abra's one of my guilty pleasures. you know, one of those secrets you know you should share, but dont want to - you enjoy it being all yours.

When I was in school, I worked at a local newspaper, serving in several different roles while I was there - photographer, op-ed contributor, entertainment/features column writer, etc. Very good times. One of the perks was getting free tickets to concerts and movies, and lots and lots of CDs from upcoming bands. Every week we'd have a couple of CD reviews, and I'd have to sort through massive stacks of cds - reading media packets, learning about the bands and then listening to their cds.

Practically every week I'd find some aweome new band to listen to.

One week I got Abra's second CD, Strangest Places, an invite to come watch Abra play at a bar in OKC as well as an opportunity to conduct a phone interview with her for an article.. I listened to the CD, and loved it.

After a year or so Abra dropped off the scene. I'd search the web every once in a while but there was no news of a follow up record. In 2001, I moved down to the Lone Star State and though I never forgot Abra, I wasn't listening to her music as often as I used to.

I'm not sure why but one day in mid 2002 I grabbed Strangest Places off the CD rack and took it on a road trip. I listened to it over and over again, while driving on Texas freeways, and was reminded of how talented Abra was. I started wondering what had happened to her, and made a note to check up. When I got back home I went straight to Google and looked her up, and was presented with some amazing news.

Abra had signed with J Records, and was a month away from releasing a new record, No Fear, her follow up to Strangest Places. In advance of the records release Abra was going to be touring - and she was going to be in Houston the following week! Humbled at my good fortune, I thanked the Universe for reminding me of Abra. If I hadn't looked her up - I would never have known she was coming to town.

I patiently waited the week, and with a couple of friends, made my virgin visit to the Continental Club. There was a fairly small turn out - maybe a few dozen people. This was a far car from seeing Abra in OKC - in front of hundreds if not a thousand people. But I didnt care - I just couldnt wait to hear a new Abra song.

I had brought my gear to tape - so I headed to the sound booth and introduced myself to the sound man. After a few minutes I asked if I could tape and I could immediately tell he didnt really want me plugging into his board. He skated for a sec and then told me he wasnt sure if Abra would like it. Well Abra had just walked in, so I asked if we could ask her. We wandered over and he told her I wanted to tape. Abra looked nervous for a second, and asked me why I wanted to tape. I told her I loved her records, and I'd been waiting years for her to come back. She told me that this was just the seond show on the tour and wasn't sure if she was ready to be recorded. She paused and changed her mind - the sound man argued with her for a second, but she'd made up her mind - go ahead she told me, im ready.

Awesome.

I got a great tape that night in June 2002 went home and waited patiently on No Fear to drop. It didnt happen. July came and went, and J Records pushed the record out to November or December. Abra scheduled another mini tour in September, partnering with some travel magazine, and playing a few shows in Department stores, of all places. With that said it was one of the most fun shows I've ever been to. It was more of an event, really - with servers passing out hors d’oderves and glasses of champagne. By the time Abra actually came on I was fairly drunk - some 40 year old lady kept handing me new glasses every few minutes. I think she was trying to get me drunk ;) Anyway - it was a brilliant show, and looked really good on video. Something about those Department store lights made the video look really radiant.

After the show I gave Abra a copy of the Continental Club show on DVD & CD, and got some CD's signed. Her Manager (a lovely guy) took me aside, thanked me for being a fan and gave me a promo copy of No Fear. I was thrilled - I finally had some new Abra studio recorded tunes!


Months went by and no new news came of No Fear. Later it came out on AbraMoore.com that Abra had left J Records, and they had graciously given her the masters to No Fear. She was working on new tracks and would be putting out a new record at some point in the future. I was just thanking the Universe that I had managed to get a copy of No Fear before it was pulled.

I made it a point to check Abra's site once a month to see if new news or shows had been posted. At some point in early 2004 it was announced that Abra's new record would be called Everything Changed, and would be coming out on Koch Records. Some tracks from No Fear had been kept, other new tracks had been recorded and that Pull Away, a No-Fear-Era web-only exclusive track, had been rerecorded and was also being added.

The best news of all was that Abra would be playing a 5 show run at the Mucky Duck - 3 shows during March 2004 , then 2 shows on the same day during the first week of April. On top of these she was also playing a CD release gig at Cactus Music Video, and a South by Southwest appearance during March. Doing some swift math in my head I realized I was going to get to see her a grand total of 7 times during a 5 week period. Oh yes.

I taped every one of the shows, both video and soundboard, and I love them all. The very last show at the Mucky Duck was on April 4th 2004 - with Abra playing both an early and late that night. A friend and I bought tickets for both and had an amazing time at the last show of the run. Adding together both sets, Abra played for almost 2 hours and 30 minutes. I've posted the whole thing here for your pleasure. This is the beauty of Abra live.


Early Show
01 Intro
02 Falling
03 Ku'u Ome O Kahaluu
04 Lets Do It For Love
05 Don't Feel Like Cryin'
06 Say It Like That
07 Everything Changed
08 Touch and Go
09 Happiness
10 Four Leaf Clover
11 Shining Star
12 Taking Chances
13 If You Want Me To
14 Bridge into 2nd Set

Late Show
01 Intro
02 Portuguese Opera
03 Pull Away
04 Family Affair
05 From the Morning
06 Follow Through (New Song)
07 Melancholy Love
08 I Do
09 The End
10 Guitar Song
11 Im Not In Love (Graham Gouldman Cover)
12 Havin' Myself A Time (Billie Holiday Cover)
13 the Birthday Song (New Song)

Abra's playing random shows around Texas right now and Im trying to get to one of them. I was actually planning on going to one her shows in Austin a few weeks ago but had to cancel. I was staying with a friend from San Antonio, who's parents have a house in Austin. He calls me the morning of the show and tells me his SUV was stolen the night before! He couldn't make it to Austin, and I no longer had a place to stay. But! I will make it to a show soon, and so should you.

