Catching Up For Christmas: Lots of Stuff Goin’ On

Jee-sus ‘effin Kee-rist, it’s been a hell of a couple of weeks. Yours truly has been hammered by multiple deadlines in advance of the coming days off (all next week! woo!), and as a result I’m just now managing to climb out from under my work-imposed rock to discover, holy crap, there’s been a lot going on. Rather than post individually about each & everything thing, though (the prospect of which makes me break out in a cold sweat), I’m gonna try to hit as many as I can in one big catch-all post before I attempt to make it out to the 2nd annual Suspects reunion show tonight. Here goes…

• Latch Key Kids Reunion!: A little birdie emailed to let us here at SCR know that longtime local hardcore heroes the Latch Key Kids are planning to reunite, at least temporarily, & play one or more shows this coming February. That’s all I’ve got on that one, unfortunately, but keep an eye out — these guys were part of the whole early-to-mid-’90s pop-punk/hc scene, and they were pretty great while they were around. More details if/when I get ’em. I smell the scent of reunion in the air; hell, even Toho Ehio‘s apparently playing again in Feb…
• Butch @ Secret Saturday!: And speaking of blasts from the past, not only will 30footFALL be doing their traditional Punk-Mas show on December 25th up at Fitzgerald’s (with Brian’s Johnson & The World’s Most Dangerous Band), but I hear frontman Butch will also be playing his own solo stuff — which is apparently not to be confused w/30fF’s music — this coming Saturday at the Secret Saturday Shows deal. Which will, obviously, be very cool. Damn, gotta love those little birds passing out info like that. (Check the SSS Myspace, linked above, for the where/when/how.)
• Sad Like Crazy Back Together: Yes, it’s true — expat Houstonian indie-rock champs Sad Like Crazy have reformed, praise be to the gods, and are playing again. Better yet, they’re playing here, at The Proletariat, on January 5th. Oh, and per their Myspace page, they’re also writing & recording new songs. Hell, yes. Thanks, Santa! This beats the hell out of the power-washer I asked for…
• The Skyline Network Lists Every Piece of Good H-Town Music Made This Year: Holy shit, y’all. Due to my head being down all week, I’ve been totally missing out on The Skyline Network’s “The Skyline 50” — ADR has just finished listing off his fave 50 Houston-made songs of the past year, covering the gamut from The Western Civilization to Linus Pauling Quartet to By the End of Tonight to Arthur Yoria to The Tenspeeds. And damn, is it cool. I’m feeling the need to print the whole thing out & then go hit SoundEx yet again this weekend to pick up the stuff I’ve missed. Go, read, now: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; and Part Five. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
• Houston Calling’s Top 10 List Up: Yep, SCR friend/sometime contributor David Cobb has got his own list of top ten releases this year up on the ever-cool Houston Calling site. I read it and feel like a big slacker, but I swear, I’m sticking to last year’s scheme of “best-of” lists only happening after the New Year. It’ll get done, honest…
• Hootenanny On Its Way: More Skyline news…I dunno how the guy does it, but that dang site’s throwing yet another show/shindig on January 5th. I know, I know — the conflict with the Sad Like Crazy show above about makes my head crack open, but still…

  Anyway, this one’s called Hootenanny, and it’s gonna feature a ton of good local folks playing as the bands they feel influenced (at least somewhat) by. Blades will be playing as the Foo Fighters, John Sears as Sam Cooke (wha?), Indian Jewelry as Depeche Mode (ooh, I wanna see that…), Laws as Creedence, The Jonx as Nomeansno (although I’m bummed that they won’t be playing “The Tower”; I tried to talk Danny into it, but no luck), The Dimes as the Pixies; The Mathletes as the Talking Heads; Grant Olney and the Brokedown Gospel (which includes ex-members of Panic in Detroit!) as Jawbox (double “!”), Something Fierce as The Clash (nice…), Satin Hooks as the Wipers, Awesome! as Weezer, & Papermoons as Pedro the Lion. Wow. It’ll be at The Backroom of The Mink, so make plans to stop by.

  UPDATE: Whoops…sorry, I confused my mega-shows, apparently — Grant Olney and the Brokedown Gospel, who I’ve been told include ex-Panic in Detroit people, are playing tomorrow night at the We Are The Hollow Men art/music deal. Panic in Detroit themselves, at least according to the Hootenanny flyer, will indeed be playing, I guess in their original incarnation & not as somebody’s backing band.

