Warren Hood is an accomplished musician who plays violin, fiddle, mandolin, and composes and sings as well. He lives in Austin, Texas and performs with his local band, Warren Hood and the Hoodlums, in a blend of jazz/blues/newgrass acoustic fusion of music, on Sundays @ Momo’s. In the 2005 Austin Chronicle Best Musician Awards, Warren was voted #1-Best String Player and his band was voted 2nd in the bluegrass category, by the Austin readers.

“Like the Possum (George Jones) Dayton is the possessor of a tear-stained voice, a lost soul sensibility and probably a high degree of familiarity with the kinds of places mama warned you about.” — The Austin American Statesman

A combination of the sensitive and sophisticated with a good bit of dirty possum-ness. Come get some on ya. Come get ORQED!!

For ten years The Mighty Orq has been performing solo and with his band across the US and Europe. He has won three Houston Press Music Awards (“Best Guitarist”- 2007, “Best Guitarist”- 2010, “Best Blues” – 2012) two regional International Blues Challenges (2011 & 2012) and released five albums with another studio album slated for release in 2013.

The new album entitled “Soulful City” is a departure from the southern rock leaning ‘To The Bone’ and ‘Lost In Germany’ albums. This collection of new songs celebrates Houston’s rich musical heritage, and showcases Orq’s acoustic and resonatorl guitar acumen. It was made possible by a grant from the Houston Arts Alliance, and will be released in April 2013.

It is our pleasure to welcome these boys back to the Cactus stage. Always an amazing performance that should not be missed. With each passing day, more and more people are coming around to discovering the magic of Quiet Company. Hope you can be one of those people!

“I know my time is coming” Taylor Muse sang those words in 2011 and the time has certainly come for his anthemic Austin pop-rock band. Formed in 2005 Muse (guitar/vocals) and his bandmates have spent much of the last year in increasingly rarefied air; playing late night talk shows (Carson Daly), performing at the Austin City Limits Festival, setting a record crowd for radio station KGSR’s Blues On The Green outdoor concert series, recording a session in the original studio of the iconic “Austin City Limits” television show, winning a record-shattering 10 Austin Music Awards and receiving glowing reviews for the late-2011 release We Are All Where We Belong.

THIS FRIDAY May the 10th, in addition to our previously announced Houston show at Walter’s, we will be doing a #FREE #ALLAGES in-store performance at Cactus Records in that same city. It starts at five pm, and don’t be late, because it has to be pretty short – we gotta leave some gas in the tank for the real show, know what I’m saying? Come out and be rocked by us and support an essential local business.

“On the surface, the sounds of the two albums feel pretty similar, but thematically, they’re worlds apart. Where The Monitor was a punk rock general addressing the troops, Local Business is an afternoon barfly telling his problems to anyone willing to listen and stump up for a drink, and fortunately for listeners, this drunk has a lyric book that they’ll want to spend some time with.” Allmusic.com

By Tyran Grillo, March 2013 -
A jazz vocalist and a full-time geologist in the Texas oil industry, who is also a visual artist, writer, and dancer. In only one person can you find such a package: Raquel Cepeda. The Venezuelan-born and, since 2005, Houston-based chanteuse grew up in a musical family, where the voices of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra inspired her on to singing at the tender age of 9. While pursuing a degree in Geological Engineering, she started to perform on campus, first accompanying herself on guitar and later with various pianists. In 1995 she won first place at the Venezuelan “Ucevista” Voice Festival, an intramural competition for aspiring artists that landed her in the studio for her first CD, 2001’s Juegos de Playa, which she recorded with singers Karina Stone, Antonia Toro, and Joanna Vega, along with important jazz musicians from her homeland, including Gonzalo Micó. Nestled among jazz standards and Micó’s originals, Cepeda’s voice bloomed into the recorded world. Though she was already contemplating a solo album at the time, it would be a decade before the chance to realize it would present itself.

