Ah, fuck. I knew it was too good to be true for long... Apparently the joy-sucking, soulless, we-drowned-our-inner-child-in-the-bathtub-for-$5 jerks at the RIAA have taken down the very-popular Muxtape site. Ah, yes -- another well-placed strike on that dastardly segment of the music-listening population that actually likes music they can't hear on the similarly soulless radio and enjoys sharing their tastes in music with others. Who might, in turn, go out and buy said music, using real-live money, or use that money alternatively to experience the makers of said music first-hand in a live setting. Great job.

If we're lucky, Muxtape will survive and emerge from their "problem" with the RIAA -- they've got a message up saying that the site is not closed indefinitely, so that's good to hear. I'm not holding my breath that there aren't some changes in the way the site works, though; guess we'll see how it shakes out. Apparently the Muxtape crew might be able to take a page from YouTube and use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which makes some sense, as I've never been clear quite how Muxtape expected to make any money from their cool little gadget (if they ever did).

Oh, and I feel like I should note that not only is the main Muxtape site currently down, but all muxtapes hosted on the site are down, as well. Including ours, despite the fact that zero of the people/bands on it are on major labels and/or have anything to do with the RIAA, as far as I know. Double fuck.

(Kudos to Indieblogheaven for the link...)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Entertainobabble, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

I tend to not watch a whole lot of videos these days, partly because I get bored watching some band pretend to Rock Hard while actually just miming at their instruments (sorry, folks, but playing electric instruments in the rain just does not work the way you wish it would) and trying to look Badass and partly because, hell, I work a day job where I'm lucky I get to listen to music, much less have the time to sit back & watch it. Takes too much attention, y'know?

That said, things lately have been looking pretty damn good, at least here in town. First there was the Southern Backtones video for "Forever" (which I think might've won an award, although I'm not positive), then The Dimes/Young Mammals had a fun little video shot in a local Kwik-E-Mart, then Sharks and Sailors got all moody in their video from a little while back (see here).

And now, local space-rockers Co-Pilot have thrown their hat in the ring, with a cool, contemplative video for "Low Earth Orbit" created by Norwegian filmmaker Morten A. out of band footage and footage he shot while driving around the States. Now, I love-love-love this song, so seeing the sound put to images had me a little nervous at first, but it fits absolutely perfectly. Makes me just want to drive off into the sunset down some lonesome Texas Hill Country road, windows down, playing the song on infinite repeat.

(And yes, I love the Backtones' video in part because they filmed it at Foodarama, esp. because it looks like the Post Oak location nearest to our new house. Foodarama rules; I always know where to find things there, unlike at, say, the Wal-Mart Grocery down the road. Heck, I think I'll embed that video, too, even though it's fairly old by now...)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To See

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

So, I've had my 4G iPod for a few years now -- same one I initially bought, never replaced or upgraded or anything like that. It kept me sane during my time as a contractor, esp. at The Big Red H and ExxonMobil's Bell St. office (right next to the elevator; yay!), and while I haven't been as diligent about keeping it in good shape as I should have, it's still working fine, and I love it.

Well, except for the battery, that is. Seems that Apple's got some battery issues they have yet to address, and I've done pretty well to have avoided running into it before now. Lately, though, I've been noticing that my iPod barely holds a charge -- by the time I finish mowing the lawn (which, I'll admit, is a multi-hour deal), the damn thing's just about empty. Running it in the car with the iTrip & the radio drains it even faster; I was stunned last week when I sat down in the car on the way home, plugged it in, and -- poof -- gone. Dead.

Now, seeing as I'm headed off to the outlet-less Grand Canyon in a week or so, I started to get kinda alarmed. While the lure of an 80GB "Classic" iPod is hard to resist, shit, I don't have that kind of money to blow right now, y'know? I went out and slapped down some cash, instead, for something I'd wanted for a while, the Solio Hybrid 1000 solar charger (see up there on the right). Clips onto a backpack, comes with USB/mini-USB connectors that'll let me charge the iPod, my cell, and my cheap-ass digital camera (plus a bunch of extra phone connectors I'll never use), the whole deal, and it weighs nothing and is just a smidge longer than a paperback book. I was also happy to discover that it actually stores the charge, rather than just channeling it through, and it'll both charge and put out power at the same time, so you can suck down solar energy and power your gadgets at the same time.

The only downside is that it doesn't charge the iPod real fast -- it took quite a while to recharge using the Solio, even in bright sunlight w/the iPod not running, 'cause just a little bit of use was zapping the 'pod so damn much. So if I spend 4+ hours trudging along behind my dad in the hot, hot sun, I figured the iPod'd still die somewhere within the first two hrs. or so. Not so good.

