With a name like “Priory,” you could be forgiven for assuming this Portland quartet plays gloomy Goth-metal, or maybe somber, glacial chillwave or something, but you’d be pretty damn distant from the truth. What the band plays, instead…
Niiiice. Y’know, what with this whole “Web” thing finally looking like it’s not going away within the next year, it’s good to see somebody like the {Houston Press} stepping up to recognize the leading lights of the H-town-based Interwebs…
Got a little bit of news late last week that threw me off somewhat — while looking at the show listings for ever-entertaining, quirky-as-hell Houston venue Super Happy Fun Land, I ran across this listing…
One of the best rock bands in town right now, Muhammad Ali (also spelled variously “MUHAMMADALi” or “Muhammadali”) are at first glance just this raw, noisy, messy force of nature, howling and hammering away at their instruments to create a furious squall…
When I first listened through The Case Files, the latest release from power-pop/Americana icon Peter Case, I did it blind, just listening to it without reading anything about it beforehand. And that first spin left me somewhat confused…
Hey, all — got a cool little giveaway deal to let everybody know about; SCR has been handed two pairs of tickets to the upcoming Taking Back Sunday show here in H-town…
The more I think about this recent batch of reviews I’m writing for SCR, the more it seems like they are the serialized version of my memoirs entitled How I Incrementally Noticed That I Was Definitely Getting Older. It feels like those types of themes keep popping up…
Holy sweet hell-yes, folks. Got word this morning (after being email-less all weekend) that the supremely awesome guys in the variously-spelled {listenlisten} recently hit the Daytrotter studios…
Everything Lil’ Randy touches turns psychedelic. This is true whether it’s a locally comissioned R&B mixtape or freestyles by local luminaries who come to the DJ Screw protege for his take on his mentor’s Screwtape tradition…
Yeah, I’m attempting to not let the rest of the weekend get the jump on me, this time; let’s see how it goes, eh? Cross yr fingers, y’all… The big item on the list, at least in the physical sense, is this year’s edition of the Vans Warped Tour…
Holy crap, y’all. Busy, busy, busy weekend coming up, seriously, starting tonight, Friday, June 24th (well, it actually started last night, really, but I’m afraid I neglected to post about those shows, sadly; the {football, etc.} show sounded pretty badass…)…
It’s been a busy couple of years for Houston-dwelling post-emo rockers the last place you look. After lurking under the radar a while and releasing debut full-length The Lies We Tell Ourselves to mixed reviews, in 2009 they released a vastly different followup…
After getting drunk, getting drugged, and stealing a tiger, a police car, and a small Asian man — and misplacing their best friend in the process — you would think Phil, Stu, and Alan would have learned…
I hesitate to type this, because I feel like when I do, one of the last sparks of youth left dimly flickering within my soul will be extinguished forevermore. But fuck it…I am so glad I brought earplugs to this show…
The Avalanche Tour onslaught hit Houston April 12th. The Tour brought aboard The Art of Dying, Halestorm, Skillet, Theory of a Deadman, and Stone Sour…
Dead Horse is reuniting for a headlining show at Warehouse Live on Saturday, October 22. The news was announced as a routine Facebook post Monday afternoon. I immediately called the Warehouse Live box office to confirm…
It’s hard not to question the decision to do anything during Houston summers, let alone hold an outdoor musical festival. 95°F-plus heat combined with oppressive humidity almost guarantees that all but the foolishly brave are fastened to the easy comforts of their living room couch…
Damn. First off, yes, I do realize it’s been two freaking weeks since the end of this year’s Free Press Summerfest, and a week-and-a-half since the first installment…
After having played together for about a year, Yello Echo have still managed to remain mostly unheard of, for reasons I can’t fathom. When I first saw them playing at an art exhibit opening a few weeks ago, I was quite literally staring…
Sorry I missed last night’s show madness, folks — especially since there was a lot going on. Yours truly is traveling at the moment, and apparently all the nearby wifi networks are locked-down…
There is no easy way to describe the experience of listening to Holiday, the latest full-length by Winter Wallace (who, as their Facebook page is careful to note, is a band, not just a singer with backing musicians). On the one hand, there’s the music…
The short version is X-Men: First Class is an excellent return to form after several missteps, capturing everything that made the series great and jettisoning must of the unnecessary stuff. That’s all you really need to know, but if you need more, keep going…
Before you write Kontakte off for their Explosions-In-The-Sky-ish guitars, listen to what’s behind them. In the second track, “Hope…,” the glitchy textures and eerily distorted digital voices start painting a picture of a type of post-rock that’s obviously…
Crap, crap, crap. Late, late, late — sorry, y’all. Tonight (Sunday, June 12th) isn’t a super busy night, at least not compared to what we’ve seen lately, but hell, there’re a few things well, well worth talking about, at least…
It’s Saturday, June 11th, Day #2 of the weekend’s madness, and there’s still a ton of stuff going on. First up (in my book, at least), is the inaugural Houston Beer Fest up in Hermann Square Park…
Wow. I’m still trying to stagger back to my feet after Summerfest last weekend, but damn, apparently the world’s moving on without me, if this weekend’s any proof. It is looking like a fine, fine weekend, y’all, starting tonight, Friday, June 10th…
More than anything else, I find myself wanting to point over to fellow gentle indie-folksters Fleet Foxes each time I run through Pepper Rabbit’s debut release, Beauregard; the music made by both bands unfolds slowly and deliberately, warm as a blanket yet still seemingly fragile…
Cormac McCarthy once said the only thing he could ever imagine writing about was life and death, because nothing else would ever be important enough to waste time and words on. I imagine if someone were to ask Terrence Malick that question…
After only the first couple of hours of being at this year’s Free Press Summerfest, I was feeling really freaking old. There was a time when I could pull off an all-day festival in the blistering heat of summer…
I’m currently knee-deep in my writeup of the past weekend’s insanity, but I wanted to pop up real quickly to mention the show at Rudyard’s tonight (Tues., June 7th), which involves a bit of a lineup change…
Welcome to the Wild New West, folks. Despite their English-derived name, with High Noon Moon, The Tyburn Jig have carved what sure seems to me like a brand-new little musical niche; they’ve wedged themselves in this strange, half-spooky corner…
Yeah, yeah, yeah — I know, I know, the big news this weekend is the Summerfest that’ll be unfolding the next two days in all its sweaty, muddy, eardrum-destroying glory, but hey, that doesn’t mean everything else just stops, right?…
Dammit, dammit, dammit. I tried to post this batch of Free Press Summerfest writeups late last night, but my brain was feeling like Jell-O, and it just didn’t happen…
Damn — I’m starting to feel like an even bigger slacker than I normally do, folks. Over the past year or so, I’ve watched as my H-town music-critic brethren not only write brilliantly and humorously about things musical but also step out into the wider world…
It’s been a decade now since the last “real” release from California pop-punk icons Face to Face, since way back in 2002 with How to Ruin Everything, and y’know, I was nervous. It’s not a stretch to declare that discovering Face to Face’s Don’t Turn Away shaped…
Next installment of little mini-writeups for Free Press Summerfest, right here; sorry, I meant for it to go up last night but ended up staying up late with a sick munchkin…
I’ve been a fan of Greg Dulli for something like two decades now; it’s a little weird to read that line back, but yeah, it’s the truth. I’ve loved the guy’s work since I first heard The Afghan Whigs’ “Retarded,” way back in 1991 or so, followed his career with the Whigs…
