I knew it was going to be cold; I mean, the forecasts all said it'd be chilly. But from when co-organizer Marcus Gausepohl (also of Esotype Records & Golden Cities) told me a couple of months back about this "Lost In Space" festival thing he wanted to put together, with a bunch of spacerock/psych-rock bands playing together at this bar in the Vietnamese part of Midtown, on the roof of the place, I couldn't resist. "Spacerock under the stars" -- how the hell do you beat that?

Of course, plans don't always run smoothly with these things. H-town got hit by the most snow I've seen since I've lived here (at my house, anyway), and when it wasn't snowing or sleeting, it was cold, cold, cold. So yeah, the rooftop thing went away, and I was a little bitter/sad about that, but eh, it was still a damn good lineup. Although the LIS crew had by then opened their arms somewhat wider than the initial plans, scrapping the "psych" thing in favor of bands they, well, thought were cool. (Which, honestly, is a much better yardstick.)

At any rate, yours truly headed out into the cold last Saturday, foolishly wearing only a sweatshirt for warmth (I'd originally planned on bringing a full-on Marmot jacket & be toasty and warm), over to Khon's Bar in Midtown and straight to a parking lot full of smoking, smiling hipsters waiting for the next band to start.

The show was technically next to Khon's, to be perfectly accurate, in a half-finished space one door over with bare walls and not much else. The rooftop, it turned out, was the top of the shopping center's parking garage, but rather than go up there, I figured I'd be better off catching as many of the bands as I possibly could. (Oh, and the space next to Khon's now officially has a name -- it's "The Husk," which seems fitting given the state of the room.)

I missed the first couple of bands, unfortunately, including the one who actually did play upstairs, Forests -- apparently they showed up, shrugged, and said, "what the hell, we don't need a PA, so we'll play up there anyway." Which would've been neat to see, esp. since I've heard good things about the band...

(Pics from the show are all up here, btw, for those who want to see 'em. I chickened out on the flash, as usual, but some of 'em came out decent.)

DEFENDING THE KINGDOM:
This one was probably the biggest surprise of the night, mostly because at the time, I hadn't yet twigged to the whole not- necessarily- psych thing. About all I knew about Defending the Kingdom beforehand was that at least one of the guys in the band used to be in well-regarded metalcore(?) outfit Tana'ri, and that didn't help much, seeing as I totally missed that band when they were around.

They were even more of a surprise due to their sheer metal-ness -- they were heavy as fuck, with crunching, punishing guitars, screamy/roaring vocals, and slow, thundering, bass-heavy, head-rattling beats. The whole thing reminded me at points of Isis, Helmet, pre-melodic Cave In, or even Jawbox (I swear, I caught some nicely math-y bits lurking in there), all welded to a solid metalcore spine.

I didn't have high hopes when they started off, honestly, but the sludgy, heavy-yet-atmospheric sound and impressive musicianly skills won me over. I had to bail before their final song, unfortunately (I've tried making a phone call while standing in the same room as a metal band before; doesn't work so well), but I dug the hell out of what I saw/heard.

THE WEIRD WEEDS:
Wow. Just...wow. Before I say anything else, I feel like I need to declare that The Weird Weeds are the best all-round musicians I've seen in a long, long while. (Seriously.) I'm told guitar experimenter Sandy Ewen (who I hear lives here in Houston these days) does a lot of the singing on the albums themselves, but for this show, at least, drummer/singer Nick Hennies was the main focus, singing the bulk of the songs and drumming, and he was pretty damn impressive. He played fast and folky and offbeat, but with what almost looked like a jazzman's technique; it made my jaw drop.

In fact, the whole evening -- what I caught of it, anyway -- seemed like the Battle of the Mindblowing Badass Drummers, with Hennies throwing down the gauntlet to start things off. Plus, Ewen herself did things with her guitar that were both freaky and understated, guitarist Aaron Russell played appropriately low-key and mellow, and stand-up bassist Lindsey Verrill (who apparently mostly plays in folky neo-backwoods bands when she's not with the Weeds) danced and jumped while playing like she was attending a tent revival.

She wasn't the only one, naturally; it seemed pretty clear from the start that a fair chunk of the crowd had come out primarily to see the Weeds, and they camped out in front, smiling and swaying beatifically. A trio of hippie kids cheerfully waved people to scoot in closer to where they sat, one of them draping herself ecstatically over the monitor as the band played. At one point, a female friend got behind her and hugged her as she swooned, looking weirdly like she was giving her the Heimlich manuever. It was entertaining as hell to watch...

MY EDUCATION:
Shameful confession time: I didn't really see much of co-headliners My Education. I was fairly focused on the Weird Weeds right 'til they finished, and didn't clue in that I should slide quickly over to the second stage of the place for ME's set. Bad move, as it filled in quickly with people, to the point where I couldn't really justify barging through to the front.

So, instead, I sat. I sat and watched the projector play out bits and pieces of old movies on the walls and the heads and backs of the people standing, able to occasionally catch a glimpse of the My Education members standing near the front; at one point a woman projected on the wall appeared to be about to eat one of the guitarists.

And y'know what? Honestly, it wasn't a bad way to absorb the band. In the end, it really felt like they were more of a sit-back-and-absorb sort of deal anyway, so it seemed fairly appropriate. Just sit back, close your eyes, and let the music swirl and crash, crescendoes spiraling upwards and upwards into the sky; they very nearly made me want to quit comparing 'em to Explosions in the Sky and instead refer to them on their own merits. Damn -- it would've been very cool to watch that set sitting up under the stars.

GOLDEN CITIES:
Yes, yes, yes. Golden Cities, more than any other band playing, were who I came to see. I've known drummer Lance Higdon and guitarist/festival-runner Marcus for a little while now and was heartily bowled over by the band's self-titled debut from last year. The roaring/surging guitars, the threatening, foreboing feel, the complex, avant-garde drums -- it all worked, y'know?

So, with that in mind, I was a little surprised when the band set up not only drums, guitar, and bass, but, um, congas? I knew the lineup had expanded from the original trio of Higdon, Gausepohl, and original guitarist Nathan Heskia, but this seemed a little off-kilter even for that.

But nope, the congas were in there, most definitely, and they served to ground the whole thing nicely, bringing what could've been overly math-y, cerebral (mostly) instro-rock down to a more "human" level. Percussionist Scott Ritter kept pace admirably with Higdon's wild-yet-controlled drumming, the combination further upping the ante in the aforementioned Battle of the Mindblowing Badass Drummers (sorry, Hennies, but they've got you outnumbered).

The end result was like a jazzier/more prog-rock version of instro-metal dudes Pelican, but with far, far better drumming and an oddly world music-y vibe snuck in on the side. Then there was the funky, nu-New Wave groove thrown onto the track Higdon announced as a new song, and the tribal abandon when the band dragged "auxiliary" member (and other festival organizer) Meghan Hendley up to pound away at a drum in front of the "main" kit.

To sum it all up: my favorite performance of the night, from any band. The Golden Cities crew played like their lives depended on it while having a blast, and they definitely expanded my own estimation of what they could do.

SOLANAE:
Yeah, I got stuck at the back for this one, too (okay, I probably could have shoved my way up there, but I'm just not that guy), due to hanging out and shaking hands/high-fiving the Golden Cities guys.