The other option, then, given that I couldn't (and still can't) justify the $250 for a new iPod, was to replace the battery. After the first uproar over the whole battery-life thing, Apple started offering its own service to "replace" the battery, but you have to actually send the iPod in question to them (paying your own way w/the postage), and they'll send you back a new/new-ish iPod with a new battery. While the price has gone down some since that initial deal (now it's about $60, plus the cost of shipping), I just wasn't able to force myself to send the whole 'pod off for God-knows-how-long -- especially since I'd be leaving town within a week or so. And beyond that, Apple doesn't actually transfer anything to the replacement iPod, and the thought of uploading all 4000 songs all over again made my stomach do backflips.

Thankfully, in the yawning vacuum left by Apple in the iPod battery aftermarket, a number of folks have started making and selling their own DIY kits for ripping out the old, dead battery and sticking in a new one. When I initially saw the procedure described, I'll admit that I broke out in a cold sweat -- I'm not particularly handy w/electronics, so I wasn't real keen on cracking open my beloved musical friend. Particularly since doing so, uh, voids Apple's warranty.

Now, though, I'm a few more years down the line, totally out of warranty, and halfway to buying a new iPod anyway, so I figured, "why not?" Why not try the battery replacement, considering I was able to find a battery for my 4th gen. model for about $40? I dug around a bit and found a decent-looking upgrade/replacement kit (including "iOpener," patent pending -- woo!), from San Antonio-based iPodjuice/Milliamp LTD (who also run the handy iPodBatteryFAQ.com, although it's a little cheesy the way they promote themselves there), the battery for which purports to last 100% longer than the default iPod battery, and I took the plunge.

And I have to say, I'm still somewhat stunned at how easy the whole thing was. I mean, seriously, seriously easy. Easy. My new battery kit, complete with Crutchfield-style instructions, arrived about 2 days later, so after the wife & munchkin went to bed one night, I set everything up at my nice, static-free kitchen table and went to work.

One thing to note: the instructions iPodjuice provides point out that actually opening the iPod is the absolute hardest part of the whole thing, and believe me, they're not kidding. Getting the 'pod open took me roughly a half-hour of sweating, cringing, and swearing, and after watching the instructional video on the iPodjuice site (after the fact, naturally), I think I did it wrong, 'cause that guy cracks his open like he's shelling walnuts. I think the key is that you have to jam the iOpener down in there pretty hard, then slide it sideways, even if it doesn't look like it'll go -- once I finally got it going, it was like unzipping the thing around the edges.

If you ever decide to give this a shot w/the same kit I used (or another, actually; I think most of 'em include a tool of some kind), do not use anything but the provided tool to open your iPod. I made the mistake of using a thin kitchen knife to try to pry it open when I had the iOpener jammed down in there, and not only did it not pop out like I thought it would, but I, uh, bent in the metal sides somewhat. Fuck. Ah, well -- my 'pod's a tough customer, and he lives in his little Marware carrier most of the time anyway, so eh.

Also somewhat tricky -- and again, the iPodjuice people warn you up-front -- is balancing one half of the iPod "shell" on its side and holding the battery up somehow while you're trying to pull out the tightly-seated battery leads. (Which are, of course, very fragile.) Partway through I found myself wishing my wife hadn't already gone to bed, but I persevered with the help of a mini-screwdriver to jimmy the lead connector up & out. After that, I slid the new iPod battery in, shifted the cable around under the motherboard-looking thingy (like I said, not handy with electronics), and carefully snapped the two sides of the shell back together, trying not to pinch any wires in the process.

I let it charge for a full six hours or so, and praise be to whoever, it works. Minus the creases some idiot (cough) put in the metal on the sides, it looks and runs as good as new -- hell, better, even. I may be imagining it, but I'd swear the battery charges faster and runs down more slowly than the old one ever did, even when it was brand new.

Moral to the story: if I can do this, trust me, you can. I've done some rudimentary wiring/installation-type stuff in the past, but it's always been ceiling fans, light fixtures, Crutchfield car stereos, stuff that's meant for morons to be able to do it. This was way easier than the last two ceiling fans I had to put up, so that's a big plus in its favor. Heck, I think it might've even been simpler than switching out my car stereo. I'd highly recommend the iPodjuice folks if anybody reads this & decides to give it a go, but you can also get batteries and replacement kits from Laptops for Less, PowerbookMedic, the iStore, and RapidRepair. There're probably others, too, but those are the ones I ran across while researching this stuff.

