Holy fuck, I am loving this. Longtime Texas (and ex-Houston) scenester Mark Twistworthy has a new blog/site, Texas Punk Treasure Chest, where he's started putting up classic albums/EPs/etc. of Texas-based punk, hardcore, emo, & whatever else from the past few decades for folks to download and enjoy.

And while I probably shouldn't even need to say it, yes, it's awesome. There're a ton of Austin/DFW bands I don't know much about, but on the H-town side of things he's got stuff up by amazing, long-gone folks like Defend The Ghetto, The Trigger Quintet, Cedar Of Lebanon, The Desert Jet Set, Blueprint, The Stalag Seventeen, Sore Loser, Beast, Jessica Six, The Ka-Nives, The Tie That Binds, Vast Majority, and, most recently, Refuse To Fall. Every damn day, there's something new up there, which is both a huge public service and a mind-boggling amount of work. Hell, I don't post things to this blog every day, and I don't need to convert 'em from vinyl when I do post... (Yes, I know, I suck.)

Seriously, this site is like the collection of 7"s I managed to amass back in the '90s made electronic, and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing, because I myself have barely been able to get the time to convert any of it over myself (although I'm still planning on converting some ancient cassettes I picked up way back in the day, real soon). I did manage to get a few into MP3 format a while back, but TPTC already has all but the Act Your Age Comp. up there, and their conversion is probably more polished/better-sounding than mine, so y'know.

Best of all, Mark and cohort James are taking requests in the chatbox over on the right-hand side of the page; if you're looking for something punk(-ish) from the '90s, let 'em know. They may already have it ripped & ready to go, you never know.

James, Mark: thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm now going to go melt my brain.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Free Stuff, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Texas Stuff, Things To Download

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

Back in the day, when I had far more disposable cash than I have right at the moment, I was a big, big, big, totally-and-completely comic nerd. Not Comic Book Guy, thank God, but still, I would hit the comic store (and the music store, too, naturally) as soon as I got paid each week and stock up on a dozen-plus different titles I was following at the time, plus whatever back issues I needed to fill the holes in my collection. It used to be a ridiculously large part of my life, self-image, yadda, yadda.

Sadly, these days my longboxes full of comics languish pathetically in a closet in the garage, where I really, truly hope to God they're not being rotted/eaten to shreds by who-knows-what, and my primary exposure to anything comic-like basically comes from visits with the fam when the little brothers are around and I can borrow whatever new they've got lying around. I'm now only a comic nerd by proxy, which at times makes me kind of sad, but hey, that's my economic reality. Gotta have priorities. (Although I do make exceptions for certain stuff, like anything Astro City, any Hellblazer graphic novels I come across at Borders or Half Price, or the awesome, awesome DMZ series...)

The above blather is to explain somewhat why my friend Mike Jasper has managed to become my new "dude, I want to be you" idol. On top of the sci-fi novels he's already published, now there's In Maps & Legends, an online comic Mike's writing (with art by Niki Smith), which is currently the top of the heap at DC Comics' interactive, vote-for-your-favorite Zuda Comics site.

What's up there now is just a snippet, really, but it already looks damn intriguing, in a thoughtful, backstory-heavy, Gaiman-/esque comic-fantasy sort of way -- I'm seriously looking forward to seeing more, and am surprisingly impressed with the interface (not having to wait long for the next page to load is nice, although that may be more of a factor of the connection speed here than anything else).

Now, I'd meant to post this earlier to pester people to vote for Mike's comic, but I think I may've missed the boat -- apparently he didn't need my help, though, since it looks like he's been trouncing the competition and may(?) be the winner. Which means that he & Smith will get to sign a contract with DC to continue the comic the rest of this year, presumably for money & glory & whatnot. Holy shit. If that's the case, congrats, Mike! And to the rest of you comic geeks out there, check out the comic, either way...

Labels: Arty Shit, Cool Web Junk, Public Service Announcements, Things To Read, Things To See

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 2 comments

So...who here remembers the Pain Teens? Ridiculously influential, crazy-ass psychedelic, punkish noise band, signed to Trance Syndicate, then broke up a decade later, after like a half-dozen albums and a weird, not-really-into-it dance with the edges of fame? Yeah, them.

