Go behind the scenes with alt-rock icon Bob Mould as he tapes “Austin City Limits.” Bob Mould’s “Austin City Limits” episode airs Jan. 26 on PBS stations (check listings for time and channel).
Also appearing on the episode is Delta Spirit, the California roots outfit.
Jack White on “Austin City Limits.”
See what really went down when Jack White and his bands taped an episode of “Austin City Limits.” Episode premieres January 5 on PBS, check local listings for time and channel.
Austin City Limits official web site
BONUS: Here’s “Love Interruption” from the TV show.
This weekend, tune into the music series “Austin City Limits” for a rollicking encore episode featuring Flogging Molly and Mumford and Sons. The 60-minute show airs on PBS stations nationwide (check your local listings).
Flogging Molly are the Celtic punk rockers from Los Angeles led by singer Dave King, who also writes or co-writes much of the material with other band members. Mumford & Sons is of course the Grammy-nominated British folk rockers whose second studio album Babel is currently atop the Billboard charts.
Here’s “The Cave” from this weekend’s “Austin City Limits.”
And, as a bonus, a behind-the-scenes look at this weekend’s episode.
Jack White taped an episode of “Austin City Limits” TV show.
We wrapped up the weekend in Austin, Texas, with a visit to the new studios of “Austin City Limits,” the TV show, for a taping by Jack White. Incredible – that’s all we can say.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Photo courtesy of Ken Angelle)
The TV show has a little to do with the big Austin City Limits Music Festival, which wrapped on Sunday. The headliners that day were Iggy & the Stooges and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and we hear Iggy and gang killed it.
On Saturday, so did Neil Young. He played a version of “Down By the River” to kill for, and we really got off to the new “Walk Like A Giant.”
His oldie “Cinnamon Girl” was also a crowd favorite, and we kick off our awesomeness review with that (check out Neil’s interplay with the signer for the hearing impaired). Thanks to gil garcia for use of the video.
View more video highlights at the Austin City Limits Music Festival YouTube page
UPDATE: Somebody ripped the webcast showing most of Neil Young’s ACL set. View it here. (Does not include the last three songs, including “Down By The River.”) (“Walk Like A Giant” begins about the 30:13 mark and ends around 48:50.)
“Austin City Limits” will premiere its brand new season Saturday, Oct. 6, with a rare, full-hour performance from Radiohead. The iconic British band taped its performance at the ACL Live theater in Austin this past spring.
The 39th season of the venerable PBS show has a killer lineup, including 2012 Best New Artist Grammy winner Bon Iver, Bonnie Raitt with Mavis Staples, the Shins, the Civil Wars and more.
Here’s a sneak peek of the season premiere, with Radiohead performing “Morning Mr. Magpie.”
It may not look like much in the photo, but this is the largest convenience store in the world.
In most places around the country, gasoline prices are dipping. You know what that means – summer’s here and the time is right for piling the kids and/or the dog into the car for a road trip.
We were on the road this past week, and deep in the heart of the Lone Star state we wheeled in to a truly awe-inspiring site: the Buc-ee’s truck stop/convenience store just north of New Braunfels, Texas, between San Antonio and Austin.
Buc-ee’s is a chain of stores found along the highways of Texas. They sell typical convenience store junk food, some hot kolaches and fudge and their own brand of beef jerky, hot peanuts, etc. They also sell a wide variety of knick-knacks, cheap Texas souvenirs and similar crap. We’ll get back to that in a moment.
But this Buc-ee’s we visited, it was friggin’ massive! It was at least the size of a Walmart and sure enough, my research tells me at 68,000 square feet it is truly the largest convenience store in the world (Wikipedia is your friend). It also has 60 gas pumps, about 78 toilets and 250 employees.
The Buc-ee’s beaver mascot.
This is the largest store in the Buc-ee’s chain and I’m told when it opened in May there were cars stretched up and down the frontage road just waiting to get in there. People in Texas love Buc-ee’s for some reason; everywhere, I see people wearing t-shirts with the logo featuring a goofy cartoon beaver. Instead of a Disneyland or Six Flags shirt; like Buc-ee’s is the destination tourists really want to make pilgrimage to.
Anyway, back to the crap they sell in the store. There’s a huge rack of CDs, mostly country music, but because it’s Texas the selection is considerably more choice than your typical roadside truck stop. You got yer George Jones, yer Willie Nelson, some Ray Price and even a disc of Johnny Bush. A Dolly Parton disc and wow, even Robert Earl Keen! Unfortunately, there’s Pat Green too.
There were some copies of the great series from New West Records, Live From Austin TX – glorious audio tracks of performances from the great “Austin City Limits” TV show. Here’s Willie Nelson on the show, Robert Earl Keen, Billy Joe Shaver, Kris Kristofferson, even the Texas Tornados (which IMO is the best of the series). You don’t have to go to Buc-ee’s to find these; your friendly neighborhood record store ought to have a good selection, or you can shop online.
There are also discs from Icehouse Music, a company that rack-jobs music from Texas, Americana and roots artists. That’s the label where you can find the great Johnny Bush (he wrote “Whiskey River” for Willie) and his autobiographical Kashmere Gardens Mud, as well as the incredible two-disc tribute to Guy Clark This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, which features Robert Earl, Willie, Joe Ely, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and many more.
Some years ago I picked up a CD at a truck stop, California Jukebox by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Now this isn’t the Gram Parsons-Chris Hillman Burritos, it’s the 21st century version, with John Beland and Gib Guilbeau and featuring guest shots from David Allan Coe, Waylon Jennings, Sonny Landreth and even original Flying Burrito steel guitarist “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow. It came out in 2001 from the last incarnation in a long line of imitation Flying Burrito Brothers. It overcomes low expectations and it was a pleasant surprise for me – dig one up if you can. It’s on Icehouse Records, apparently no relation to Icehouse Music above.
