Our friends at the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians have never had their work cut out for them like they do right now. HAAM has announced that their annual HAAM Day fundraiser, as so many things have, will become an online affair for 2020, and the need to support HAAM has never been greater. HAAM Day goes down on Tuesday, September 15.
Similarly, the Music Health Alliance supports live music folks in a moment of crisis from their homebase in Nashville, and tonight’s Dave Matthews Band DMB Drive In set, part of an ongoing series of noteworthy performances from their massive archive, benefits the MHA. It’s on tonight (Wed 7/22) with a gig from 2010 the band laid down in Scranton PA. It starts at 7pm Central.
More online musical fun from Old Crow Medicine Show, who were due for some Texas appearances before the virus jacked us all up. Here’s a fresh live shot from the AV Club.
There’s something about a burn ban that just seems to suck all the fun out of life. Not that I’m planning on burning anything, but what if I want to? Given the quarantine, most of that fun was pre-sucked anyway, I guess. We need rain.
If you’re one of the many, many Austinites who have been financially impacted by the COVID curse to the point of being unable to make your rent, you’ll want to know that there’s new help available as of August from the City.
As the mourning for Dart Bowl begins, owner John Donovan shares the experience of facing the end of a business that was not only iconic for Austin, but has been central to his family for his entire life. John’s son plays football for the Austin High Maroons alongside my own son, and the Donovans are dear to us. A heartbreaking experience that should galvanize all of us to keep doing our part to end the pandemic, before more of our city’s soul is lost.
Some positive COVID news, as one of our local hospitals is part of the trial of a new antiviral drug that is said to work very well alongside the more-established remdesivir – great work in the fight to overcome the virus is happening right here at home.
And…it’s George Clinton’s birthday. Of the many times I’ve seen the various varieties of P-Funk in concert – including an early date with my lovely wife at the old Austin Music Hall in 1997, and the entire entourage packed onto the diminutive stage at Antone’s during SXSW 2016, almost two decades later – my first and favorite was the full Mothership experience at the somewhat ill-fated One World Music Festival out on Lake Travis in the summer of 1996, a chaotic affair during which I inadvertently found myself part of the security detail for known Clinton associate Gerry Van King – the King of 6th Street.
