Sara Van Buskirk

She made a splash last year when she dropped her solo debut, The Place Where You Are, after years of playing around town honing her craft. A year later, she’s back, but this time with a full collaborative effort in the band Finnegan.

You worked with Taylor Lee on The Place Where You Are and a lot of the arrangements were drafted up by him. Is that how the idea for Finnegan came about?When I met Taylor in 2007 he had his fingers in a lot of pots. That is to say he kept himself busy with a couple of bands, producing, recording and having a day job. This is still true to this day. I don’t know anyone more productive with their time! Finnegan started as a place for him to put all the songs that he had written that didn’t fit the styles of his other bands. We started hanging out a lot and became really good friends and that’s when he asked me to start laying vocals on these tracks (the first being “set2song”). A year or so later we started playing the songs together live, forming a little band and doing small shows here and there. We started practicing more often in 2009 and playing more shows; in the meantime Taylor and I were working on The Place Where You Are, a collection of songs that I had been performing live/solo for 5 years or so. With its release in May 2010 I started playing a little bit more and focusing on [solo material]. Meanwhile Finnegan was building strong. In 2010/11 we started practicing as often as possible and even writing a few songs together as a band (those will appear on the next record) and performing as much as we could in Houston and Austin. The album is an almost 5-year effort of songwriting & collaboration between us musicians. Taylor does most of the writing, but we definitely give lots of feedback and make it work as a band. We also have a whole lot of fun together.

The songs don’t just sound like a mix of your material and that of Literary Greats, though. How do the songs generally come together?Taylor or Darin bring us a rough draft, ideas of songs, and we all usually write our own parts. One of the most beautiful things about being in a band with talented musicians is someone can just start playing a little something while sound checking their instrument and you are all inspired to jump in and make it become something. We’ve written a few songs and a few are in the works that started like that. You also can never underestimate the value of good chemistry.

How about the lyrics though? That doesn’t always come together as a group effort, and yet you’re trading off lines here and there…Once we had a band and the members were somewhat committed I think that that is just how the songs started being written. Taylor does most of the writing, but we are beginning to actually trade off. I think it’s really difficult to sing about both sides of the story by yourself. I mean, Willie Nelson can do it of course, but for the rest of us it’s a whole lot more difficult to translate. Having a lead male and a lead female vocalist really help communicate a narrative or a specific perspective. It’s great to look out into the crowd and see all the different kinds of people that are way into it. With six folks in the band  (three male and 3 three female), I think we’ve definitely got something interesting and honest to offer.

Does it give you a playground to sort of do things you wouldn’t necessarily do with your solo material?Most definitely. That’s the first thing I noticed when I went in to record vocals for the tracks “Interpreting Clouds” and “Topo Chico,” and when we began performing them and some of our other louder tunes live. There’s something about a collaborative effort that allows you the perfect balance between feeling some sense of ownership and pride in the material and some distance and awe that you get to perform something you really like or have fun with. I get to dance around on stage and bang tambourines on my head with Finnegan. Live Sara Van Buskirk performances are usually a lot more subdued, but I’ve got a really awesome band and we’re gonna start bringing a little more noise to SVB shows and future records. I’m excited.

What is it about “What Happened to Jacqueline” to where it became the title track? Did the song or the album title come first?The song. Taylor got the line from a Wes Anderson film. Bill Murray says it in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The answer being, “She never loved me.” I think what we as Finnegan go for is sad (or just real) lyrics with happier music. Okay, sometimes it’s sad music as well. But with the happiness we have as individuals hopefully that shines through. It’s a bittersweet effort – we go through sad times, but our love is real. And we are happy to be here alive and well.

What Happened to Jacqueline? is available at Houston’s Cactus Music. www.reverbnation.com/saravanbuskirk

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun | Makeup by Ginny Lee of Satori Salon

Niva, the Soul Diva

Houston-bred soul artist Niva released her debut album, Rollercoaster Love, late last year, and a couple of videos to promote it. Musically, it’s an amalgamation of a lot of things, maybe with a few kinks to work out. But it doesn’t matter; she’s already eagerly talking about a new direction.

What do you think has changed the most about you as an artist since you left Houston?

Oh. Wow. Everything. My stage presence, I’m more confident. I feel pretty. I could put a smile on a person’s face. Being able to do videos, and just being able to do what I really love to do without the stress of somebody trying to put me down or tell me that I can’t do anything. So as an artist, I’ve definitely grown. Even my mom – I did a show recently in Alexandria, Louisiana, for a charity event – and my mom … she was so amazed at how I have grown as an artist. She couldn’t believe how I moved, my energy. I electrified the crowd. There was like 1,000-plus people there, and I gave them what they wanted to feel. I woke ’em up! They were sleepin’! They were asleep. So I gave them my energy, you know?

