Eli and Bruce

Still kind of wondering if this really happened… last night Joe Ely and Bruce Springsteen sat in with Alejandro Escovedo at the Austin Music Awards. I just so happened to be on stage and jammed with these guys. You never know what’s going to happen at SXSW!

Playing tomorrow with Alejandro at the Hotel San Jose (8pm) and then later with my band at the Elephant Room. Saturday includes shows with Alejandro at Maria’s Taco Express (9pm) and Bruce Saunders at the Elephant Room (11:45pm). Sunday, I’ll be at the Continental Club with Alejandro starting at 12:30am. Rest next week!

What music people like or don’t like is purely subjective. You can love or hate Coldplay – up to you. You can argue for hours on the merits of Katy Perry but in the end, you like her music or you don’t. Many artists who slave away for years and years and put thousands of hours into their craft have a hard time rationalizing this. Hours of practice time, pain and artistic suffering is a cool story but it won’t make people love your music (nor should it). Putting my ego aside and realizing this freed me from my musical snobbery and in fact, helped me to appreciate even more the hard work bands do to get noticed. And here’s the really important point I want to make:

Bands who succeed today are great at marketing and how good or bad the music is has absolutely nothing to do with a great marketing plan.

So in a nutshell – 1. get over yourself and 2. start marketing your music. And we’ll revisit this topic again next year when I ask for your vote again Thanks everyone.

Eli and Alejandro

I recently had the opportunity to go into the studio for Alejandro Escovedo’s latest recording which is due out April of 2012. Producing the session was Tony Visconti who played bass and recorded with David Bowie for over 12 years (including some of his biggest hits like Fame, Young Americans, etc.). My partner in crime was Mr. Ephraim Owens on trumpet and I even played bari sax on a couple of cuts thanks to friend Scotty McIntosh who let me use his horn.

I first came to know about Alejandro way back in the 80′s when he was playing with the True Believers, an Austin super group featuring 3 guitar players (including Jon Dee Graham). Over the years, he’s recorded many, many great records under his own name and has become an Austin legend – playing with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and touring the country constantly. I first started playing with Alejandro last spring when Ephraim asked me to play at SXSW for Alejandro’s big show at the San Jose Hotel.

Eli and Ephraim

The session took place at Jim Eno’s studio called Public Hi-Fi and it was a really quick, fun day. Jim plays drums with Spoon and has built a really cool spot that is comfortable and sounds great. Tony was incredibly quick as he and guitarist David Pulkingham came up with the horn parts on the spot and Ephraim and I put them down. It’s days like this where the stars align and you feel like anything is possible as a musician. If only there were more opportunities like this! At this point in my life, however, I know that these are rare moments so I took a bunch of pictures and tried to take it all in. Alejandro asked us to play SXSW again this Spring so look for us on stage in the parking lot of the San Jose Hotel in a few months. Happy New Year!