Not too long ago, your humble Austin Music Minute host posed a pressing question to songwriter and resident tall, pale, wayward duke of melancholia Wil Cope, out of genuine morbid curiosity. Cope already knew he was bound for another journey. It was just a matter of when he’d dust off the traveling boots and point his guitar toward the new destination.
It was a simple question: Why the hell are you going to Nashville? Brooding over his beer, Cope had no deep or definitive answer. But you could see the flicker in his eye. Yep. It was time.
Friend and fellow songwriter/hoodlum Greg Mullen, another newish Nashville resident-by-way-of-ATX who left the Live Music Capital last summer, recently declared (via Facebook, complete with signature dark-hued humor), “I’m coming to Austin to kidnap William Cope, Jr. to fulfill the prophecy. We’re gonna play a show [tonight] at Hole In the Wall…” It made perfect sense to have the farewell gig at their ol’ stomping grounds, home of their early Sunday evening happy hour residency shenanigans, the very spot where Cope and Mullen often shared the stage with their multi-talented musician buds Doug Walseth, Yamal Said, and Matt Roth, to name a few.
It will be a most splendid bon voyage. Cope and Mullen take over the Hole, 2538 Guadalupe, at 9 o’clock tonight. Raise a glass. Or, more likely, several. Here’s to the future warm evenings, pale mornings and bottle of blues ahead on the not-so-distant horizon.
-Photography by artist and filmmaker Jacqueline Badeaux.
