Three musicians from seemingly different musical backgrounds get together to form a band that’s totally awesome and unlike anything they’ve ever done before. This is the best way to sum up Spanish Gold, the new project featuring My Morning Jacket drummer Patrick Hallahan, Dante Schwebel of Hacienda and City and Colour, and Adrian Quesada of Latin funk band Brownout and formerly Grupo Fantasma. Perhaps more than even the members could have imagined, Spanish Gold has been gaining momentum with their swaggering, sun-drenched rock ‘n’ roll, as was clear from the sold out crowd who packed the Parish on a recent Thursday night to catch the band’s first Austin performance.
Getting the evening started was another band with a buzz, Nashville-based Clear Plastic Masks. The quartet are part of a new wave acts immerging from the music city making the kind of tunes that show why the heavy hitters like Jack White and Dan Auerbach have set up shop in a place most often associated with mainstream country pop. In Austin people have a bad habit of skipping the opening act, a possible side effect of living in a town saturated with live music. Those that did make it in time to catch Clear Plastic Masks were lucky, as the band fired off a series of brash, rollicking tunes off their freshly released album, Being There. Songs like “In Case You Forgot,” “Baby Come On,” and the organ-heavy “Shakedown” highlighted the band’s dance-ready style of bluesy, psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll. On catchy party anthem “Outcast” the band’s exceedingly tall frontman Andrew Katz owned the spotlight with vocals that brought to mind a deeper, more soulful Julian Casablancas. Clear Plastic Masks wear their vintage rock influences proudly, but instead of getting bogged down by them they have crafted their own brand of music that is pure fun. Despite a short set, the band could have easily headlined their own show, and there is little doubt that before long they will be hitting bigger stages to do exactly that.
Given Adrian Quesada’s gargantuan role in the Austin music scene, and the fact that much of their debut album South of Nowhere was birthed here, Spanish Gold’s show at the Parish was something of a hometown gig for the band. This sentiment was amplified by the addition of local singer-songwriter Suzanna Choffel – Austin royalty in her own right – handling keyboard duties and background vocals, and guitar slinging badass John Branch handling bass. As Dante Schwebel pointed out, when you release one album, it’s hard to play anything else live, which is what Spanish Gold more or less did. This was hardly a setback considering that South of Nowhere just may be one of the best releases this year. Songs like “Movin On,” “Day Drinkin,” and the funky “Don’t Leave Me Dry” kept the audience grooving to the beat, and closing tune “Out on the Street” – the band’s first single – soared with group harmonies and edgy riffs. However, the real highlights of the set came in the form of two covers, the first being a nearly perfect rendition of criminally underrated 70s group the Ghetto Brothers’ “There Is Something In Your Heart,” and the band’s ironically humorous yet flawless take on Bell Biv DeVoe’s funky 1990 hit “Poison” as an encore.
Hearing Spanish Gold’s album performed live only further validated the true power of this new group. Each musician is monstrously talented, and though it may seem like an unlikely pairing, the tightness of Spanish Gold as a trio is not something that these guys even need to work for, as was evidenced by their impeccable set in Austin. Between the songwriting and smoky vocals of Dante Schwebel, the reverb-laden surf guitar of Adrian Quesada, and the mammoth drum blasts of Patrick Hallahan, it’s a match made in heaven. Collaborations like Spanish Gold don’t come along very often and don’t always last long, and their Austin performance confirmed that everyone should make it point to catch this group live as soon as possible.
Photos by Arthur VanRooy
One Response