One of the joys of being a Texas music fans is to watch the stars before everyone else knows about them. Seeing Pat Green and Cross Canadian Ragweed get signed is both a vindication of my tastes and a just darned exciting thing. While Carter Pagel hasn't been signed (and doesn't appear on the cusp of being signed), he has quite a bit of untapped star power. He has the looks, the charisma, and the voice to do very well for himself.

The first couple of times that I saw Carter play, he was opening for Phil Pritchett. In that sense, he was the second band that I started following. Carter used to be the lead singer of Blind Luck, a rising country rock band that won numerous Austin Chronicle awards.

I wasn't too impressed with Blind Luck when I first saw them, though as time past the band became better and better. With the help of stellar lead guitarist Joseph Deeb, they were really coming in to their own musically and regularly opening for Honeybrowne and Reckless Kelly.

His musical history is an interesting one. He started off with a definite country sound and moved more and more towards an alt-rock one. He traded in his cowboy boots for sneakers. Though my mind will always group him with Pritchett, his lyrics are much more straight-to-the-point. He does mostly love songs, but a good balance of happy, sad, and in between.

When I first talked to Carter, I commented that in the six months I'd been following him, he hadn't changed his set list. I knew it by heart. He was very apologetic and said, "I didn't realize that people actually came to more than one of my shows."

At an accoustic show, Jay and I were sitting up front and he asked us periodically if we had any requests. One was denied (it was a band song that he hadn't mastered solo) and instead he said he'd play another song off Blind Luck's latest CD. It was not one of my favorites and I kinda looked at Jay and shrugged. Before he started singing it, he said "Well, he doesn't like it but I hope y'all will!"

I'd forgotten that I was less than five feet away from him. Since then, it's actually become one of my favorite Blind Luck songs.

Unfortunately, a rift formed between Pagel and Deeb and when the band was sounding its best, they went their seperate ways. Pagel and drummer Jason Stolly formed Box Socials. Carter wanted to get away from country music (one of the reasons behind Blind Luck's demise) and their new sound was a lot more altish as they took a page from Wilco. Deeb's guitar playing was missed, but I managed to catch a few shows and liked the four or so songs that they had recorded.

The Box Socials never caught on like Blind Luck was poised to and they ended up going their seperate ways when Stolly joined Phil Pritchett's new band. Carter's been singing occasional solo gigs since.

He doesn't have nearly the following that Blind Luck did, but he's releasing more and more new stuff and I can't wait for his next CD. Keep an eye on this boy as he has the looks and the charisma to really go places.

I saw him on Saturday and he was again taking my requests as I was probably the only person there familiar with his old stuff. He'd unfortunately forgotten most of the Blind Luck stuff, so I wasn't surprised that he whiffed when I threw him a curveball.

"Do you remember that song you played once at that accoustic show? It wasn't on any of your CDs," I explained. I gave him some lyrics.

"Aww, man, that was a good song, but I can't remember any of it. What was it called again?"

"It was called 'I Forget'."

Even the drunk guy at the bar caught the irony.