Texas Monthly ’60s Garage at SXSW

In addition to The Green Fuz, a band from Bridgeport, just northwest of Fort Worth, several other ’60s-era garage rockers from Texas are scheduled to play a sanctioned showcase at SXSW sponsored by Texas Monthly magazine. Also on tap are Dallas’ Kenny and the Kasuals and The Novas, McAllen’s The Souls, Tyler’s Mouse and the Traps, and Chris Gerniottis of The Zakary Thaks (a killer band from Corpus that I wrote about a couple of years ago in The Oxford American’s annual Music Issue). Three contemporary throwback bands of sorts will also be playing, all from Austin: Shapes Have Fangs, The Ugly Beats (who will back The Thaks’ Gerniottis), and The Verticals. The show is on Sat., March 20, at the Continental Club from 8 p.m. ’til 2 a.m.

Texas Monthly brass decided to partner with South-by as a result of an article about Lone Star garage rockers from the ’60s that will be out in next month’s Monthly. The bands were selected by the article’s author, Michael Hall. “Magazines, of course, are stuck in the print medium but are trying to find innovative ways of reaching readers,” Hall said. “We are trying to expand sideways: audio, video, live events, etcetera. This is a perfect story to do that with.”

The Monthly will promote the story by offering a Top 20 list of hits on www.texasmonthly.org. The Monthly’s Pamela Hastings also has produced a 12-minute rockumentary about ’60s-era Texas garage rock, Hall has been interviewed on Austin’s public radio station, KUT (out of the University of Texas-Austin), and David Brown of KUT’s Texas Music Matters is producing a “long segment,” according to Hall, on the history and the story.

There also will be a panel discussion at the Continental with four of the performers: The Fuz’ Les Dale, The Thaks’ Gerniottis, The Souls’ David Smith, and Kenny Daniel from the Kasuals.

“I don’t know why [the Monthly] hasn’t done this before,” Hall said. “It seems like a natural fit.” However, he went on to say but with no sense of resignation, “I don’t know if we’ll do it again.”



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