Tag: The Green Room

“Sometimes an artist just has a voice that’s so true and so clearly coming directly from the soul that you just can’t argue with it, and Austin Lucas is one of those guys.” – BBC Radio

It’s been over two decades since the songwriter packed his bags and left Bloomington, Indiana, the Midwestern town where he spent his childhood years falling in love with rock & roll, embracing his punk roots, and standing his ground whenever intolerant locals didn’t understand his way of life. He returns to that place – both creatively and physically – with his seventh studio album, Immortal Americans. Written after a tumultuous period that found Lucas getting sober, supporting his partner through a battle with cancer, and breaking up with his longtime record label, Immortal Americans is a clear-eyed album for murkier times, rooted in stripped-down heartland rock songs that find the artist reflecting upon the changes in both his hometown and himself.

Co-produced by Lucas and Will Johnson (Centro-matic), recorded/engineered by Steve Albini, and captured in a series of live, full-band performances, Immortal Americans was written after Lucas resettled in Bloomington. He’d been away for years, touring the world as an independent solo artist before signing a record deal with New West in 2013. In many ways, the albums he released during that period were reflections of the music he’d grown up with, from the mountain music of his father (bluegrass musician Bob Lucas) to the punk records that soundtracked his teenage years. Appropriately, Lucas earned a fanbase as a folksinger with punk roots – or was it the other way around? – while touring the country with artists who represented both ends of that spectrum, sharing shows with Willie Nelson one minute and Chuck Ragan the next.

Before there was Americana, before there was Texas Country, Two Tons of Steel rocked a sound that blended the best of musical worlds and pushed the envelope with a signature brand of country punk.

The San Antonio-based group packed the small bars and local hangouts and quickly became the Alamo City’s most-loved band, earning them a spot on the cover of Billboard Magazine in 1996. It was the beginning of a twenty year journey for the 4-piece ensemble.

Releasing “Two Tons Of Steel” in 1994 and “Crazy For My Baby” in 1995 on Blue Fire Records, a sponsorship deal with Lone Star Beer quickly followed. In 1996, the band began traveling outside of Texas, including stops at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, the National Theater in Havana, Cuba, and European tours to greet fans who had embraced their Texas-born sound.

Two Tons of Steel continues as an institution at Texas’ Gruene Hall, where its annual Two Ton Tuesdays summer series draws 12,000 fans and as a popular act at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. They have been repeatedly voted “Best Country Band” by the San Antonio Current, one of its hometown weeklies.

A privilege is considered a rare opportunity, which is exactly why The PRVLG fits this dynamic duo so effortlessly. Their act brings the rhythm section to the forefront of the stage unlike any other band around.

The duo, consisting of twin brothers Christian and Christopher Underwood, grew up surrounded by music. The brothers developed a very unique musical connection, which is on full display in their live performances. As bass and drum players, the pair have the ability to lock in a powerful rhythm and bass foundation, effortlessly making up for each other’s shortcomings and complementing one another’s strengths.

Growing up in a musical family and listening to their father – a guitarist – play classics by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Isley Brothers, and Earth Wind & Fire, it was only natural for them to begin writing together at the age of 16 and continue to develop their writing talent from then. Since officially forming in early 2017, the duo named themselves The PRVLG, chosen due to the privilege they experienced by growing up playing music together and connecting with others through the universal language.

Evolving over the last eight years, A Solo Voice, composed and performed by Odeya Nini, is an investigation of resonance, extended vocal techniques, performance, and pure expression, exploring the relationship between mind and body and the various landscapes it can yield. The work is a series of malleable compositions and improvisations that include field recordings and theatrical elements, aiming to dissociate the voice from its traditional attributes and create a new logic of song that is not only heard but seen through movement and action. In a multi-dimensionality that serves to both provoke and soothe in abstract communication, the voice is presented in its spectrum of natures as it travels through cultures, ages, emotions and colors, like photographs, with tender intimacy and bold aberrance.

Tickets: $10
Doors 7 pm |Performance 7:30pm

Odeya Nini is a Los Angeles-based experimental vocalist and contemporary composer. At the locus of her interests are performance practices, gesture, textural harmony, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds, in works spanning chamber music to vocal pieces and collages of musique concrète. Her solo vocal work extends the dimension and expression of the voice and body, creating a sonic and physical panorama of silence to noise and tenderness to grandeur. Odeya has collaborated extensively with dancers, visual artists, filmmakers and theater directors as both a composer and soloist and has worked with and appeared in works by artists and ensembles such as Meredith Monk, Butch Morris, Lucy & Jorge Orta, The Industry & Wild Up.

Odeya’s work has been presented at venues and festivals across the US and internationally, such as Resonant Bodies Festival, Banff Centre, The Pulitzer Arts Foundation, The LA Phil, MONA and Art Basel Miami, from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar and Vietnam. She leads vocal sound baths, seminars, workshops and retreats exploring the transformative and healing qualities of embodying the voice.

Odeya holds a BFA from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and an MFA in composition from California Institute of the Arts.

www.odeyanini.com