When do you find time to write?

I write when I’m on the road, when I’m by myself. Like on my airplane ride coming back I wrote some new material. Material ideas that I had came up with. This album I’m getting ready to do is going to be geared in between rock and soul. Tina Turner with a little Mick Jagger, you know – I’m trying to really, really take it to a different level now. It’s hard to find my niche, and I’m ready to really, really enjoy singing rock.

What was it like opening up for Aretha Franklin?

Oh, man. It was so surreal. I got a chance to meet her but it was really, really quick because everybody backstage wanted to meet her. I thought I was in a dream or whatever (laughs).

In March, you had the Number One Independent R&B song in the country, and you said at that time that you were looking for major backing, but did part of you think ‘well, look how far I got on my own’?

That’s true. That’s exactly how I felt. I couldn’t believe I was Number One. I could not believe it. It was just such a beautiful thing to know that the hard work that me and my team have been doing for the past two and a half years had finally paid off and people was appreciating real music. Because I was writing music about everything. About real life, about love and music that people could really relate to, not the stuff on the television shows or the radio or whatever. So it was just very rewarding to see that I was able to reach number one on the Independent charts without the backing of a label. You gotta keep pushing. You can’t sit around and wait. You have to go out and get it. Because if you sit around and wait, you will never get anywhere. That’s one thing I’ve definitely learned as an artist. It’s not sit around and wait. You gotta go out there and get it. When you want something, if you have a dream you want to accomplish, you can’t just sit around and wait for it to happen. You gotta just go for it, and believe in yourself as an artist and know that whatever you have in your heart, you may achieve that with hard work and dedication.

www.nivathesouldiva.com

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography Anthony Rathburn | Wardrobe Design by Ayo Shittu

LA CATRIN

As lead singer of Heist at Hand, Bianca Montalvo earned a reputation over the years as an enthusiastic live performer with a knack for working the crowd. I spoke with her about her new project, La Catrin.

B L A C K I E

I didn’t know what to expect.

If you’ve seen photos of the rapper known as B L A C K I E, you’ve seen the work of a photographer who has quick reflexes. If you’ve seen video, you have seen a blur. He moves fast, and his screams only add to the motion.

So when I got his phone call on a cold Saturday morning in January – a mutual friend had given him my number – to relay details on his show in New York, I didn’t necessarily expect the deep, calm voice I heard on the other end.

Some bad news, he told me. There wasn’t exactly a show. Well, there was a show, but he wasn’t necessarily on it. He would have to get back to me on that.

Some 12 hours later, B L A C K I E had wrangled himself onto the bill in the Brooklyn loft apartment show space under the Williamsburg Bridge known as Dead Herring. When I got there, he was quietly folding shirts in the corner waiting for his opening set to start.

He was nervous, and he said so.

The LaPorte native born Michael LaCour had played here twice before, and on this trip, he had jumped in a van with the Dallas band Leg Sweeper and was playing short, mostly unannounced sets at their shows. Ambitious, determined, creative – that would describe him. That’s what got him in the van, what gets him on the bill each night and what has him in so good with Houstonians. And if the frustration of growing up in LaPorte wore on him, it shows in his songs. Angst may be what some folks read into it; others might see rage. Overall, he’s a blast.

Live, B L A C K I E tops out – a lot. Be there a red zone for sound, his volume reaches it more often than not. But this is 2011, and you can’t outnoise anybody, you can’t outthrash them or really even outscream them. The extremities, as much as some continue to try, have been reached. You have to acknowledge that and then dial backwards, carving into the sonic territory that leads up to the wall of noise. And that’s exactly what B L A C K I E does.

On this night, he walks through the gathering of kids (really) and to the area of the loft designated as the stage, taking the microphone without looking at the crowd.

“I’m B L A C K I E and I’m from Houston.”

A few faint whispers of suspicious praise scattered through the room and B L A C K I E hit a button on his sampler, then immediately caved to the floor as a hurricane of sound swept out of the speakers and enveloped the room. He drew into a fetal position, screaming, and kicked his legs while writhing at their feet, then got up on his knees and ran through the crowd and across the room on his knees, heaving himself to the floor once again like a dying fish. Then he stood up, and ran up a set of wooden stairs leading to a balcony, ran across the balcony on his hands and knees, still screaming, and then sat on the ledge. Then he jumped. When he landed on the floor on his feet, the song ended.

