A very happy birthday to the lovely and talented Stephanie Hunt!

This video is baller. I wish I was this creative.

One to keep an eye on: I started my evening with Austin’s own the Ghost Songs. My colleague Ann Powers closed her evening by catching psychedelic legend Roky Erickson, and there were moments when the Ghost Songs struck a vintage, “Nuggets”-era garage-rock sound similar to Erickson’s 13th Floor Elevators, although the Ghost Songs went for something far more charming and approachable. Led by the woozy-voiced Chris Catalena, the band, performing what it said was its second show ever, already wraps its melodies with a sense of adventurousness. The multiple vocals — sometimes deliberately out of sync — add a sense of mystery, and Stephanie Hunt’s violin adds a slight back-porch feel. It’s a bit tripped-out, and more than a little playful.

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Another She & Him in the making? The vintage pop of Zooey Deschanel’s collaboration with M. Ward will be returning to SXSW with a new album, but there’s a lesser-known singer-actress with a rootsy musical project making an appearance at SXSW this year. Worth investigating is Ghost Songs, featuring Austin’s Stephanie Hunt (from “Friday Night Lights”). The songs available on the band’s MySpace page are tripped-out folk, but more recent cuts with Hunt taking the lead vocals show the band straightening out the weirdness, and settling into a retro curtsey.

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SOURCE: LATimesBlogs.com

Currently recording with members of the Black Angels, Hunt is on track to break out of a bit role on “Friday Night Lights” — if she’s willing to leave the Austin, Texas, music scene behind.

While on what was intended as a temporary break from the University of Texas at Austin, Stephanie Hunt auditioned for football-centered small-town drama “Friday Night Lights.” At the time, this Longhorn was a bit of a Hollywood long shot.

After completing one year of college as a journalism major, Hunt asked for a semester off, suddenly having the urge to pursue acting. The death of a close friend, Hunt said, prompted the academic leave and “inspired a whole bunch of self-reflection.”

Within one week of pulling out of UT, and with no acting resume to speak of, a connected acquaintance tipped Hunt off to the opening on “Friday Night Lights,” which shoots in Austin.

The role came with requirements. The character needed to know how to play the bass guitar, an instrument Hunt, a trained violinist, had only fiddled with for a couple of months. Auditioners would also have to perform a rock song. Hunt opted to risk writing her own tune — a song she composed only minutes before facing casting directors.

“I couldn’t think of a rock song that I knew that I could sing that would sound good in my voice, so I just went off the idea of something raspy sounding,” she said. “Usually I sing jazz or I sing kind of sweet, so I wanted to show a little bit more edge. It was called ‘Sweet Scratching Sound.’ It’s kind of cheesy now, but it worked, you know.”

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SOURCE: LATimesBlogs.com