Well, ex-Pain Teens/Culturcide/Truth Decay member Ralf, now of Future Blondes, and FB bandmate Kirston have got a new project, After Party, and on a recent tour up to NYC, they happened to convince former Pain Teens frontwoman Bliss Blood to get up on stage with 'em and do some Teens songs. According to Kirston, the NY crowd didn't know what to make of it, but apparently it was pretty badass.

Now After Party are back home, and things are getting even weirder. After the impromptu Pain Teens deal, now it looks like there might be the possibility of a Culturcide reunion, with Dan Workman on board for a show with After Party sometime next month. Keep yr fingers crossed, y'all.

A little closer to now, attendees at tonight's Mango's show with Future Blondes, //TENSE//, and A Thousand Cranes might also luck into an After Party performance. They're not on the official bill, but I've gotten word that it could happen -- sorry for the late-late notice, but show up around 10PM, and you might well win, eh?

Now, as an added bonus, Kirston's gotten SCR some extra-special videos from the After Party/Pain Teens performance in the Big Apple with Ms. Blood. The sound quality's actually pretty good for it being a live-in-the-bar video. For your viewing pleasure...

"My Desire" (Pain Teens)

"Sacrificial Shack" (Pain Teens)

"Goofy's Concern" (Butthole Surfers)

Big, big, big thanks to Kirston for the videos...

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

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 5 comments

On the pseudo-administrative tip, I wanted to mention a couple of new-ish things... Like the fact that we now have the little "player" version of the official, sporadically-updated SCR H-Town Mixtape up on the main page of the site for all to see, click, & enjoy. You can also check out the full-sized Opentape site at http://opentape.spacecityrock.com/, or embed the dang thing into your own blog/Myspace/online diary/whatever by copy-and-pasting the following code into your Webpage:

<object width="300" height="160"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="movie" value="http://opentape.spacecityrock.com/res/jw_player.swf?playlist=bottom&displayheight=0&thumbsinplaylist=false&file=http://opentape.spacecityrock.com/code/xspf.php" /> <embed src="http://opentape.spacecityrock.com/res/jw_player.swf?playlist=bottom&displayheight=0&thumbsinplaylist=false&file=http://opentape.spacecityrock.com/code/xspf.php" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="300" height="160"></embed> </object>

In a similar vein, while I definitely do want folks to keep coming back to SCR, I can't help but want to share the goodness of the also-official SCR Google Calendars, which you can subscribe to one or both RSS feeds using the reader of your choice:

• SCR Cool Shows
• SCR General Shows

As an added bonus, you can also embed both calendars into your own Internet thingy, so you can always have our most up-to-date-est show information close at hand. Just copy & paste the code below into some HTML, and you're good to go:

<iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?showTitle=0&showTabs=0&showTz=0&mode=AGENDA&height=1200&wkst=1&bgcolor=%23990000&src=bcu8grsnk0kpk8rri7fvvcenoc%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%23A32929&src=13l7sq6hmt9348g9aiogan1jd4%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%236E6E41&ctz=America%2FChicago" style=" border-width:0 " width="450" height="1200" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Of course, these aren't strictly new -- I know I've blogged about 'em before -- but now we're actually opening up things a little and offering 'em up to anybody who wants to use 'em. All we'd ask (politely) in return is that if you embed the calendar somewhere, please link back to the SCR site in some way, eh? We do this because we love you, folks.

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Download

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

We're veering rapidly towards the end of the week and all the work-dodging that entails (not that I'm doing it myself, but y'know), so it seemed appropriate to post some YouTube clips I've seen recently of and/or by local H-town folks...

First is a bit of an afternoon show last weekend at Cactus Music, with Springfield Riots, currently one of my favorite up-and-coming, fuzzy-warm indie-pop acts around town, celebrating the release of their new EP, Say When. Despite the heat inside the store, they put on an impressive show; here's the band doing "Mixtape Melody":

Next up, Jef With One F, co-vocalist for the recently-resurrected crazy pop/theater crew Black Math Experiment, has been hard at work in the intervening time writing the autobiography of the band, tentatively entitled The Bible Spelled Backwards Does Not Change the Fact That You Cannot Kill David Arquette and Other Things I Learned in The Black Math Experiment.

