Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians' Reunion is 8 Years in the Making
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| Mike Brooks |
Brickell and her band mates all attended Booker T. Washington -- save for Houser, whom Withrow dubs "an honorary Booker T. Washington person" -- and planted their roots when Dallas' music scene was undergoing a transitional period.
"There was a whole other blues scene that happened," Withrow says. "And that all kind of died out, and Dallas became like cover bands. You were just the entertainment in the corner of the club. If you were going to play somewhere they wanted you to play something you can dance to and cover music and that was Dallas."
Original live music was sparse. With the exception of a few punk bands, the idea of popping into a venue on any given weekend during that time and hearing fresh material was a mere novelty.
"In fact, this guy, Russell Smith from The Dallas Morning News, wrote this article with a big picture of Edie on the cover of the weekend guide, and it said, 'This is happening in your town.' And people were like 'Oh wow, original music!'" Withrow says. "Actually that article helped a lot to kick-start what was happening."
Within a year, the band became a regular fixture at North Texas venues, playing some 20 shows a month. "I wouldn't say 'It's not like when I was a kid' or whatever, because somebody is doing what we were doing," Withrow says. "We were fortunate, I don't know, that something connected in the community and a lot of people came to every show."
Even all these years later, chances are good that Brickell and the New Bohemians will draw many familiar faces this Saturday. Withrow concedes that their shows tend to have a distinct family vibe. But with their set list penned and rehearsals coming together, their known inclination for spontaneity and hashing out new material will have to be curbed to a degree for their Dallas appearance.
"We're going to have to be disciplined because we're going to have to play songs that people know, right?" Withrow says. "What tends to happen is we get together and we start writing songs and it's like, that's cool, we're having a great time. But it's like people want to hear the songs too, they want to hear what they remember. So we're going to have to walk that tight rope."
Brickell admits she's as guilty as anyone about veering from the usual plan. "I'll rehearse as much as I can with the guys but we always end up writing new songs more than rehearsing older ones and then I get all excited to play those," she says. "So I'm pretty worthless when it comes to rehearsing. The freshest expression piques my interest more than any because of the authenticity of the present-moment feeling."
Yet that spontaneity is one of the primary things to celebrate about the New Bohemians, which makes getting them back together a definite treat. Withrow's love for live performance is nothing short of infectious.
"I just love the ritual of live music, you know," he says. "When the audience is there and you're playing and the show reaches a point where it's completely spontaneous to everybody and everybody's there and there's no line between the audience and the band, and everybody's just celebrating this third thing -- the music -- that's still why I do what I do."
North Oak Cliff Music Festival
11 a.m. Saturday, October 25, 300 E. Colorado Blvd., www.nocmf.com
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