Well, this tirade has arrived at a place far from where we started – that’s a nice summer road trip. So, for your summer road trip, here’s a soundtrack for ya.
MP3: “On The Road Again” (live at Austin City Limits) by Willie Nelson
MP3: “White Line Fever” by Joe Ely
MP3: “Truckstop in La Grange” by the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash
MP3: “Bloody Mary Morning” by Johnny Bush
MP3: “Endless Highway” by The Band
MP3: “Automobile” by John Prine
MP3: “Truck Stop Girl” by Little Feat
MP3: “Highway Cafe” by Kinky Friedman
MP3: “California Jukebox” by the Flying Burrito Brothers
MP3: “Honkin’ Down The Highway” by the Beach Boys
MP3: “Goin’ Down To Mexico” by ZZ Top
MP3: “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors w/John Lee Hooker
MP3: “Sweet Hitch-Hiker (live) by John Fogerty
MP3: “Life Is A Highway” by the Tom Cochrane Band
MP3: “I’ve Been Everywhere” by Johnny Cash
MP3: “Highway Star” by Deep Purple
MP3: “Let Me Drive Your Automobile” (live at Woodstock 40th anniversary) by Canned Heat
MP3: “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf
MP3: “Call Me The Breeze” (live) by Lynyrd Skynyrd
MP3: “The Road Goes On Forever” (live at Austin City Limits) by Robert Earl Keen
Wilco returns to 'Austin City Limits' for its fourth appearance. (Photo courtesy of Scott Newton/KRLU)
“When people ask what kind of music ‘Austin City Limits’ stands for,” executive producer Terry Lickona says, “ there’s one band that sums it up better than any other –Wilco!” Airing this Saturday, Feb. 4, this is the fourth appearance of this veteran modern rock band on the TV show.
Concentrating on its latest release The Whole Love, the Chicago sextet puts such stellar tracks as “Art of Almost,” “One Wing” and “Dawned On Me” through their paces with near-perfect poise. It’s not all the new album, of course, as the band also drops a few deep cuts like “Bull Black Nova” and “War On War” into the set. And if that ain’t enough, Wilco tourmate Nick Lowe drops by with his classic “Cruel to Be Kind,” backed by the boys themselves.
“Austin City Limits” airs Saturday on a PBS-TV station near you. Check local times and listings.
Arcade Fire perform on "Austin City Limits." (Courtesy of Scott Newton for KLRU)
With infectious melodies and introspective lyrics, Arcade Fire has won over the hearts of America with their harp-strumming, accordion-pumping, xylophone-tapping songs that are undeniably brilliant. On Saturday, the band makes their second appearance on “Austin City Limits” performing songs from their Grammy-winning album The Suburbs.
Taped in September just before the band’s appearance at the 2011 Austin City Limits festival, the program airs on PBS-TV this weekend. Check your local listings.
Video: “We Used To Wait”
A special episode of the venerable “Austin City Limits” TV series airs Saturday night, featuring Coldplay in a 90-minute program that spotlights a wide selection of the band’s music (including songs from their most recent album Mylo Xyloto) and a countdown to midnight. The episode airs on PBS, Saturday at 11 p.m. EST/PT. Check your local listings.
“Austin City Limits” official website
Coldplay takes the stage at "Austin City Limits" on Dec. 31. (Courtesy of Scott Newton for KLRU)
Flogging Molly played at the new ACL Live venue in Austin.
Editor’s Note: Our Austin correspondent Lily Angelle attended a taping of “Austin City Limits” at the TV show’s new home, a 2,700-person-capacity venue called ACL Live at The Moody Theater in downtown Austin. Irish punk rockers Flogging Molly taped an episode for the venerable TV show’s 37th season on PBS, premiering this fall (exact airdates TBD).
“Austin City Limits” welcomed the energetic Celtic punk band Flogging Molly Tuesday night, who flew all the way from Belgium to perform for an episode of ACL’s 37th season, and to also give a show at Stubb’s the following night.
It was my first time to see the new ACL studio, and I was impressed with the new layout. While still maintaing the intimate setting, the new studio provides much more seating, and has bars on either side of the stage. The signature Austin skyline backdrop, slightly altered, glowed casually behind the stage; the UT tower and State Capitol buildings were nicely illuminated, and the new Frost Bank Tower takes its place now on the famous TV backdrop.
The new Austin skyline as seen on "Austin City Limits."
Flogging Molly shared a few songs off their latest album Speed of Darkness, while also appeasing the crowd with favorites such as “The Worst Day Since Yesterday,” and “If I Ever Leave This World Alive.” Their blend of traditional folk with punk caused much foot stomping, clapping and head bobbing. Frontman Dave King engaged the audience with stories of his father, daughter and life in Ireland and Detroit. Their set was on point and lasted a little over an hour, which proved to be a perfect and satisfying performance.
Last year “Austin City Limits” moved its production from the University of Texas to the new theater downtown. The night before Flogging Molly, Mumford and Sons appeared for a taping of the show and more appearances this summer will include Raphael Saadiq (June 9), Adele (June 13), Florence and the Machine (June 16), Black Joe Lewis and the Relatives (June 20) and Miranda Lambert (July 20).
Austin City Limits official website
Flogging Molly official website
Flogging Molly - catch 'em on tour this summer.
30 Days Out 