And he's now created a video of the first chapter, with him reading the manuscript over a montage of B&W BME pics, part of which goes like this:

"In one corner, weighing in at a ton-and-a-half of suck, were three nü-metal acts, whose names I have forgotten, for the same reason you never remember the name of your waiter at a restaurant you never intend to return to."

Nice. It's funny and sad at the same time, like a weird, weird cross between Henry Rollins' less off-the-cuff ramblings and David Sedaris. Check out the whole excerpt for yourself:

Then there's the awesomely hysterical video (released a week or so ago) by local power-pop/punkers Something Fierce, for the excellent track "Aliens", off earlier-this-year's There Are No Answers, which is still up on my list of Greatest Things About 2009 So Far.

And the video itself features the punkest fucking pig ever, which automatically makes it rule. The pig gets handed a bacon-burger at Rudz, gets his sand castle kicked over on the Galveston beach, and wanders around the outside of what I think is the Menil. Band frontman/video director Steven Garcia has truly come up with a beautiful, ultra-lo-budget ode to feeling out-of-place and alone and finally finding somebody like you. Do not doubt the power of the pig:

Last but not least, I've been meaning to post something for a while now about a bunch of live videos Kirston Otis from Dead Roses has up on the YouTubes -- he's been taking & slapping up videos of the aforementioned band, obviously, but also Future Blondes & some odd solo performances by FB/DR folks inside a plexiglass box down at the CAM, with more (he promises) to come.

You can check out the full pile here, or watch a sample below, from a noisy, messy Dead Roses gig at Mango's this past May:

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

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

= UPDATE: FYI, since the initial post I've heard from The Golden Ghost himself, and apparently not only has he recovered from last year's injuries, but he will be competing again this year. Go support, y'all!

I know, it's a little hard to fathom, even for somebody like me who's spent countless hours air-guitar-ing (okay, I actually mostly air-drum, to be honest) to the metal albums of my youth. But the U.S. Air Guitar Championships do exist, even still, and the Houston regionals are this coming Saturday, June 13th, at Warehouse Live. Hordes of fame-hungry vapor-lick-playing heroes will "rock" the stage in garish, sometimes terrifying outfits, doing anything and everything they can possibly think of to blow the audience away and win a coveted slot at the nationals.

Just ask Jacob "Hurricane Bear" Calle -- last year he entered the competition as "The Golden Ghost" and, as (weirdly) uncovered by the heeb'n'vegan blog (and hilariously pondered upon after by the Houston Press's Dusti Rhodes), he broke his freaking leg jumping down from the ceiling of the club. While "playing" Mötörhead's "Ace of Spades," naturally. Rumor has it that he was favored to win 'til his fall, but he ended up placing third, with Houston sending Rip Darko to The Big Show instead.

Folks, that's dedication, right there. Breaking a limb's bad enough when you're rocking out on an actual guitar with a real-live band, but doing it with nothing up there to back you up...damn. I can't even contemplate it.

Now, with that in mind, we here at Space City Rock are happy to announce that we're in a position to hand out 2 guestlist spots to one lucky winner -- it could be you, ladies and/or gents. If you want to check out the air-wankery for yourself this weekend, just drop an email to "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com" with the Subject line "The Golden Ghost lives!". Do it fast, because we've got to pick a winner pretty quickly...

By the way, in case you think this is all utterly ridiculous, um...okay, yeah, you're pretty much right. But hell, I'm all for ridiculousness, and I have to admire the U.S. Air Guitar folks' sincerity and dedication. Here's their official mission statement:

US Air Guitar is devoted to taking our nation's unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and putting it up on the world stage. Founded in 2003, the US Air Guitar Championships have grown into a major national event that reaches more cities, fans and competitors every year.

In a time when US political, economic, military and athletic dominance faces unprecedented challenges around the world, it is our belief that air guitar represents one endeavor our country can dominate without controversy. US Air Guitar is here to make this possible.

Wow. Air guitar as the key to world peace? I can't even really make fun of that; it's too damn cute to mess with, y'know? And c'mon, how cool would the world be if we all air-guitared one another instead of shooting and blowing one another up? It certainly couldn't be worse.

