Texas Tour 2002
see also >
TEXAS PHOTOS: Live shots & bbq nibbles
TEXAS TALES: Tour Diary, US relatives, Black Widow Spider & e-mail
TEXAS PEOPLE: : THOM THE WORLD POET . SEEMA GILL . EDWARD REILLEY . RICHARD HELEY . BRENDA READ BROWN . PJ THE COWBOY POET . TONY BLISSARD (a real cowboy & poet!) . FRAN REINGOLD & MANLY JOHNSON . CHRISTINE GILBERT

EXCERPT FROM TEXAS TALES:
DARREN POYZER packed his acoustic guitar went off to the Lone Star State to gig, gig gig!

Texas - no, not the pop band, the state of USA. Yep, I've just completed a 3 week tour of duty, armed with my own songs and an acoustic guitar. My point of residence was the city of Austin and really, if it's live music you want, there can be very few places on Planet Earth to compare. Sixth St is the focal point, where some 25 live music venues line this one stretch alone, where live music oozes out of every pore, where at weekends the street is blocked off to traffic due to audience overspill.

Live music is alive and well in Austin - techno techno no-no NO! And here of course, a US music city like this can only have a diverse range of music radio stations. In my time here, I am awakened by free-spirited neighbours tuning into the wildest dj's and rockin' bluesy vibes, greeted by my hosts' own choice folkier dj ramblings and biographical interviews, and bombed out by the wackiest daytime jocks who are the guardians of sub-culture clothes shops, cafes and arty hotspots.

In terms of playing in such a city, you do of course have to very quickly get over the cultureshock. In my instance, I am lucky to have a performing poet friend who lives there, and he did me the honour of laying the foundations. This meant that my first day was spent at a bbq, given in honour of a handful of visiting poets and myself by a genorous hostess called Patricia Fiske. In exchange for a few songs and active participation, we met and made new friends, chatted with organisers who had set up stages and bar-room get-togethers, ate good food and were given an itinerary and tips jars.

Tips jars? Yes, tips jars. This, as my friend pointed out, is Austin Texas. There are few if any paying gigs for musicians, you just gotta get out there and play, and the law of the musical land is governed by the filling of the tip jar.

Ok . I think. Now I've played free gigs, been paid on occasions, and whatever the weather I've played and that's that. But here, my friend wants to see that tip jar full - it is as he says, a necessity if this is to become the first of many, and not the last of, my visits to Texas. Suddenly, the art of gigging for me, otherwise a mere amateur, is given a whole new reason for being - it is time for me to literally sell my soul.

EXCERPT FROM E-MAIL HOME:
"Music and arts wise, to compare Austin to Manchester would be silly, you just can't ... they recently had a three day music fest here, some 50 live music venues with at least 5 live bands each per night, some with 6 or 7 a night .... it's no wonder that Matt Hill tells me he saw the finest guitar player he's ever seen, playing for a tips jar on 6th St in Austin. And yet I sense the same jealousies and rivalries, bitterness and seediness, all wrapped up in the magic of beatin'rhythm and wordplay expression ... yes, this could be Manchester for there's culture aplenty and more than enough passion to make the music last forever.
And Austin has it's very own version of Victor Brox ... well, this guy may not be from from Austin, but he was featured in the Music Chronicle here when he played the city recently - his name's T-MODEL FORD ... aged 6 he worked in the field behind a mule, and as a boy was beaten so badly he lost a testicle ... he left home at 22, spent two years on a chain gang for knifing a man, drove a log truck in the Missisippi Delta on his return, and to this day he's been married 5 times and has 26 children oh yeh, and it was on one occasion when an ex-wife was driving away with the kids, left with nothing more than guitar, he picked it up and taught himself to play the blues ... he was aged 58 years old ... today, aged 80, he makes records and plays it live.