First major-label album big step for Mother Falcon
In mid-August, Mother Falcon was all set to unveil its new album for local fans with two big record-release shows at local clubs Empire and North Door when suddenly everything changed — in a good way.
The indie-classical crossover band had planned to put out “Good Luck Have Fun” on their own, but they’d been in regular contact with major label Universal Music Classics since meeting one of the company ’s representatives at South by Southwest a couple of years ago.
“We had made all these plans to self-release it, but we had sent it up to them, just to keep them in the loop,” multi-instrumentalist Matt Puckett explained. “It turned out they got really excited about it, and decided that they just wanted to jump in right now.”
The band scrambled to change the August dates to free fan- appreciation shows, as Universal needed a little time to gear up for a national release. The album fifinally comes out this Friday. Mother Falcon will have early copies available on Wednesday when they play an all-ages show at Empire before heading offff on an extensive fall tour that takes them to more than 30 cities across the country.
Universal’s offffffffffffer “defifinitely caught us by surprise at
fifirst , because the conversation had been that they were really excited about working with us. But we were looking at what the next album (after this one) would be like,” Puckett said. “It was tricky to switch gears, but it’s also really exciting to know that the reason you’re doing it is because your new team members just got really stoked about the new album.”
“Good Luck Have Fun” is an ambitious work for the supersized collective, which sprouted from cellist Nick Gregg’s
jam sessions with fellow students at Westlake High School seven years ago and eventually drew in players from McCallum High School as well. Its lineup features a core of at least a dozen members and at times has expanded well beyond that.
The group’s Facebook page lists 14 members — with the
qualifier “some variation of the following” — and a photo on the group’s website shows 15 musicians. When they played NPR’s Tiny Desk online video series in 2013, they were 17 strong, tying for the largest ensemble ever to perform on the program.
With big numbers come grand horizons. “Good Luck Have Fun” divides into two distinctly different halves: Up front is a collection of five comparatively straightforward indie-pop songs, followed by seven fascinating instrumental tracks collectively dubbed the “Starnation Suite.”
“We put a lot of work into trying to get them into the same sonic world,” Puckett says. “They’re representing these two halves of the band that are constantly in conversation. They’re not really at odds, but our concept for this record was, let’s give each of those halves space to breathe and just go down their own rabbit holes.”
The band stretches its boundaries even further with ancillary projects that go beyond standard recording sessions and gigs. At the Austin City Limits Music Festival last weekend, they teamed with noted New York children’s performer Tim Kubart for a couple of performances on the Austin Kiddie Limits stage. And this past summer, they wrapped up their fourth year of the Mother Falcon Music Lab, a camp for aspiring young musicians who are similarly inclined toward blending classical and pop realms.
Such extracurricular activities have helped to keep Mother Falcon in balance. “We see everybody working so hard together for another common goal — and I think it brings us all closer together as a band,” says Tamir Kalifa, who plays accordion, piano and bouzouki with the group.
“It’s also kind of a palate cleanser,” he continues. “Being in a band with 12 people isn’t easy, but there’s this harmony about camp that I think really helps put a lot of those tensions to rest. It reminds us why we’re doing it, and how lucky we are to be doing it.”
In addition, the Music Lab serves as an outlet for Mother Falcon’s members to give back to the community from which they arose. “We are very much a product of Austin,” Kalifa says.
Puckett concurs. “All of us can point to teachers and camps and programs that affected us as young people and made us see a lot of doors opening that seemed closed at the time,” he says.
“It’s not all that long ago that we were all a lot younger. And every year we see so many young people and get a glimpse of their potential. That’s one of the biggest thrills of camp: You see that, oh wow, in seven years, these kids could be huge!”
#9 for Lennon’s 75th
Friday night at Threadgill’s, the #9 Orchestra will mark a quarter-century of birthday salutes to John Lennon. Will it be the last? Ringleader Stephen Doster says he’s been thinking about that — but he isn’t ready to decide for sure.
It would be a nice round end to a long run, with this year’s 25th show also marking the 75th anniver- sary of Lennon’s birth.
Local musicians Andy Salmon, Tommy Taylor, Ben Cocke, Maria Nehring, Bruce Marton and Shana Norton will rejoin Doster at Threadgill’s. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are $15.
Earlier Friday, KUTXFM D J Jody Denberg will host the orchestra for a 2 p.m. live broadcast from the station’s Studio 1A, with guests including Shinyribs, Miles Zuniga, Suzanna Choffel, Johnny Goudie, William Harries Graham and Darin Murphy. Some of them also will take part in the evening show.
The annual event “is more popular now than ever,” says Doster. “It’s really a matter of whether we can physically be able to pull it off ” beyond this year.
Threadgill’s has been the show’s home for the past few years, drawing the biggest crowds since the series began in 1991. Many other local venues hosted the tributes in the past, including some that are gone (La Zona Rosa, Steamboat) and some that still remain (Continental Club, Saxon Pub).
Doster isn’t concerned about going up against the second weekend of ACL Fest, saying that it’s more important to keep the event on the actual day of Lennon’s birth. And ultimately, he says, “it’s really more just about this group of friends who come together and do this.”