Final Note: For all you wannabe pseudo-rockstars out there, be aware that yes, you can still enter the H-town regionals. Should you dare...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Free Stuff, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To See

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

Oh, man. After stumbling across Breakfast at Sulimay's recently, I think I just need to quit this reviewing racket; after all, there's no way I could ever possibly top these people, reviewing-wise, so why bother?

I can't tell if Ann is serious or taking the piss with the whole thing -- she likes Young Jeezy? Seriously? -- Bill reminds me of a less-grouchy version of my Irish grandpa, and Joe barely seems conscious about half the time. And yet, they're actually listening and giving a measured, thought-out opinion, which is more than, say, my dad would do. Does their take on Andrew Bird, for example, fly? Yep -- I like the guy, but it is pretty easy-listening, and Joe's digression about a past "whistler" he didn't get into is great.

This is a truly awesome idea, y'all: stick headphones on a crew of septuagenarians in a diner in Philly, force them to listen to snippets of some of the hippest, trendiest music around, and then film 'em. I'm jealous I didn't come up with it myself, I swear, not to mention full of admiration for these folks. Holy crap.

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

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

Hey, all -- the astute & keen-eyed may notice a few changes to the SCR site over the past week or so, so I wanted to mention what's new and/or different both so's nobody gets confused and to perpetuate the illusion that this freaking thing actually does change occasionally (kidding! kidding...um, kinda?).

New Classifieds/Board:
Yes, the old, ugly, pain-in-my-ass (and yours) way of putting Classifieds up on this site is dead, dead, dead, and I am happily kicking its corpse down the street. As yours truly is typically about a half-decade behind the latest Website technology, it should come as no surprise that the old method/page for classified ads was, while astoundingly popular, an utterly manual deal, requiring you to email me and me to remember/have the spare time to stick your ad up on the site via a dedicated Blogger blog. (At one point, I was all about using Blogger to do every damn thing; now, they can bite me.) This was not only plain-text-y blah and a major waste of time for me, but it meant that if I got busy, your ad could languish in my mailbox for, um, a really long time. Which sucked pretty hard for anybody looking for a new band member or band or vintage keyboard.

I'm really, really sorry about that, and to make amends, we're attempting to modernize somewhat. From here on out, if you want to post a music-related classified on the site, the Classifieds link takes you to the brand-new Space City Rock Board & Classifieds, where you can post your own ad in one of the four categories (Bands Seeking People, People Seeking Bands, Junk For Sale, & Junk Wanted), either logged-in as yourself or as a guest. Makes things way faster, way prettier, way better in general.

BTW, I've ported over the classifieds that'd already gone up this year on the old page, so if you sent me a classified ad under the old system, you may see your post out there now with my name on it. I did decide to scrap anything older than late 2008, so if you really, truly need your ad put back up, heck, go for it. All yours.

Plus, as you can guess from the board's name, this thing also includes "Board" areas, General Talk & Upcoming Shows, where anybody who feels like it can post stuff, babble about things they like/dislike, mention their band's next show, etc. It's pretty wide-open, as long as you keep it civil; no death threats, eh? That sort of crap does nobody any good.

I don't mean, btw, to try to steal away the Hands Up Board's loyal, if sometimes conflicted/embittered fanbase. Anybody who wants to use this thing can; if not, hey, that's fine, too.

Mixtape & Other Links: You might remember a little while ago that I'd mentioned the new SCR Mixtape, powered by the Opentape framework here on our little site. Well, I have yet to get it to fit properly into the page like I want it to, but rest assured, it's still alive & well, and now it's linked from pretty much anywhere in the SCR site, as is the aforementioned Board.

Oh, and if you really want to keep up on what all goes on the Mixtape, you can subscribe to its RSS feed using your favorite newsreader. Should you want to keep stalker-ly close to us, y'know.

Possible Shows List Changes:
As I noted above, there was a time when the world of Blogger was magical and amazing to me, and back then it seemed like it could help me run the ever-popular Shows List oh-so-slightly. Times change, however, and these days the blog-based setup I'm using feels horribly antiquated and overly manual to use.