I'd also recommend checking out methodshop.com's handy info on fixing whatever goes wrong with your iPod, and definitely BatteryUniversity.com's awesomely informative page on prolonging the life of lithium-based batteries. Apple uses lithium-ion batteries for its iPods, and they operate very differently in some ways from other types of rechargeable batteries -- for one thing, they actually do better with short, frequent charges, rather than the old-school way of letting the whole thing run down to zero before recharging. (This goes for a lot of current cellphones, too; I now keep mine plugged in at night no matter what, and the battery performance seems to've improved.) Anyway, there you go -- learn from my experimentation...

Now I've gotta head home & get to packing.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To Do, Things To Get

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

Okay, so now that I'm gonna have to enter Witness Protection or hope that the guys in the band alluded to repeatedly here are very forgiving, I feel the need for something entertaining. Serious discussion is great & all (and I think this thread is probably gonna go down in history as the longest this e-zine ever sees), but dammit, I think we all need to crack a smile or laugh or something. (Although I strongly suspect ADR is already laughing...)

So, courtesy of pal Anish, I give you pint-sized Argentinian heroes Gauchos de Acero:

I never knew "Eleanor Rigby" would sound so cool done a la punkish metal. Now for the kicker, which would be really lame if these kids didn't kick ass -- and yes, when I see the kids' niece come in and start doing her thing, I get eerie visions of my daughter's none-too-distant future:

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To See

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

Meant to post this earlier, but eh, shit happens, and so... Seeing as how that whole Muxtape thing is so damn neat, it only makes sense that the Houston Press's John Lomax would be into it, too. I missed his "African diaspora" muxtape, sadly, but the one he put up this past week is damn cool, focusing on -- yeah, you guessed it -- cool H-town people.

As mux/mixtapes go, while Lomax says the tracks are all from this decade, this one feels like a bit of a trip down Memory Lane; there're a recent tracks, like the one from The Scattered Pages, but I'm digging the Panic In Detroit, Jug O' Lightnin', and The Westbury Squares, in particular, and those bands all broke up (I'm pretty sure they did, at least) a while ago. Man, "The Anti Chorus" really, truly makes me miss The Squares; I feel like I never really gave those folks their due while they were around, but now they sound fine, fine, fine.

Anyway, check it out quick, before it gets replaced w/this week's(?) installment...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Download, Things To Hear

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

This is absolutely priceless -- check out the video at the end. I'm bummed that there's no footage of Something Fierce, and Be My Doppelganger sound like they would've been cool to see, despite the blown-out videocam mic, but honestly, the part that kills me is the spliced-in post-shutdown commentary by Ramon & Rosa's adorable six-year-old son. I'm very heartened to know that I'm not the only parent with a ridiculously precocious, punk rock-loving kid who hates The Man.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Random Rambling, Things To See

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Since I've started trying to bring the little digital camera I got for Christmas to more shows lately, I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for the Days of Yore here in Houston's murky-yet-vibrant scene. There was a time when I'd bring my trusty Pentax to every damn show -- esp. the ones we played -- and try to get pictures of fellow H-town musicians doing their thing for, well, pretty much nobody but other H-town musicians.

They were strange times, but fun. And more and more lately I feel like our big-little scene's gone back to that time again; there are a ton of great bands, after somewhat of a dry spell with only a handful of brave stalwarts soldiering on through (Bring Back The Guns, the Guilloteens, etc.), and the people seem more tightly connected than they were before, kinda like what I remember of my own band days. We played with friends, for the most part, or people who became friends, and luckily, most of our friends were much better musicians/songwriters than we were. We didn't give a crap who came, but just got on a stage, plugged in, and played for the hell of it. Again, Now feels a lot like Then, at least to me.

Anyway, in the pre-moving frenzy, I stumbled across an old photo album where I'd fortuitously stashed a bunch of my attempts at rock photog-dom, pictures of such venerable bands as Pop Deflation, the aforementioned Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Ultramagg, & (I think) Inbred Whiteboy, heroes all. Seeing as these were all from the pre-digital camera-happy past, I had to scan all the damn things in, but looking at 'em now, I think it was worth it. Here're a few of my favorites:

Pop Deflation @ The Oven
(And yes, that's Melissa Lonchambon of Panic in Detroit/Sharks and Sailors fame sitting on the floor.)

Fatal Flying Guilloteens @ The Oven
(Pre-dual vocalists, pre-John Adams, and pre-McManus leaving town for the first time, even.)

Junior Varsity @ ClubSafeParking
(Holy shit, I miss JV.)

Ultramagg @ The Mausoleum
(Glad to know these guys are still around...)

Charlie (The Suspects/The Magnetic IV) @ Rudyard's
(The picture honestly doesn't capture the full awesomeness of this tattoo. The colors were amazing. I think he had the other arm done w/something like this, too...)

