Right or Happy: Reivers to record new album

The Reivers performed a short seven-song set at the Austin Child Guidance Center benefit of mostly new songs, which for all the world sounded like the natural follow up to 1991's Pop Beloved. Also, new Reiver Eric Friend, a Michigan native who moved to Texas in 1993 to attend UT, has joined the band on keyboards. Friend previously played piano for Spoon and Sally Crewe.

Opening with "All The Drunks Say Amen," a new song premiered in Austin in February, the band performed rousing versions of "Without My Sight" from the debut and "Dragonflies" from the old days. No-nonsense versions of such new songs as "Commitment," "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now" and "Crazy" (according to thereivers.net) were also played. A crowd shout out for "Freight Train Rain" late in the mini-set was casually brushed aside, and John Croslin reported the band would be changing its name, as was hinted at early this year.

The new material is apparently being assembled for an album, though no details were provided from the stage. The final song "Setting Son" featured thunderous drums courtesy of Garrett Williams and could be a sonic cousin to "Ragamuffin Man."

Hard-to-Believe Fun fact: Croslin said the Reivers had not played with Alejandro Escovedo prior to Thursday night.

Stevie Wonder rocks DNC tonight!

Stevie Wonder has been asked to perform two songs before Barack Obama's acceptance speech in Denver for the Democratic presidential nomination.

One conventioneer reports that Wonder might perform "Don't Drive Drunk" and "I Just Called To Say I Love You", which Obama has singled out as a favorite. Hopefully this will get televised from Mile High Stadium.

UPDATE: We got Stevie on TV (PBS, that is)! Thankfully, he changed the rumored set list, closing with a rousing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours." Ooh baby.

DNC Unites with "American Girl"

Hillary Clinton spoke to unite differing factions of the Democratic National Convention, shortly after a film bio of her life, featuring a soundtrack with large snippets of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”

The melancholy conclusion to Petty’s “American Girl” was not heard:

God it's so painful
Something that's so close
And still so far out of reach

Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl

Meanwhile, Austin's Alejandro Escovedo was tapped to perform “People (We’re Only Gonna Live So Long)” from his new album Real Animal a couple of hours before Clinton’s speech in Denver. “These are unbalanced times, and great change is needed,” Escovedo says on his website. “To be included in this celebration of the dignity and freedom of women and minorities is an honor.”



Escovedo plays a benefit Thursday at Antones for the Austin Child Guidance Center, with the recently reunited Reivers. Tix are reportedly sold out, though a few will be available at the door (7 pm).

Dream of Life sneaks into Austin

Steven Sebring's decade-in-the-making documentary on Patti Smith, Dream of Life, screens tonight at 9:45 pm downtown at the Alamo Ritz.

Watch the trailer, and go see this non-linear, impressionistic film.

MONDAY UPDATE: The Texas premiere of this long-awaited film sold out at 2 pm today, according to the Alamo Ritz box office. Not surprising really, and Alamo staff indicated that the film will be rescheduled for another showing due to public demand.

"Whole Lotta Love" closes Olympics

Some background on the much hyped Jimmy Page-Leona Lewis duet performance at the Olympics (taken from the UK Telegraph):

"It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.

After choosing the song for the closing ceremony on Sunday they decided that some of the lyrics would have to be omitted or re-written amid concerns that they could cause offence.

The song was chosen as the centrepiece of an eight-minute British segment at the event in Beijing at which the Olympic flag will be officially passed to the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Organisers of the London 2012 Games commissioned the band's guitarist Jimmy Page to record a new version of the song to be performed on top of a special red double-decker bus accompanied by Leona Lewis, winner of the ITV reality television show The X Factor.

But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer. In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love".

But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to "every bit" of my love.

The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.

…In contrast to the Beijing organisers, who have been accused of creating a Games lacking in fun and Olympic spirit, London's creative team say they want the show to reflect Britain's deep cultural heritage and party spirit."