Recently Rose and I went to visit one of our most favorite spots to catch live music and a funny thing happened.  I’m sure you are familiar with the term “All hell broke loose!”  Well this night in ‘Pasa GET DOWN dena’ at Almost Austin House Concerts, “all FUN broke loose!”  North Carolina native Malcolm Holcombe rolled in for his third time at this venue and his performance left everybody stunned, satisfied, and flat out drained.

To appreciate the “thing” that is Malcolm Holcombe you have to strap yourself in and give him your full attention for the evening.  In this reviewer’s case a dose of adult beverages worked just fine to fine tune the experience!  I’ve never seen an artist intertwine passionate guitar playing, extremely captivating harsh and ear catching gravelly voice, and FUNNY ass story telling like this gent did this night.   My mind was blown and my sides were aching from flat out belly laughs that I could not contain all evening!

Some chestnuts that slayed me were:

-“It was as hot as a clothesline of tongues waggin’ out there!”

-“My dog has EDSP!”

-“Hot as 40 Texas-ES!”

-“Tonight I’m seeing an elephant coming and going!”

-“Don’t ever drop any frozen fish under your refrigerator!”

-“Goosebumps the size of hail!”

-“Did ya ever have the creeps?”

As far as the actual tunes there were many good ones throughout such as ‘Down in the Woods’, ‘Not Forgotten’, ‘Comes the Blues’, stunning ‘Don’t You Miss That Water’, and a killer ‘One Leg at a Time’ about puttin’ your britches on!

MH tends to wander off on his story tellin’ and then wraps it up just in time to dive into the song.  His style of spinning around on a chair has to be seen to be believed.  How he does not flip over is beyond me, but the effect adds to his madman persona.

The second set had some cool things like ‘Baby Likes a Slow Love Song’, ‘Becky’s Blessed’, ‘Who CarriedYou’, and a sweet ‘Sparrows and Sparrows’. The evening wound down with a stirring ‘To The Homeland’ and the title cut to his latest album ‘To Drink the Rain’.  The packed passionate polite crowd thundered in ovation and MH sat back down to tear thru ‘Radio Flyer’.

Malcolm Holcombe is the real deal ladies and gents. He’s a down to earth fellow who is just damn glad to be working in today’s tough times doin’ what he does best-entertain in many ways!

Like I stated earlier FUN was thee operative word here folks with highlights of local music icon Donna McKenzie of 103.7 FM introducing Holcombe. “Dee Mac” is somebody I’ve been lucky to know for over 20 years since the old days of Party on the Plaza, a once killer staple of live music in the heart of downtown H-Town on Jones Plaza. She’s a class act and a welcome addition to the house concert scene.  Resident artist and cool ass person, Joy Beckler, doing a live sketch of the front row was beyond different and neato. She has a residency of sorts at Heights Live in the Heights every Friday and her work is badass.  And of course none of this FUN would ever be happening without the “Pope of Pasadena”, Mr.Kenny Pipes, who has been putting this shindig together since 2006.

Food was delicious as always, knowledgeable music friends frollicking, and BYOB livations mixed together to make for an experience we’ve enjoyed for over 3 years running.  People like KP make me realize why I do what I do for the past 11 years- CARE about live music in a passionate way and never bring the attention anywhere but to the performers themselves.  Most folks these days get lost in material things and forget to escape the rat race and drift away with strong lyrics about life that somehow matter more than some I-Pod or cell phone can ever bring you.  Hats off and God Blees to all who feel the same vibe as Houston Music Review AND AA do!….Said the best by MH: “There’s a lot of good people in this world man!”…..Until the next time FUN kicks me in the ass, CYA!

Eddie “Edge” Ferranti