Issue 99
Goodnight, Texas
By Greg Tutwiler
The coast to coast duo of San Francisco based, Avi Vinocur (formerly of The Stone Foxes), and North Carolina’s Patrick Dyer Wolf, make up the clever collaboration of what has been lovingly dubbed, garage roots Appalachian. Calling themselves, Goodnight, Texas, the pair have somehow managed to make the band work – despite living in opposite ends of the US. Their music, all original, has a vintage feel, almost familiar, yet unique at the same time, driven by the organic nature of their instruments – In this case, a banjo, acoustic guitar, and a 1918 mandolin, combined with the storytelling folk rock band feel that comes with adding the remaining pieces of the group when they get to travel as a full band. It then becomes a five-piece band where folk, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll, along with dry wit and dark truths, meet hope and utmost sincerity.
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Avi and Patrick met in 2007, when Patrick briefly lived in San Francisco. But they didn’t start playing together until after Patrick moved back to North Carolina. In 2010 they started
touring together, and put out their first album in 2012, as Good Night, Texas. Interestingly, the band’s name comes from a town in Texas
actually named, Goodnight. It’s about 45 minutes from Amarillo, TX. “Goodnight, along with a lot of other places in the middle of the country, are places that we didn’t grow up in, and we didn’t really know much about, but we were always fascinated by,” Avi said. “We wanted to learn about them and wanted to go there and meet the people. So Goodnight piqued our interest when we found the name on a map. We decided to go figure out what it was, and name our band after it, and hope the people there didn’t hate that. They were all very, very welcoming and excited.” The band plays bluegrass instruments, but more like a rock band – in this case, kind of heavy, and kind of dark. “We’ve always struggled to define our genre,” Avi exclaimed; “What exactly are we? A few people have thrown out names, like Doom Country, and Garage Appalachian. And then certainly things like, Folk Rock, or Antique Store Rock. There’s a lot of words, but we’ve never figured out the perfect one continued on page 15
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