and was an absolute hoot. Their repertoire consists of your garden variety of classic rock standards such as Louie Louie, Mustang Sally, Brown Eyed Girl and Blue Suede Shoes. The band isn’t great but they don’t embar-rass themselves either... but then again, I only heard them play once, and that was their very first gig ever and was a year ago. I’m sure they’ll be a tighter unit this season.

The band consists of five Winter Texans and one local guy, who assemble in Port A each winter. Mark Munson (Brain-erd, Minnesota) is on drums and vocal, Bob Reed (Sangre De Cristo, Colorado) on guitar, harmonicas, keyboard and vo-cals, Joe Jackson (Columbia, Missouri) on lead guitar and vo-cals, John Boeckler (Lake Tomahawk, Wisconsin) on rhythm guitar and vocals, Tommy Huff (Port Aransas, TX but origi-nally from Ewan, New Jersey) on bass and vocals and Gale Pi-fer (Madison, South Dakota) on saxophone. The Rockers will be playing every Thursday at Bernie’s starting on January 6th from 6:30- 9:30. Thursdays are the new Friday.

The Medicare BandThe Medicare Band is a “Big Band” era ensemble

originally comprised of Winter Texans. They play at Sharkeys Beach Club in Port A every Friday night dur-ing the winter months. This is 40’s style music of the “Greatest Generation” in the vein of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman but wrapped in red bow ties. Hey, they even have a song bird, Betty Craw-ford, who waits her cue and takes on the singing du-ties like a seasoned pro. The band plays such jewels as Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey, Satin Doll and Has Anybody Seen My Gal. But don’t pigeon hole these fel-lows as just a “big band” outfit, they also play Dixieland, country, Latin, western swing, waltzes and (for all the people from Minnesota) polkas.

The band was formed about ten years ago through the efforts of band leader, Wayne Lindstadt, the banjo/vi-olin player. Back then all of the musicians were Win-

ter Texans from South Dakota, Wisconsin, Canada and other northern points. Many of the musicians that first formed the band were professional players and worked with such luminaries as Bob Hope, Willie Nelson and the Na-val Orchestra. Tom Dowdy, the bassist, is the youngest member of the group at 55 and is the Chaplain at the Corpus Christi State School. All of the present members of the band now reside in Texas. They have a couple of studio re-corded CD’s available

Island Moon December 22, 2010B 8

By Ronnie Narmour

ronnienarmour@gmail.com

Three Chords and the Truth

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year boys and girls! This is time of the year when you’ve probably started to notice all the “WELCOME WINTER TEXANS” signs going up...not to mention the giant palaces on wheels with out of state tags that inhabit our northern guests. So as a tribute, I thought I preview a few live mu-sic acts that might appeal to the mass of snow birds that are soon to descend on our island. I also caught a cou-ple of great shows at the Third Coast Studio that I’ll tell you about. Be sure to check out the LIVE MUSIC TO-NIGHT box at the bottom of the page to plan out your New Years Eve party. Be safe out there and keep the lo-cal taxi cab’s number handy. The cops here are relent-less. Let’s roll...

Stuart Burns & the Four Minute RideStuart Michael Burns and the Four Minute Ride

(Rockport, TX) is actually quite a remarkable act and will easily appeal to Winter Texans. The music is fun and not loud and full of choice songs. These guys have been playing the Tarpon Ice House every Thursday for months and have developed a growing following of lo-cals who always keep things interesting. I’ve noticed the last couple of shows that they are seeing more and more Winter Texans in attendance and word is getting out about SB&FMR.