The Lonely Guys @ Mary Jane's
(Hey, Peter -- remember this one? You were damn entertaining that night...heh. I smell blackmail material...)

So, there you go -- if you care to check out all of 'em, there're online here and open to all. I've also been finding & slapping up some previously-digitized stuff from the old SCR print 'zine, so some of the pics may look familiar to readers of the actual paper version of this thing. I'm hoping to add some more soon, but my other photo albums are already packed away & stored in a closet at the in-laws' house, waiting to be (maybe) unpacked at the new place, so further scanning will have to wait 'til then.

Oh, and the astute viewers of this site might've noticed a new little doohickey over there on the right -- under Our Pics, I've finally got a Flickr badge running, cycling through all the SCR-/band-related pics currently in my Flickr account. This "Web" thing's turned out to be pretty neato...

RE: Moving: Since I hinted at it above, I might as well clarify -- yep, we're moving. Not the e-zine, mind you (the P.O. Box will stay the same), but my actual home. I feel compelled to mention, btw, that moving has got to be one of the most terrifying/frustrating experiences known to man. We just sold our current house & bought another, so now we have to figure out how to pack and move our ridiculously large amount of shit (we're both packrats, despite my wife's protestations that she's not), not to mention make it fit in the new space. Gah. This is why it's taken us five years longer to get 'round to doing this than we'd originally planned...

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To See

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 1 comments

Ladies & gentlepeeps, I give you, the first-ever super-official, fancy-shmancy SCR Muxtape, for your enjoyment and the hopeful elevation of the bands included therein. Gape in awe at its Houston-swelled glory.

Yeah, yeah -- I know they're likely a fad and are being slapped up left & right, but I swear to God, the muxtape thing is exactly what I've been looking for. I've wanted to do some kind of mixtape-type thing of all local H-town bands I love for a loooooong while now, and had toyed w/both putting up the MP3s themselves and creating our own SCR podcasts. Neither of which worked, the former because the prospect of tracking down & emailing every goddamn band whose song I wanted to post made me feel physically ill and the latter because I'm too inherently lazy to figure out how the hell to do a podcast.

The muxtape idea, on the other hand, appeals to me because it's so ludicrously simple, lets me put songs I love by bands I love up there without fearing I'm ripping food from their mouths (or that they're gonna grab me off the street someday and give me a beatdown, whichever), I can randomly stumble across cool music other people have up on their muxtapes, and I can update my own whenever the heck I want.

Which is the plan, by the by -- the Space City Rock Muxtape will evolve, if you will, as I add & remove songs over the next however long it lives. Songs will be both new & old; freshness doesn't matter, as long as I like 'em (as evidenced by the inclusion of Celindine in the current 'tape). Plugging the songs in there last night, I found myself wishing there wasn't a 12-song limit; I've already got a list a page long of songs to include in future updates. I'll post about 'em here when the songs change, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed here & be updated automatically when stuff changes.

Anyway, here's the mix as of the moment, in playlist order:

1. Teenage Kicks - "Bound For Glory"
2. Stadium - "Nine Twelve Twenty-One"
3. The Jonx - "Cashews"
4. Celindine - "No Crest"
5. Co-Pilot - "Low Earth Orbit"
6. Piano Vines - "Sun King"
7. The Gold Sounds - "College Radio"
8. Fatal Flying Guilloteens - "Reveal The Rats"
9. While You Were Gone - "Thief"
10. Alkari - "The Code"
11. Paris Falls - "Hazard Street Bridge"
12. The Church of Philadelphia - "This Time Around"

(If you happen to be in a band whose song(s) I've got on the muxtape, btw, and you don't want to be on there for whatever reason, just email me at "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com" and I'll get it off there asap. Don't want no hasslin' from The Man, y'all.)

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Hear

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 1 comments

Yeah, yeah, I know it's from back in 2005 or so, but homeboy Marc brought it to my attention recently, and now I feel completely and utterly compelled to post it here: Robbie Fulks' "Fountains of Wayne Hotline". The first time I listened to the song (sorry, Marc, it took a while for the iPod to hit it), I nearly drove into another car, I was laughing so hard.

Like the title says, it's the perfect, perfect little piece of satire/tribute ever, in that it's both poking at FoW with a sharp stick and a brilliant example of how well the shiny-sweet pop goodness the band comes up with works and a subtle in-joke for anybody even vaguely familiar with Tech Support. Holy shit, is it good.

