Welcome to the MUSIC HOME PAGE. Glad you could make it happen. I'm out at the moment, but feel free to rifle through what's here. That would be the verb, to rifle. I rifle, you rifle, he she or it also rifles.
Got Questions About the New CD? Click on the image of the album cover to go directly to a special section devoted to the new CD. Today's feature is "The Top Six Questions We Get Asked About Last Time Around."

LAKE 505 RECORDS: Click on the link or the logo to go to the new Lake 505 Records page, which has information about where you can buy my other CDs and book on the Internet. There are many online locations to purchase digital downloads of the individual songs, and links to some of those are also included here.

In Japan, a good place to get my last two CDs is here.

Live/Tour Calendars: I'm not doing a lot of road work at the moment, but when I am, those itineraries will be posted here.

Meanwhile, I'll just post local Austin dates on the front page.

PRESS MATERIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL/CAREER INFORMATION: For those of you who are here on business, perhaps trying to get a little more data on me (Fredy), here's the section for press information and background material.

Also included here are previous press clips and a few ads as well as other bits that may offer some insight into my life of songwriting, gigs, and recording. And remember, if you don't find what you are looking for, you can always shoot me an email using the eMail Fredy link at the bottom of this and every page.

We've also got some reviews, some old, some new, that might offer a smidge of perspective from a third party's point of view.

If there's anything else you'd like to see here, the suggestion box is at the bottom of every page and here in the form of the eMail Fredy link.

SOLO PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS: THE ARCHIVES: From the mid-80s through to the present, much of my work has been solo. Here are some of the PR photos from that period, but I have to say my fave of all of them is this shot of me and Juniper in Minneapolis in the mid-70s. Juniper was about 2 years old then, we had just moved from Gale Lake down to "The Cities" to make Thistledew.

The sweater (it was brown) belonged to the photographer, whose name I regretably do not remember, and yes, that is my D-41 in the background. The shoot was on Franklin Avenue about a block from the Symposium Records offices and just around the corner from the Electric Fetus, which is still there!

Juniper was with me for about 12 years after this photo was taken, and she knew I-35 between Texas and Minnesota almost as well as I did.

But again, I digress. Anyway, this collection of solo PR photos include some of my earliest, from 1967, as well as the most current, from 2004. They're not all here, but then, neither am I.

Okay, this goes way back, but it's part of my musical history, so here it is. THE ARGIR GROUP was formed in Austin, Texas, in 1968. The orginal lineup included me, Betsy Bernard and George Hoherd. After drawing crowds in Austin and auditioning at the Bitter End in New York City, the group embarked on a 4-year stint with the National College Coffeehouse Circuit. Some of the group reviews from those tours are included in the press section . Following the New York Circuit years, the group was based in Northern Minnesota, San Francisco and Minneapolis, in that order.

Betsy and myself were on a never-ending road trip, and through that period of time we were joined by several talented people who contributed largely to our success. After George left the group, Kosmo Kendrick filled the bass shoes. The following year, James Lampley joined forces with us for the whole the year, as did Kurt Poulson. And so it went. Kenny Hoelscher. Lonnie Knight. Michael "Mad Dog" Starkey. Larry Schleppegrell. Larry "Smut" Smith. Ade Hiorth. And a cast of dozens.

This photo is the last incarnation of The Argir Group which included Mark Demillo and Frank Prout. The group's last gig was in Minneapolis in October, 1974. I think.

DISCOGRAPHY: It's a true statement that I have made at least one album per decade for the past 5 decades. I'm actually not as old as that sounds. :) But it's true, the first in 1967 and the most recent in 2009.

So how many have I made? I've released ten albums, and there were several others that never saw the light of day. The first two were released on vinyl: I cut Not Yet Home (1968) on an Ampex 440 4-track on Burnet Road in beautiful Austin, Texas, and Thistledew (1974) was recorded at Sound 80 in Minneapolis (with Paul Martinson at the console).

Wall of Windows was released on both CD and cassette, Metro 9 and The Tennis Album were cassette only, and the remainder are CDs.

And no, nothing I ever did was released on 8-track tape. Can I get a show of hands, how many of us remember 8-track tape? (Raising right hand.)

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ROAD: Some of these photographs are tantamount to my own personal Wayback Machine. Through the Coffeehouse Circuit years, I traveled with a Pentax Spotmatic (ooo, hi tech!). Yeah, it had a through-the-lens light meter and the purists thought we were 'cheating.' I bought it in Fargo. It was stolen in San Francisco. But enough about my camera.

The photo to the right was taken at one of my fave places to play back then, the Coffeehouse Extempore on the West Bank of Minneapolis, just over the Mississippi River from Dinkytown, USA. Oh oh, there's my D-41 again, and you will see a lot of photos of my Martin D-41 (SN# 291752) on these pages. I bought it in New York in 1971, and have worn out four sets of frets in the years since. As Mark Erlewine used to tell me, "that's what you get for playing it so much." Can't argue with that.

One night years ago, I was playing with my trio at a Doug Shea-booked gig at Lakeway for a big convention. All at once, the lights went down, there were Secret Service people everywhere, and there I was, playing "Hail to the Chief" on my Les Paul. The Big Guy even came up on the stage and shook hands with me before he delivered his speech, and that 'memorable' photo is in this section.

MUSIC NEWS: Being a journalist (the University of Texas at Austin) and a real news junkie, no web site of mine is complete without an informative section of some sort. This area highlights good stuff with which I am familiar, new albums by friends or colleagues, and a veritable potpourri of breaking tidbits and gossip.

Copyright 2009
By Fredy Argir
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