The holidays are a relatively quiet time for music festivals in Austin, until this year when the Holiday Hootenanny featuring Danny Brown, of Montreal, and HEALTH held Saturday, December 14th and Sunday, December 15th, at Radio East, was released this fall. The nascent micro-fest was presented by Resound, the Austin team that books shows at clubs in Central Texas such as Mohawk, Hotel Vegas, and The Far Out Lounge; Pooneh Ghana, a globe-trotting, Austin-based concert photographer turned concert booker; and KUTX, Austin’s non-commercial rock station. That trio includes some of the same folks behind Levitation (QRO ’24 recap), Austin Psych Fest, and SXSW (QRO ’24 recap), lending the gathering a familiar indie vibe.
Radio East is a fairly new coffee shop on Austin’s East Side and has proven to pull its weight as an Austin music venue since Pooneh Presents kicked off monthly showcases there with Broncho last December. With tickets hovering around $40 each day, concertgoers received the gifts of plenty of parking, bathrooms, and sightlines, along with reasonable food and drink prices, and an array of seating options that lent the gathering a VIP-like experience. Christmas is an easy theme to build around, so upon entering the gate you could see strings of lights, tatted up Santa Claus’, punk rock Grinches, and doom metal Christmas sweaters.
As usually is the case for outdoor events in Austin, the weather serves as a dominant backdrop and can wreak havoc on plans – see Levitation 2016 which was canceled due to heavy rain. The days leading up to the event caused some concern as a winter weather pattern was set to sit over the state bringing heavy haze and mist between downpours. Luckily, Friday before the festival proved to be the wettest day of the week letting the show go on as planned the next day. Since the last Day for Night in Houston in 2017 (QRO photo gallery), it was nice to come back together with like-minded music aficionados in Texas during the especially dicey winter months.
Despite the drier conditions over the weekend, everything outdoors was rather damp and some mist persisted delaying some of the concert goers from arriving on Saturday and Sunday. A skate ramp was erected in the parking lot, but was barely used. However vendor booths, vintage market, screen printing live demo, and rubber mechanical bull were active and added to the look and feel of the event.
Saturday’s lineup started early with indie acts leading up to local fan favorite Tear Dungeon as night arrived. Made up of musicians from Sweet Spirit and Giant Dog, Tear Dungeon is known for their on stage theatrics that include Pulp Fiction-like Gimp masks and gallons of fake blood. The Austin-based garage punk/stoner metal band did not disappoint, thrashing around the Christmas tree on the small stage and dousing those in the splash zone in fountains of fake blood spit from the mouth of frontman Andrew Cashen. They were followed by Chicago-based pop band, Water from Your Eyes, who provided a nice contrast on the large festival stage at the rear of the venue with the bouncing synthesizers of Nate Amos and dreamy vocals of Rachel Brown. The psychedelic vibes continued on the smaller stage closer to the coffee shop with Bayonne, the stage name of the mustachioed electronic composer Roger Sellers, with the addition of live drumming by Matt Toman. The Austin-based frontman layered looping vocals and beats while he and Toman were bathed in the type of projected liquid lights seen last month at Levitation Fest.
Co-headlining on Saturday night were HEALTH and Danny Brown, musicians that added an industrial sound and hip-hop dimension to the fest, respectively. The Los Angeles band HEALTH recently returned to the U.S. after touring heavily in Europe over the fall in support of their last year’s Rat Wars and took the large stage during a heavy mist. The gloomy backdrop of darkness accented by red lights was punctuated by strobes which seemed to magnify the thickening rain drops. Their 18 song set kicked off with “IDENTITY” from DISCO4 :: PART II, mid-set cover of “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” by the Deftones, and finished with the pounding tune “DSM-V” from Rat Wars, rocking the crowd like a Nine Inch Nails concert.
Originally hailing from Detroit, Danny Brown has called Austin his home for the last few years. His presence is a welcomed addition to the local music scene, which could improve upon the breadth of high caliber hip-hop artists. Taking the stage in a rubber-looking, pointy shoulder black jacket that looked like he was wearing Batman’s mask with his arms where the ears should be, Brown had to redo the beginning intro of his first song “Tantor” when his microphone malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. He took no time getting fists pumping in the crowd as he progressed through another 18-song set. The crowd really got hyped with “Lie4” from his 2012 album XXX and “Dip” from his 2013’s Old, before going into a half dozen songs from his collaboration with JPEGMAFIA. Sadly, Brown wasn’t feeling so swell that night and apologized at the end of his set for being sick.
Sunday was as gloomy as the previous day, keeping crowds hunkered down under awnings until the rain broke around 7pm as Austin-based quintet FONT finished up their set. Lovers of the stylings of Parquet Courts would have been delighted by FONT’s jangly and angular brand of post-punk. Up next on the large stage was Voxtrot, who performed to a noticeably larger crowd of fans than the night before. Formed in 2003, the Austin-based indie pop band took a long hiatus in 2010 before reuniting in 2022 and writing new material in 2023. Led by the heart-melting vocals of Ramesh Srivastava reminiscent of Morrisey, the group warmed up the cool winter night with tunes from their older albums Raised by Wolves, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives, and Your Biggest Fan, along with new material from this year’s EP Esprit de Coeur.
Bridging the playful and romantic vocals of Voxtrot and Of Montreal was the lo-fi and playful surf punk sounds of Austin-based trio Being Dead. Laden with groovy hooks, singers Falcon Bitch and Gumbal evoked the ‘60s era with their The Mamas & the Papas harmonizing. Joking around on stage and switching drums and guitars mid-way through the set, their fuzzy retro vibe transported the crowd away like a chugging train to the beach. If fuzzy beach is your vibe, then 2024 album EELS is definitely worth a listen.
Rounding out the festival was Athens, Georgia pop band of Montreal. Led by the distinctive vocals of Kevin Barnes, the band continued the psychedelic vibes of the day with a masterful 14-song performance from a prolific catalog of nine albums. They kicked off with “Balb Sabbath Lathe of Miden” before launching into “Gronlandic Edit” that introduced Blue Man Group-like stage performers who changed costumes and displayed whimsical digital assisted choreography. The musical and visual performance of Montreal is always worth the price of admission. Funky bass-driven disco grooves enlivened the crowd as of Montreal wound down their set with crowd favorite and critically acclaimed song “It’s Different for Girls” from the 2016 album Innocence Reaches (QRO review). After a brief break, the band returned to the stage with the encore “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse”, a quintessential of Montreal mythical and boppy synth tune from the 2007 album Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (QRO review).
Holiday Hootenanny was an experiment with legs. Austin locals who frequent Hotel Vegas and the Far Out Lounge for their distinctive Austin psych and metal vibes now have a promising new venue in Radio East that should be considered as a site for future festivals. The proximity to downtown and relatively large footprint allow for a nice mid-size option while maintaining the look and feel of both of those established venues. Filling the gap in the December concert calendar is the other notable observation of this fest – good on the producers for curating a show thick with local talent along with some heavy national acts. As more music fans learn about this new offering and venue, this micro-fest is sure to grow in the years to come – Field of Dreams style.
-words: Alex Freeman
-photos: Juan Carlos Ferrer
