When we joined, which is to say "stumbled," into Erykah Badu and the Rebirth Brass Band's 407-foot-long drive-n-dance down Main Street a few weeks ago, we noted the many cameras on hand to film the brief trek; word was, per Badu's business partner Paul Levatino, they were there for a doc-in-progress about Tim Headington's ever-expanding efforts to remake Main in his image. So, then: Not sure if this freshly posted short-short, which is short some Rebirth Brass Band funk and uses instead as its soundtrack "The Healer" off 2008's New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War, is an excerpt from that or something else. But whatever it is, it's nicely done.

Denton County Sheriff's Department

​An old Friend of Unfair Park directs our attention to, of all things, TMZ, which says Randy Travis was "arrested in Dallas this morning" for drinkin' some wine in front of the First Baptist Church in Sanger ... which is in Denton County. But, sure enough, there it is on the Denton County website: Travis was booked this morning for public intox, a Class C misdemeanor, then released shortly afterward. Since life is like a country song, all together now: "There'll always be a honky-tonk/With a jukebox in the corner/And someone crying in their beer/And one old hanger-oner/And a lady looking lonely/From a losing love affair/Yeah, there'll always be a honky-tonk somewhere."

Etta James and the host of The !!!! Beat, Bill "Hoss" Allen

​Last night, I got a text from Peter Schmidt, who could not believe I've never written about a short-lived 1966 TV show called The !!!! Beat, hosted by iconic Nashville deejay Bill "Hoss" Allen. Wrote Peter, who'd come across it yesterday after a lunchtime discussion about Etta James turned up an extraordinary clip from the series, "Turns out the show was filmed at WFAA because Nashville had no color TV facilities."

Oh, right -- that's the show from which we used to pull Freddie King videos whenever they'd show up on YouTube. Which was but a tip of the tip of the iceberg: The series was shot on film and nationally syndicated (it debuted on WAII in Atlanta, for instance, on May 7, 1966), aired for 26 episodes and featured everyone from Otis Redding to Archie Bell and the Drells to Joe Tex to Louis Jordan, and featured no less than Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and David "Fathead" Newman in the house band.

​"And if you watch the show in order, Gatemouth begins with a beat-to-shit guitar ... and then a little bit into the show he gets a new guitar, so it looks better," says George Gimarc, who, but of course, is a student of the show. "When you have him trading licks with Freddie King, oh my God. And to see Little Gary Ferguson, who was Michael Jackson before Michael Jackson, and Barbara Lynn, who you forget played guitar." The first episode was shot on January 31, 1966; the next nine, during the first two weeks of February, many on the same day. Best Gimarc can tell, through his own research and chats with former WFAA cameramen, though The !!!! Beat was shot here, it never aired in Dallas.

But unlike WFAA's legendary Ron Chapman-hosted Sump'n Else, which aired locally from '65 till '68 and saw most of its footage erased almost immediately after broadcast, The !!!! Beat goes on: In 2005 German-based Bear Family released six volumes' worth of broadcasts, in addition to a CD compilation featuring some of the show's lesser-knowns. (Amazon has the DVDs too, at a higher price tag.) According to Gimarc, for decades the show was thought to be lost -- till, that is, Willie Nelson began going through and selling off his personal belongings when he had the taxman breathing down his neck in the early '90s. Rumor is, the entire collection was in his possession.More >>

The trailer to Archway Pictures' loooooong-awaited doc on the 1978 Texxas Jam was just (like, just) posted to YouTube, along with the note "Release Date: Summer 2012." Which, fingers crossed, answers the follow-up question I get from time to time following last summer's item in which Archway's president, Bedford-born former Belafonte frontman Brian Hedenberg, detailed the hold-up over its release, which at one point had been planned for July 2011.

I asked Hedenberg via email for more specifics; he would only say details are forthcoming and that he "will have more info soon"; you'll be the first to know. When I asked in a follow-up if it'd be a DVD release, or perhaps even a VH1 broadcast as he'd previously mentioned, he again asked for patience. The reason: Details are being hammered out, and he doesn't "want to release info that could change or isn't true." At least we have the video.

Photos by Mike Brooks

​Shortly after the clock struck just past midnight Sunday, Erykah Badu, behind the wheel of a matte black Stingray, led a funeral procession down Main Street -- not far, mind you, just from Pegasus Plaza at Main and Akard to the front door of PM Nightlife Lounge at The Joule, which is all of, what, 407 feet. A band trailed behind Badu, their soundtrack morphing from mournful to joyful along the abbreviated route, and not just any band but the Rebirth Brass Band, who filled downtown with a big, brief blast of their New Orleans-imported heavy funk. Behind them: a hearse.

The event, after which Badu was to deejay till the wee small hours, was intended to mark the adios of the lounge in the hotel's basement, which is now closed as Joule owner Tim Headington begins that much-talked-about expansion that will see the danceteria turned into a screening room and recording studio. But it was also something bigger: "a funeral for Main Street as it is today, before its rebirth," in the words of one of Badu's business partners, Paul Levatino. Which is why there were camera crews on hand to capture the brief, wonderful moment -- prolonged when Badu, clad in top hat and trench coat, danced among the band and onlookers who'd joined in and filled up the closed-off Main Street. A film of some sorts is in the works; details remain a bit blurry.

But in coming days there will be much action to document: City officials confirmed this week that the old Praetorian at 1607 Main -- the tallest skyscraper in the West upon its completion in 1909 -- is being prepared for its imminent demise, with interior demolition and abatement taking place at this moment. Theresa O'Donnell, head of Sustainable Development, says that according to the plans at present: "One half of the building will be dismantled; the other half will be imploded." Those historic buildings next to it are either gone already or about to meet the wrecking ball. Last night the funeral procession was as much for them as for a dance club; those buildings deserve their proper send-off, after all.

