Musical interlude

I’ve maintained, for some time now, that the “americana slash roots rock slash alt-country slash Texana slash what-ever” music crowd should go back to the original source for some of the material. Yeah, had to work in a Grateful Dead allusion, didn’t I?

On top of the Dead, there’s also a side project that was pretty cool, New Riders of the Purple Sage. Yes, I saw them live, once or twice. Don’t ask, I wasn’t exactly coherent. I might not be coherent now, but that’s not part of the question.

Some of the Dead sat in with NRPS, at one point or another, and the NRPS claims it’s the inception of the “psychedelic cowboy” movement, or some such wording. Music came on when I clicked on the website, I didn’t dig too far, just pointed.

Still, as I was listening to some of the music, then doing a late-night iTunes search I stumbled across a recent release of NRPS, taped at the long-gone but not-forgotten Armadillo. Seems like stupid iTunes only carried “Panama Red” (the song), in the live version. Warning: could be operator error.

What was weird, I almost turned in to have a meal at Threadgill’s World HQ, for an afternoon repast, when one of those NRPS songs cycled up. The Armadillo is gone. But its spirit lives on? In recorded music that’s just now being re-released? From a Friday the 13th, in 1975?

The NRPS cuts, the two or three I’ve listened to, they’re pretty good. Still, might just be living on Gin and Juice, like the Gourds.

Unrelated:
Search engines and that trail.

Click before you e-mail About the author: Born and raised in a small town in East Texas, Kramer Wetzel spent years honing his craft in a trailer park in South Austin. He hates writing about himself in third person. More at KramerWetzel.com.