Bryan Mochizuki

Recent Actions

• Posted Preview: Joan Baez [Tonight at the Paramount] to Austinist
  For such an iconic folk veteran as Joan Baez, it is refreshing that her last decade of work does not rehash the first. No longer a pristine soprano touting traditional numbers and topical Dylan, Baez has found a new home in more crimson, robust modern folk-tales from the likes of Tom Waits and Steve Earle. The latter produced Baez’s most recent album, Day After Tomorrow, which posits her as a still masterful interpreter.
• Posted Capsule Reviews: Ruthie Foster and Franz Ferdinand to Austinist
  For The Truth, Ruthie Foster switched from Austin’s Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne, producer of 2007’s tremendous Phenomenal Ruthie Foster, to Chris Goldsmith, who just won yet another Grammy with Blind Boys of Alabama. The results are clean, rich, pristinely recorded session takes. Where Welbourne dressed the music up with swooning genre flourishes, Goldsmith stays out of the way. By removing the neo-soul vignetting, he puts more responsibility on Foster’s shoulders to hold the set together.
• Posted SXSW: (Some) Official Showcases Annouced to Austinist
  It would not be February without a constant blitz of SXSW news. Today’s salvo - SXSW.com has begun to list this year’s official music showcases. The 4th Annual Canadian Blast BBQ at Brush Square Park will open the festival on Wednesday, with performances from the likes of Alberta electro-wizards Shout Out Out Out Out and the new project from Sebastien Grainger (of DFA 1979 fame).
• Posted Album Review: Springsteen's Dream to Austinist
  Bruce Springsteen’s new album Working On A Dream is book-ended by two uber-traditional works. That is not to say they are simply paint-by-number Boss songs, but rather they are driven by his essential Eastwood-esque passion to retrace and reconfigure Americana and the myths therein. The opener “Outlaw Pete” is nothing if not the true promise of an album written and recorded during breaks in a year of touring with the E Street Band
• Posted Capsule Review: Ben Nichols' The Last Pale Light In The West to Austinist
  Filling the dead-space between indiedom and the first major label outing for his band Lucero, Ben Nichols’s solo debut is as quiet and mannered a record as he’ll ever sing on. The sound - a bed of rambling guitar, pedal steel, piano and accordion