Good Looks is the KUTX Artist of the Month for May 2022. Tyler Jordan (center, left) is the guest DJ on My KUTX.
Austin’s Good Looks traces its roots to the Kerrville Folk Festival, where the guitarists Tyler Jordan and Jake Ames first met. They bonded over Texas stalwarts Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and met fellow modernist folk songwriters Adrienne Lenker and Buck Meek of Big Thief. When Jordan and Ames formed Good Looks, that Kerrville tradition seeped in, but so did a hazy, psychedelic age, thanks to Ames’ exploratory guitar playing. Listening to Bummer Year, the band’s debut, it’s easy to hear why the April release show was sold out. This is an exciting young band with something to say about the contradictions of growing up in Texas: friendliness and self-destruction; individualism and loneliness; the joy and pain of trying to live from your art.
Just a few hours after that release show, Ames was struck by a car and spent a week in the hospital. Good Looks’ tour was cancelled but the Austin music community has rallied around the band, contributing to Ames’ crushing hospital bills with a benefit show and a GoFundMe campaign. But the band has a particularly poignant show still on the books: June 11 at the 50th annual Kerrville Folk Festival.
This week on My KUTX, singer and guitarist Tyler Jordan looks forward to the Kerrville show with a guest DJ set of Good Looks’ influences. The Clash’s political punk, John Prine’s tenderness, and a whole lot more help make the unique sound of this band. Hear Good Looks’ My KUTX on Saturday, May 7 at 6 p.m., or listen anytime in the player above.
Playlist:
[intro music: Good Looks – “Vision Boards”]
- The Revelons – “The Way (You Touch My Hand)”
- The Replacements – “I Will Dare”
- The Dicks – “Rich Daddy”
- The Clash – “Know Your Rights”
- Peter Tosh – “I Am That I Am”
- John Prine – “Boundless Love”
- Todd Snider – “Looking For A Job”
- The Sonics – “Night Time Is The Right Time”
- Fern Jones – “I Was There When It Happened”
- Simon Joyner – “You Don’t Know Me”
- Gillian Welch – “Everything Is Free”
- Sonny & The Sunsets – “Dried Blood”
- Buck Meek – “Fool Me”