So, to that end, I've started messing more with Google Calendar lately. It's far from a "new" tool itself (although it's somehow still in beta, apparently), but I've only recently been really figuring out how to use it properly. The end result of that is that right now you can subscribe to one of the two public calendars I've currently got set up, via your own Google Calendar, Apple's iCal, or an RSS reader:

SCR Cool Shows:

SCR General Shows:

This is something that I've been needing to do for a while now, I think; it might take eyeballs away from the site, but hell, I think it's worth it. The real downside, though, is that it duplicates work, seeing as all shows now have to be added to both calendars. And that's never a good thing.

Right now, the Google Calendars exist alongside the old-fashioned, plain-text, blog-generated shows list that you all know & love. I'm thinking more and mor, though, about kissing that goodbye, too, in favor of a differently-formatted embedded Google Calendar showing both the "Cool" & "General" shows, as above. Something like this:

Apologies if it comes out a little weird -- still fiddling with getting the iframe to align properly. But that's the basic idea, anyway. So...what do y'all think? Good? Bad? Don't give a shit? If I can get it to work the way I want & people aren't horribly opposed to it, this may be the way the SCR Shows List shows up in the future (probably in the same place). If you care, leave your votes in the comments...

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

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

I've dodged the Twitter bullet so far, and I have to say, I'm fairly glad of that. Heck, 'til the recent dive into Facebook hell and not counting the Myspace "mirror" for this wee blog, I've mostly avoided the whole social-networking thing completely. Yeah, I'm a cyber-Luddite on some levels, it's true; it just feels like it takes up too damn much time, y'know? This site eats my life as it is...

So I can't claim to get the whole Twitter/tweet thing, not completely. I do get the general idea of the Twestival, though, which is to bring people together across the world -- 105 cities, all together -- on one day, Thursday, February 12th, linking 'em via common interest and technology, to raise money and awareness for a cause that means something globally. This year, that cause is Charity:Water, a group that literally builds wells in areas where people are in desperate need of fresh, clean water to drink. Waterborne diseases are bad, bad news, the type of bad news that can kill a person, blind them, or leave them otherwise crippled, and having no water at all, well, how that's bad isn't hard to figure out.

With the whole "clean water" aim in mind, then, Houston's goal in this year's Twestival is to raise $4000 to build a water well. And to do that, the festival (er, Twestival, sorry) is all about bringing together the Twitter community here in H-town face-to-face, connecting them with Twitter users elsewhere, and hopefully help people at the same time. Which is a cool idea, if you ask me.

The Houston version of the event will be held at the ever-busy Caroline Collective in Midtown (4820 Caroline; and yes, it has its own Twitter tag, @carolineco), and will run from 5:30PM to 10PM. The admission fee, as far as I can tell, is pretty much up to what you can give -- go here to donate and then, uh, tweet about it. (If you want; I think that's part of the raising-awareness thing.)

And yes, there will be music, as well -- the Houston version of the Twestival includes Red Eye Carl and the Pirates, Wayside Drive (whom I've heard are good), Snake Charmers (who I've heard are really good), & Blue Funk, w/Blue Funk starting at 7PM or so.

There you go, then -- get on out this Thursday, tell all your tweeting friends and get them on out (because, c'mon, admit it -- this electronic-friend stuff really isn't a substitute for hanging out in person, is it?), donate to an ultra-worthy cause, have fun, enjoy some good music, and feel like your part of something truly global.

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

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

We're not an MP3 blog. Nope -- I'd never claim SCR to be one of those blogs that breaks/hypes new bands by posting new tracks and whatnot; it's just not what we do, really. I mean, I'm not against posting MP3s we like by bands we like, but honestly, there just aren't enough hours in the day to cover all the music that's out there & compete with the likes of It's Hard to Find a Friend, Gorilla vs. Bear, or Brooklyn Vegan. Those folks post so much music it makes my head swim.

That said, we do get a shitload of music handed to us in electronic format here at the e-zine/blog thingy, and we rarely have a chance to listen to much of it in the course of our music-loving lives. Which is pretty damn near criminal, really; I feel the same way about not getting to listen to & write about music that my wife feels about Borders coupons expiring before she gets a chance to use 'em.

So here goes; here's a smattering of things I've managed to check out recently, both Christmas-y & non-, that I really ended up liking. Merry freakin' Christmas, y'all.