While studying music under Paul English, she and the famed producer struck a friendship, and the two began brainstorming what would later become I’m Confessin’. This self-proclaimed “work of heart” represents a melodic leap of intuition, a foray into new personal and emotional depths. Its thirteen tracks represent a variety of places and idioms: American standards, Brazilian bossa novas and sambas, Latin boleros, a Venezuelan tonada, and even a ballad of her own make for a set list that is as holistic as it is diverse. Its combination of four languages represents Cepeda’s multicultural heritages and influences and joins them with a top-flight production team that matches her commitment to affirming music.

“This will be like making a sculpture, with a raw rock that we will be chiseling out until it becomes smooth and unique.” Such was the metaphor that English used to describe the studio process as he and Cepeda set to sketching initial arrangements before stepping into the studio. This artisanal care is apparent in every song, polished until it shone. Listening to Cepeda sing, one can hear the tactile joy in her voice, the amiable passion she brings to every song that falls under her spell. As a perfectionist, she calls upon an unerring sense of purpose to the music at hand. Her working relationship with Paul English and engineer Andy Bradley makes for an unbreakable musical synergy. The three share a belief in the integrity of song, of the feelings it communicates, and seek to translate that for the listener.

Indeed, translation is what the Raquel Cepeda experience is all about. “I think about myself as multicultural,” she says, “and that makes me feel richer as a person. Every time that I visit a new place I feel that something of that place is forever part of me. I like to involve myself not only though the physical knowledge of the place, but also experience it through the language. ”Whether in the polyglot approach to lyric or in the idiomatic variety of the arrangements, you can be sure to get your passport’s worth when walking through the gallery of interests in her soundworld. She invites us with her song, all the while holding true to the spirit that moves her, and which is sure to move the listener in kind.

The buzz surrounding San Antonio’s Hacienda may signal a rebirth of young rock n’ roll -with emphasis on the “roll”- to the country’s landscape. With brothers Rene Villanueva (bass/vocals), Jaime (drums/vocals) and Abraham Villanueva (keyboards/vocals), this Mexican-American trio blends a raw yet sophisticated style of pop music with harmonies reminiscent of the Beatles and Beach Boys.

As fate would have it, a demo of 6 songs landed in the hands of Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and the band’s life was forever changed. Soon after they were opening for The Black Keys in Austin Texas, as well as for Dr. Dog, gaining some much needed exposure. Under Auerbach’s watch, Hacienda would write and arrange more than twenty songs, sending him demos periodically in preparation for their debut album, ultimately recording in Dan’s own studio in Akron, Ohio.

Hacienda has released three full-lengths since that time–LOUD IS THE NIGHT, BIG RED & BARBACOA and SHAKEDOWN–to great critical acclaim.

Songs for their newest album were co-written and produced by Dan Auerbach, which was released in 2012 by Collective Sounds in North America and Dine Alone Records in Canada.

The band has toured with Kasabian, City and Colour, The Greenhornes, The Black Keys, Dr. Dog, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Alberta Cross and My Morning Jacket. Hacienda also toured worldwide as Dan Auerbach’s backing band, The Fast Five, for his 2009 solo record Keep It Hid.

“Carrie Rodriguez first came to public notice as a result of her duet records with Chip Taylor, but she’s been a thriving solo artist for a while now. She released her début album, “Seven Angels on a Bicycle,” in 2006, and recently put out her fifth, “Give Me All You Got.” Along the way, Rodriguez—who plays Rockwood Music Hall on Feb. 6—has broadened her sound. It’s still founded in country-folk and showcases her skilled fiddling, but her arrangements have ventured to the border of pop music without quite crossing it. “Whiskey Runs Thicker Than Blood,” one of the strongest songs on her new album, is a nearly perfect mid-tempo shuffle with pedal steel sparkling on the surface. And “Brooklyn” cannily celebrates both her adopted home and the pleasures of occasionally escaping it. What is most impressive about Rodriguez’s singing is something unexpected: her diction, which can be slurred with emotion one moment and crisply analytical the next. She creates beautiful music that is always slyly smart, which in turn makes it more beautiful.” – The New Yorker / By Ben Greenman 2/11/13