Live music review: Feel Good Music Festival for SIMS Foundation featured Latin fusion, songwriters

The first Feel Good Music Festival at Far Out Lounge and Stage took place over the holiday weekend.  The venue and SIMS Foundation hopes it to become an annual tradition at the upstart live music venue in South Austin. The festival capped a month-long celebration of Mental Health Awareness for the music non-profit that provides mental health and recovery services to Austin music industry members and their dependent families.

Latin fusion acts Money Chicha, Caramelo Haze, Easy Compadre! along with progressive rockers Megafauna entertained fans Saturday evening with host Kevin Curtain who led The Austin Chronicle Music Department for five years. Curtain claimed the five-piece was one of the best of rock bands in a town filled with axe-slingers. He’s not wrong as the veteran group enters their 15th year as a band. Led by Dani Neff, an Uber-talented songwriter, guitarist and vocalist who has the ability to deliver vocals while shredding guitar like the seasoned professional the woman has matured into.

Megafauna’s players are equally adept. Winston Barrett is the newest member on keys and guitar while Zack Humphries sits behind the drum kit while Will Krause lays down ferocious bass lines at the center of the stage. With a new record out, Olympico and a decade and a half of material, the group set a high bar for the evening musically that the remaining bands adroitly met with the quiet confidence of years of recording and touring their own music.

Easy Compadre! followed with a blistering set of Cumbia-rock fusion. The tone established by the trio featuring Alfredo Rios Rodriguez of The Bright Light Social Hour along with bassist and keyboardist Oscar Botello and guitarist, Hector Tednoir was aggressive and daring to say the least. Ticket buyers had no choice but to leave their seats to move onto the dance floor in front of the band. Their groove was undeniable.

Following Easy Compadre!’s electrifying performance, our new obsession, Caramelo Haze took the stage with an Austin, Latin supergroup of sorts, comprised of John Speice on drums, Alex Chavez on keys and vocals, Victor Cruz playing percussion while his Nemegata bandmate, César Valencia laid down delicious bass lines and virtuoso guitarist, Beto Martinez delivered mind-bending riffs with the band. The complexity of the rhythms in this act featuring two Grammy-winners (Grupo Fantasma)  in Spiece and Martinez is a reflection of decades of dedicated professional investment in Latin and rock music.

The work has truly paid off with the group joining a raft of other Austin acts at Austin City Limits Music Festival later this year. The band also heads to Los Angeles for a performance soon as well as being featured at the Long Center for Performing Arts’ Drop-In Series which began last week with SIMS Foundation founding member, Alejandro Escovedo.

Finally, Money Chicha, yet another Grupo Fantasma offshoot that consists of Spiece, Martinez, Greg Gonzalez (bass), Sweet Lou (percussion) and Peter Stropchinski on keys. It’s astounding how good all these players are. They’re perhaps the most overlooked project in Austin of this caliber. We know it’s because the group has members in a variety of other acts while their style of music is more steeped in traditional Columbian Cumbia sounds than perhaps their other projects are not. In any case, you should go see them. Bring your dancing shoes along.

Sunday’s Bob vs Bob performances shepherded by Graham’s Giveback run by Graham Wilkinson and Graham Weber was a hit with music fans young and old as the daytime portion of the Feel Good Music Festival enjoyed what is likely to be the last weekend of comfortable weather before Summer blasts Austin residents with heat for months.

What could be better than hearing some of this town’s best singers and songwriters honoring the music of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley? The first has a connection to Austin as his longtime touring guitarist, Charlie Sexton is based here. Wilkinson and Weber put together an impressive program featuring acoustic then full-band performances by the likes of Betty Soo, Jenna Waters, Dossey, Suzanna Chofel, Scott Collins, Tony Kamel, Scott Strickland, Kalu James, Patrice Pike and plenty more.

Weber’s version of “Like a Rolling Stone” showed off his buttery vocals while Courtney Santana’s Marley covers had most of the audience up and dancing in front of the yellow stage Far Out has. Dogs roamed, children played and parents visited with each other throughout the afternoon.

The Feel Good Music Festival was made possible by support from sponsors, Meanwhile Brewing Company, The Zebra, Suerte Restaurant and The Austin Chronicle. If you missed the event but would like to support SIMS and local musicians, donations can be made here.

All photos by Ryan Vestil