Alumni Voices: Recent Grad Publishes Book on Austin Music in the '60s

Today we are thrilled to feature an interview with one of our recent graduates, Ricky Stein, who has published a book based on his undergraduate thesis, Sonobeat Records: Pioneering the Austin Sound in the '60s. We sat down with Ricky to discuss his book, his time in American Studies at UT, and what's next for him and his research on Austin music.

What was the inspiration for this project?Music and musicology have always been what I go for. I grew up listening to all the great rock records and got endlessly interested in music. My other interest is in my hometown of Austin and its history. Austin has, I think, a history that you don't hear a lot about. It's not on par with some of the other major cities in the country, but it has a really nice little history. I was also interested in seeing how it went from being a sleepy college town, a settler's town, really, to this up-and-coming city on the rise known throughout the country. The thing with Sonobeat, well, that was a gift--it's amazing what can happen after one conversation. One minute I was working as an intern at KLRU and this guy says I should check out this website, Sonobeat Records, because he knew I was interested in Austin music. I checked it out and two weeks later got invited to participate in the senior thesis class taught by Dr. Janet Davis. I'm so glad I did that, because it dawned on me then that I had a chance to write about this local story.How did you go from writing an undergraduate thesis on Sonobeat Records to writing a book?It occurred really naturally. I am also a musician and worked for about ten years before going to college. For a long time I tried to get a record deal and then when I finally went to college the book just happened. I was so lucky, because it's a really good topic and people are interested in it, especially because Austin has become the music town it has become. When I interviewed one of the musicians who was in a band signed with the Sonobeat label he knew of a publisher, The History Press that does city and local histories. He got me in touch with them, and they read the thesis I had written. They liked it and asked if I could expand it, double it, basically. And we drew up a timetable and they drew up a contract, and it was too cool--a little less than a year later I expanded it into a book and now it's published.We had an event this past Sunday at Antone's Record Shop--there was a book signing, and we had one of the Sonobeat bands playing, The Sweetarts. I wish more students went to Antone's Records, because I always loved going there when I was at UT and I wish I got out there more. It has a perfect location, right by campus, and they specialize in these old records, the old vinyls. We're also doing a book signing this week at Waterloo Records on Thursday at 5:00.How did your work in American Studies prepare you to do what you are doing now?One of the things I really love about American Studies and one of the reasons I chose it as my degree was the interdisciplinary nature of it. It's like history meets anthropology, sort of. I'm a culture junkie; I love film and music and art and history and literature, and that's literally what I wake up thinking about in the morning. So American Studies spoke to me directly because it fit what I was interested in. I think the class I took that most stands out to me is Main Currents in American Cultural History, one of the courses that every American Studies student takes. We studied cities; the professor focused on studies of places like Chicago, New York, the Rust Belt, and we studies Los Angeles when we were talking about the twentieth-century rise of the Sun Belt from Los Angeles to Houston. I found that really interesting--the evolution of the American city--so that definitely had a big influence on writing the book. The broad scope of American Studies is great--there's a lot of room for research there.What's next for you?I have applied for the Texas State Historical Association conference. I'm on a team with a couple of grad students that is headed by Jason Mellard who is a really brilliant musicologist and American Studies professor at Texas State. He was a big help for me as I was working on the book, and his book on Progressive Country just came out from the University of Texas Press. My topic for the panel is the East Austin music scene, which you don't hear a lot about--the juke joints of the 1950s back when Austin was a segregated city. I'm not sure where the research will go, but I want to do as much research as I can and continue writing. I loved writing this book--the whole process was so cool and came so naturally. It's something I'm really proud of. So I hope to do more of that, and I am gearing up to apply to grad school and I want to be a professor of American Studies or History and read and write for as long as I can.

Undergrad Research: Interview with Kevin Machate

This past December, American Studies senior Kevin Machate was named one of UT's "Most Impressive Students" by Business Insider. We sat down for a chat with Kevin about his experiences in American Studies, working in the film industry, and where he sees the two intersecting.

