This week on High Plains Morning, we had a chat with Garrett T. Capps about his live show in Amarillo at Caliche Co. on Sunday, July 2nd. He brought his buddies, the band Heavy Meddo, with him from San Antonio & Austin. The dudes rocked the morning by tapping on glass mugs, shaking my vitamin C bottle, and there was even a kalimba — oh, and a guitar! Heavy Meddo accompanied Capps on this tour to play some of their own songs, but they also served as his backup band. The band includes: Bill Baird (San Antonio, TX), as well as Jonathan Horne, Ethan Smith, and Jordan Johns (Austin, TX).
Hear the full phone interview from the road with Garrett T. Capps as he made his way toward Amarillo by clicking the link below. We talked about his albums, as well as his honky tonk in his hometown, The Lonesome Rose.
MORE ABOUT HEAVY MEDDO (from their Bandcamp page): Heavy Meddo is a band based out of Austin, Texas that enjoys long walks on the Faust tapes, some lingering fumes of a youthful infatuation with James Joyce, smattering of samples, loud guitar
(The Ventures), postrock/postpunk/post-using-the-word-post, dusk nearby cubist castle, tape manipulation , collage in every sense."
MORE ABOUT GARRETT T. CAPPS (from his delightfully weird website): Garrett T. Capps and his band NASA Country blend synth and twangy guitar with lyrics about outer space and social unrest on their latest album, People Are Beautiful.
In his round X-ray specs and solar-system button-up, Garrett T. Capps looks like he’s just emerged from the farthest reaches of outer space. The San Antonio musician sounds like it, too. Since forming his band NASA Country in 2017, Capps has been working to introduce an unconventional new sound into country music, one that mixes the electronic, experimental hum of Kraftwerk with the cosmic hippie twang of Doug Sahm. Capps calls it “Kraut-country.”
Perhaps shockingly, it works. Capps’ new album, People Are Beautiful, is an urgent, inventive reimagining of Texas music. He sings with a traditional country inflection about topics like spiritual visitations and social unrest. Fat, hollow-bodied guitar chords butt up against manipulated percussion.
A member of NASA Country plays modular synthesizer, turning knobs and fiddling with patch cables to create one-of-a-kind tonal effects. Capps sees it as a progressive alternative to the safe and polished sounds coming out of Nashville, or even out of some parts of his native Texas.
