Also this issue: Keys to the Kingdom Pianist Brad Mehldau goes his own way. -Nate Chinen Preston to Action Spiral Stairs proves the Pavement dynasty’s for real. -Brian Howard Coming Out of the Dark Peter Murphy drops Dust on his old image. -Helen H. Thompson Pete Moss -Sean O’Neal Onelinedrawing -Chris Parker

June 6-12, 2002

musicpicks

Alejandro Escovedo

It's summing-up time for Alejandro Escovedo. It's been 10 years since Escovedo, who'd already secured his place in music history with stints in the Nuns, Rank and File, and the True Believers, stepped out on his own, and Austin's finest is celebrating with expanded reissues of Gravity and Thirteen Years, his first two solo releases, and By the Hand of the Father, a theatrical soundtrack which re-visits songs from his entire career. (All are released by Texas Music Group.) Dark as Thirteen Years and the aptly named Gravity are -- both were inspired, if that's the word, by the suicide of Escovedo's ex-wife -- it's a little odd to hear them re-contextualized in the uneven Father. Delightful as Escovedo's duet with Rosie Flores on "The Ballad of the Sun and Moon" is, it's hard to swallow the hokey patches of narration that dot the album, which address the Mexican-American immigrant experience with all the finesse of a Ken Burns documentary. Luckily, Escovedo is his own best tribute band. Perhaps what's most striking about listening to Gravity is how many of its songs are still in Escovedo's repertoire a decade later. His is an experience that's truly worth reliving.

Fri., June 7, with Honeychurch and Richard Kauffmann, $12, North Star, 27th and Poplar sts., www.northstarbar.com.

—Sam Adams