(To Mr. Fulks/Whomever It May Concern: In the unlikely event that you ever come across our humble site, please don't sue my broke ass. I've got to keep my little girl in broccoli and hot dogs, and only a cruel, heartless person would take away a four-year-old's hot dog, right? You're a damn genius, and I swear I post this track strictly out of love and to bring it back to the attention of our 15-sec-of-fame world. I will remove it im-freakin'-mediately if asked.)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Hear

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

I'm not going to pretend to have a clue what the hell's going on, but damn, this is too freakin' funny. Ah, Technoviking, you make me proud of my somewhat sketchy (long story) Nordic roots.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Random Rambling

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

Y'know, I'd wondered what the heck had happened to Cameron Dezen (now "Cameron Dezen Hammon," officially). She put out a truly brilliant solo album a year or three ago, Love + Rescue, and then...well, nada. The last time I even saw a show listed was the Houston Press Awards like 2 years ago, now. Anyway, defatigable Chron scribe Sara Cress has tracked her down and got the update (thanks, Sara!). Good to hear Dezen's still around, even if she's moved away from her poppier stuff...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Musical Crap

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Nothin' much to report at present, but I thought I'd pass off a couple of truly scary things. For the strong-stomached among you, The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World. For the, uh, equally strong-stomached, there's also this. I cannot freakin' believe my ugly mug now graces the (Web) pages of SPIN. That's disturbing, people. Nighty-night.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Random Rambling

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

I have to say that one of the best, most wonderful things about this crazy Interwebs tube thing is the ease with which you can find music. Sometimes I think fondly back to the days of my youth, when I'd comb the racks of tapes at the local music store -- which seemed like the coolest place in the universe at the time, but probably didn't hold a candle to places like SoundEx or (R.I.P.?) Cactus (ah, the innocence of youth...). The reality, though, is that while I was able to find some things (like Warrior's Fighting for the Earth; woo, yeah!), most days I ended up frustrated & wishing I lived in some bigger city with at least a Tower Records or something. (It was a small town.)

Flash-forward to now, and holy shit, I am loving the ability to say, "hey, what the heck was that song I heard a little blip of the other day?" and -- poof! -- it's on my iPod (cough -- legally, of course). Beyond that, there's a wealth of free MP3s and such floating around out there for those who're curious or open to checking out new stuff. I sift through a ton of links to stuff like that each week, both sent by labels & PR folk or posted on MP3 sites, so here's some of what I've received/stumbled over lately that's been good:

A Wilhelm Scream -- "Die While We're Young"

This one's a limited-timer, apparently, so grab it soon -- it's a sample of AWS's new album, Career Suicide, which I haven't heard yet, and it's good, if slightly less hardcore-sounding than Ruiner (see "Killing It", off that album). Of course, that's what I love about this band: they mash up the best of yell-along hc, pop-punk, and guitar metal and cover the whole thing in emo-boy backing vocals, and against all odds, it works.

The Octopus Project - "Bees Bein' Strugglin'"

Nice...we here at SCR love the Octoproj, have for many moons now, and are pleased as heck that they're still putting out albums. Everything they do is good, but this track just flows so beautifully along it's like the soundtrack to a hazy summer's day; gorgeous.

Peter Bjorn and John - "Far Away, By My Side"

Holy crap, do I love this song. Seriously. I've liked what I've heard of PB&J before now, but that guitar/vocal riff is so familiar, yet insanely catchy at the same time. I could listen to it all day. (And yes, I do know it ain't a new song, but it's new to me; oh, and they're playing Warehouse Live on 11/23. Thanks to Both Sides of the Mouth for the link.)

Yea Big + Kid Static - "Duck, Mother Fuckers!"

I've gotten a lot of hip-hop of late, and sadly, most of it's left me "eh." Not so with Yea Big & partner Kid Static, though -- this track marries thumping, insistent beats with defiant rhymes reminiscent of The Roots at their best.

The Dreadful Yawns - "Candles"

Mojave 3, meet The New You. Cleveland's The Dreadful Yawns pick up where the Mojave crew left off, circa Puzzles Like You, with sweet, poignant strings, gentle drumming, and honestly beautiful male/female vocals soaring off down that long, lonesome road.

Miracle Fortress - "Have You Seen In Your Dreams"

This one's like The Arcade Fire, if that bad were fronted by Wayne Coyne; the vocals are seriously Lips-esque, but the music aims towards a more epic kind of indie-psych. (Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for the link.)

Emma Pollock - "Adrenaline"

Found this one when I saw that Ms. Pollock (formerly of the excellent Delgados) would be opening for Spoon & The New Pornographers 11/1. Sadly, I won't be there -- already got tickets for Johnette Napolitano @ the Duck -- but this little gem of a pop song makes me even more bummed that I can't be in two places at once... (Thanks to The Yellow Stereo for the link.)

