More Bad News: MattSoReal Heads to Austin

Ah, dammit. I’m surprised I haven’t seen something else about this ’til now (haven’t checked the Press blogs lately, though) — Matt Sonzala of the way-more-in-the-know-than-I H-town hip-hop blog HoustonSoReal, the Damage Control radio show on KPFT, and a metric ton of cool local rap shows posted last week that he is moving the whole shebang up to Austin next month.

Actually, that’s not strictly true — he’s not taking Damage Control with him but has instead left it in the hands of his able compadres, apparently (and may be back to guest from time to time). HSR will survive, per Matt’s post, but it’ll be a subsection to Matt’s new blog, which is all prepped and ready to go and looks suspiciously like the original: AustinSurreal. Check back there after the move, and I’m guessing there’ll be actual content & such.

I can’t fault the guy for leaving — he got offered a real-live job working for SXSW, and who in their right freakin’ mind would turn that down? Plus, it sounds like he’s gotten pretty burned out on a lot of the hip-hop world in general, which is fairly understandable. But it makes me sad, nonetheless; him leaving is gonna leave a big-ass empty hole in Houston rap scene (not to mention in my pathetic knowledge of it, since most of what little I know I get from his blog & radio show). He swears he’ll be back regularly, but…I dunno. New city, new life, new job, new house — I hope Matt’ll still be deep into the Houston scene, but you never can tell what’ll happen when your life shifts like that, y’know?

Anyway, he’s having one last bash to say goodbye, another “punky reggae party” up at The Proletariat on Sat., December 8th. Grimy Styles will apparently do a set, and Matt and Witnes will DJ. Get on out and tell the guy “thanks” for all he’s done for this city over the many, many years.