration. Sykes’ haunting voice is the centerpiece, standing out especially on an 11-minute cover of The Jaynetts’ 1963 gem “Sally Go Round the Roses.” The Third Mind feels a bit like a 21st-century incarnation of the late Anton Fier’s Golden Palominos, with Alvin and Krummenacher in Fier’s creative-sparkplug role.

Billy Bragg — The Roaring Forty (1983-2023)

This last one doesn’t fit the theme, but it’s too important not to include. England’s Billy Bragg is among a small handful of artists I really wish Grant and I had put on the cover during No Depression’s bimonthly magazine years; as such, I was thrilled when ND’s current editors got him to write the closing “Screen Door” piece in the Summer 2023 print quarterly issue. And thrilled to see another Bragg box set arrive this fall. I already own the first one, released on Yep Roc in 2006, but The Roaring Forty is welcome nonetheless, and it comes in two different configurations: A two-disc, 40-song summary that’s also on vinyl and streaming services, and a much more extensive 14-CD box with more than 300 songs. Bragg’s signature blend of the personal and political hooked me from the start in the mid-1980s, but I could never have guessed how much we’d need his common-sense activism in the 21st century. I’m a completist with a pretty short list of artists, but I definitely want to hear everything Bragg has ever released. The deluxe Roaring Forty box includes all 12 of his studio albums, plus a generous batch of B-sides, live recordings, and unreleased material, as well as an accompanying book. Roar on, Billy, against the dying of the light.