B L A C K I E ran over to the sampler, punched another button and the noise started again, interrupted every so often by breaks in the songs that allowed for the songs to gasp, to huff and to draw breath. B L A C K I E barely drew a breath himself, running into the crowd screaming and then stopping and writhing around in place. When he finally did turn to address them by pushing headlong into them, they patted him on his now shirtless back and hugged him. And they smiled. He wasn’t nervous anymore.

www.myspace.com/blackieblackieblackie

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Keith Sirchio

Top left: Jeoaf Johnson, Aaron Echegaray, Jessica Janes, Roky Moon (center). Bottom right: Cassie Hargrove, Chad Pinter, Arthur Moreno

Roky Moon and BOLT

I’ll ask you the same thing I ask first of any band–what’s the status of your rock opera?

It’s kind of in a weird place right now because everything started falling apart this last year, and I started spending a lot more time working on the recording for our album that we did. So we were working on that and I kind of lost focus on the rock opera. Then just recently, this last month, Jason Nodler told me he would co-write it with me – because originally he was just going to direct it, and have [The Catastrophic Theatre] put the show on. But now he’s like ‘let me co-write it with you,’ which I could definitely use because it’s a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. Not that I have a problem with doing work, but that it was just a little too overwhelming. He just finished up with the Bluefinger play and I sent him some notes before the New Year like he asked, so we’ll see. I’m hoping he just went away to write and when he comes back in a month we’re all set to go. We’re trying to experiment with making the play just all music.

What’s concrete on it? Is the music set, the storyline?

Yeah, the whole storyline is set. I know exactly where I want the story to go, and I even have a full script that goes all the way from beginning to end, and the music is all there too… but I know that the dialogue was – there needs to be more in there. You know that one thing that’s missing where it’s like ‘there’s no way I can put that out?’ It doesn’t sound right. Something is missing, and I know he’s going to be able to help me find that one thing that it is.

Where do you feel the new material is leaning?

I feel like it’s kind of the same but one of the things I’ve been listening to a lot more of is that ’60’s, girl band stuff, like Phil Spector, Walker Brothers kind of sound. So there’s a lot more of that in it, the music, than straight rock ’n roll. Those big drums, the big vocals, it’s got a lot more of that to it.

You’ve been digging in a certain vault all this time with glam, but now you’re going back even further. Where do you make the connections on your end musically? In the melodies, in the rhythms, the spirit?

I’d say kind of the spirit, and also the melodies because they’re fun. Those hooks, that’s one of the things that’s really important – hooks, to where people can’t get that song out of their head. I think those songs have that, and definitely the energy behind it. It’s timeless.

Well, it’s one thing to have an idea of something you’re going for, and you did – the sort of glam, boogie, ’70’s rock ’n roll thing – but how do you convey that to another musician who maybe has never played that?

Oh, man, it’s crazy. I don’t really have to tell them much of anything. They just kind of get it, which is a big part of the success of the band. I don’t really have to spend a lot of time with that. I mean I write all of the songs myself and then I’ll be like ‘here’s how it goes’ and immediately they’re like ‘I get it.’ They make it so easy, you know? I’m not very patient, so we’d have a really awful time if they weren’t so good.

Do you think that for the crowds coming to your shows, you’re sort of stripping away the ideas people have about glam, that it’s gotta be a scrawny dude with no chest wearing lipstick?

Definitely. That’s what I really hope. You know, people kept saying ‘when are you gonna do costumes?’ And I’m like ‘we’re not.’ I don’t want people to think that’s what glam is. I want them to feel the music. I’m sitting here listening to Aladdin Sane and then it’s all gone. They never did another album like that, which is fine, and I like that. But I was like ‘I wanna write the next record.’ Now, 30 years later, I feel good about it, and I feel like I could. I feel like I could make the next rock ’n roll record like that because it’s the kind of rock ’n roll that I love. And I just want people to feel the music, and kind of shed that idea of you having to be all glittery.

www.myspace.com/rokymoonandbolt

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun | Assisted by Danielle Montross

John Foster Of the band Foster

What are you doing with your Sunday?

Well, I’m actually a musician at a lot of churches. I play at several different churches on Sunday. And so I’m really… I’m really tired today.

That can be a pretty good gig.