Say a little something about yourself and what you do in the film industry. I wanted to be an actor from the time I was very young, but growing up, I didn't have support for that. I was raised in a military family. It wasn't necessarily militaristic, but it was very much like, "If it doesn't make sense to do that, then don't do it." Going into the military was the thing my parents wanted me to do. Both parents were military brats themselves, so they thought that at least in the military I would always have a job. Then in 1992 when George Bush decided he was going to do a big reduction in force, we found out that wasn't necessarily true. I took advantage of that and got out early and came back to Texas. I was 21 at the time, and I decided that I was going to go back to college. But I enrolled and never went.I got married, went into business, got divorced, moved back to Texas, worked and worked, and then in 2009 lost one of my dogs suddenly, and that was my big eye opener. I knew I needed to do something that was going to be more of what I wanted to do, but I had no idea what that was. So I took a year sabbatical and did as little as I could get away with to regroup and figure things out. I was actually going to re-enlist in the Reserves so that I could get a job because I was waiting tables at the time, and I wasn't really going anywhere. I had never taken chemistry for this one military program, and I had to have it to get back in, so I started a class in Waco.Around the same time, there was a call for extras for this movie Sironia, which they were filming in Waco. I volunteered to be an extra, and I got paid minimum wage to go and sit around and do nothing, because they didn't use me. But a couple weeks later they called me back and said they wanted to use me for this other thing, so I went in and learned a lot because I realized it took three and a half hours for them to film 45 seconds of the movie.But it opened a door and the same casting director called me back about two months later and asked me to be a police officer on a show called Lone Star that had a lot of big names in it. At this time I was doing a lot of extra work. I did eleven episodes of television and three films in about eight months. For these roles, you don't have to audition, you just have to look the part and pay attention and mostly sit down and shut up, because there's a lot of sitting around and waiting. So I did that for a while, but I got to the point where I wanted to start actually talking, so I auditioned for a student film at the University of North Texas at Denton and got the part. Being in Waco, I was able to go back and forth to Dallas and Austin. After a year of doing that, I started taking my first professional acting class in Austin, and that was when I decided I needed to move back down here. I had still been taking classes in Waco, but I transferred to UT and kept going.After I transferred to UT, I started pre-production on the first short film that I produced, which I also co-starred in. After having worked for a while in the industry, I thought, "I can do just as good as these other people are doing," so I found the scripts, the crew, and a director, and I found another actor. I picked the script because it had minimal locations, it only had two characters, there wasn't a whole lot of extra stuff--it was just a basic storyline. So that was the first film I produced, and it is now in the festival circuit. It screened in Belarus about a month ago.The directing part of my work was kind of an accident; there was no one else available to do it at the time. So I said, "OK, I'm going to do this." And it worked out. Not long after this I got an idea for a film that we just finished and is being edited right now. Me not being a screenwriter, I have to draw on people to help me with that aspect of the film. I have been lucky enough that the same writer has written three of the films that I've directed. When you find someone you work well with, you want to stick with the same thing, but at the same time I am trying to branch out so that I'm not always doing the same dumb silly comedies. As an actor I used to get either a cop or a serial killer as roles. Within a month I think I played three different serial killers in three different projects. All of them dies at the end, by the way. Earlier this year when I switched my major to American Studies I realized that I was going to be able to continue the whole film thing in my studies as well. Maybe not every single time, but this last semester I was able to incorporate some aspect of my film projects into all of my classes, or a film that I enjoyed--writing about it or using it for a project.You talk about putting film into your schoolwork. Does this happen the other way around, where your general interest in American culture informs what you are doing on set?Not yet, but it does definitely make me aware when I am watching other people's films or television. In class we talk about Boardwalk Empire and how fictionalized it is even though it is based on historical fact. There are a lot of things that aren't really accurate. I am very anal when it comes to certain details, and when I see something in a film that is not historically or culturally accurate, it makes me not like the movie quite as much. When it comes to the point that I am making a film with a clear cultural message about something like masculinity or femininity, my American Studies training is definitely going to make me more aware to the extreme, so I will make sure that the details are exactly right even if I am the only one that understands them.Can you talk a little bit about your future after AMS? What does your next year look like?I transferred into the program as a senior, so I am crunching everything into one year. But it allows me to only have to take AMS classes and one class for my minor and a language. I'm able to focus on AMS and really figure out what I do want to do next. I want to make my interests in film and pop culture and history converge in a way that hasn't already been done. I graduate in December and I want to go to grad school.Anything else you want to add?My newest film is called Hashtag-RIP. We're hoping to premier it at the L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival in May. It's about the Hollywood mentality but also about pop culture and Twitter. We are getting the third rough-cut tomorrow; we're still working on sound and color correction and music. I have a four-time ASCAP award-winning composer doing our score. He's an old friend who just happens to also work for TV Land on Hot in Cleveland. Pop culture is a big focus in the film. Miley Cyrus gets a mention. Hopefully she will still be relevant. I don't see her going away any time soon.

