Happy Space City New Year’s, Y’all

Well, 2007’s done, and a new year’s now upon us. And as I sit here and listen to the booming fireworks off in the distance (and the, er, somewhat sharper reports closer to home), it’s been a hell of a year, especially in terms of music coming out of our fair city — to be honest, I’d gotten pretty gloom-and-doomy about H-town’s musical prospects of late ’til 2007 rolled around and blew that all away.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I can’t think of a year when there’ve been so many badass fucking local releases — and believe it, calling them “local releases” is really doing them an injustice, because they’ve rivaled anything national that’s dropped on my desk this year. The Western Civilization, Papermoons, Stadium, Hearts of Animals, Jana Hunter, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Thee Armada, Paris Falls, Something Fierce, Ryan Scroggins, Motion Turns It On, Arthur Yoria, Blades, Rustler…the list could go on for days (and it did, in fact, over at Skyline). I’d given up hope, folks, and figured the Glory Days of Yore were strictly in the past, but that’s now no longer the case. Consider my eyes re-opened.

With the year that was now ended, then, I feel the need to say “thank you” to everybody out there. Thanks to all the folks who’ve read and supported this site over the has-it-really-been-a-decade we’ve been doing this, especially those who stuck with us through the dark period where the political stuff took over and SCR, uh, kinda went on hiatus for a while. We love y’all.

Big thanks, as well, to all the kind, generous, talented people who’ve written for SCR and continue to help out every damn week to keep this thing afloat. Without you, believe me when I say that this little site wouldn’t exist. Period. Y’all rock. I especially owe big the remaining old-timers of the crew, particularly Henry Mayer, who’s been writing reviews for us for seven very long years now, since 2001. (Speaking of which, dude, I seriously owe you a t-shirt or mug or briefcase of $$$ something, at the very least; don’t let me forget, eh?)

A big part of my own personal eye-opening on Houston Music, Circa 2007, of course, came from without. That is, from the H-town scene itself, which is pretty incredible in its breadth, depth, and overall good feeling-ness — I’ve heard the gripes, sure, but by and large, Houston bands, mags, Websites, and record labels take care of one another, and that’s a very cool thing. In particular, I feel compelled to thank the crazily hardworking people at the Free Press Houston, ADR & crew at The Skyline Network, the erudite writers of NonAlignment Pact, David at Houston Calling, the valiant Sara & Joey of HandStamp, and the too-many-to-name posters on the Hands Up Message Board.

Beyond them, there’re all the bands, labels, and booking outfits who’ve been kind enough to send us their stuff, email us about shows, and just generally be nice to us. We appreciate it all, even if yours truly can never manage to keep up with the damn email. Sorry ’bout that…

Of course, the two people I owe the most are right here at home, just down the hall while I type this. It’s really kind of strange to think that eight years ago I was standing outside CSAW watching the fireworks go off overhead while my friend Mike proposed to his then-girlfriend Teresa and homeboy Josh got to know his soon-to-be girlfriend better when I thought, “dammit, I’m gonna ask that girl at work out.” I had no clue I’d be standing most of the way up a mountain in West Texas nine months later, asking her to marry me, or that there’d be this crazy little curly-haired midget running around yelling her very own “rock song” (the lyrics to which seem to be mostly, “Oh, yeah / It’s a rock song / Hit it!”) later on down the road. I love you guys, and I owe you both most of all.

So, to everybody out there reading this: thanks! Happy New Year, from all of us here at Space City Rock…