Leon III

One Liner:  Fantastic alt-country psych rock by two of the Howler Bros.

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but alt-country, jam, psych rock

Home: Austin

Poster Position: Not on the Poster, late addition
Weekend Two Only.
Sunday at Noon

Thoughts:  Leon the Third is pretty solid!  if I needed to wrap a comp up into a pithy phrase, this sounds like the Drive-By Truckers joined forces with the Grateful Dead.  I was already digging the whole vibe here, and then they threw in a cover of the imminently rad Jane's Addiction song "Summertime Rolls" and I am positively turgid.  I could just listen to these dudes all day long.

Leon III of Abkhazia was the king of something called Abkhazia from 957 AD to 967 AD.  Reading the short Wikipedia entry about it feels like I might as well be reading some chapter of the new Game of Thrones book: "He succeeded in 926 as viceroy of Kartli to his older brother Constantine, the latter was blinded and castrated by George II after Constantine's unsuccessful rebellion."  Apparently, this is part of Georgia now.

These two cats were formerly part of a band called the Wrinkle Neck Mules, which is really quite a band name.  Andy Stepanian and Mason Brent are the members, and they use a pile of session musicians to make the whole thing come to life.  The Mules were apparently a Virginia-based band that hewed to the bluegrass and country sound, but they decided that they were tired of that string sound and wanted go a little further afield.  I really like where they ended up.  Wait, hold on.  I just read this line in a background piece: "Stepanian and Brent also collaborate in the form of Howler Brothers, a popular outdoor clothing line based in Austin, Texas, which they operate and which bears their artistic imprimatur."  WTF!!!!  Talk about burying the lede here - Stepanian co-founded fucking Howler Bros.?  The Howler Brothers co-founder plays in a rad alt-country psych band?!?!?!!?  What the hell.  What a bad ass life - you play music on the side of a massively successful lifestyle brand.  Damn.

Three albums - 2018's Leon III, 2021's Antlers in Velvet, and 2023's Live En Cyclorama.  That last one is a live album, and despite being released in February it shows zero plays at all on Spotify, which is odd.  I'm honestly fascinated by the lack of streams for this band overall - they are completely slept on, but I am loving it.  The most streamed is from that debut album, "Between the Saddle and the Ground" has 59k streams.  Apparently, shares it's title with a song by something called the Peter Wells Band.

Man, that breakfast looked good.  I love good pancakes.  Never eat them because now I'm old and they'll make me feel terrible, but damn if they aren't yummy to eat.  Disconcerting video because of how much he stares at the camera.  He looks so different after shaving!

The top song from the new album is "This Whisper is Ours," with 31k streams and a push away from those more traditional alt-country sounds and into a psych-rock-with-pedal-steel place.  He still stares at the camera too much.

That cheating ass mascot hoe!  I just recently followed along with morbid interest as a classmate of mine was tried in a murder-for-hire scheme where he tried to have his girlfriend's husband killed for allegedly messing with a 13 year old step-daughter.  That second album is where the goodness is - top to bottom I could just keep playing that one all day without getting tired of it.  Like, how could a Deadhead not groove on "Fly Migrator?"  It jams.

Sadly, these dudes play at freaking noon on Sunday, and weekend two only, so I will almost certainly not get to see them at the Fest.  But now that I know they exist, I'm thinking I hunt down another show at Stubb's indoors or the Yeti store or something to check it out.  I am down.