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Every week we will be showcasing installments from a special artist discovery series for bands playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival this October from local websites hand-picked by the ACL Festival faithful. This installment comes from Texas Music Matters featuring the Austin group T-Bird and the Breaks.

In just two short years, Tim Crane (a.k.a. T-Bird) has gone from sitting in with local musicians to fronting one of the hardest hitting funk/R&B bands to ever come out of Austin. Before landing in Austin, Crane, a lanky New Englander hailing from Massachusetts, bought an open ticket on Amtrak and spent months traveling the South looking for the blues. The search led Crane to the Big Easy, where he soaked up the brassy, flamboyant sound that pervades his songs. Since landing in Austin we’ve seen T-Bird and the Breaks perform at just about every venue in town, from our basement Studio 1a to the Seaholm Power Plant on the 4th of July.

No matter what the venue, every single show ends a sweaty, dancing mess. Just watching the backup singers is enough to make you perspire. If you haven’t seen T-Bird and the Breaks yet, their set at the Austin City Limits Music Festival guarantees to be just as hot.

This was T-Bird and the Breaks’ first trip to KUT’s studios (Listen to the full performance). The four-song set starts with the sizzling grooves of “Take Time” – an ideal initiation. Each instrument introduces itself to the listener one at a time (drums, organ, horns, bass), culminating in a high-octane call-and-response vocal exchange between Crane and two female backup singers. The band transitions seamlessly into the second song, another uptempo composition called “Esmerelda,” which highlights Crane’s playful lyrics (”Gonna spread the news like stink from a skunk”).

Shortly before his inaugural KUT Studio 1a performance Tim Crane and company released their first full length album titled Learn About It. A riproaring party starter with heavy grooves and enough sexual innuendo James Brown would blush. We turned to Thomas Fawcett, our resident soul brother, for a review of T-Bird and the Breaks debut album Learn About It.

Listen to the Review of Learn About It

We also got a chance to host T-Bird and the Breaks at our SXSW Showcase at Momo’s on 6th last year. What a show! The whole band was wearing suits while the back up dancers shimmied and shook in their Sunday best. When the entire outfit takes the stage it is almost too much to take in. Bass and drums keep the band rolling like a steamroller at full speed, horns punch you in the face, guitars add just the right amount of “funky” to the “fresh”, and T-Bird’s swagger keeps the whole thing on the tracks. Get out the way – T-Bird and the Breaks bring the house down at KUT’s 2009 SXSW Showcase at Momo’s.