The Drones - "Shark Fin Blues"

Roots-rock from the Land Down Under, but it sounds more like Son Volt, especially in the awesomely rough-edged Jay Farrar-esque guitars, and owes a serious debt to Neil Young, too. Noisy but listenable and warm.

Throw Me The Statue - "About to Walk"

This one's from a few months back, but I only recently got it on the iPod & gave it a listen. And man, is it good -- fractured, vulnerable-sounding pop with cool, crunchy synths and driving-like-a-crazy-person drums. When it's over, I just want to hit Play again, and again, and again...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Download, Things To Hear

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

This is too freakin' cool. (Either that, or I'm a big, big dork.) It takes some practice, but now I can switch directions pretty easily -- at one point I had to multiply 5 x 5 in my head to get it to go from counter-clockwise to clockwise...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Random Rambling

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Okay, so this one's Pt. 2, but it's technically Pt. 1 of this coming weekend, which is gonna be absolutely insane:

Fri.-Sat., October 12-13 -- The Axiom 20th Anniversary Party/Reunion @ Fitzgerald's
Yep, posted about this one before, but now's the time, folks, so brace yourselves: The Axiom is officially lurching back to life for two nights, albeit in a fairly different location. The kind folks at Fitzgerald's are giving over both floors of the place to a host of old-school Axiom alumni for both nights, and the lineup's pretty damn incredible.

Let's see... on Friday night they've got one of the best damn bands ever to come out of Houston (and, sadly, one that never managed to break beyond the city's boundaries), Sprawl, headlining the show, along with fellow local icons de Schmog, Blunt, & Fleshmop. I can remember seeing all those folks back in the day when I was a wee shrub of a college student (Sprawl were all or mostly Rice kids; even after graduating, they played somewhere on campus every once in a while), and I vividly recall being either blown away by how great they were or by how freakin' bizarre they were (and sometimes both).

I'm less familiar with the other folks on the bill -- never caught Toho Ehio, U.Y.U.S., Bad Samaritans, or Grindin' Teeth when they were around the first time, and I know nada about Cave Reverend, Anarchitex, or David Von Ohlerking and The Awful Truth except as names somebody (Justin, maybe?) scribbled on the great Houston band family tree once upon a time.

Saturday, Night #2, is equally cool, with the ever-badass Joint Chiefs, Sad Pygmy (whose Sometimes Nightmares 7", incidentally, was the first locally-released bit of music I ever bought, & the start of many long afternoons spent sifting through SoundEx's 7" bins), & Turmoil in the Toybox as the ones I know fairly well. I've heard of the rest, though, including Academy Black (which will include Michael Haaga of dead horse/Plus and Minus Show fame for the evening), Cinco Dudes, Bayou Pigs, Uncle Charlie of Dresden 45, the aforementioned Cave Reverend, Backyard Epics, & Jimmy Bradshaw of Squat Thrust.

Oof. Scanning back over the list, it's apparent that this is gonna be quite a (noisy/raggedy/wild/dangerous) party. And hey, it's pretty damn cheap, considering that a large chunk of these bands/people had to be flown in from elsewhere -- $12 for a one-day pass, $20 for both days. To make things even better, the whole shindig's a benefit for the Musicians Benevolent Society of Houston, which is an extremely worthy cause, at least to me.

A Side Note: I got sent a very cool link last week, for a blog called Chronological Snobbery, where Ransom, a self-described "thirty-something suffering from nostalgia," drags us all back kicking and shrieking to 1992 and the Infected: The Twelve From Texas comp on Sound Virus. Immediate reaction? "Holy shit, I'd completely forgotten about that damn album!" Secondary reaction? "Where the hell did all these people go?"

Seriously, that disc came out right when I was making my own tentative inroads into music in H-town, dragging skeptical college friends out to Emo's or Goat's Head Soup or The Abyss/Vatican or The Axiom to check out some band or another, always afraid I'd come back out & find my crappy little Toyota Tercel stripped to the frame. Montrose and Shepherd were rough places, downright scary to a relative kid like me, and Houston as a whole seemed like this grimy, dark, sorta illicit place to live. No one with money wanted to live in the city itself -- a far cry from today -- so things were ridiculously cheap. Nobody liked Houston, and that in itself was part of the city's charm.

And Infected served pretty well as the soundtrack to all that. Being broke 95% of the time, I had to settle for listening to/cringing at the copy we had at KTRU at the time, in the mysterious "Local" bin. All the bands on there were weird as shit, but they honest-to-God didn't care. They weren't playing to make it on the radio, but because they just wanted to make music, which is something I love about the Houston scene to this day. It's a damn shame they never got the recognition they deserved, but what the hey -- at least people love these bands enough to bring some of 'em back to town for one last(?) hurrah...

