Moulton Music Musings

I had a nice day in Moulton picking up pecans, that are three layers thick on the ground. Mixed in with the fallen leaves, the husks and refuse from the trees (limbs have dropped under the weight of this year's abundant crop) the task before me is herculean.

Moulton's my favorite place, of course. I wish I could spend more time there, especially at night when Moulton becomes the center of Texas music for five counties. Besides beer joints, like Pavla's, and the only full bar around at Harvey Kloesel's, Jim and Harvan Mendenhal have the musical oasis Old Moulton Bank, that sho-cases only the finest entertainment from San Antonio and Austin. One can expect to see names like Ponty Bone, The Morales Sisters, Clay Farmer, Adam Carol - all the best.

Recently, a local enterpenuer purchased Tony's antique shop and the venerable Main Bar, and fashioned them into a mega-honkeytonk "Shooter's." The place is the hottest thing around right now. It apparently couldn't come at a worse time for Jim and Harvan. Their love-struck, psychopathic bartender terrorized the patrons with an AK-47, which chased off some customers for a while. Shooter's has had some rough and ready local boys like Tim Hall, and TeXXas. For the longest time OMB refused to hire local legends like Jarrod Birmingham and Highspeed Hayride, but the pressure from Shooter's might make discerning against what the people want harder to endure.

In all fairness, Bill Pekar's band regularly holds court at OMB, and the Mules used to routinely kill there. Even yours truly a time or two.

These are exciting times.

The wife and I have caught the recently re-formed Krayolas in San Antonio. The last time, at the Cove (where surf-god Brain Parrish's band The Saturdaynite Satalites played ashort set) showed the band has their shit together, and gets three thumbs up from mio.

I put off mentioning, and then forgot the Burnt Orange Report on Neo-con Goon Chris Turner, to wit:


Fort Worth City Council candidate Chris Turner evidently has calculated that his long history as a harshly partisan Republican political operative with ties to Tom DeLay and Tom Craddick, along with his work as a special interest lobbyist, is not a very good profile when campaigning for a nonpartisan office like the City Council. So, in a recent Fort Worth Star Telegram article, Turner simply decided to mislead the reporter by denying his close ties to DeLay and Craddick and outright lying about the extent of his work as a paid lobbyist.

In fact, Turner received over $250,000 for work supporting Craddick/DeLay allies and
earned as much as $240,000 working as a lobbyist. That is completely contrary to what he told the press a few days ago.

"Turner said his lobbying work was limited to two clients during the past five years."

Looking at filings at the Ethics Commission tells the full story. The reality is, Chris Turner has registered as a lobbyist for 9 different clients in the last 5 years and 5 clients since just January 1, 2007. Those contracts were worth as much as $240,000.

Chris Turner's Registered Lobby List 2004-2007

* Anheuser-Busch Inc.
* Bank of America N.A.
* Carlisle & Gallagher Technology Incorporated
* Crescent Real Estate Equities LTD
* Harvest Partners Ltd.
* Positive Pain Management
* Provident Realty Advisors Inc.
* San Jacinto Public Affairs L.L.P.
* Texas Music LLC

Which begs the question, what does a relatively banal Texas Music site need registered lobbyist? It would be like finding out MyTexasMusic paid Rudy Guliani for public relations.

I'll have to ponder this.

Coming soon: What happened to Billy Joe Shaver after he shot that fan in the face recently at a Waco dive. I'll ask more gently, but there is nothing blunter than shooting somebody in the face.