Undergrad Research: Lauren White on Soul Food

Today we are thrilled to feature an interview with AMS undergraduate student Lauren White. Her thesis project looks at media representations of soul food. We sat down with Lauren and chatted about her research and future plans--enjoy!Tell me a little about your research.I'm looking at various media surrounding the neo-soul food movement, thinking about things like the representation of soul food in movies, music, and television. I decided to look at examples from the media, like the film Soul Food and episodes of Boondocks. Soul food is an important part of American culture--it is something that you couldn't study anywhere else. My thesis project and the paper I am presenting at the conference were originally a part of the Food Studies Project. They needed a blog writer. I was originally going to write about something else, but I had presented at Undergraduate Research Week about soul food, and they noticed that and encouraged me to expanded it from there.What has been your favorite class in American Studies and why?Southern Cultures with Dr. Elizabeth Engelhardt. It was a great opportunity to find out about southern traditions, where they come from, where they are practiced, how they have changed. In that class I got to do an ethnomusicology project on the banjo which has led me to want to pursue graduate school in ethnomusicology, or perhaps archival work related either to ethnomusicology or gastronomy. I would love to work at an institution like the Smithsonian and do work on jazz and popular culture.

Undergrad Research: Honors Thesis Symposium TODAY

Research week at UT begins next week, and the American Studies honors thesis writers will be presenting a year's worth of hard work at our annual symposium on Wednesday, April 17, 5:30-7:30pm in Burdine 214. Below are some brief remarks about each thesis and each presenter. Come by to see the great work these students have done!

Aaron Davatgar

Amanda Martin, "Pole Power: A Photographic Exploration of Pole Dancing Fitness as 'Female Empowerment'"

“Pole Power” is an interdisciplinary thesis exploring the ways contemporary women claim “empowerment” through mediums some feminist scholars consider regressive. For this creative project, I am photographing members of a pole fitness studio and performance troupe called Brass Ovaries.

Amanda Martin is a senior in American Studies with a minor in photojournalism. She was first introduced to photography and writing while working for her high school newspaper. Since then, she has cultivated a deep love for telling human stories, both visually and verbally. After she graduates in May, she plans to continue pursuing freelance photography.

Lawrence Peart, "Objects of whatever, people and their things"

"Objects of whatever" is a visual exploration of people and the objects they find significant to their identity, well-being, or sense-of self. For this project I photographed a selection of individuals alongside an object they regarded as especially significant, and interviewed each person about their object and what it meant to them.

Lawrence Peart is a senior in American Studies and International Relations, and has been working with photography as a medium for the past three years.

Richard Stein, "Home Lost and Found: Sonobeat Records and the Formation of the Austin Music Scene"

In the late 1960's Austin, Texas was a growing city of 200,000+ people.  Known for its universities and the state capital, Austin's music scene consisted primarily of a handful of bands playing fraternity parties and the occasional club gig.  In 1967 the father and son duo Bill Josey Sr. and Bill Josey Jr. formed Sonobeat records and began to record their favorite local groups around town.  Many of the musicians they recorded would go on to become nationally recognized artists and would play a major part in establishing Austin as the "Live Music Capital of the World."

Ricky Stein is a 28-year-old American studies senior, aspiring singer/songwriter, and lover of Austin music.  A second-generation Austin musician and third-generation Longhorn, Stein has contributed to The Daily Texan as a music columnist and has written and released two critically-acclaimed self-produced albums.  He became interested in the story of Sonobeat Records and its place in Austin history while interning for KLRU-TV.

Laramie Stroud, "Inside Looking Out: The Relationship Between the Johnson White House and the Civil Rights Movement"

The years 1957-1969 saw arguably the most decisive victories for civil rights since the 1860s. Beginning with the successful maneuvering of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, as Senate majority leader to the eventual signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as President, Lyndon Johnson showed special interest in carrying the cause of civil rights. The purpose of the research is to analyze the strenuous, but yet successful relationship between the Johnson White House and the civil rights movement.

Laramie Stroud is a senior double-majoring in American Studies and Government. His desire to study both the Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s coalesced in this work in order to shine a different light upon the various relationships within the Movement. Upon graduation, Laramie hopes to attend law school and eventually serve in a public capacity.

Lauren White, "Don't Blame the Grease, Blame the Media: Soul Food, Neo-Soul, and the Media"

"Don't Blame the Grease, Blame the Media" is an analysis of African-American soul food culture and its portrayal in the media. By discussing the history of soul food, it will lend credibility to the mostly silent neo-soul food movement and debunk the popular image of traditional soul food as being the only authentic choice. Soul food can be prepared to meet all dietary needs and still encompass the rich flavors of African-American cuisine.

Lauren White is an American Studies senior and ethnomusicology minor. Food culture has always been a part of her life, but she did not truly begin examining it until her junior year. She fostered this and her other interests by writing articles for food studies and pop/geek culture blogs and refined her analysis skills in the process. She hopes that her interest in food, music, and pop culture will continue to coexist peacefully in her graduate studies.