I went to Austin in June for a performance with Chris Schlarb’s Psychic Temple Ensemble at the NMASS Festival at the Salvage Vanguard Theater. While there, I sat in on a set by singer/songwriter Aaron Roche, whose album Plainspeak has been dominating my turntable all summer. Wonderful stuff. The NMASS crew did a top-notch job with this festival, the set with Schlarb was transcendent to say the least, and I fell completely in BBQ-induced love with Austin.

After the festival I drove to Houston, spent Father’s Day afternoon at Rothko Chapel, and then to a fun gig with my friend Thomas Helton and The Core Trio at Khon’s. Houston has a very dynamic community of creative musicians, and it was wonderful to meet and hear so many of them. Big thanks to Jonathan Jindra for his help organizing and promoting this show.

It was SRO at Dagny’s for what was by far one of the most remarkable local confluences of improvisational wizardry I’ve ever been a part of, with internationally renowned master drummer Lukas Ligeti stopping in on his way to CalArts to receive the Alpert Award, Brooklyn bassist James Ilgenfritz coming through on a solo tour, and electric bassist Steuart Liebig driving up from Los Angeles because we asked him nicely. The opening set featured local psych cadets the Invisible-Astro-Healing-Rhythm Quartet, with saxophonist Chris Nguyen sitting in…