Go to www.abramoore.com - its been changed recently and is now auto directing people to Abra's MySpace page. Theres sone song clips, and upcoming shows are listed.

oh art.

bad boy. white trash rawk star. california king. got to love him.

When I was a sophmore in college my little brother - who I might add was 14 at the time - decided that I needed to come to one of his soccer games to meet the older sister of one of his teammates. I should add that I really love my brother.

So I went to this game and met the sister, the cutest little thing you have ever seen.


we spent lots of time driving around and listening to everclear's so much for the afterglow record. that was the avenue - but one of my friends in college was a total everclear addict, and I mean ADDICT. He had every single - even the japanese ones, and promo radio stuff. That's when you know someones hardcore - when they've got the pre-ebay, god-knows-how-he-got-a-copy-of-that-single, collection of 30 cds for a band who's put out 3 records. hell, he evan had the pre-everclear Art stuff. yes, even Colorfinger - the original tape bought off of one of art's numerous ex-wives.

yea - he had everything, and he got me into it.

So, after Afterglow came ...American Movie 1 and 2. Not as good, but 1 was definitely excellent and 2 had some gems too. A couple of years later Slow Motion Daydream dropped. Since then.... not a whole lot.

Art did a couple of small solo tours, and stopped by H Town in late 2003. I taped the set and he was nice enough to sign the master. after the show I walke up the stage an handed him the master tape (from the soundboard) and asked him to sign it. he laughed took it, and said - is this the show? I replied that it was, and he said - well shit, i should just keep it! and moved to put it into his pocket. I protested and he laughed, signed it and handed it back



heres the mp3s for you.
01 Intro
02 Wonderful
03 Heroin Girl
04 Brown Eyed Girl
05 Heartspark Dollarsign
06 Everything to Everyone
07 Volvo Driving Soccer Mom
08 Rock n' Roll Girl
09 Strawberry
10 Loser Makes Good
11 Father of Mine
12 Santa Monica
13 Pink Cadillac (Bruce Springsteen Cover)
14 Fire Maple Song
15 Annabella's Song
16 The Gay Bar Song
17 I Will Buy You a New Life

I cant remember how I heard of Remy Zero. I think it may have been in posts about the very first Zwan minitour - when everyone was excited to hear what Billy Corgans new band would sound like. Remy Zero were hand picked to open the shows, and came up on the radar.

I didnt actually start listening to them at that point... In fact they also opened for Travis on the Invisible Band tour and I managed to miss them on both of the Travis shows I went to. I think it was some time later that I saw they were coming through town on their first headling tour and decided I would go check them out and tape the show. They ended up being one of the best bands I had ever seen - and I knew what Billy had seen in them.

Beautiful songs - rich in musical complexity yet holding together as romantic and lucious pop. Cingun Tate's vocals are dynamic and perfectly convey the emotional backdrop of each of Remy's songs.

After the show I was totally blown away and hung out to see if any of the band members would come out and say hi to the fans. They were scheduled to play another show in Houston, the following day, at Cactus Music and Video. Cactus is a small music independent music store in the heart of Houston part of a dying breed of local record stores were the dude behind the counter is a god of music history - ala Jack Black in Hi Fidelity. Well - after the show I had just seen I knew that I had to tape the intimate, acoustic show I knew would go down the next day.

Luckily - the Bassist, Cedric LeMoyne, came out and I wandered over to say hello. I had brought a copy of their set opening for Travis in Dallas. A buddy had taped it and I'd made a DVD of the show coupled with a lovely cover.


I gave Cedric the DVD and gushed about how much I loved the show for a couple of minutes. I could tell he was excited about the DVD I'd given him so asked about their taping policy, and whether I could tape the next day. He said the band was totally cool with that and to come by and say hello the next day. Fairly giddy with excitement I headed up and started calling up friends, asking if I could borrow their video gear for the next day.

This was the first show I ever proactively multi angled and the first show I ever got soundboard. I showed up at the show with 3 cameras, lots of cables, and a couple of friends to help out. It ended up being one of my favorite ever shows. I listened to the audio for months. I really dont think I've ever heard a more perfect Remy acoustic show. I've posted the mp3s here for you - be sure to check this show out and pick up Remy Zero's records. Golden Hum and Villa Elaine are both amazing studio records - with the Golden Hum one of my top twenty records of all time.

01 Intro
02 Belong
03 Apology
04 Smile
05 Life In Rain
06 Bitter
07 Twister
08 Save Me

I just listened to this set a few times - its been a year or two since I'd pulled it out, and it really well may be the best show i've ever taped. The track Apology never appeared on any of the Remy records - it was a song he wrote for his ex-wife Alyssa Milano. It's one of my favorite Remy songs.

So I got a pretty sweet email from my hosting company. They've given me a massive upgrade for free - more server space, more bandwidth. good times all around.

upshot of this? im going to start putting up full shows rather then individual tracks and have the capacity to put up a huge number of shows, mp3s, videos, photos, etc.

heck yea!

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So something totally random and fun today. each year at work we have a series of united way campaign events - one at each of our major buildings. sometimes i decide to humilate myself and play a song or two. this year i took the less traveled path and volunteered to be part of the entertainment.

i was performing about 3/4s of the way through the show, but I went down to check out the the folks who were performing/speaking before me.

the very first entertainers were a slew of 3-4 year olds from one of the local pre-kindergarten "preperation" centers. i think there was 6-7 boys and girls who performed as a chorus. since i had my recorder set up to record myself, i went ahead and recorded the kids too. fun times for all.

You Are My Sunshine
Hes Got the Whole World In His Hands
U Love Me