Fort Worth, 12.20.2025

My musical year ended playing on an eclectic bill at the Grackle Art Gallery with STC. In this busy season, we wound up canceling all our scheduled practices up until a do-or-die 11th hour one the night before, where I had some noisy pedals but didn't think anything of it after I checked all my batteries and found them to still have juice. I would pay for this later.

We'd decided to all "fly the flannel" for Mike Watt's birthday but wound up not wearing them while we played because of the unseasonably warm temperature. Halfway through "City Slang" I punched the fuzz and got nada. We tried a do-over with similar non-success and then, rather than wasting time trying to troubleshoot my shit, I elected to go straight through the amp, calling an "audible" that we would skip all my solos except the unavoidable one on "1983." Kavin Allenson's video of "A Quick One" shows that Cam was as "too loud" for the room as El Mantis' bass player had been a couple of weeks earlier. I scarcely noticed as I was busy digging his fills and Tony's melodic bass lines. My amp volume stayed on one and my wife said vocals were basically inaudible. Wha wha. We finished with "People Have the Power" in place of "Apostrophe." The audience of fellow musos and their family members was very kind. 

Photo by Linda Little.

Hijazz Ensemble was down a player as drummer Eddie Dunlap had double booked himself. Darrin Kobetich started out trying to use a microphone on his cumbus but wound up going to the pickup due to feedback problems, and left his oud in the corner due to tuning issues. He and Mark Hyde (on a microtonally tuned instrument of his own construction) spun webs of Near Eastern sounding scales over which Dave Williams extemporized freely on soprano and tenor saxes. Dave's a player in the Wayne Shorter/Joe Henderson free bop mode, and I have good memories of hearing him play Wayne's "Witch Hunt" and Mingus "Nostalgia in Times Square" at old Black Dog jams. (He also apparently shared the Stashdauber origin story with his bandmates.) Hijazz Ensemble is a groove machine like old Fort Worth faves Confusatron and Sleeplab. I'd dig to hear them on a bill with like minded Austinites Atlas Maior.

Speaking of revered Fort Worth ancestors, Stem Afternoon purvey a brand of dubwise trip-hop that harks back to the mighty Sub Oslo ("a dub band with a rock aesthetic," in dubfather Miguel Veliz's words) and Marcus Lawyer's Top Secret...Shh recording project. Bassist Cyrus Haskell and drummer Mykl Garcia lay down the foundation over which DJ FTdub lays a blanket of samples and scratches and Clint Niosi deploys various bits of melodic business. Starting out with snaky wah-wah guitar lines, Clint shifted to F/X laden lap steel, raising the volume and intensity to stratospheric levels. An occasion where Linda's Liquid Lights might have enhanced the experience.

In between sets, I talked with DJ Phil Ford about how the most exciting music on the set is happening where genres intersect and players of vision are willing to test and stretch the boundaries of the familiar. The Grackle continues to be the best place in my town to catch such action, and I look forward to hearing what Kavin, Linda, and Leland have to offer in 2026.

And this morning I ops checked my rig and found the offending patch cord, which now hangs in the Patch Cord Hall of Shame, and played through all the nice fuzzy solos I didn't get to last night. It's always something simple; I just never know what it is. Happy holidays to them what celebrate.

Photo by April Smith-Long