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Aaron Einhouse will be playing at the Barbay at Marina del Rey, Kingston, Okla., on Friday, Sept. 2, and there’s no cover charge.

Story by Mary Jane Farmer, Courtesy photos

It Ain’t Pretty is not just a CD title, it’s also the title of one of the 10 songs on this May release from Austin artist Aaron Einhouse. But, it’s not a description, at all, of the CD, which has some unbelievably striking musicianship throughout the project.

Hal Ketchum co-wrote this title cut, and Johnny Chops helped pen “That’s What You Get,” a fun song about the negative results of negative actions. The other eight Einhouse wrote solo.

His first release, “On & On” which even in late May he said he thought was too early to have made any charts, hit ‘The Next 15’ portion of the Texas Regional Radio Report, missing moving into the Top 100 by only two radio spins. Then, a month later, it was setting pretty smack-dab in the middle of the chart.

Einhouse said he hopes this CD “takes him to the moon and back. I really think it will take us to bigger places and it will spread region-wide. If the public likes it as much as the critics like it, it will bring a lot of new fans on board for us, in the long run. We’ve had great feedback, so far.”

The Austin-based musician and father of two said, when asked what his own personal favorite on the CD was, “That’s kinda like picking a favorite child. I can’t do that. But, I do love performing ‘My Susannah,’ and so from that standpoint, I love what I did on that one. It’s such a fun song idea. It’s a song that starts out with a guy peeling the top off a bottle; flashes back a week to where you find out he happened upon his love, cheating with another guy. At the end you realize he’s standing in front of the house while telling this tale, and deciding whether or not to go in.” The lyrics are in the line of a Johnny Cash song about someone who dies. “In effect, he (Cash) wrote about way more shocking things. What is so cool about music — you can tell these stories and create the emotions with an element of truth in there, too.

“In music, not other mediums, you have the chorus and the structure of the song match what is going on, and you can promote that,” Einhouse explained further. “It’s the best material I’ve done to date — from the recording and songwriting standpoints.”

Einhouse and his band are out touring Texas. “Touring the land,” he

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smiled. “Radio and venues, we’re being received with nothing but great reviews. It’s so cool. You hear from your promotions people, and they think it’s (the CD) good; but they are paid to promote it, so when the fans like it, it’s so cool.”

Aaron said this is the first time he’s embarked on any real publicity campaign, and he realizes he’s on “the lower end of their artist list, as far as notoriety goes; but they like the record so much, they agreed to work with it.”

Einhouse stayed loyal to his roots on this CD, which was tracked at the Panhandle House in Denton, putting a country touch alongside a rock n roll edge into it. “I started my career in country, and now find myself with a bluesy element and put that and a little soul on the record, too”

Aaron had a promising career in banking as a commercial real estate analyst, he said, when he and his wife decided in 2010 that it would just make sense to quit that and put his all into the music. “So I did, and I haven’t looked back.”

His “very real good band” consists of Lucas (Honky Tonk Red) Copeland on bass — “He’s been with me more than two years” — Nick Santa Maria, who is the newest member, on guitar; and Jonathan Bautista on drums. His former guitarist, Tony Brown, played on the CD, but “Nick has picked those parts up really well. We play enough where we can all really bring it. Our shows are very energetic, way out there.”

Another accomplishment Einhouse can claim, is that he books the band himself, and keeps them moving up and down the highways; and uses his time on the road as his office time.

For more info, go to AaronEinhouse.com

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Dustin Perkins, Chase Sanford, and Jared Mitchell, longtime friends both on stage and off, shared the stage at the new Barbay venue at Marina Del Rey (Lake Texoma), in/near Kingston, Okla., Saturday night, Aug. 27.

Dustin has been sitting low in the music business for the past three years, and this was his official coming-out-of-retirement (though temporary, just for the one night), event. But as his songs showed, he hasn’t been idle in the songwriting department. Lots of new songs offered up, along with his tried-and-true originals from previous recordings and shows.

Chase, too, has been on a short hiatus, but has come out on several times on previous Saturday nights, song-swapping with other area songwriters as he did with Dustin and Jared.

And Jared — well, he fronts the Jared Mitchell Band, which just played the weekend before at Gilley’s, Choctaw/Durant. His band is made up of everyone in the Spur 503 band, including its former lead singer, Chance Cody.

This venue is a temporary one, with the new Marina Del Ray owner building a new one during the winter to be opened when the lake season begins again in earnest. Scene In Town will keep you up to date as we get updates ourselves.

Meanwhile, this next weekend, Labor Day Weekend, will see the end of the music season at Barbay, with Aaron Einhouse playing Friday night, JB & The Moonshine Band playing Saturday night, and Pat Green playing Sunday. And there’s no cover charge for those shows.