by Kimberly Caterino of Live Music Capital Radio
Well, either my eyeballs had it wrong or the online Austin Chronicle had it wrong— I thought I was headed to Maria’s Taco Xpress to see Dave Insley’s Careless Smokers, a country band I play on The Happy Hour. What I arrived to was a seated pair of musicians in sunglasses, one playing blues on a resonator guitar and the other backing him up on a stripped down drum set, enduring the Austin heat stylishly in a fedora.
Pehr (pronounced “pear”) Smith on guitar and Dony (yes, “Donny”) Wynn on drums/percussion were presented by the Sin City Social Club series, which means free music at Maria’s Taco Xpress on Thursday evenings. (Don’t forget the tip jar!) Pehr played a range of covers, I mean a real range of covers, from Dobie Gray to Furry Lewis to Lou Reed and beyond. At times the covers were improbable enough, and musically translated with Pehr’s style enough, that I needed help from others identifying them.
The variety of covers showed off Pehr’s flexibility in genre without ever straying too far from what must be a tried-and-true low, rhythmic, and bluesy signature style for Pehr—at least when playing to a sit-down crowd—but not without impressive melodic solos and slide work. He also has a unique enough voice that had me guessing if the mic was intentionally distorted. Dony, the former drummer for Robert Palmer and one who has played with a host of established musicians, was right there with Pehr in variety— mixing up the rhythm patterns, at time interestingly syncopated, and never holding the same set of percussive toys twice, including: a miniature tambourine, mallets, brushes, maraca, a small family of tom-toms, the bass drum he used as a drum stool, an interesting shekere I’ve never quite seen before, and the metal shaker sometimes added to a West African djembe, called a Tsink Tsink. There might have been a plain old drumstick and snare in the mix too..
We heard a twangy and electrified, yet somehow rootsy, version of “When the Saints Go Marching In”, a rockabilly and breezy take on Doc Watson’s “Nashville Blues”, an upbeat and danceable (really!) “Amazing Grace”, and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” weighing low, dark, and hypnotic, except for when it crescendoed in both volume and a sweet light solo. Of course I couldn’t help but appreciate Lead Belly’s “Turn Yo Radio On"..
Pehr Smith, an instructor of 2D Design and Painting at Texas State University, and Dony Wynn, not only a super drummer but also extremely creative writer too, have an impressive repertoire of covers they perform and made their own. And if you’re up for some nachos and a cold one under grass umbrellas next to artistically hand-painted walls, Maria’s Taco Xpress is the place to be.
