Off the Record

BY AUSTIN POWELL

Local Queen of the Barn Dance Leeann Atherton left earlier this month for her first ever Japanese tour. "The response has been amazing; I walk in the room, and the polite full house applauds," she relays from Hiroshima, adding that she already needs to ship over more merch. "The wall at one club, Kapone, has signatures from Michael Fracasso, Scrappy [Jud Newcomb], Kevin Carroll, Walter Tragert, Gurf Morlix, Randy Weeks, Colin Gilmore, Beaver Nelson, and Matt the Electrician." That's largely due to Shuichi Iwami and Keiji Matsumoto. Since 2004, the two independent Japanese bookers and regular attendees of the South by Southwest Music Fest have created a niche market in their native underground by regularly hosting and routing Austin singer-songwriters through intimate clubs (capacities vary from 20 to 80 people), a stark contrast to the experience of Asylum Street Spanker Stanley Smith (see "Big in Japan," May 2, 2003). "First of all, I am not a professional promoter or agent," writes Iwami, who was first turned on to roots music by Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and Loose Diamonds' Burning Daylight. "I've been doing what I've wanted. ... I've been totally addicted to the [Austin] scene."