Burns is well a seasoned and traveled man best de-scribed as a troubadour and a folky. When he’s not play-ing his own songs, he’s at least covering the right stuff like Townes Van Zandt, Woody Guthrie and Rambin’ Jack Elliot. The band consists of David and Sally Ju-venal on fiddle and stand-up bass and Steve Goldstein on lead acoustic guitar and mandolin. Call me a little prejudice, but I think these guys kick ass. They’ve done enough gigs to polish their show up and make it a real music treat. Burns has a fist full of original songs that are both interesting and engaging. Goldstein’s lead runs re-ally accent Burn’s well, as do the harmonies. This show is a fun, toe tapping good time out on the front porch of the Ice House right on main street Port A. They have heaters on the porch and have covered it in for the win-ter, so it’s comfortable out there. The band plays every Thursday night from 7:00- 10:00.

The PA RockersThe PA Rockers is a band

of Winter Texans founded during the 2009-2010 winter season in Port Aransas. The band’s founder, Mark Mun-son, was searching for like-minded musicians who loved the classic songs from the early era of rock to jam with, collaborate on, and generally just have a good time! Their first public performance was at Bernie’s Beach House in Port A. I actually caught that gig and had a ball just watch-ing the 200 or so Winter Tex-ans dancing and partying to this band. It was like being at a 30 year high school reunion

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!Stuart Burns & 4 Min. Ride

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Every Thurs. 7 p.mfor sale.

The show starts at 6 p.m.and goes to 9:00, so getting home early is not a problem for all the seasoned vets who come out to dance. It’s a relaxed atmosphere at Shar-keys with a no smoking policy when the Medicare Band plays. This scene reminded me of when I was a kid and my folks would take me with them to the American Le-gion Hall to go dancing. This is comforting music remi-niscent of a time when life was much simpler and music was an affair. They’ll be playing Sharkeys on New Years Eve from 7-10.

Slaid CleavesSlaid Cleaves (Austin, TX) played the Third Coast Mu-

sic Studio on December 11th. He was accompanied on guitar by Corpus Christi native, Michael O’Connor (Br-enham, TX). Another strong show to the credit of the Studio. I am a fan of Cleaves and have seen him per-form many times...but, I jump at the chance to see Mi-chael O’Connor play guitar any time. That guy is a boni-fied monster. It’s amazing to watch him dance all over the neck of his guitar. He has an amazingly delicate and clean touch and accents Cleaves songs beautifully...or anyone for that matter (Susan Gibson, Adam Carrol, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Terri Hendrix, etc). This show had a wonderful, Christmas feel to it...especially when Slaid sang his favorite childhood song about the mean one, Mr. Grinch.

The TrishasThe Trishas (Austin, TX) played the Third Coast Mu-

sic Studio on December 18th. It was a powerful perfor-mance. Savannah Welch, Kelley Mickwee, Liz Foster,

and Jamie Wilson are absolutely amazing. The stage and the performers at the Studio are literally one inch from the audience and experiencing the power from those four voices and those four personas, from that close was rivet-ing. The sound in the room was perfect and loud enough to translate all the different sounds coming off that stage. With those four voices, a fiddle, mandolin and a couple of guitars...pound for pound, you’re getting your mon-ey’s worth there friend. You can tell the harmony with these girls doesn’t stop with their voices. Their on stage demeanor basically came across as a family unit with an amazing set of pipes. Their songs are soulful, Tex-as country wrapped around a gospel delivery (in four part harmony) and are strong enough to blow your hair back. I was especially impressed with Trisha Keefer who played violin but didn’t sing...she’s really quite ex-cellent. The timing with this ensemble was perfect with never once a sour note. This was a great show. I was thor-oughly impressed. Am I gushing?

Do Not Miss List

New Year’s EveHappy New Year everybody. I hope you are surrounded

by people you love. Do your best to be safe. See you on the next side. There’s lot’s of good live music out there...get out and find it. Peace!

...and that’s the truth!

The PA Rockers play Bernies every Thursday night

David Juvenal, Sally Juvenal, Steve Goldstein and Stuart Burns of the Four Minute Ride

The Medicare Band will play Sharkey’s in Jan. and Feb

Slaid Cleaves and Michael O’Conner played the 3rd Coast Studio on Dec. 11

The Trishas played the Third Coast Studio on Dec. 4th