A slide show is in the workshere; till then, look out below.More >>

​It's been close to two years since Greg Davis, WRR's longtime general manager, left the city-owned classical-music radio station -- and, remember, he didn't quit, he retired. But tonight, buried in the stack of docs prepared for next week's council committee meetings, we find this bit of breaking news: The city's hired his replacement -- a classically trained pianist named Sarah Colmark, at right, who can presently be heard on KHFM 95.5 and 102.9 FM in New Mexico, where she's also the station manager and has been since 2008. (Says here she cleaned house when arriving in Albuquerque, where her father owned the station.)

Not sure how much she's being paid; that's something council will have to consider Tuesday at the Arts, Culture & Libraries Committee meeting and again at the January 25 full meeting. But, writes Assistant City Manager Joey Zapata in his memo to the council:

The compensation agreement includes a base salary, all benefits accruable to civilian employees, and an annual incentive amount tied to the station's performance regarding revenues. The main difference of this agreement from prior agreements is that the incentive amount is pre-established in the contract with specific benchmarks of operating revenue.

As you'll see below there's also a formal press release dated today -- first I've seen it -- in which María Munoz-Blanco, director of the Office of Cultural Affairs, has nice things to say about the hire, but of course. To which Colmark adds:

"WRR is a radio station with a great track record of bringing classical music to the community of Dallas and North Texas. I am excited to build upon the community's vision of a radio station that works to promote the arts, reaches a broad audience with quality classical programming, and connects with the business and arts communities. I look forward to working with the Friends of WRR and the Office of Cultural Affairs to ensure the continued success of classical radio in the community of Dallas and North Texas."

Details below.More >>

​From time to time the city will post to Lone Star Auctioneers some of the finer offerings being sold out of the City Store, where there's always a bargain to be had. This week, I see, Richard Matthews is making available, among other curious (four "SelfCheck Checkout Stations"), an assortment of items of interest for musicians -- chief among them the functioning-normally Kustom 72 Coupe Hardtop Amplifier you see here, currently sitting at $20 with a week to go. And from what I can tell, that's pennies on the pennies on the pennies on the dollar. "A robust, ballsy signal," says Guitar Center.

The ad for the show as it appeared in the Observer

​Earlier today I spent as much time as I could, which wasn't anywhere near close to enough, listening to a song Wilco posted to YouTube late yesterday: the band performing The Band's "The Weight" backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago, joined by show-opener Nick Lowe and Mavis Staples, who rather famously performed the song in The Last Waltz with her family and Bob Dylan's old back-ups. It's a soulful, joyful rendition of a song that has been covered countless times, by everyone from Aretha Franklin to Travis to Gillian Welch to Weezer to Elvis Costello and an all-star Spectacle -- and that's barely even the start of a starting point. "The Weight" is more than a standard; it's an immortal, one of the greatest songs of all time. Anything that can endure this much analysis, not to mention Panic! at the Disco, deserves at least that much respect.

But if you click this link, and you should, you will hear "The Weight" carried onto a small Dallas stage by three of the men who performed it originally: Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, who, on January 6, 1987, played the old Fast and Cool Club on Greenville Avenue. They were all that remained of The Band by that point: Robbie Robertson was long gone and about to release his first solo record, which contained none of the joy and soul of the music he once made; and Richard Manuel had been dead almost a year, having killed himself in a motel room in Florida.

The three originals, joined by Jim Weider and Fred Carter, soldiered on. Such was their nature: Helm told me in 1999 that The Band existed at some point just to prove it couldn't be destroyed by anyone -- not Robertson, not Martin Scorsese, not the Grim Reaper. "We won't retire, and we won't die." But Danko did, 10 months after that story ran.More >>

​Whenever I drive down this stretch of IndustrialRiverfront, which is often, I think about what used to be there: the Three Teardrops Tavern, the honky-tonk that served as home-away-from for old-timers (Boots Bourquin was a regular), newcomers (Ed Burleson got his start there) and those in-between (Ronnie Dawson, then taking his first steps on the comeback trail, played many a show there). And then there was the magical night of May 8, 1992, when Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark pulled in, bringing with them special guests Ray Wylie Hubbard and Bobby Rambo.

Though the haze I vaguely recall that show, the first but not last time I'd see Townes before his death five years later; there was that woozy eve at the Sons of Hermann in '96, when Butch Hancock opened, and a performance on the Santa Monica Pier, at the old Ash Grove, later that year. But he was in declining health then; he looked like a shadow. It was as though the audience had come to pay its last respects.

But on this epic night -- pristinely preserved here, courtesy that secret stash, or here -- Townes was in fine form, his downers recounted as if each were an in-joke and his laffers offered with a warm shot and a chilled chaser. All the standards are here: "Pancho and Lefty," "If I Needed You," "To Live Is To Fly," "Mr. Mudd And Mr. Gold." Said Townes, he was happy to be there: "I was born in Fort Worth, so it's nice to be on this side of town."

Clark, doing stand-up between songs, also leaves no standard unturned; ah, so that's what "L.A. Freeway" is about. Ray Wylie does his classic ("Loco Gringo's Lament"), Rambo plays a few, then Guy and Townes take the stage for a song swap. It runs two and a half hours, feels about 34 minutes and ought to last you, oh, a lifetime. The perfect sound track for a back-porch eve before New Year's Eve.

I mean, hell, if Schutze could do the Electric Daisy, no reason I can't go to Lights All Night at the Dallas Convention Center, which starts tonight and lasts through the break of New Year's Day dawn. At least I have some Girl Talk, Diplo and MSTRKRFT on the iPod. But, wait -- what's that, New Music Editor Audra? Glowsticks are not allowed? Forget it; deal's off. You should totally go though. Looks big.