(Hey, Ransom -- thanks for the link, eh? Good shit...)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Things To Do, Things To Read

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And here's one to lighten the mood a bit: Geostationary Banana Over Texas. 'Cause there just ain't enough fruit floating around up at high altitude, y'all. Although, sadly, it looks like the H-town environs only merit a loop or two of the banana's projected path; it'll be spending most of its time floating over Austin. Which sort of makes some sense, actually.

(I'm really, really sorry, btw, but I've got no clue where this came from. Apologies to whatever blog it was where I ran across this link originally -- I sure as heck didn't find it on my own. I'd thought those quirky kids over at lifeisathrill might've put it up, but I can't find it on their site... Engadget, maybe?)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Random Rambling

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My wife found this link while Googling the Russian Mafia after we went to see the excellent, excellent, excellent Eastern Promises a while back (seriously; we both hated A History of Violence and cringed when we realized at the theater that David Cronenberg was directing Viggo Mortensen in this one, too, but we were blown away), and it's pretty damn strange.

I don't want to totally give away what the link's about, but I have to say that I don't know which of 'em I like best -- I think it's between the happy-go-lucky guy posing with his leg up, Captain Morgan-style, and that first one of the guy holding his car keys. Heck, maybe I ought to look into getting this done when I go... I mean, what better way to creep the relatives out, right?

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Things To See

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I knew this had to be online somewhere:

It's been a long, long time since anything on SNL made me laugh so hard I cried, but this past Saturday, this one did the trick. Robert Smigel, you're a god-damn genius. The voices are absolutely perfect (although no, they're not done by the same folks; thanks, IMDB -- and who knew Esai Morales was the voice of Dora's Papi? weird...), and as somebody who's seen waaaay too many episodes of Dora the Explorer (and Go, Diego, Go!, naturally), the way the characters "interact" is dead-on. Well, mostly, but I imagine you'll get that when you see it. I love the "can you break a fifty?" bit.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Things To See

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Yes, I feel the need to lighten the mood now, and besides, I absolutely have to post this (and besides, I love the fact that I just did two posts in a row with the word "fucking" in the title).

More info here, and more to come on this little blog, as well. Just watch:

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Things To Do, Things To See

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Just a little time-wastage for the workday...

1. If you've never seen any traceurs in action, you have got to check out the video below. I've seen some more involved parkour/free running stuff recently, both in Luc Besson's District 13 (which stars the guy in this video, David Belle) and in the new James Bond flick, and it's absolutely fucking incredible. This particular video's a little more low-key, but it still amazes me that the guy makes it look so damn easy. It's crazy.

   (If you can't view the embedded video, by the way, go here.)




2. And yes, while I'm as curious as anybody to see 28 Weeks Later, it ain't the fantasy/horror/whatever flick I'm most looking forward to seeing. This is:

   I missed Night Watch in the theaters, unfortunately, but was left with my mouth hanging open when I finally caught it on DVD. Who knew Russian films could be so freakin' cool? Going by the trailer, Day Watch is going to be even better. Just don't think too hard about the fact that yes, the forces of Light and Dark are fighting over a piece of chalk. Real-world wars have been fought over stupider things.

   (Again, here's the link.)

Of course, there's always the now-infamous Will Ferrell "landlord" video, just in case somebody, somewhere out in the world hasn't seen it yet. Enjoy...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Things To See

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Ah, Internet, how we love you. No, not because you help us find the nearest drycleaners or figure out effortlessly which curly-haired actress was in Felicity (for the record, yes, it was Keri Russell; sorry, Kim...), but because you open our eyes to the obscure world of weird, weird, amazingly neat things that lurks out there over the horizon. Case in point: the Spoonbox. I can't really describe it; you just have to watch the video. It's the most mesmerizing, strange bit of Internet video-and-music I've seen since the Mentos & Diet Coke musical.

(Thanks, by the way, to the newly-inaugurated life is a thrill blog for the link; liat is H-town's finest musician/artist people get together to post the freakiest, funniest crap they can find online, and so far it's damn entertaining.)

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To Read

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Anybody who knows much of anything about indie-rock or punk knows who J. Robbins is. The guy's an honest-to-God icon in the indie/punk/hardcore scene, dating from his days in Government Issue and Jawbox (one of my all-time favorite bands, as well as one of the most intense, awe-inspiring live bands I've ever seen) up through his Burning Airlines project, the bazillion production jobs he's done for bands like The Promise Ring, The Stereo, Hey Mercedes, Murder by Death, or Jets to Brazil, and now into his latest band, Channels. The man is a hero, seriously. He makes me feel like a slacker and a half.

