Category: Sounds

Biannual roundup of your blog-reading habits

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century-ago-18

Thanks for once again being so predictably unpredictable in your tastes. While postcards sent “from” and about San Antonio (“San Antonio Song” soundtrack) are still your favorites, you also seem to relish postcards sent “to” San Antonio from places we travel. Oh, and you like food from anywhere.

This list represents the most-read posts during 2016. The numbers in parentheses represent the rankings from six months ago:

  1. Don’t Let Battle Zealots Overrun the Crockett Block, 2016 (1)
  2. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (2)
  3. Postcards from San Antonio a Century Ago, 2016 (6)
  4. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (5)
  5. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Settling into La Biznaga, 2016 (12)
  6. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (4)
  7. Postcard from Parma, Italy: City’s cuisine living up to its namesake ingredients, 2016
  8. Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: First tastes of Emilia Romagna, 2016
  9. Postcard from Sintra, Portugal: Masonic mysteries surface at Quinta da Regaleira, 2014 (11)
  10. Postcard from Puebla, Mexico: Uriarte ensures talavera traditions endure, 2016
  11. Introducing Otto Koehler through a Prohibition politics caper of yesteryear, 2016
  12. Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Wishing these dining spots were not 600 miles away, 2016

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while. Love hearing your feedback.

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Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Parting shots

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Hope the abundance of postcards from Guanajuato has not worn out your patience. Promise this is the last batch from our stay….

And the song most requested of the mariachi groups trolling for customers on the patios surrounding Jardin de la Union? Here are two different versions, one sung by Pedro Infante and one by Los Luzeros de Rioverde:

Will Billy Gibbons get nostalgic and drop by to see the guitarist who opened for him at the Teen Canteen?

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There was no moment more jubilant in the fledgling days of the humble South Texas Popular Culture Museum than the day ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons walked through its doors to take in the Teen Canteen exhibit.

In the earliest days, ZZ Top played Sam Kinsey’s teen club, and TexPop had on display the canceled check for the blues-rock band’s very first gig. Board member Jeff Smith had cajoled Gibbons with the tantalizing thought of seeing that $150 check once again.

It’s possible Gibbons could walk through those doors again for the new exhibit produced by retired music journalist Margaret Moser – “Standing at the Crossroad: Robert Johnson in San Antonio 1936.”

“Exhibit marks Robert Johnson’s S.A. sessions,” Hector Saldana, San Antonio Express-News, November 18, 2016

an exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center
an exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center

I didn’t bump into Billy Gibbons at the opening of the Robert Johnson exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center, but that was okay because I was with the Mister.

“So….?,” you might be wondering.

Well, the Mister was in a band, Captain Midnight, that once opened for Billy Gibbons at Sam Kinsey’s Teen Canteen.

Sam Kinsey's stable of bands in 1969, collection of TexPop Culture Center
Sam Kinsey’s stable of bands in 1969, collection of TexPop Culture Center

There’s no promo poster displaying this connection, but TexPop does have a copy of Sam Kinsey’s roster of bands in 1969. And Captain Midnight is there.

There are no known photos or recordings of Captain Midnight playing during the Mister’s high school years. The Mister thinks might be a good thing, similar to the way a mercy killing can be viewed as positive.

The Mister’s career has come a long way since then; the blues band he plays with definitely rates seeing. So plan to kick off the New Year with the After Midnight Blues Band at The Pig Pen behind the Smoke Shack on Broadway.

Who knows? Maybe Billy Gibbons will be overcome by a wave of nostalgia and show up to see the guitarist who opened for him at the Teen Canteen.

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After Midnight Blues Band at The Pig Pen