Sherwood - "Snowing In Seattle"
C'mon, I had to. It's just so goddamn appropriate, I couldn't pass it up, y'know? Besides, it's a catchy as hell song, poignant and pretty while remaining non-cheeseball (to my ears, anyway). Plus, it's got a great driving rhythm, like Death Cab at their urgent, impassioned best.

65daysofstatic - "I'm Dreaming of a White Noise Christmas"
This is probably going to sound bad, but this is honestly the first thing I've heard by these folks that's really grabbed me. Other tracks have drifted past, and they weren't bad, but they just didn't get me, y'know? I utterly love the fucked-up-ness of this one, the exploding-speakers, breakbeats, and overdriven guitars; it's like Broken Social Scene if they slathered themselves in melted-down copies of Jesus & Mary Chain records before playing. And then recorded a Christmas song, obviously.

Philip Foshée - "Warm in Texas (Christmas Song)"
Yep, a local boy, but not like that last batch, since Foshée's actually still working his art right here, right now in Smog City. The track's sweet and bitter and lonely, just perfect for all those sad bastards out there who aren't where the ones they want to be with are. I've been there, man. I spent NYE of 2000 feeling lonely & envious of that cute, funny girl I worked with, wishing I was off with her in England, whooping it up by the London Eye and falling in love. (Little did I know that she spent New Year's in the hospital, a bad migraine having been somehow diagnosed as meningitis. It was funny later on, trust me.)

Blitzen Trapper - "Christmas Is Coming Soon"
Low-key and gentle and night-like; I love the understatedness of this. It fits perfectly with the quiet, night-before-Christmas vibe I'm feeling right now.

Cyndi Lauper & The Hives - "A Christmas Duel"
Bizarre, campy, and funny as hell. This is probably the best musical Christmas brawl I've heard since The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York." And yes, I'm pretty sure Ms. Lauper did just proudly boast about going down on her partner's mom. Hoo-ah.

[And now for some non-explicitly Christmas-y stuff:]

P.O.S. - "Goodbye"
I'm happy as hell to see P.O.S. back again for Round 3, even if this release doesn't come off as raw and heavy as anything off Audition -- for some reason, this one comes off like Eminem, complete with Dr. Dré production. And it still works. Damn.

Elizabeth Willis - "In Your Eyes"
Nope, not the Peter Gabriel song, but a tough, raw-voiced bit of bluesy, melancholy piano-rock that'd kick Billy Joel's piano man ass if it had the opportunity.

Broadfield Marchers - "Amazing Wheels"
This one sure caught me off-guard; gorgeous and lush and poppy, like The Byrds gone all British and Kinks-y, and it's great.

Lady Sovereign - "I Got You Dancing"
To be blunt about it, this new track showcases the side of Lady Sov that's not my favorite; it's more M.I.A.-esque dancefloor banger than truly grimey Brit-hop. That said, there's something oddly alluring about the funky electronics and "whoo!" vocals. And yeah, I kinda like the freaky Warriors-esque video, I'll admit it.

That's it for now -- I'm off to fill The Munchkin's stocking...

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

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

Yes, Jack Black irks me. I like some of his movies, admittedly, but a lot of the time his shtick wears thin fast. So when he showed up and was hysterically funny in the awesome, awesome Prop. 8: The Musical on FunnyOrDie.com, I nearly spit out my morning coffee. Seriously, it's pretty great.

Oh, and it features nearly every funny person in the universe, apparently, from Margaret Cho to Maya Rudolph to John C. Reilly to Andy Richter, the latter of whom I seem to keep seeing more on shows my daughter watches than anywhere else (he cracks me up on the Sesame Street video Happy Healthy Monsters just by being there), which makes his an especially nice cameo. Just watch:

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

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

Mind == blown. Wow. Hat tip, once again, to HoustonHipHop.com for pointing this guy out (although he's apparently been fairly well-known for a little while now; I'm slow, I'm well aware...). They've got a handful of videos up (there's an insanely huge pile of others on his YouTube channel, but here's my favorite:

And no, he's apparently not some kind of musical savant, just a nerdy tech guy who likes to play. (Which at one point could've described me, as well, except that I, uh, suck.)