It is, it is. I once played at Second Baptist – that big church up on Woodway? I played there for a year and then I played at a church called Chapelwood, kind of near Second Baptist. I’m all over the place. The Band Foster did the Continental Club last night, and I didn’t get home until around 3, and then I had to get up at 6 to play at the churches.

Church folks aren’t gonna wait.

Church folks – they can’t wait, man! I’m tired, but it’s part of being a musician, I guess.

Where did you grow up in Houston and what were you listening to?

I grew up on the north side, like in The Woodlands area, but everybody else in the band grew up in Houston. I grew up on ’90s alternative rock. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains. I’m 32, so the ’90s was in my era. I think the first band I ever listened to… first of all, I’m the son of a preacher, a son of the preacher man. And I’m the baby of 6 kids, so part of my musical… I guess all of the things I listened to was influenced by my brothers. My brothers were huge Primus fans, Jane’s Addiction. I think the first rock band I ever listened to was Guns ’N Roses.

So what bands did you find yourself discovering when tracing backwards from that vantage point?

You know, I’d find myself listening to a lot of Michael Jackson, because Michael – he influenced a lot of people, man! A lot of Michael, some Pink Floyd, some Beatles. Of course Hendrix. Led Zeppelin. A lot of the old school bands.

So when did you first start playing?

I started playing when I was 8 or 9 years old. I started playing in my dad’s church. I started off as a drummer. I played drums, guitar, bass, keys, trumpet. But my first instrument was drums.

Don’t you think that informs your entire musical sense? If your first instrument is drums?

It does. It really does. It really does. It gives an extra something that the people that don’t learn it… I don’t know what it is, but it gives you a little extra oomph.

Is Believe the first record you have ever made? You personally.

No, it’s like my 3rd. When I’d just come out of high school, me and my two brothers had a band, and we released an album under the name called Vent, and after that I had a band called Ethyl. We worked on an album but we never got it released.

Obviously the first record by The Band Foster, and it came out about a year and a half ago, and you’re probably about at the point where you’re going to start making another one?

We’re recording next summer!

And things you would do different this time around?

We want to go a little more edgy, show our true colors, let it all out. Let it all out. Just let the melodies and the lyrics and the playing speak for itself.

We’re at a unique point where there are so many different ways out there to push your band and so many different networks that even MySpace has lost its grip as a music source because of the playing field, and I see that you’re using a lot of those options. What is working best for you?

The most effective is Facebook. Facebook and then word of mouth. MySpace still helps us because it allows us to communicate with other artists. They’re saying that MySpace is a thing of the past, and that’s true for regular people, but it’s really a good tool to pair up with people in the same boat as you are. But Facebook and Twitter – those are helping us find new fans.

Was Great Day Houston a big boon for you guys?

Great Day Houston was a big push. I think before Great Day Houston… you know, we’re another band in Houston. It’s a huge city. A lot of people don’t take local artists seriously, so after we did it, I think people started to look at us a little different. Friends, family, even other bands started to take us seriously, because it’s hard to get on those types of shows.

But the son of a preacher man doesn’t mess around.

I don’t mess around, Lance (laughs). I do not mess around.

www.thebandfoster.com

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun

NICK GAITAN

You may know him as The Umbrella Man, or as Billy Joe Shaver’s bass player, but either way, chances are that you know of Nick Gaitan. His Houston-centric blend of pop, rock, Tejano, rockabilly and zydeco has been called a “gumbo of styles,” and that’s pretty accurate. In August, Gaitan won the Local Musician of the Year as well as repeating as Best Bassist at the Houston Press Music Awards. This month, he begins a residency at Nouveau with Andrew Karnavas. Here is a bit of back-story.

So what part of town are you from? Are you from the Eastside?

I’m from the Southeast side. My family comes from the Eastside and the Southeast, but I grew up in a neighborhood called Pecan Park and that’s Southeast Houston right inside the loop.

I noticed some themes from the area north of there…

Yeah, it’s all pretty north of that. I guess if you catch in the song “Sad Strange Beautiful,” I sing I was lost in Second Ward/I drink along the lonely streets ahead… That’s Second Ward and Eastside right there, near the docks, north of the ship channel, all that stuff.

Eastwood, that area – did you spend a lot of time there growing up?

Yeah, it was kind of a little bit of both. It just depends on what stage in my life we’re talking about. Like my life in the Eastside, my life in the Southeast side… when those lyrics come into play like that, I’m talking more when I was a younger adult, living in Second Ward and just life and times over there. I had several apartments there, my grandparents lived there, so we’ve been traveling through that area all our lives going through the shops and just knowing people and families, and our friends’ families, you know? Kinda tied deep into there with all the relationships you have with the people and the community.

