Well, folks, the end of 2010 is upon us; both the end of a year and the end of a decade. I’m tempted to take a minute to complain about the latter, in particular, because in a lot of ways the ’00s was not the era I was hoping for…
Heading into one heck of a New Year’s weekend, I have to say — neither Friday nor Saturday are slouches, if you check the schedule — but tonight, Thursday, December 30th, is looking pretty great all on its own…
With “New Dress,” Forth Worthites The Orbans’ When We Were Wild starts off on a nicely subtle, roots-pop note, with drums that rumble low to the road, guitars that slide and drift like on a Son Volt album, a hint of a Britpop influence…
The Houston electronic noise band The Dee Use have a delivery that is very similar to a swarm of angry bees attacking. Angry robot bees. Short and not-so-sweet, the band’s 4-song EP Shave or Make Massive is a little gem…
Now that the dust’s settled a bit, and all the shredded bits of wrapping paper have been thrown out (at our house, anyway), it’s time to run down the second night of all-out holiday insanity of the weekend — namely, Sunday, December 26th. Here’s what looks cool to me…
Howl is composed from court records, interviews, and Allen Ginsberg‘s epic poem Howl. James Franco, as Ginsberg, reads the poem from a coffee house stage, explains it to an unseen interviewer…
And so, the holiday madness begins. There’s not quite as much going on this weekend as, say, New Year’s (which will be insane), but there’re still some very cool stuff to check out. Here goes…
If neither {The Manichean}‘s remix EP release show nor the Unsilent Night jambox-caroling thing sound good to you this evening…
Alright, folks — this sounds very neat, even if you just want to watch/listen…
Matt Brownlie (ex-{Bring Back The Guns} frontman) is inviting anybody & everybody who’s interested to come caroling with him & assorted other friends/etc. tonight…
In case you haven’t already heard, Houston’s own quirky, arty, ultra-dramatic (and I mean that in a good way, don’t worry) indie-rockers {The Manichean} are having an EP release party tonight, Thurs., December 23rd…
This is less of a “hey-we’ve-got-news!” post and more of a “what-the-hell-y’all?” post… Yours truly happened to notice (via the magic of the WordPress Broken Link Checker plugin) that the Website…
The Manichean’s name might be at the top of the marquee, so to speak, but on their new EP, Lacerus Rising, the band’s most definitely not the star of this particular show. Instead, this time out they’ve handed the reins over to a gang of remix-happy friends…
There are so many bands in the wild world of metal, it’s hard for bands to do something that hasn’t ever been done before. Sadly, many bands go unnoticed, even though they have tons of talent — sometimes more than the famous bands do…
As many people have read, Rice University has agreed to sell the radio frequency that KTRU uses to crosstown college The University of Houston. While this has been the subject of many a conversation among the local music scene…
“k2” at “k2records dot net”
Part of the Dark Cauldron Entertainment group, if I’m not mistaken, this label’s put out lots of local death metal-type stuff, including releases…
To me, hip-hop was buried a long time ago. They didn’t even have the decency to hit him upside the head with a shovel, sedate him, or anything. They just hog-tied him and chucked him in a six-foot hole, the poor bastard pleading for his life and hoping that anyone would come along and save him…
A new-ish label in town, I believe, this one’s apparently a “sub-label” of the existing Deadline Noise Recordings label, and both are run out of the same address. The thing’s a joint venture between DNR honcho {Richard Ramirez} & new(?) partner Jovan Hernandez…
You can usually judge a metal band by its name. A good band name will allow you to easily identify them with their genre. The first time I saw the name “Dew-Scented,” I assumed that they would have a Gothic/romantic sound…
Weekend’s almost done, but there’re still a couple of cool things going on this Sunday, December 19th… Here’s what I like that’s happening tonight…
It gets a hell of a lot less press than the Houston Press Music Awards, but local alt-rock radio station The Buzz has its own, somewhat more specialized awards…
Day 2 of a busy-as-hell weekend… Today (Saturday, December 18th) is a pretty massive one, particularly on the local front — and believe me when I say that that’s nothing to sneeze at. Anybody who thinks nothing worth listening to…
And oh, what a weekend it is, y’all. sigh. I doubt I’m going to be able to make it out for any of this stuff — on baby/toddler duty, sadly — but seriously, there’re some amazing shows going on over the next couple of days…
It had to happen, honestly; with guitarist/vocalist Chris Rehm and drummer Sean Hart’s previous “main band,” The Riff Tiffs, apparently going the way of the dodo, what started out as a side project to occupy time while away at college has morphed into a real-deal band…
Inspired by other female artists such as Liz Phair and Mary J. Blige, as well as her father’s classic rock records, K.Flay is an example of genre-hopping gone very, very right…
Wanted to give an extra-special shoutout to Austin (by way of Houston; singer/guitarist Jared Boulanger used to be in a bunch of bands down here, I know) quintet The Sour Notes…
There’s been some good, good stuff popping up in the past few days on our local H-town music-media/etc. friend sites, and I wanted to take a sec to just point a wobbly finger at it and say, “Go! Read! Now!” (assuming you haven’t already, that is)…
It seems like every time I see or hear Austinites The Sour Notes, they’re a different band. Okay, that’s not exactly true — they’re always the same “band,” but said band seems to be doing something at least slightly different each damn time…
In 2004, award-winning film maker Reggie “Bird” Oliver visited DJ Screw‘s grave with Screw’s mother a week before her death and promised her he’d do whatever he could to tell the world about her son’s accomplishments…
When the Age of the Guitar Gods died, back in the mid-’90s, I wasn’t all that sad about it. I’ve always only been a mediocre guitarist myself, so I selfishly embraced the Cobain-/Mudhoney-ian ethos of just pounding the fuck out of your guitar…
Okay, nobody panic. Remember earlier, when we posted about the Temporary Insanity garage-punk-rawk fest going on this coming weekend? Well, apparently some genius at Facebook decided…
Damn, damn, damn — I’d fully meant to post about this before now, but things got away from me, as they tend to do…sorry ’bout that, y’all. At any rate, following in this coming weekend’s “holy shit, how is all of this going on?” theme…
I have to admit it: when I caught The Mahas live, back in the summer at the Free Press Summerfest, I wasn’t all that impressed. They weren’t bad, by any means, but as they banged on their guitars and yelled to a relatively sparse crowd…
Beneath the scruffy, raggedy-edged surface of Alive At The Same Time, the new EP from frontman/guitarist/singer Daniel Pujol’s eponymous band, there beats a steel-shiny power-pop heart. At least, that’s sure how it looks from the first two tracks…
I went to the Posies/Brendan Benson/Aqueduct show not really knowing what to expect, and the sparse, rather lifeless crowd that was standing about at Argentum wasn’t very encouraging…
It’s fairly obvious (I think, anyway) that most of our Texas-based-music love is directed right here at home in H-town, but hey, it’s the new millennium, and the whole Austin-vs.-Houston thing was pretty stupid to begin with anyway…
If you’ve heard about the horrible injustices going on in Burma, you might think there is a lot of action being taken to help the incredibly oppressed Burmese people. I know I thought so, but to my surprise and disappointment, almost all of the advocacy campaigns we found…
Believe it or not, this Sunday, December 12th, is looking, if anything, like a busier day (show-wise, that is) than the rest of the weekend. How often does that happen? Not real often, y’all. So take advantage, ’cause there’s some good shit going down…
Good night coming up tonight, mostly due to the Pik-N-Pak Reunion deal, but also because of some other shows going on ’round the same time. Get on out the house; here’s where I’d recommend…