When I could stick my head over the crowd & peek at Solanae's set, I was absolutely intrigued. I knew singer/keyboardist Meghan Hendley (who, as hinted at above, used to be in Golden Cities herself) had a classical piano background, so I wasn't too surprised by that part, but her backing band, composed partly of Mike Blackshear and Jeff Price of Tambersauro (plus drummer James Diederich), made things extra-special interesting.

The effect was kind of like a Chicago post-rock band backing up Tori Amos, with Hendley's semi-operatic vocals soaring and swooping over spooky, Exorcist-like keys and murky, brooding (but not too loud or rough-sounding) guitars and bass rumbling beneath. Or maybe Evanescence if bred on a steady diet of Tortoise and Slint. Something like that, anyway -- whatever the oddball combination, it worked quite well...

SLOW MOTION RIDER:
So, right before these guys played, I did something stupid. While hanging out in the parking lot, I decided that what the hell, I wanted to see what the Khon's rooftop was like, bands or no. So I stuck my hands in my sweatshirt pockets and made my way up the unassuming concrete steps to the big metal door at the top -- up and out.

Bad, bad, bad idea. Holy fuck, was it cold up there. The wind cut right through my flimsy sweatshirt, the cold immediately started seeping upwards through the soles of my sneakers, and I felt my body temp drop like an anvil off a cliff. I got a couple of nice photos of the Houston skyline, but I was only able to endure it for about two minutes before I started shivering uncontrollably and had to run for the stairs. I got some weird looks when I burst out of the stairwell, shaking like a leaf.

Sadly, that was the beginning of the end of the evening for me -- no matter what I tried, I just couldn't get my core warmed up again, not even standing around in the actual bar (which was heated; "The Husk" ain't). Which really sucks, because the whole time I watched Slow Motion Rider rock out, I was focused less on the music and more on how fucking cold I was.

And that's a shame, because I liked their heavily retro, '60s-styled retro-rock, all swirling guitars, laidback bass, and thundering, pounding drums. The lava-lamp lightshow behind worked even better for them than it had for the Weird Weeds (apparently the lights belonged to Slow Motion Rider), backlighting guitarist Alan and too-cool bassist Tava (no last names with this band, it seems) in a psychedelic haze. The only bad part? They were loooooouuuuud. Really, head-rattling, chest-vibratingly looooooouuuuud.

GHOST TOWN ELECTRIC:
The last band of the night for yours truly, unfortunately, but at least I went out on a bang. In stark contrast with the Brian Jones vibe of the previous crew, Ghost Town Electric headed down a squarely metal road -- sludgy and heavy-as-hell, a mishmash of breakneck hardcore tempos and bluesy, down-and-dirty Southern metal, all with shredded-throat vocals. They came off like an H-town version of Northwesterners Federation X, or maybe ultimate badasses Priestess.

I couldn't stay for the whole thing, but I loved what I did hear -- weird as it sounds, I feel like I really need to see these guys in a "proper" venue to appreciate 'em fully. And yes, both these guys and Slow Motion Rider continued the whole Battle of the Mindblowing Badass Drummers, although I'll withhold judgement for a sec...

RANDOM NOTES:

• Got to say "hey" to a few folks, not counting the festival organizers & band folk -- a surprisingly un-mustachioed Adam Newton was there for the Houston Press (check out his writeup here), and the indefatigable Ramon Medina was there for the 29-95.com bunch (see here). Good to see you, guys...

• Besides folks I knew I knew, at one point a random guy came up and started talking to me out of the blue, and we had a whole conversation about the state of the Houston scene before we realized we'd actually met before via phone and email -- his name's Zubin, and he was the lucky winner of the wristband SCR gave away way back when for the FPH Summer Fest deal. This is one small town sometimes, y'all.

  
  

• As promised, the winner of my arbitrarily-declared "drum-off" is hereby revealed: hands down, the medal goes to Golden Cities' Lance Higdon. And I say that not just because he's the nicest freaking guy but because when he gets going, his hands go in totally insane, unexpected directions, like a jazz guy gone metal. Watching him is awesomely entertaining -- even when he stops moving (briefly, usually), he has this intense look of furious concentration on his face, making him look like some kind of math-rock Rasputin. Dude, you win!

• I'm bummed I wasn't able to see some of the other folks who played the fest, btw, especially B L A C K I E, who I was told was supposed to engage in rap battle with (yes, here he is again) Lance from Golden Cities. No clue if it actually happened, but hey, it would've been cool to see. Beyond B L A C K I E, I'd really hoped to finally catch Motion Turns It On and get another dose of post-teenage electro-hop kids Ghost Mountain, but both played after I left. The latter were originally supposed to play right around the time I made it over to Midtown, but they couldn't make in time, so they got bumped to a later slot.

• Contrary to what some apparently think, no, this was not any kind of marathon viewing of the TV show Lost In Space. And no, Robbie the Robot didn't make an appearance, sorry.

• If you missed Solanae's set, you're in luck, 'cause they're playing this very weekend, Friday, December 18th at Dean's Credit Clothing (aka That Place Next to Notsuoh). Do yourself a favor & go check 'em out...

All 'round, I had a ball (even with the self-inflicted near-frostbite). Hopefully this won't be the only Lost In Space fest; keep it up, folks. Please?

Labels: H-Town News, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To See

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Sunday now (December 13th, to be precise), and tonight's got me fairly excited, actually, even in comparison to the last couple of nights, primarily because of the first thing on the list below, the show at Walter's with Seattle duo The Dutchess & the Duke.

I was able to chat a bit on the phone with Jesse Lortz the other day, actually, and got to embarrass myself asking him dumbass questions about his band, the music they make, & being a new dad (something I know a bit about, at least). Check out the whole interview right over here, if you're so inclined. Lortz is a very cool, very laidback guy, and I appreciate his patience while I tried out a new interview-recording technique using the Recorder app on my iPhone.

(Verdict on that, btw: very cool. I was able to record the interview without hooking up any kind of external recorder, then dump it into iTunes on my laptop. Hell, the recording sounded better than the actual conversation; there were a few spots where I couldn't catch Lortz's response, but thankfully, Recorder did. Nice.)

The reason tonight excites me, though, is the duo's new album, Sunset/Sunrise, which is honestly up there at the top of my personal Best of 2009 list. The resolutely '60s-ish sound from debut album She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke is still in full force, but shifted a bit this time out. Things are looser and less garage-y, from the Byrds-meet-Motown jangle-and-sway of "Living This Life" to the girl-group vibe of "I Don't Feel Anything" to the Nancy Sinatra-esque noir of "When You Leave My Arms," and it works spectacularly well.

Lyrics-wise, the disc is still bleak as hell, with Lortz and bandmate Kimberly Morrison spinning out bitterly tragic stories of love lost and betrayed, life gone down the drain, and trying to end it all. There're moments of hope here, though, that belie the premature elegy She's the Dutchess had seemed to be. I'm pretty sure it's no accident that "Sunset" comes second in the title of the new album. Again, check out the Q&A over here.

For tonight, the Dutchess & the Duke are playing with a couple of familiar faces. Their touring opener is hometown boy Greg Ashley, of the gris gris and formerly of The Mirrors but playing solo this time out.

Plus, there's more recent H-town rockers Passengers, who also do a seriously retro-'60s garage-pop thing -- and do it quite nicely, I might add. Ex-members of Teenage Kicks, Brian Jonestown Massacre-sounding, and, um, damn promising. Tickets are $8 via the Super Unison crew, and the show starts at 9PM.

Naturally, this isn't the only thing going on this evening; here're a few other options...

Saosin/Innerpartysystem/P.O.S./Eye Alaska @ The Meridian
This one's apparently the PacSun Tour, but eh, I couldn't really care less about anybody on the bill but Twin Cities rapper P.O.S., who is -- in my personal book, anyway -- the absolute best thing going about hip-hop today. Smart, raw, and passionate as hell, he's like one of those dream "would it work?" combinations of genres, in this case punk and heavy-duty rap.

No Talk/The Mahas (mem. of Born Liars/Something Fierce/Bolt)/Big Black Spiders @ The Mink
Haven't heard The Mahas yet, no, but their pedigree's impressive -- the band includes folks from Born Liars, Something Fierce, and Roky Moon & Bolt, which ain't no bad combination. I predict eye-gouging, throat-punching garage-punk. Besides, there's also leather-punks No Talk, whose old-school, maybe-serious-maybe-not take on hardcore always makes me grin.

Adam Butera (mem. of Kai/Ros & Exterminating Angels)/Endless Blinding Sunshine @ The Husk (2808 Milam; 8PM, $5)
This week's installment of the Resonant Interval Sound Series -- and serious kudos to organizer Lance Higdon for keeping it running nearly every damn weekend -- this time with local experimental guru Carlos Pozo's Endless Blinding Sunshine project and Adam Butera, who plays in both Kai/ros & Exterminating Angels.

Glad to see, btw, that the empty space beside Khon's now has a name -- "The Husk" fits quite nicely...

Rock The Shelter Toy Drive XXIII, featuring Blaggards, The Mighty Orq, The El Orbits, Dog Party, Whiskey Brisket, & Harbor Light Choir @ The Continental Club (2-8PM)
'Tis the season for cool, cool benefits for kids. And happily, this one features some good, good folks, namely Irish folk-rockers Blaggards and The El Orbits. I'm pretty sure toys are welcomed.

Labels: H-Town News, Interviews, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do

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Cool news -- I'd worried for a while now that H-town-bred Pavement-gone-Wilco guys Bright Men of Learning had gone the way of Bring Back the Guns or the Guilloteens, fading out without so much as a final "seeya" message to their fans. Thankfully, that's apparently not the case, and the band are back in action.

They're playing tonight (Fri., September 18th), in fact, up at Rudyard's; it's a CD release party for their brand-new Champion Sound EP, recorded straight to 8-track by local recording ace and eschewer of all things polished and lame John Sears. $3 gets you into the show, and another $2 gets you a copy of the EP -- can't beat that with a stick, yo.

To make things even cooler, the show's openers are cool, muscle-y/math-y rockers The Jonx, plus Side Arms, the new band of Sharks and Sailors Al Hendrix, and Skyline Network honcho ADR on the turntables.

The BMOL guys were kind enough to send over the Champion Sound tracks, btw, and they're pretty great. If anything, the downtime appears to have both honed the band's guitar playing and loosened up frontman Marshall Preddy's trademark slurring snarl. "Texecution" is warm, bright, and just dirty enough, with some great droney, shimmery guitars towards the end. It's crazy to think this was all live to the 8-track; it sure doesn't sound like that. Not sleek and shiny, no, but it still sounds damn good -- my one gripe would be that Marshall's voice is mixed too low, but hell, with guitars that badass, I can definitely live with it.

"Champion Sound," the second track, is urgent and Uncle Tupelo-sounding, with overdriven guitars that evoke Where You Been-era Dinosaur Jr. at points, and the third, "Good Driver Bad Actor," is rawer and more "rock," with an interesting, almost AC/DC feel to it. I'd say it sounds like it could get airplay on some B-side-prospecting classic-rock station, but, well, some might take that as a jab (and no, I don't mean it as one).

The songs get in, do their thing, and get out, never overstaying their welcome, which has occasionally been kind of an issue in the past for me with some BMOL songs. Maybe it's because they had no-frills engineer/producer Sears on board to keep the boys honest? Whatever did it, it worked. "Champion Sound" sounds about right.

And hey, if that whets your whistle, keep an eye out -- the Learned Men of Brightness have reportedly been hard at work on a new full-length with a dozen or so totally, completely different tracks, most likely due out at the start of 2010. Good to hear...

Labels: Flyeration, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Get

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I mentioned a while back on this little blog how power pop heroes Teenage Kicks were no more, right?

Well, drummer John Baldwin hasn't been doing much relaxing since, apparently -- not only has he been DJing as Urbane Guerrilla Sound System, but now he's drummer for a brand-new band called Passengers, who're playing their debut show tomorrow night (Fri., August 14th) up at The Mink alongside SCR favorites and retro-'70s bombast reinventors Roky Moon & Bolt and DJ King Ghidora (which is -- dum-da-de-dum! -- John's fellow ex-bandmate Stewart Anderson).

Musically, Passengers definitely aren't Teenage Kicks Mk. II, by any stretch. Rather, they're more garage-psych than anything else, with scraping, raw guitars playing grimy Velvet Underground riffs that circle in upon themselves above bumping, '60s-ish rhythms, while vocalist Justin mutters shit I can't make out in the midst of it all. Granted, the two songs I've heard so far (on the Myspace, naturally) are rough, rough demos, recorded totally live and lo-fi, but I'd be willing to bet the band's live sound doesn't veer too far from what they've captured.

There's some muddied-up Brian Jonestown Massacre, some Black Angels, some No Wave, some Black Mountain, and even some Clinic-esque mess lurking in there, and the end result is intriguing, for sure. The band's already recorded their debut 7", to be released on John & Stewart's own Action Town Records, so hopefully that'll happen soon, too. Sounds like some good stuff...

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do

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And then, back again. I headed home Saturday night determined to plan a bit better for my foray back to the Free Press Summerfest, so I jammed a cooler full of icepacks into the bottom of my backpack, spent $4.50 on a 24-pack of water bottles at Walgreen's by the house (the singles were $1.25, so I couldn't pass the megapack up -- 19 cents a bottle, woo!) and put as many in the bag as I could, sneakily hid some granola bars (which I didn't even end up eating) down inside the pack, recharged the Solio solar/USB charger, and slathered sunscreen on my already-reddish toes.

I forgot to mention in the last post that I'd originally planned to liveblog this thing, both days. Yep, I was going to be Bigshot High-Tech JournoMan, liveblogging furiously away on his iPhone (hence me bringing the Solio charger along) with up-to-the-second coverage of Houston's biggest music festival in, hell, I dunno how long.

However, as you can doubtless tell from this post & the one before it, it didn't happen. Honestly, there was just too damn much going on all around, too many bands to see, too many folks to say "hi" to, for me to be able to take the time to type in anything more than some basic notes to myself. Plus, as anybody who reads this thing knows, I don't tend to the short-form when it comes to blog posts. I get a weird twitch in my left eye just thinking about trying to type what I'm typing now while sitting cross-legged on the grass. It would've taken me hours, seriously.

Instead, I just went with the flow, bouncing from one stage to another and back again and staring with my mouth wide open at the whole spectacle. Late in the day on Sunday, I confided to Aaron Echegaray, cool-ass guitarist for the equally cool-ass Roky Moon & Bolt, that I could hardly believe this was Houston, and he laughed and agreed whole-heartedly. I mean, c'mon -- did we not just fall through some hole in space/time or something? I've been showing pictures of the crowds to people all week, and some of 'em just plain don't believe me when I say the thing was right here in town.

The whole festival felt like something that should by all rights be happening somewhere else, somewhere less...well, cool, I guess. I've always enjoyed the sort of obstinate uncoolness of this city, so seeing hordes and hordes of people come out to see bands I figured only a handful of people here liked was eye-opening, to say the least.

And good. Did I mention that? Because this was fun as hell, and I dearly hope it happens again. Any chance of it, Free Press crew? Hopefully this didn't break the bank and/or sour the organizers on doing a second/third/fourth one of these things.

As before, the ridiculously huge pile of photos from Sat. & Sun. are over here for your OCD-fueled enjoyment. On to installment #2...

DAY TWO:
The second day out at Eleanor Tinsley Park looked ominous before I even left the house -- thunder was rattling the windows even then, although we hadn't yet seen the rain -- and it got even more so as I took the 59 spur towards downtown. Thick clouds of black smoke billowed up from somewhere in Midtown or the East End (turned out to be a power station in Midtown that blew up), drifting across the downtown skyline and making it look like I was driving straight into a war zone. Better still, I could see the line of rain clouds that had opened up, and they looked to be dead ahead, as well.

And naturally, when I saw the rain and thoughts flashed back to the day before, it hit me: "rain + grass trampled into dirt by several thousand people == huge amounts of mud." Oh, fuck. What the hell was I getting into, here? Not only was I headed out to roast myself in the heat a second time (I'm in awe of all the people who soldiered through the whole damn thing; I'm not sure I could've done it), but odds were that the whole place would be a gigantic mud pit by the time I got there.

Plus, I knew going in that Sunday would have to be a bit of an abbreviated festival-going experience. I'd promised the wife I'd be home for dinner, which meant I was going to have to bail around 4:30PM and head back out to the wilds of Westbury. Which was okay, really -- the folks I most wanted to see weren't the headliners, but the people playing beforehand. Once I got inside, I'd need to bounce pretty quickly from one stage to the other to catch all the folks I wanted to see.

I had trouble finding parking my second day out, the cheapo garage I'd used Saturday being closed on Sunday, so I went for the one garage I knew would have spaces open, the Theater District parking next to Bayou Place. Unfortunately, it was even more of a hike than the day before, and I quickly discovered that while it had indeed rained on downtown and the park shortly beforehand, the rain did zero to cool things down -- if anything, it made the heat worse. I'd always blown off the whole "ah, but it's a dry heat" thing in the past, but this time, "dry heat" sure seemed preferably to "death by sauna."

Hiking over to the park once more, I was surprised to see a crowd already building inside, despite the fact that it was barely 12:30PM on the second day of the festival. I'd expected there would be a dropoff from one day to the next, but I sure didn't notice one. The crowd built steadily throughout the afternoon, growing nearly as large as it was on Saturday afternoon by the time I had to leave.

And naturally, as with Day One, I wasn't entirely sure what to do about the pass/wristband situation. I marched myself up to the tents (one of which had morphed into a combo ticket-purchase/guestlist tent, with an ATM wisely moved into the other), told 'em my name and showed the wristband from the day before, and was met with blank stares. Uh-oh. "I'm with Space City Rock. I was on the list yesterday, and here's the wristband they gave me." The lady checked her list, and apparently found my name, because she started to hand me a new wristband.

"Is that a VIP pass?," I asked. "That's what I was told I had yesterday." The woman called in on her walkie-talkie, then very politely told me they didn't have me on the VIP list.

"I think I was on the press list," I said, immediately cringing. I always, always, always feel utterly ridiculous calling myself "press" -- yeah, like I write for Rolling Stone (or, hell, the Houston Press) and not some half-assed music e-zine/blog thing.

Another blank stare, then, "Who are you with, again?" Whoo, boy. I probably would've been fine just shrugging, taking the offered wristband, and saying, "Nah, never mind; I'm cool with this, no worries," but I'd been told I definitely had two VIP passes and had only used the one, so I figured I'd see how far I could get.

The woman sent me over to the Will Call line, so I hitched up my pack and headed over there, wondering again how I'd completely missed its location on Day One. Like I said before, I really lucked out getting into what was technically the wrong line. When I reached Will Call (where there was no line, thankfully), the folks there called in again on the walkie, then had me sign a piece of paper confirming that I'd received the pass, and I once more had a VIP wristband, only this time I was the real, color-coded variety. In I went...

CHASE HAMBLIN: I wasn't sure what to expect from Chase Hamblin this time around; when I saw/heard him last, he was kind of an awkward, high-voiced folkie playing jangly-yet-baroque pop songs with a psychedelic tinge, and truthfully, it didn't work all that well for me. The songs felt too cluttered, and his vocals too strange for the "folk" thing to really fly. This time, though, he was backed up by a real-live band, consisting of fellow singer/songwriter Robert Ellis on drums, Geoffrey Muller of the Sideshow Tramps on bass, Corey Power on guitar, and a guy whose name I didn't catch on keys.

And it worked far, far better than Hamblin solo. His songs sounded like they were meant to sound, I think, fleshed-out and in vibrant, paisley-edged color. The Sgt. Pepper flag was flying high, particularly when it came to Hamblin's vocals (the guy sounds like Lennon; can't help it), and reached its peak with closer "Bye Bye", which did a nice "Hey Jude"-esque thing.

In an odd bit of coincidence, I happened to receive Hamblin's brand-new EP, A Fine Time, just this weekend (after hearing him, that is). Definitely going to have to give it a good listen...

THE SMALL SOUNDS: I was very glad I was able to catch these guys again; I knew they'd be going on soon, so I was hustling down the hill to see their set as they got ready to kick things off. I've only caught The Small Sounds live once before, although their self-titled debut has spent considerable time in my CD player. Beyond that, they're a band that's somewhat off the Hipster Radar, so I'd bet a lot of even the more scene-savvy folks in attendance hadn't heard 'em play. I think they surprised a few folks who happened to be passing by on their way to the second stage.

Which is a good thing, because the Sounds truly deserve the attention. Their melding of country, rock, and folk works ridiculously well, particularly considering the thoughtful, surprisingly poignant lyrics to a lot of their songs (I was sad not to hear "Leave Virginia Girl" this weekend, but glad they played "John C.C. Hill", at least). For the most part, they manage to play countryish music that comes off less like capital-C Country and more like Uncle Tupelo or Gram Parsons -- and I mean those comparisons in the best way possible -- although they did throw in some of their newer, more "rock" stuff this time, including the Britpop-ish song I heard 'em play at Walter's a while back but don't know the name of. It worked a whole lot better here, for some reason; very cool.

The only bad part of the set, for me, wasn't the band's fault; it was that that the bass in the front-of-stage speakers was cranked up so damn loud that I could feel every bass-drum hit in my freaking chest. I got a funny picture at one point of a puddle of water in one of the handles of a speaker "bouncing" with the beat. I don't know if the sound got tweaked from band to band, but I definitely didn't notice it as much later on -- paired with music as delicate and rustic as the Small Sounds', it was a little distracting.

THE MATHLETES: This one was a nice surprise -- I headed to the side stage to see Elaine Greer, but spotted The Mathletes, instead, loitering off the side of the stage with instruments in hand. It wasn't clear if they'd always been in the lineup but got left off the official schedule or if they were a late-late addition, but hell, I'm all for bonus Mathletes when I can get 'em.

The guys played a good set of their trademark sweet, shy/nerdy pop about robots and whatnot but seemed a bit distracted, possibly because of some issues with the scheduling and the sound, and they all four (including one of the guys from Giant Princess on keys) looked like they were roasting up there in the post-rain steambath.

ELAINE GREER: And then on came Elaine Greer, who I always seem to catch bits-and-pieces of at various Block Parties and shows. I think this may've been the first time I caught (almost) an entire set, and I was glad for it. Her voice has this awesomely pure, sweet, girl-next-door sound to it, the closest thing I've heard lately to Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. Add to that the jangly guitars, side-man Austin from News on the March's accordion and electric guitar, the delicate xylophone(?) thing that was up there on the other side, not to mention Greer's nicely quirky songwriting ("Under the Radar", in particular, is a fine, fine song), and she's pretty hard to ignore. I think I'm going to have to find a copy of her new EP, Making Plans and Going Places, somewhere...

GRANDFATHER CHILD: Whoa. These guys were near the top of my list to begin with, but holy...wow. Just "wow." No offense to the other folks playing, but the Grandfather Child crew ripped the damn roof off. At times the band -- a supergroup with Lucas Gorham (Satin Hooks/Sad Gorilla), Ryan Chavez (Super Unison/The Smoking Popes/Panic In Detroit), Geoffrey Muller (Sideshow Tramps/I am Mesmer), & Robert Ellis (a bunch of bands) -- played like a bluesy soul-gospel thing, Gorham with his eyes closed, playing his slide guitar Stevie Wonder-style, and the result was gorgeously painful and uplfiting.

The rest of the time, the band played all-out, blazing-fast blues-rawk, like the Black Keys gone Dirty South, with Gorham wailing and frantic, Ellis grinning and throwing his long hair around, and Muller and Chavez seemingly so focused they didn't even know anybody was watching. Simply put, it was mesmerizing. I literally could not look away, could not stop taking damn pictures. And going by the roar of the crowd after every song, I'm guessing I wasn't the only one.

The band's reportedly got a 7" in the works (for the awesomely soulful "Waiting For You," which the band tore the hell up live), but screw that -- I want a real-live album, and I want it soon. Please?

THE EASTERN SEA: And here's another of the bands I really-truly-truly wanted desperately to see this weekend, Austin/Houston crew The Eastern Sea. I was completely bowled over by the band back in the late winter/early spring, when I saw 'em play Walter's with Piano Vines, Earnie Banks, The McKenzies, & The Riff Tiffs, so I was looking forward to seeing if that awesome first impression would still hold up.

And yep, it did. The show was a bit different -- less fervent tent-revival, more grinning party-down -- but the band was just as phenomenal as before, blazing through singer/guitarist Matt Hines' intricate, beautifully-written songs one by one, sounding like a mashup of The Arcade Fire and The Polyphonic Spree, with the murky, lurking darkness of the former and the exuberant screw-it-all glee of the latter. They won bonus points for starting off with a brilliantly-done, sharp-edged cover of The Mountain Goats' "Going to Marrakech" (can I put in a request for "Going to Georgia" next time, y'all? I'd love to hear that one done Eastern Sea-style...), and things continued nicely from there. At one point, Hines and percussionist Zach Duran were out on the speakers in front of the audience, dancing back and forth and getting the crowd to do some syncopated clapping, and even the usually jaded H-town audience was getting into it.

Smart, yet fun, all at the same time. Not too many bands can really ever pull that off. Next up? A new EP; I hear one's in the works. Sweet.

ROKY MOON & BOLT: I never thought I'd say it, but I'm enjoying the resurgence of '70s-style rock-n-roll, probably more than I really should. With folks like Roky Moon & Bolt around, though, I can't even bring myself to feel guilty about it. These guys (and now girl, with the addition of the excellent Cassie Hargrove on keys) play rock that's so unashamedly over-the-top and retro-'70s, and do it with such uncaring style, that I can't help but love it.

They're like what David Bowie would've sounded like, back in his Ziggy Stardust days, if he'd played with Jerry Lee Lewis and Ted Nugent in some backwoods East Texas honkytonk bar. The music's grandiose and bombastic, but down-and-dirty, too, driven along by guitarist Aaron Echegaray's raw, Rolling Stones-esque riffs, drummer Jeoaf Johnson and bassist Chad Pinter's heavy rhythms, Hargrove's Rocky Horror-sounding piano, and "Roky Moon"'s strangely compelling, larger-than-life stage presence. It may not be for everybody, I'll admit, but from where I'm standing, these folks can truly do no wrong.

SIDESHOW TRAMPS: Only caught a bit of the Sideshow Tramps' set, as they were winding down, but what I saw looked and sounded pretty damn good. I'd heard for years now about how awesome these guys are, and watching frontman Scott haranguing the crowd while the band meandered along behind him made me think maybe those rumblings were correct. Wish I'd seen more of it.

THE WILD MOCCASINS: And last but not least... The final act of the day for me before I had to head back to the near-'burbs was H-town scene darlings The Wild Moccasins, who I have to hand it to for being the band I see fairly regularly that consistently gets better & better each time. They've transformed themselves from a bunch of cute kids playing smiling, happy pop songs into a tight-as-hell band that happens to be young and fun and plays smiling, happy pop songs. And yeah, I mean that as a serious compliment.

I think they played some of the new songs this weekend, which is a good thing, because from what I've heard they're a bit "meatier" than the stuff off the Microscopic Metronomes EP -- love it though I do, a lot of those tracks are lighter than air, and I think they're ready to start channeling that youthful energy/abandon of theirs into something a bit more down-to-earth. Not less poppy, mind you, just...I dunno. More solid.

And "solid" is what their set Sunday afternoon was, definitely. They were playful, sure -- telling the crowd they had "lots of water" if anybody wanted some and then proceeding to pelt people with water balloons was sneaky fun -- but still locked down tight, playing probably the best I've seen 'em yet. I know a few local writerly-type people haven't entirely warmed to the Moccasins yet, but I suspect it'll be coming soon.

With the Moccasins' bright, shiny harmonies and sweet guitar melodies ringing in my ears, I headed back on up the hill, stopping only briefly to take a couple more photos (see below for one) of the festivities below as they continued on without me. I definitely wish I could've stuck around for the rest of the folks playing, but Real Life was calling, so... I'm not sure I would've been able to survive a full 10 hours' worth of the madness, either way.

I marched on out the gate with a smile on my face, though, happy to have been able to experience a day and a half (day and a third?) or so of this amazing thing, and made the long slog back to the car.

NOTE: Apologies, by the way, for the slowness in posting this -- there was a lot to take in, and I wanted to be able to do it justice. There're plenty of other fine, fine writeups also floating around out there, so between all of 'em, hopefully you'll get some idea of what the Summerfest thing was like. See y'all next time.

RANDOM NOTES:

• Re: the wristband thing. Luckily, I didn't have to wait in line too long either day to get my passes, but I talked to several people who did, and I'm guessing that if they, like me, had to shower between days of festivizing, they would've had to do like me and get a new wristband, as well. And possibly wait in line again. How do you deal with a multi-day show where you give out wristbands? Make 'em plastic, maybe, so they can weather a wash? That's the only thing I can think of, myself. Or did the "real" two-day pass folks just get both wristbands on Day One? Can't say for sure -- I know I didn't, but I'm guessing I was an odd case...

  I should note, by the way, that everybody involved in the exchange about the wristband/pass at the start of Day Two was extremely polite & friendly about the whole deal. Just recounting it for the sake of completeness, not to say, "Man, those people were jerks! Gimme my pass, mufuckas!" Because that was definitely not the case. Even in the confusion, everybody was cool.

• Bands I Didn't Get to See/Missed -- The McKenzies (heard a few songs while I was waiting to hear back on whether I'd get a wristband or not; me missing them sucks doubly now that I hear the band's breaking up after their August 29th show -- ah, crap...), The Hates, News on the March (whose set got bumped back due to scheduling issues; did they end up playing later on? I dunno...), Skyblue 72, Southern Backtones, The Manichean (who I seriously was hoping to catch, given the good things I'd heard about 'em), Hearts of Animals, Prince Paul, Buxton, Voxtrot, UME, What Made Milwaukee Famous, The Riverboat Gamblers, Devin The Dude, & Of Montreal.

• Those Super Happy Fun Land folks crack me up. I mean, who else would set up a DIY puppet booth, where the puppets only perform when some oddball walking by is willing to get behind the makeshift stage and make the puppets speak or sing? Ah, fun...

  

• I have a serious, honest-to-God grievance I need to talk about, before I forget. And no, it's not with the Summerfest organizers, the heat, the long lines, none of that. It's with you, my fellow festival-goers. It's about the immense, insane amounts of trash that littered the festival grounds by just the start of Day Two. Memo to all garbage-dropping people: why is it so fucking hard to throw your goddamn trash in one of the garbage cans? Did your simian brain just not recognize that that was what the words "GARBAGE" meant, emblazoned on the side? Or are you just a fucking asshat who thinks the world belongs to you to do with as you will?

  I was, and still am, seriously fucking appalled, folks. Would you casually throw empty bottles on your lawn, 'cause you're too lazy to put 'em in the can right inside the kitchen door? Would you be cool with it if people walking past your house tossed their empty beer cups on your driveway? I'm betting not. And yet, apparently a shitload of you were perfectly willing to turn a beautiful city park that should belong to everybody in Houston into a goddamn landfill. Houston, I'm telling you, as a whole: Clean. Up. Your. Shit. Otherwise, you've got nobody to blame but yourself if the city refuses to let things like Summerfest happen again in its parks and green spaces.

• Geoffrey Muller from Sideshow Tramps/Grandfather Child pretty much wins the award for being The Guy Who Played the Whole Damn Festival -- he not only played in "his" two bands, Sideshow Tramps and I am Mesmer (who I missed on Saturday, unfortunately), but he also played with Grandfather Child and Chase Hamblin. He just barely beat out Austin Sepulvado from News on the March, who played with his own band (I think, anyway; I had to leave before they played), with Elaine Greer, and with The Eastern Sea, and Robert Ellis, who also played both with Grandfather Child and Chase Hamblin.

• I was impressed as hell with the crew who ran the sound/stage part of the show; at any festival like this, there're bound to be hiccups, but damn, those guys kept things moving like well-oiled machinery, at least as viewed from the outside (apparently I could have gone 'round the back of the stage with my VIP pass, but I didn't know that 'til I was nearing my time to leave on Sunday, and besides, why the hell would I want to watch a band I want to see from behind?). I can't speak for how it was for the bands, but sound-wise and time-wise, things sure looked and sounded pro to me.

  
  

• I hate to admit it, but I was pretty much a waste of a VIP pass. I hit the High Roller tent briefly on Saturday and fully intended to hang there for a bit on Sunday, as well, but dammit, I just never got a chance to -- I didn't want to miss any of the bands. Hell, I barely sat down during my time at the festival, excluding the bulk of Explosions in the Sky's set. So for having a VIP pass both days, I spent a grand total of 15 minutes in the air-conditioning. Whoops. Sorry, organizer folk...

• Okay, so I know this will sound a little goofy, but at the next one of these things (can we make it "Springfest," maybe?), I want more national/local band interaction, y'all. C'mon, I'm serious -- how cool would it've been for members of Of Montreal to sneak onstage during The Wild Moccasins' set or something? Those kids love them some fun; they'd be down, I swear. Next time, I want to see some H-town love from you band folks coming here from elsewhere, you hear? It's only polite, after all.

• I have to applaud whoever came up with the idea of having a "stationary" Merch Table, with merch for sale from any band that wanted to put it out there -- fucking brilliant, y'all. Even though I missed Muhammidali's set on Saturday, I was still able to come back Sunday and (finally) snag a copy of their split-CDR with Black Congress, plus a limited-edition cassette version of The Wild Moccasins' debut EP. I wish more bands had taken advantage, sure (Tontons folks, I know at least a couple of you were there both days; why not have some stuff for sale?), but it was great either way.

  

• Hung out for a while on Sat. & Sun. with Jason Smith of Alkari, bassist, music teacher, architectural historian/writer, show promoter, & neighbor of mine (no, really -- he lives just across S. Post Oak from me), who was both watching/enjoying the bands and passing 'round flyers for his upcoming The Festival at Mink show. It looks to be a good one, even if I find the grammar of the festival's name to be questionable. (It's "The Mink," isn't it?) Got my fingers crossed that that festival goes off as well as this one did...

  
  

• Talked to Joe Mathlete after the Mathletes guys made their way off the stage; when I pestered him to send me the band's soon-to-be-released CD and confessed that I didn't know if I'd be able to make it to the release show (which is Sat., August 15th at Mango's, btw), he shook his head and shrugged. "Well, it'll be our last show. We're breaking up afterwards." Wha?

  Turned out that Joe's tired of playing live, and fellow Mathletes Ryan Goodland and Jeff Goodyear have other stuff going on, so the "band" form of the Mathletes is collapsing in on itself, black hole-like. Well, sorta. The "band" will continue on as Joe himself, mostly, and will go back to being the recording project it was back in the beginning. So, new music will indeed be produced, probably still at Joe's typically ridiculous pace, but the live shows are over & done.

  Which is a shame, really, because I've enjoyed seeing the guys play when I've managed to catch 'em. I can't fault Joe, Ryan, & Jeff for being tired of the whole live-show rigamarole thing, but it still makes me somewhat sad. And it sounds awful permanent, esp. considering the followup post on the band's Myspace, where Joe declared, "This is our last show as a band and I have no intention of playing any Mathletes shows afterwards." That's awfully final, seems like.

  So, if you want to finally see what the hell I & other folks have been talking about with those crazy Mathletes, now's your last chance to do it in a live setting. They'll have a bunch of their previous, notoriously hard-to-find releases on hand, plus the new release (an MP3 CD-R entitled Unpronounceable Hieroglyphic) and recent cassette-only EP release Freshly Scrubbed and Still Weak in the Knees. See the band, grab some CDs, feel your heart light up just that little bit.