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

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

Damn...I apparently missed the grand opening (was there one?) of new local music-and-stuff site Indiehouston.org back in September (gah!), but it's now alive & running. Looking good, too -- they've got some cool new interviews w/folks like San Serac and Fertile Crescent, plus writeups of badass locals like The McKenzies (woo!), a bunch of show reviews, stuff on art, etc., etc. Cool stuff.

Besides all that, I got to meet a couple of the IH guys back when the site was still in-progress, and they're very cool people. Nice guys, and they've definitely got their hearts in the right place, not to mention having far better design skills than me. Check 'em out, add 'em to your RSS reader, etc., folks...

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

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

Y'all might recall that I'd briefly mentioned The Skyline Network's SceneWiki a while back when talking about the BandCamp stuff, but I've finally, finally started delving into it myself over the past few days. And I have to admit, it's pretty fucking addictive.

I still have some issues with the interface, I'll admit, like the lack of a homepage & links on the left side to quickly take you to lists of bands, venues, labels, people, etc. -- see Minnesota Public Radio's MinneWiki for a very cool example of what I'd dearly, dearly love to see (and I swear, ADR, I'd be more than willing to give it a shot myself, if need be). But eh, that's minor; as a slide in a dull company meeting earlier today proudly proclaimed (in a totally different context), content is king, and with the boost in visibility the SceneWiki's received from BandCamp & other places, a small crew of devoted scenesters are busy churning out informative/humorous/imbecilic articles for the wiki on every Houston music-related topic you can imagine. (And if you can't find one you're imagining, hell, go write it yourself.) A lot of what's up is junk or scenester in-jokes nobody but the five people involved will ever, ever get, but there's some darn good info on there, with more going up all the time.

I've been attempting to contribute some, for my part, although I'm leery of putting up stuff about people who, um, still play and/or live around here. Not entirely sure why that is -- it may be because I honestly just don't know all that much about a lot of more recent bands, at least beyond the music itself, so I really, really don't want to write some bullshit about Cool Band A and look like a fool. So there's that.

Instead, I've been attempting to dredge up memories from my own out-and-about, in-a-band days, when I did know more of the folks involved personally and not just as an email address, MP3 file, or Hands Up alias. It's been an interesting exercise, forcing myself to remember things like, "oh, wait...Gilbert Alfaro was in Refuse To Fall, wasn't he? Hey, that's right...," especially since my memory is godawful bad at this point in my life. Profuse apologies to anybody whose published history I've unintentionally screwed up; I'm just putting up what I can recollect, which isn't always all that accurate.

Haven't done too many so far, because my OCD nature won't let me move on until I've gotten everything totally fucking perfect, or as close to it as I can manage. I've got an entry up for old-school, long-dead indie-rockers Celindine, old-school, long-dead straightedgers Refuse To Fall, and old-school, long-dead emo dudes The Trigger Quintet (sensing a pattern yet?). And after seeing the entry for The Monocles' Out of Your Mind 7", I have a feeling that tonight I'll be attempting to create entries (with cover scans, hopefully) of some of the bazillion old-ass tapes, 7"s, and CDs I've got lying around.

I like this whole idea because y'know, there's a lot of music-scene history floating around out there in people's brains, and eventually, once we've all grown up and/or moved away, it's going to be lost, gone forever. Which isn't a major loss in some cases, really, but I honestly believe that this scene deserves to be documented for the vibrant, ever-changing beast it is; that's part of why music in this town's always attracted me, really. (Heck, I would never have done the whole "Six Degrees of Pop Deflation" thing otherwise.) I figure the whole SceneWiki thing can work, then, for both old and new -- document the old, let people know about the new.

Get on over there & help out...

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read

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

Just a quick note about a good cause, here, not to mention a somewhat unique fundraising idea: on October 18th, SCR writer/local H-town music scenester Jonathan Updegrove is doing the Extra Life 24-hour gaming marathon to raise money for treatment of kids with cancer and research into a cure at the Texas Children's Hospital. Yes, you read that correctly -- Jonathan (among others) will be playing video games to help kids who have cancer.

