How Southern California mdash; part of it, anyway mdash; moved to Austin

Birds of a feather, and friendly musicians, flock together in our town

David Rice wants you to know right upfront that he's from suburban Houston, and therefore a native Texan, OK? Not one of those carpetbagging Californians you hear about. True, he and wife Lisa Buenaventura lived in Venice Beach, Calif.

, before moving to Austin a couple of years ago. But his Texas papers are in order. This is important to keep in mind, now that the couple has started a small chain reaction that's resulted in a good chunk of Rice's professional network from the music business in Southern California following them here.

Isn't that how it usually happens? While some cities across the nation are aggressively courting young artists and professionals, others like Austin seem to beckon creative types without even trying. Somebody comes to town, a friend comes to visit, loves it, winds up moving here and soon enough their friends are moving here, too.

Take David Rice. He grew up in the Houston 'burbs, listening to his older sisters' Stevie Wonder and Led Zeppelin records. "My mom said I went berserk when the music played," he says.

He learned piano. "From there, I was completely focused," he says. "There was never a doubt in my mind.

" After high school he moved into the city, started gigging and met fellow Houstonian Billy West, who produced the sessions that led to two records with Houston indie Justice Records beginning in 1992. He moved to L.A.

and signed with Columbia. It was, he says, the classic "best of times, worst of times" arrangement. "In many ways it was a great experience," he says.

"I spent a few months at Peter Gabriel's studio. But the record never really got off the ground there. And the label gave me free rein, which sounded great, but eight months later I looked around and the record wasn't done, I didn't have a place to live and didn't have any money.

" As it happened, Rice finished the record in Austin. Within a week of the release of "The Rain" in 2000, Rice's father had died of an aneurysm. After a short tour, Rice got out of his contract with Columbia.

Another relationship, however, had begun mdash; he'd taken up with his publicist, which the record company reportedly frowned upon. (This from the label that was part of the conglomerate once headed by Tommy Mottola, who was once wedded to Mariah Carey.) "(Our relationship) didn't work in the eyes of the man," he says.

"But we survived it. In retrospect, I've got a richer life." Rice found work and satisfaction in the business away from being a solo performer mdash; songwriting, studio work and the like mdash; while Buenaventura gave up being a publicist and became a licensed acupuncturist and yoga teacher.

Three years ago they had Judah, and soon enough Venice Beach began to feel uncomfortable. The funk, the pulsating hip factor, the beach scene and all manner of folk attracted to it mdash; all lost their charm with the advent of parenthood. With Rice having lived in Austin mdash; and having a sister here mdash; and Buenaventura having come many times for South by Southwest, they made a trip and started looking at neighborhoods in January 2004.

While riding the train at Zilker Park, a man told them, "If you've got kids, you have to visit Little Stacy Park." So it was goodbye L.A.

, hello South Austin. Their little cottage in Venice Beach? Two hundred people showed up the first day of their open house, and someone offered more than their asking price in the first hour.

They moved into their new home in Travis Heights, right behind Travis Elementary School, in October 2005. "Then our friends started to visit," says Buenaventura, "and realized what a great place it was." First was singer-songwriter L.

E. Stokes, who came in the dead of that first summer and made the move a little more than a year ago. She'd spent her middle and high school years in Dallas, "so Austin was on my short list," she says.

"It seemed like a great place to perform for active and engaged and nice audiences, not people sizing you up, which is a very L.A. thing," says Stokes, who now runs the Starbucks in Tarrytown.

"I hated performing in L.A. It's such a vacuous place.

I hated, hated, hated performing." Meanwhile, Rice's friend, one-time producer and fellow composer Billy West came to visit and within three or four months he was living here, too. By that point, West and Rice were having success with their commercial work.

"It was a no-brainer that I would come visit," says West, who attended the University of Texas for two years in the late '80s. "But you could have bet me $10,000 that I would not move to Austin. I had a great place in Venice mdash; big lot right by the beach.

It says a lot that I gave that up to come here." But he did, in part because of Rice and in part because of mdash; well, let him explain it: "I was amazed when I came here," says West, 38. "David and I walked walked into downtown, and it was an off night and we asked around and we saw several totally happening bands with rooms full of people doing it because they loved it, not because they were trying to get signed.

And it was so cool that we could randomly walk within a square mile and hear so much cool stuff. "South Congress reminds me of both the neighborhoods I lived in in L.A.

before they exploded. People move in and have a good aesthetic and fix their places up in a cool way and then there's cool restaurants and cool boutiques. Venice got kind of overgentrified.

The reason I liked it in the first place was because there were creative, strange people there, and they can't afford it anymore. I just thought it was cool to be somewhere where it was happening. That starts to build on itself.

" Ramy Antoun, 33, "absolutely the best drummer I've ever played with," in West's estimation, thought it was cool, too. He's such a good friend of Rice's and Buenaventura's that he presided over their wedding. In August, he finished three years with Seal.

The day after his own band, Goldspot, played South by Southwest this year, he visited his cousin in the Twin Creeks Country Club subdivision in Cedar Park. Before he knew it, Antoun was on the phone to his wife, Tiffany: "Do you like Austin? OK, cool.

I put an offer on a house." They've been here six months. From their kitchen they can see the cul-de-sac where neighborhood kids play after school, the golf course where Antoun has taken up the game and the hills to the west.

"Relatives come visit and they say it looks like L.A. 20 years ago," Tiffany says.

It's a proudly suburban existence far from the funk of Central or South Austin, but the Antouns want space and comfort mdash; they converted a home theater upstairs into a recording studio, they like to entertain and they have designs on a family. When he was on the road with Seal, Antoun found a novel way to kill downtime between concerts: He'd go to the hotel concierge, ask for the names of great local restaurants with chef-owners, then visit their kitchens and sort of apprentice himself. He acquired impressive kitchen skills and plans to open a high-end Italian restaurant in Austin (although he won't be the chef).

"There's a freedom and a joy to life in Europe that I see in Austin," he says. Antoun got more than a house on that spring trip to Austin. Goldspot got a deal with Mercury Records mdash; one of those rare instances that perpetuate the legend that it happens all the time at SXSW.

Goldspot's debut on Mercury comes out in March, and the band's cover of Modest Mouse's "Float On" has been picked as the single for the most recent soundtrack from "The O.C.," which was released Dec.

5. Meanwhile, Sergio Andrade, the bass player in Goldspot and a founding member of Lifehouse, will be moving into Antoun's subdivision soon ("I'm working on the other guys," Antoun jokes), and the Antouns are building a new house of their own. Another friend, Polly Parsons mdash; daughter of alt-country patron saint Gram mdash; is on her way, too.

What about Rice, the guy who started the whole exodus from L.A.?

He and West are busy doing music, mainly for advertising and television, although he is increasingly interested in performing again. And he's still working on getting one of two more friends out of L.A.

and into Austin. "The appeal of Austin is many layers deep," Rice says. "Anyone in a creative business is looking for an excuse to get here.

When you get into the grain of the community, that's what keeps you here.