When did you first read “Sig Byrd’s Houston”?

I first read “Sig Byrd’s Houston”… it must have been I guess 3 years ago? 3 and a half, I’d say, and my first copy was given to me by Roger Wood, and coming from such a person made it extra special. He came in one day and I had mentioned that I had to get my hands on that book just randomly, and said ‘you know what, man, I just found one with a dust jacket in great condition, and I’m gonna give you the one that I found first.’ And he gave me that one. Since then I’ve turned other people onto it. That book’s amazing. I turned my dad onto it, and my dad reads about that stuff and my mom was reading parts of it–my mom grew up right there on Jensen Drive and Ann Street, right there behind Our Lady Guadalupe–and that house that she grew up in was built by my grandfather in 1950.

Right before that book came out.

Yeah, he built it in ’50 and in ’55 the book came out – you know where that book opens up is 29 St. Charles Street, at Don Antonio’s Laredo Bar. That’s right down the street from where my mom grew up, and I’m thinking, ‘Damn, this is all happening at a time where it kind of makes me wonder if Sig Byrd knew my grandfather!’ So that really turned me on to Segundo Barrio, to read about these places. Some of the buildings might still stand but that bar in particular, there’s just a concrete slab. That place might have looked a lot different back then, a whole different Houston.

Were you soaking up the music there? Those old bars down along Navigation and Harrisburg, there’s amazing music piping out of a lot of those places.

It’s true, man, one of my hangs, D&W Lounge, it’s a cool Second Ward hangout, neighborhood joint, man. They got a great jukebox. I’m biased because they have us in the jukebox (laughs), but I’m talking Willie Nelson, Little Joe y La Familia, just everybody, man. To answer your question – that neighborhood and that area, that whole part of town, there are places and there is music and it’s just part of the existence. Living in Second Ward, there’s music everywhere, but it was music that was just in the family to me.

You just hear it in a different context, living in that neighborhood.

I’m flashing back to when I was living on a dead end street, on Park Drive, and I’d sit on the porch, man, and as recent as that time, 6 years ago, I remember putting it on the radio, 1230 AM used to be Radio Ranchito, and they used to have Noches de Trio, which was just nothing but Trio music. And man, we’d just sit out on the porch and hang out, drink some beers… the music just soaks you up.

So will you bring Umbrella Man out there and play?

Yeah, I’ve played the D&W. They have a good time there. It was such a cool thing that they threw us in their jukebox, and that was after the first time we played there. I’m always happy to play new places, especially unconventional places, as my band can sit in any setting. If you need us loud, we can be loud. We can be Continental [Club] loud or we can go to somewhere as small as the D&W and it’s not like you’re sitting in a bar that’s too small for the volume of the music. We play a lot of acoustic instruments, so it tends to make us chameleons of the setting.

When you’re known as a live band, and you already had been for 3 years before you made a record, but your songs are actually about things rather than just being party songs, do you feel like people had been missing out on the lyrics before you actually recorded?

Yes. Some people will get it, but some people… you know, there’s not too much going on to where they can’t hear the lyrics. You know how it is with live shows – lyrics actually don’t… the physics of sound actually don’t let it through sometimes because the rooms echo or whatever it is, so I’d have to say that that was one thing I was hoping would catch on was yes – my songs are about places and people and things, and that these lyrics have meaning. But you get my concept. No accidents there.

The geography of Houston.

Yeah (laughs). That’s one thing I’m proud of, and I know one thing that they can’t hear live or on the CD – well, you can pick up a few of the words – is my “Pierce Elevated Dub.” That was just a little brief moment that I just wanted to nod and remember the times of Katrina and what post-Katrina Houston became musically, people getting shifted around that way.

The influence is all over the music now.

Yes, exactly. Although I’m playing reggae, what I’m saying in the words, I say Who would have known that the city was going to wake up in colors of royal purple, green and gold/I opened my eyes and realize that New Orleans came to Houston… what I’m talking about is the times when I came back from tour after Katrina… I went to an art opening and it wasn’t the neatly dressed jazz band sitting there; it was a badass bass drum, marching drum, trumpet and a guy hitting the ride on his bass drum with a screwdriver. That’s when I knew things had changed, and I’m still excited about it, 5 years later. It’s influenced us. It’s changed things. And it just goes to show that even in the worst of times, good things happen.

nickgaitan.blogspot.com

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun