The White Ghost Shivers: “White Trash Fast Food”
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Every day, every hour and every minute and second there is music happening in Austin. You don’t have to traipsing the asphalt down on Red River or wading around beer-soaked bars to find it either. It can be something as simple as the shirtless dude in yoga pants at Zilker playing “Space Oddity” in the middle of a field. It can be a great jukebox full of original Patsy Cline 45s, or even the sound of cicadas in July. Music lives in Austin’s DNA, and all you have to do is look around. But you needn’t go in your quest alone, for there is The Austin Music Map, a new public media experiment from KUT Austin, Localore, and Zeega. The Austin Music Map explores the hidden bits of Austin music you never knew existed, and this weekend (Saturday, Nov. 10) they’re having a launch party at the ND featuring some great artists like NickNack, Susan Torres & The Squeezebox Mafia, the Minor Mishap Marching Band, and today’s song of the day artist, The White Ghost Shivers.
If you’ve never seen the White Ghost Shivers, there’s not a whole lot that can prepare you for it. Imagine, if you will, a 1920s speakeasy written about by Hunter Thompson, and you’ll get a pretty good idea. The band, usually clad in jaunty suits and Prohibition-era gear, bangs out early jazz, ragtime and hillbilly music with enough vaudeville cheek to make a Ziegfeld Girl blush. Today’s song of the day comes from a recent White Ghost Shivers live performance in KUT’s Studio 1A. The song, “White Trash Fast Food,” also opens the band’s latest record Nobody Loves You Like We Do. The song moves at a breakneck pace. The banjo strumming is so fast, it’s percussive. Nimble acoustic guitar, hootin’ clarinet and singer Cella Blue’s sassy vocals’ll make you wanna grab the nearest French 75 and guzzle it down. So when you’re at the ND Saturday, get your best Charleston on, and celebrate all the hidden music that makes this town so special.
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