Like most rockers his age in the scene, though, J.'s a grown-up these days -- he's married, and he and his wife, Janet Morgan, had a cute little baby boy, Callum Robbins, back on January 27th of last year. And here's where it gets sad. It turns out that Cal has something called Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy (Type 1 SMA, for short; it's also known as Werdnig-Hoffman disease). I don't get all the clinical details, but it sounds bad and involves the brain's control of the muscles that let him swallow, breathe, move his head, and crawl. It can be fatal; most kids with the disease die before they turn 2. If the little guy survives into his third year, he'll never walk, and he'll most likely never have a normal life. There's no cure for SMA, just a long, bleak road full of therapy and heartache. Whatever happens, the financial burden is going to be crushing -- we're not talking people who have all-inclusive family health insurance, here, but an self-employed recording engineer/producer who's basically on his own.

Well, that's not completely true -- Robbins and family aren't on their own, really, because they've got people like you and me. I have to admit that this affects me in two different ways, both as a parent of a 2-year-old and as a fan of Robbins' work over the years. Cal's a cute little fella, going by the pictures, and since having my own little munchkin around, I've gotten all sappy and wussy; stuff like that just melts my heart. Now, I know that there're a ton of sick kids out there, and they all deserve to be helped, but heck, I can't do that, so I've got to be a little choosy. Jawbox, in particular, was one of the defining bands of my college days, and was probably the band that most made me want to be in a band myself -- J. Robbins' music has meant a lot to me, and I'm eternally grateful for that.

So, given that, here's the chance for me to give something back to somebody who's given so much to me. I'm going to donate a chunk of my hard-earned cash (hopefully more later on, but I haven't gotten paid lately, so y'know) to J., Janet, and Cal -- they've got PayPal set up on the DeSoto Records Website, or you can just send 'em a check at the address they've got listed there. If you, like me, feel a debt to Robbins, or if you just want to help out a family in need, then check out the site and give as much as you want to or can. You can't help everybody, no, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to help at all.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Do

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Hey, folks -- Jeremy, head honcho of the chaotic mess that is Space City Rock, here with some news about, um, the "News" section. After much agonizing & such, the "News" section as such will be fluttering off into the ether, to be replaced by (dum da da dum) the absolutely-official, really-truly SCR Blog.

Some of you might remember way back in the day (Nov. '02 to Dec. '05, to be precise) when yours truly had a political-type blog, Something's Got To Break, which I ended up being just unable to keep up with and had to quit updating. I'm not trying to do that again, don't worry -- the pundit thing is waaaaay too time-consuming, and being a dad to a frighteningly smart/fast two-year-old and doing my thing as a daytime worker bee (on top of the SCR stuff, mind you), I just can't do it.

I'm not entirely sure what this little blog will be like, but while it will probably hit on politics occasionally, it's going to primarily be a place where I (and maybe other SCR folk; not sure on that front) rant/rave about music, art, movies, entertainment, and -- of course -- the fair city in which this e-zine's based. I can't promise it'll all be mind-blowingly enlightening, but hopefully it'll at least be entertaining.

So...to kick this thing off, I'd like to point/prod folks towards the good folks at NonAlignment Pact. The basic idea is that a distinguished crew of seven people to post to the blog about music, film, society, and all the rest, each on a specific day. The folks behind it are practically a who's-who of H-town "experimental"/quirky music scenesters & artists (several of whom are expatriates) -- contributors Doug Dillaman and Justin Crane have both been writers for our happy e-zine, in fact, since way back at the beginning, Ramon Medina is the man behind the Linus Pauling Quartet, Kilian Sweeney used to front de Schmog (and about a million other bands), John Cramer was in the legendary Mike Gunn and Project Grimm (and at one point got one of his bandmates to not kick my ass, for which I am still thankful), and Heidi Bullinga used to run the show at KTRU. The only member I'm not real sure about is Carlos Anaconda, but I'm sure he's quite a fellow, as well (the "snake invasion" bit was damn funny). Plus, other local and non- Houston scenesters appear pretty regularly in the Comments (heck, I hadn't heard a thing about ex-Jinkie Matthew Thurman in years).

So, I've been checking out the NAP site recently, and despite reading and reading and reading, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. These are folks who think a hell of a lot more than I do about art and are much better at expressing the way they feel about it; it's pretty humbling, really. Critical smackdown aside, though, just reading their blog has inspired me to get off my ass and get this blog finally off the ground (the shift from "News page" to "actual blog" has been in the works for longer than I'd care to admit).

At any rate, that's it; go read some fine-ass writin' on NAP, and then come back and read this and tell me how much mine sucks.

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk

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