Michael Hall

Michael Hall, from Austin, Texas, has been making albums since 1985, when his band, the soon-to-be legendary Wild Seeds, put out its first EP, Life is Grand (Life in Soul City). The group would release two albums, play on early MTV, and have a minor hit with the single “I’m Sorry, I Can’t Rock You All Night Long.” After the Seeds split up in 1989 (other noted alumni include Kris McKay and Joey Shuffield from Fastball), Hall recorded a series of critically lauded solo albums, from Love is Murder (“A mesmerizing collection of story songs that sucked up all those tired Texas music myths—lost towns, lost loves, long drives, killing sprees—and somehow spat them back out new again.”--LA Weekly) to Adequate Desire (which Robert Christgau gave an A- in the Village Voice). Karen Schoemer, writing in the Trouser Press Record Guide, summed up Hall’s career to that point, saying, “Hall takes the rock ‘n roll ethic of good times, lonesome trains and love gone wrong and spins it into lusciously twisted personal narratives inscribed with poetic literacy.”

During this time, Hall recorded with just about everyone who lived in Austin or was just passing through, from Walter Salas-Humara, Rosie Flores, Vickie Peterson, Jon Dee Graham, to members of Poi Dog Pondering and Lyle Lovett’s Large Band. He was also a producer, most notably on Across the Great Divide: The Songs of Jo Carol Pierce, which won Hall and Troy Campbell the Producer-of-the-Year award at the 1993 Austin Music Awards. Around that time Hall co-founded the Setters with Alejandro Escovedo and Salas-Humara; the band toured Europe and recorded two albums. After a move to Chicago , Hall returned to Austin in 1997 and started the Woodpeckers, a band that would release two albums, though they were probably best known for hosting the “Gloriathon” at Liberty Lunch in Austin , playing “Gloria” for 24 hours with dozens of other local musicians (Van Morrison phoned in a lead vocal from England ).

Rocking for 24 hours is one thing; writing great songs for two decades is another. “There is no way around the deadpan brilliance of Hall’s songwriting,” wrote Robert Lloyd in the LA Weekly, “which describes with rare, unforced wit and a hint of Texas twang the pleasures and particularly the penalties of Life Among the Humans.” Hall’s songs have been covered by the Silos, Kris McKay, the Vulgar Boatmen, Mike Ireland, and others. They have appeared in the TV show Veronica Mars and the movie Louis & Clark & George. Hall doesn’t just write songs—he has been a journalist for years and makes his living as a staff writer for Texas Monthly magazine, where he has written award-winning profiles of everyone from Roky Erickson and Townes Van Zandt to Lance Armstrong. He was also nominated for a National Magazine Award for a story he did on the unfairness of the death penalty system in Texas.