The basic idea is that you sign up, then you try to get friends/family/etc. on board to pledge at least $1 an hour you manage to survive the marathon. They're apparently aiming for at least 4 sponsors a player, but more is obviously better... I don't think that means the same game, btw, because that could make it a real short pledge drive (particularly if you've got crap-ass reflexes & coordination, like I do), but that you have to do the Iron-Man thing and play games, whatever games you play, for the full 24 hours. Which, admittedly, would've sounded like a much more enticing idea back when I was a 12-year-old Atari fiend than it does to my middle-aged self now. Jonathan's playing as part of a team for his Epic Default Productions crew, and they all reportedly play from 9AM on Saturday, October 18th to 9AM on Sunday, October 19th.

Anyway, I think it's a pretty neat concept and a very good cause -- I lost a good friend to cancer when we were both kids, and I suspect that these days nearly everybody out there's been touched by it somehow. So I'd encourage anybody & everybody to hook Jonathan up and pledge your support; just go to his Extra Life Fundraising Page and donate your $$$. You should have plenty of dough floating around, since Ike's made it next to impossible for you to blow it all on Starbucks & whatnot, right? Oh, and if you'd like to sign up to play games yourself, you can do it here.

(No word, btw, as to what games Jonathan's planning on playing. I'd be curious to know, actually...)

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

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

I honestly can't remember where the heck I stumbled across this site, but I've gotta mention it here -- FWMJ's Rappers I Know is pretty damn awesome, particularly for somebody who's severely lacking when it comes to knowledge of the local H-town hip-hop scene. I've never been big on the cash-guns-honeys school of rap, and site masters FWMJ, Kay (of The Foundation & Together Brothers), & The ARE (ex-K-Otix, Trackmasters, & Together Brothers) seem more interested in good beats, down-to-earth rhymes without the gangsta shit, and just generally being positive, so it's a match made in heaven for me.

They put up tracks and mixtapes by pretty much all of the best hip-hop artists in town right now, like the recent H.I.S.D. Summer Sessions deal they put up recently. Very cool -- very Roots-like, for sure (which makes some sense, as Rappers I Know's apparently affiliated somehow with Okayplayer), but also reminiscent of Blackalicious, Mos Def, X-ecutioners, or Blueprint/Soul Position at points, all of which is good, good, good by me. My only regret is that, well, summer's about to be over, so my chances to rock this in the car while I'm cruising around in the sun are slipping away. (As I type this, I'm hunkered down listening & waiting for a hurricane to hopefully not break all the windows, but eh, it still works.)

The one thing I'm not real clear on, btw, is what the site actually is; is it a virtual record label? A blog? A home site for all the artists (since The ARE & Kay are on there, and apparently FWMJ used to do some hip-hop stuff himself, too)? Got no clue -- it could be all of the above. At any rate, it's good shit, well worth checking out -- head on over & download to your heart's content. I mean, what else are you gonna do after you get sick of watching endless clips of Galveston being swallowed by the waves?

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Things To Download, Things To Hear, Things To Read

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

Think you're metal? Think you're one hard-ass motherfucker? Nope. You're just a pussy wannabe compared to these guys. I mean, have you ever started a riot because somebody proclaimed that Rob Halford is the best metal singer ever? Didn't think so.

Slayer Mob rules! These guys are like Heavy Metal Parking Lot gone batshit-crazy. Vice, a lot of the time you make me cringe, but some days y'all are fucking brilliant. Nice.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Metal Stuff, Musical Crap, Random Rambling

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

I've been somewhat out of the political realm the past few years, after diving head-on into it back in 2001 or so; when my daughter came into my life, I simultaneously realized I needed to quit worrying about this shit quite so much and that I really, truly enjoy the music side of things more than the political. The Kid and Good Tunes are a hell of a lot more fulfilling than Political Wonkery. Plus, they have the added advantage of making me feel good, which politics almost never has. I mean, even on a good day, I still walk away feeling dirty & disillusioned.

That said, I do still love to indulge my armchair politico-geek. And right now, the awesome-awesome Electoral-vote.com site has me giggling like a GOP staffer watching Ann Coulter. It's very cool, a nicely-done encapsulation of the state of all the major races in the country, plus good links & some nice political musings, to boot. My grungy baseball cap's off to the anonymous(?) Votemaster for all his/her hard work...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Political Stuff, Random Rambling, Things To See

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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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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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