There are bad towns in America, even the people in them don't know they're bad yet....

Austin sure ain't a pretty town. Maybe Mongrel's first impressions are wrong, but it's hardly easy on the eye. After waiting more than an hour for a cab to pick up the four-legged stray, Mongrel headed into town to get its bearings - first time here, you see. After wandering the streets, we called into a bar to meet some locals and came across Evan Cowley. He runs karaoke here. Wide-eyed, blatantly on drugs, he begun to tell Mongrel about Austin and Texas. He told me that 6th St is full of stupid frat boys. He told me he was from Waco - "one of those American towns where everyone is bad, even if they don't know it yet." He asked if we have an equivalent in the UK - a town where all the folks are bad. I couldn't think of one. London's Canning Town has always struck me as a bad place, but I couldn't account for all folks being bad there.
Anyway. Mongrel had other plans and headed up to the pretty place pictured above: the Mansion at Judge's Hill hotel to meet Big Helium label boss, Hugo Vereker. Mongrel has long been ranting about one of his artists - Andy Davis (mentioned below), but was left exhilirated by talk of some of Big Helium's projects and artists. The label has an exclusive deal to distribute through Barnes and Noble here in the US and has also released the amazing Sunday Music compilations put together by Vereker himself. Tracks on those two CDs (which only go through Barnes and Noble) include material from Chris Martin, Imogen Heap, Craig Armstrong, Peter Gabriel and Faultline. It's impressive stuff and is shifting by the bucket load out of the stores. Vereker also has other plans up his sleeve - but he'd kill Mongrel for writing about them here. Safe to say, it really shouldn't be too long before the label makes an impact in the UK - they deserve it.
So, it's still pretty quiet here. Calm before the storm, so to speak. Mongrel would head out to Waco to find out if all the people are genuinely bad there, but did that once in Canning Town and soon regretted it. And there's no jubilee line here for a quick exit.