• The Proletariat Definitely Closing: Fuck. This makes me really freakin’ sad, although I can understand Proletariat owner Denise’s feelings on it. Check out Chris Gray’s excellent interview with Ms. Ramos for the details, but the upshot is this: train’s a-comin’, and the Proletariat’s gettin’ outta Dodge before it does. sigh. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but the place’ll be missed.
• Southmore Gone, Too? Again?: Well, I’d thought the Southmore House had successfully relocated, but apparently that’s not the case. I’m told that the ever-lurking beast the NIMBY Noise Complainer has once again shut the damn place down. Crap. No clue what that’ll mean to the upcoming shows still on the schedule for the House; if anybody knows, tell me, eh?
• Local Booking People Awful Quiet: I dunno about you, but barring a few big shows it sure seems like the local booking stuff of the past year has slowed way down. The past year or two, we’ve seen a ton of Houston-area booking groups pop up, and for a while there the sheer mass of shows going on all over the city & the ‘burbs was insane. And great, of course, but still insane. Lately, though, a lot of folks have been real quiet — hopefully that doesn’t mean they’re going away…? I spoke with Willow of Hate Tank recently, and he said he was having to slow down a lot both because of burnout and the $$$ he lost this past summer putting on shows, which is totally understandable. He said, though, that he didn’t think he could quit, so hopefully there’ll be more HT shows to come…
• Super Happy Still Alive: Thank God not all local venue news is craptastic like the above. Seems the good people at Super Happy Fun Land have signed on the dotted line for their new space and are ready to share it with the world. As of late January, SHFL will be moving to 3801 Polk Street (77003), over east of downtown in those cool old warehouses. Good to hear, y’all.
• Mel House on Canadian MTV: I’ve threatened it once or twice now, but as of yesterday, it’s the real deal — H-town musician/writer/director Mel House now has his excellent video for Jonah Matranga’s “Not About A Girl Or A Place” up on Fuse, aka “Canada’s MTV but with more actual videos.” Which is a major thing for an indie horror filmmaker like Mel; congrats, man!
• David Sadof on Chron.com: HandStamp’s Sara Cress has been trying to recruit local music folk to start up their own “reader blogs” on the chron.Commons Website, and lo and behold, now David Sadof, formerly of the Lunar Rotation and High Fidelity radio shows, now has his own blog for all of Houston to see. Cool…gonna have to add it to the ol’ Google Reader. Kudos to David and to Orange Is In’s Jeff Balke for putting together some good stuff to read.

  (I’m somewhat embarrassed, by the way, to admit that when Sara sent out her email, I emailed back and said, “sure, I’ll do it!”…only to absolutely zero. Sadly, I’ve come to the realization that I can barely handle this Website/blog, much less a whole other daily-written thing. Maybe one of these days…)

• Thee Armada Destroys Britney Spears & Makes a Video: Okay, I’ll grant that it’s not that tough of a task to blow Ms. Spears out of the water these days, but it still does my soul good to see that local boys Thee Armada whomped up on all comers at the end of last month on KRBE’s “New Music Faceoff,” where their track “Rock, Shock & Load” was thrown up against a ton of new songs by big-big-big-name acts and came out on top. Seriously — they beat Britney & the Timbaland/Fall Out Boy “duet,” both of which well and truly deserved the smackdown. Good job, you guys.

  Also, in more recent Thee Armada news, the band will be filming a video for “Rock, Shock & Load” tomorrow, Saturday, December 22nd — it’ll be at Irma’s, at the corner of Commerce & Chenevert, over by Minute Maid Park, at about 3PM. If you want to be in the video, show the heck on up (under-18s, get your parents to sign the consent form on the band’s Myspace) and rock out.

• Give Food, Feel Good: I know there are about a bazillion food drives going on this year, but dangit, this one’s real close to home (spiritually, at least) — Rudyard’s is currently holding a canned-food drive at the club. It started a few weeks back, but hey, it’ll be running ’til Jan. 1st, so you’ve still got time to go and assuage the credit-consumer guilt for buying that flat-screen LCD.

Argh. I feel like there’s more, but that’s all I can do for now…