  

• Went up and (re-)introduced myself to The Eastern Sea's Matt Hines, who was the nicest, sweetest guy to talk to, and we chatted a bit -- look for an actual interview sometime soon. He graduated from college (at St. Edward's University, I believe) this year, as the valedictorian of his class, no less(!), so he and the band are attempting to make music full-time as of now; they're even moving into a house together so they can focus on what they're doing. (Hopefully they don't all hate one another by the time the first month's up.)

  Some other newly-converted Eastern Sea fans stopped by to chat, too, and started an interesting conversation about the Houston scene vs. the Austin scene. When one of the ladies asked him about the Houston-Austin "feud," Hines called bullshit on the whole thing, saying it was completely fabricated and pointing out that his own band drew bigger crowds in Houston than in their current hometown (he said they'd sold an insane number of copies of their EP just that day). Then he grinned and declared that it was mostly Houston people trying to provoke the rivalry, although he may've meant Houstonians who've moved to Austin hating on their old hometown.

• Forgot to mention it in the previous post, but when I hiked in from the parking garage on Saturday, there was some kind of skate competition going on in downtown...right in front of the downtown Houston Public Library. It may just be me, but that seems kinda cool.

  
  

• Ran into Brandon Lemons, of Co-pilot/Springfield Riots infamy, and he reminded me that the elusive Co-pilot will be playing a show on Sat., August 22nd over at The Mink, which is cool not only because the 'pilot guys are one of my absolute favorite spacerock bands (local or non, whichever; "Low Earth Orbit" rules), but also because another of my favorite spacerock bands, the even-more-elusive Margot, is playing. The band broke up without much fanfare something like two-and-a-half years ago, now, despite being one of the most promising atmospheric/spacey bands in town, and they've now reunited/resurrected themselves (hopefully for a good long while this time?). If you're into trippy, spacey instro-rock like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai (with a touch of Spiritualized and some M83), this is a bona-fide red-letter show for you.

  
  

• Have I mentioned how freaking cool the whole string of Buffalo Bayou parks have gotten? No? It's been too, too long since I've been down that way much -- pretty much since we left the house just south of Allen Parkway and Taft, from which we could walk to downtown in 20 minutes or so -- but now I really want to drag the fam over there some weekend (when it's cooler, mind you). I'd never even noticed Sam Houston Park before, but the place is downright gorgeous, as are the areas heading west from there along the bayou proper. The last time I wandered around down there, it must've been pre- some serious renovation, because back then it was still somewhat of a shady/scary area. Oh, and I always forget how cool the old Heritage Society buildings are. I think it's about time for a fieldtrip from the SW side into the heart of the city...

Labels: H-Town News, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Public Service Announcements, Summerfest

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

I'm recovering, still. Recovering, but happy, I should say, because this past Saturday & Sunday at the Free Press Summerfest was a freaking blast, even if it smacked my aging old-dude ass to the ground. There were some glitches, to be sure -- I have yet to even hear of a music festival that didn't have 'em -- but even with that, I'm in awe of what Omar and the Free Press Houston crew have pulled off, here. It's a little premature to say it, I know, but I'll be damned if Summerfest didn't feel like the tipping point in terms of music in this city.

So here's my take on it, for what it's worth. I couldn't attend the whole thing, unfortunately, but I managed to survive about 7 hours on Saturday and another 4-5 on Sunday, which means my weekend feels like one big, long, telescoped day that I desperately wish I'd had a third day to recuperate from. I'll scatter some pics throughout, but if you feel like taking a look at the hundreds I actually took (more on that later), go here for the whole gory mess. Here's the first installment...

DAY ONE:
When I drove downtown on Saturday afternoon, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was later than I'd wanted to be, getting there around 2:30PM or so, so I missed some of the earlier acts I'd really, really wanted to catch, like The Tontons, Muhammidali, Perseph One, or I am Mesmer. Even still, I had no clue what the festival would be like -- would there even be a crowd?

I mean, this city's last attempt at something like this, the Texas Heat fest on Fourth of July weekend, crashed and burned hard. One friend who happened to drive past right in the middle of what was supposed to be the busiest part of the festival counted 6 people standing out in Jones Plaza, broiling themselves. (I really like the very gracious "thank you" post on their Website, btw; it would've been real easy to be bitter & recriminating about it, so I applaud the organizers for being classy folks.)

Would this be the same deal? Would our fickle, hip-radio-deficient (KTRU and KPFT are great, but nowhere near enough) city give the festival's organizers the same cold shoulder? I really, really hoped it wouldn't be the case; I had butterflies about it even as I parked my car a few blocks from the start of the Buffalo Bayou parks and started the hike in.

I needn't have worried. There were probably 100 or so people waiting for tickets when I hit the line, and at the time I had no clue where the Will Call line was, much less that it was swamped. I just wanted to get inside in time to catch at least some of Fat Tony's set; I could hear "Invasion" starting up as I neared the staff check-in and ticket tents.

I should note here that dumb luck saved my ass, well and truly. I'd talked to Omar about snagging a pass to the show a while back, but never heard for sure if it'd been set up, so I lined on up to buy a wristband, figuring I could bug the folks at the booth once I got up there & hoping they wouldn't send me elsewhere if I did indeed have a pass waiting.

While in line, I chatted briefly with a nice older couple (who'd very wisely brought an umbrella; holy fuck, was that sun brutal) who turned out to be the Mom & Dad of the bassist & drummer from O Pioneers!!! -- whose names I will man up and admit I don't know; sorry, y'all. Dad mentioned that he figured he was the oldest person there by a few decades, but looking back, I'm not sure that was the case -- the crowd, in the end, covered a pretty damn wide spectrum.

As I neared the tents, I started noticing everybody around me swigging from water bottles of various types and shook my head, feeling all sage and concert-wise -- "don't you idiots know you're just going to have to throw it in the trash when you get to the gate? Security'll never let you in with bottles you didn't buy there." Little did I know that the rules in the Summerfest FAQ had been modified slightly since I'd looked at it last; I'd swear that when I checked it, it said "no outside food or beverages," but when I checked back on Sat. night after getting home, I saw that "Water" was on the list of stuff you could bring. Oh, fuck.

Call it Egregious Mistake #1. On Saturday, I was traveling light, light, light. No sunscreen, no water, no food, none of it. All I'd brought was a beach towel to sit on, the camera, the iPhone, and a solar charger that I used very briefly later that night before the iPhone drained it's battery.

At any rate, as I came up to the tent with a "Staff Sign-in" sign on the side, the ever-kind Brigitte Zabak (who writes for this site, her own excellent blog I Keep Mine Hidden, the Free Press, the Houston Press, and runs(?) another mag, Hater; just thinking about all that wears me out, I swear) was manning the staff table and had apparently spotted me, because when I glanced over and waved, she beckoned me over. She'd seen me waiting in line and checked the list, and lo and behold, my name was on it -- I did indeed have a pass waiting for me. Niiiiice.

And not only that, but it was a VIP pass, somehow -- she apologized and said they'd run out of the VIP wristbands earlier on, so my "VIP wristband" was actually a regular wristband turned inside out with "VIP" and her initials written on it. I was a little skeptical, I'll admit, but nobody once gave me grief over it, not even when the folks at the door to the VIP/High Roller tent checked it. Brigitte and Omar, y'all both rule.

So, with a high-five to Brigitte, I had my wristband, I had my woefully-understocked backpack, and dammit, I was in. Hoo-ah. On to the music...

