Red White & Blue Ball 2013

Here's our next party. It’s the Second Annual Red White & Blue Ball on Saturday, June 29th. We've got a great lineup featuring Hard Proof Afrobeat, Crooks, Whiskey Shivers, The Gents, Roger Sellers, and The Couch. It all takes place at The Ball Farm, a beautiful venue near Circuit Of The Americas.

In addition to the music there's lots of other fun stuff like free camping, fireworks, and a huge waterslide. It's BYOB, and we'll have food trucks on site to keep you fed. The food offerings this year will include treats from Yeti Frozen Custard, meats from Brown’s Bar-B-Que, and more.

Early bird tickets are only $20. Get yours now! 

Promotional support is being provided by KVRX 91.7 FM, KTSW 89.9 FM, and Do512. You can find more information about the Red White & Blue Ball at redwhiteandblueball.com, on Facebook, and at Do512.com/RWBB.

• Roger Sellers - "Snake"
• The Gents - "Week 2"
• Whiskey Shivers - "D-Tune"
• Crooks - "Heart Achin Town"
• Hard Proof - "Tere"
• The Couch - "Creamy Peach"

Roger Sellers

I love this guy. The first time I saw Roger Sellers perform was during Free Week back in January of this year. I stumbled upon his set at the Mohawk and it ended up being one of the best things I saw during Free Week 2013. Lots of sound and lights and emotion. We invited him to play our SXSW party, Strange Brew II, which only solidified in my mind that this guy is one of a kind. I'm happy to announce that he will be joining us at the Red White & Blue Ball on Saturday, March 29. I'll post more details about that very soon.

Roger's bio:

The artistic style of Roger Sellers is widely accessible. Imagine folk-dance-americana-electric-symphonic fusion, where Philip Glass, Sufjan Stevens, and Joanna Newson all groove to late night ambient house music in George Martin’s livingroom.

Roger Sellers paints vivid aural landscapes where his multiple-layered instrumentation pierces through the terrain like musicological formations, as they compile higher and higher. Compelled by the splendor projected, you, the listener climbs to the top of Roger’s finely crafted mountain, where you are met by the enlightened composer. Just as you catch your breath, Roger takes your hand and shows you his panoramic view; at that moment you absorb the deepest beauty that inherently waits within Roger Sellers’ profound concept.

Instruments are easy in his hands, and he literally plays them all. Guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, bells, organ, piano, drums. From one-man acts, to a full band, Roger Sellers’ live performances sweep his audiences clean from external focus- until the attention is solely paid to him. Similarly, in the studio, Sellers plays the engineer, producer, director, composer, and lyricist.

• Roger Sellers - "Kitchen Concert 17"
• https://www.facebook.com/rogersellerstexas

Christopher Denny

Christopher Denny has been called a weirdo, a sweetheart, a mad man, and a musical genius. Denny's music draws heavily from both gospel and country influences, and his voice is enriched with the ghost of Roy Orbison. He's based in Little Rock, and is a recent signing to Partisan Records.

A few weeks ago Do512 hosted a recording session with Christopher Denny, who showed up with an all-star band that included Austin musicians Lauren Gurgiolo of Okkervil River, Danny Malone, Graham Wilkinson, and a drummer whose name escapes me. It was one hell of a night.

• Christopher Denny - "Our Kind Of Love" 
• https://www.facebook.com/chrisdennymusic

Hard Proof

Our friends Hard Proof Afrobeat just released two new songs on a fresh new 45. It will only cost you $5 to buy a copy of your very own, and if you do, your grand kids will thank you some day. Imagine little Timmy Jr. Jr. stumbling across this dusty record 50 years from now and having his mind blown and body shook up by these funky ass rhythms. They'll be all like, damn, grandpa was a cool mofo.

Via Kept Records:

"Sub-Saharan sounds are fused with jazz and deep funk to produce two intense, dance-demanding rhythmic cuts on this fresh 45. The a-side is clear genre busting fusion of flavors: it's an afro beat-down with brass bounce; it's an instrumental funk cut with jazz jump and cadenced kicks. It's big like a dragon, it's bad like a dragon, it is Dragon, and it's going set fire to dance floors with global intent. On the flipside cut, Tere, the burn is brought to a simmer, with the organ leading the track and bringing things to a swell as the horns hover on the surface of another straight-up burning instrumental."

• Hard Proof - "Tere"
• http://www.hardproofmusic.com/

Locally produced and internationally-inspired, Hard Proof is an Austin-based collective that brings intense Afrobeats to the state of Texas. Hard Proof tightly fuses sounds from sub-Saharan Africa with adventurous jazz and deep funk to stimulate your brain and move your feet. Members of Hard Proof also perform with bands such as Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Ocote Soul Sounds, Echocentrics, The Calm Blue Sea and Cougar.

Video: Shakey Graves - "Unlucky Skin"

Our pal Shakey Graves released his first official music video yesterday. The video was made as part of the Fool's Road project, a traveling music video collaboration that drove around the country to film videos with seven different bands in their home towns, which were planned and shot within only 8 days of having met.

Shakey's is kind of disturbing, in a Whiskey Shivers kind of way. Except he goes all four-armed Predator and kills everyone, not just chicks, in a variety of ways. The video was directed, produced and edited by J.L. Southern.

More on Fool's Road:

"This project started out as an answer to a question: How does one merge all that you’re fond of with all that you do well––to the benefit of others? The answer for me was Fool’s Road: A traveling music video collaboration between one artist-filmmaker and seven musicians across the United States. 80 Days. 7 Musicians. 1 Filmmaker. 10,000 Miles. With the last half of this year, I’ll pack my very square car with a few essentials, a whole lot of gear and head north. For 80 days, I’ll be living on the road, driving 10,000 miles throughout the country to meet these talented musicians wherever they may be. Each will have eight days with me to plan and shoot a music video as reasonably and brilliantly as possible."

Emily Bell

Emily Bell is into southern blues, soul, 60′s rock 'n roll, and setting stages on fire. The Austin-based artist is celebrating the release of her debut album, In Technicolor, with an album release party on Friday, May 24 at The North Door. The album was produced by roots rocker John Evans and Grammy-winning engineer Steve Christensen.

"Emily wrote for years in Raphael Saadiq's studio in Burbank, Calif., before I found her," Evans says. "It was obvious she was no newcomer to pen and paper; the songs we were writing together had teeth."

Texas Americana great Hayes Carll says: "Emily Bell will knock you down, then lick your wounds, burn up the stage and leave you begging for more."

Nakia, a fellow Austin-based artist and semifinalist on "The Voice," raves: "After seeing Emily Bell live I felt that she must be possessed by a raw electric demon singing with the voice of a heartbroken, fallen angel. I was immediately addicted and ready for my next fix."

Check out the fiery music video for "Back to the Way I Was"

http://emilybell.com

http://www.facebook.com/EmilyBellMusic