Sunday February 07, 2010 11:15
“But Casual Victim Pile isn’t any sort of manifesto or template. To quote Cosloy again, it is a “snapshot of a particular time and place,” and it’s difficult to imagine a more compelling vision of what exactly this slab of Red River is all about. In that respect, Casual Victim Pile is not the last word on Austin’s music scene for 2010, but the first. How wonderful it would be if this labor of love inspired many more testaments, from the experimental havens of the Church of the Friendly Ghost to the bruised concrete of the Broken Neck to the congregations of our house shows to everything else. It’s a time to stop wringing hands about blues-rock’s dopey shadow or the over-glorified confines of one particular extinct venue - be it The Vulcan Gas Company or Liberty Lunch or even the Back Room. In spite of (or because of) Austin’s comfortable ties to the past, everything feels fresh and new and very, very exciting, with so much more to be uncovered in the year to come.”
— I have to admit that I’m as guilty as anyone of lamenting the loss (and impending loss) of places like Armadillo World Headquarters, Liberty Lunch, and the Cactus Cafe, but at the same time this kind of enthusiasm for what’s going on now and how it lays foundations for Austin’s future excites me. There’s of course some cross-talk involved in highlighting how creating a historical snapshot for the sake of posterity demonstrates a focus on the future, but this kind of affection for our place and the cooperation it so frequently inspires expressed through an actual collaborative project, rather than some abstracted Chamber of Commerce initiative, can only be a good thing. (quotation from Casual Victim Pile: Album Review, Show(s) Preview - Austinist)