FAT TONY: Yep, I made it in time to see Fat Tony. Well, kind of. By the time I made my way down the long, steep path to the main stage, Tony and his cohort (whose name I didn't catch) were sadly already winding things up. Even still, though, they had a nice flow and worked the crowd ridiculously well -- some of the Rock Dudes I saw at the fest could learn to be that engaging, I swear -- throwing out a tongue-in-cheek track called (I think?) "The Merch Table's Right Over There" that was, duh, meant to drive the music-watching masses on over to get some merch. And then that was pretty much it.

(Stupidly, I didn't hit Tony's merch table immediately, and I should've, because when I swung back by later on, there was no sign of his stuff. Argh.)

B L A C K I E/ COP WARMTH: But hey, that's okay, because I'd already spotted B L A C K I E tearing it up over on the second stage and was making a beeline straight over there. The set was billed as "B L A C K I E vs. Cop Warmth", so while B L A C K I E spit his angry-as-hell verses out over a packed-tight crowd of onlookers (which may be, btw, the first and only time I've ever seen him perform on an actual stage), his fellow Pasadena-dwellers just kinda hung around on stage, looking bored. (Or maybe tired, since I think they'd already done at least one set by the time I wandered over.)

Which is okay, honestly, but I think I prefer witnessing B L A C K I E alone, just him and that bone-crushing sound, and seeing him in a well-lit area and not wearing the trademark hoodie was way trippy. When I pointed him out to a friend later on, the friend (who'd seen him perform at Numbers a year or so ago) didn't believe me -- he said something like "that's the guy?" I couldn't get real close to the stage, though, because of an impressive crush of people watching the show, so I bailed before Cop Warmth got back on (sorry, guys) and walked back over to the main stage.

H.I.S.D.: Been wanting to see H.I.S.D. a while now, since getting a chance to check out their Summer Sessions release on FWMJ's Rappers I Know a while back. And the HUEston Independent Spit District were pretty impressive, in part because I was cracking up at their freeze-frame switchoffs, where one or two of the four emcees (who I think were Scottie Spitten, Savvi, LdaVoice, & Equality, but never having seen 'em before, don't hold me to that) would do their thing while the others pretended to be statues and vice-versa.

Couldn't catch enough of the rhymes to really form a solid opinion, unfortunately, but I liked the laidback party vibe they had going on, nicely funky and reminiscent of Tribe Called Quest or maybe Blackalicious' less-highbrow moments. (On a side note, how freaking cool would it've been if Prince Paul had made an appearance on the stage with H.I.S.D.? Maybe next time?) Of any act I caught all weekend, these guys were probably the tightest, performance-wise -- they really had it wired.

O PIONEERS!!!: I figured that since I'd already met Mom & Dad O Pioneer!!!, yeah, I'd better make it to the O Pioneers!!! damn set. (Not that they'd likely care, but still. I offer up heartfelt applause for anybody willing to brave insane heat and hordes of teenagers to watch their kids perform.) A relatively easy decision to make, though, considering how much I like these guys. Neon Creeps has lived in my backpack/car since February, and I swear that every time I hear it, I find new reasons to like it. I can't help but like a band that sucks in equal parts Avail and Braid and comes out sounding like electrified folk-rock, seriously.

Live, they were actually better than I remembered from the one other time (cringe) I've managed to see 'em, which I think may've been with a completely different band backing frontman Eric Solomon. This time out they were as loud and raw as ever but less wild-and-crazy, focusing more on the songs and less on the punk abandon. Which, honestly, is as it should be, to me. Their song "Dead City Sound" is an anthem for this never-stopping, destroy-and-rebuild place I call home, and I want to hear (and yell along with) every damn word Solomon sings in that rough-edged, scratchy-but-in-tune voice of his. (He wins bonus points, btw, for his American Steel t-shirt -- I truly believe the SF band is the closest thing to musical kin the Pioneers have...)

The Pioneers are about to head out on tour, by the by -- they're off to Oklahoma on August 20th, then heading up through Nevada and Colorado, on to the wilds of Montana before swinging through the NW and on down to California. Those that live elsewhere & read this, keep an eye out.

THE RIFF TIFFS: Been a while since I'd seen The Riff Tiffs last, so I was keen to see what they've been up to... No major changes, sound-wise, although injured bassist Althea is sadly gone (I believe the last show I saw was also her last show), replaced by Tontons bassist Tom Nguyen. The band's fuzzy-edged, guitar-heavy psych-rock worked well out there in the hazy heat, drifting out over the crowd like a billowing, hypnotic flame.

I'd forgotten, actually, how much I love the Tiffs -- Chris Rehm's high-pitched, Wolf Parade-esque warble, he and brother Curran's roaring, meandering guitars, and drummer Sean Hart's tight rhythms (and now Tom's laidback bass, to boot). Since Chris & Sean are now off at school in New Orleans for half the year, the Tiffs have gotten kind of overshadowed by ostensible "side project" Caddywhompus (which is also a sweet-ass thing, btw), and I really hope this means they'll be playing more as the full Riff Tiffs band. And hey, what the heck happened to those plans last year for recording new stuff, y'all?

THE SWORD: Much as I love the other folks I managed to catch today, I have to say it: The Sword was one of the two bands I really, truly, supremely wanted to see. I was blown away by the Austin metalheads' latest, Gods of the Earth, but I missed their last show here, over at Rudyard's, so I was excited to finally see these guys. I nearly skipped eating dinner to catch their set up-close, actually -- I'd gotten light-headed and decided to stand in the long-ass line for a burger, and when I heard the band sound-checking down at the bottom of the hill, I very nearly bailed on the line to get down there.

Luckily, by the time I wolfed down the burger, we were able to get down the hill and weasel in towards the side of the stage to see the band rock out. Couldn't get into the mass of people crowding the front of the stage, but honestly, that was about as close as I wanted to get -- it was gratifying as hell to see a bona-fide mosh pit going out there in the middle, but I'm too damn old for that crap.

As far as the band goes...ah, metal. I mean, c'mon. What else can I say for a band that plays songs like "Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians"? They're the kind of band that makes me smile and shake my head one second, then give over to full-on headbanging the next. I love the fact that they're the sort of throwback metal that's making a comeback, metal minus the Cookie Monster vocals, plus the cool Frank Frazetta imagery and thundering guitars.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE: I've got to admit it -- I was seriously starting to feel like a beaten-up Old Dude by the time Canadian superstars Broken Social Scene hit the stage. It'd been several hours in the hot-ass sun, so homeboy Jowell and I utilized the magical powers of the VIP pass to skate on in to the High Roller tent, which was kinda-sorta air-conditioned and had drinks you didn't have to use tickets for(!). Chilled out in the shade there for a bit, said "hi" to a few people (hey, Toni B.!), and then charged back into the breach in time for BSS.

And holy fuck, when we came back out into the light, the crowd waiting eagerly for the Canadians to take the stage was immense. "Who the heck are these people?," I found myself wondering aloud. "How are there this many rabid Broken Social Scene fans in Houston? Did we bus 'em in from Austin or something?"

I'm serious about this -- I can't remember when I saw a crowd this gigantic to see an indie band from out-of-town, especially one that never, never, never gets airplay on anything but the most underground radio shows in this city. People were into it, in a big way. Just witnessing the fervor made my jaw drop, literally.

I was also impressed with how the band handled two drunken morons brawling in the middle of their set; the frontman of the musical collective (Kevin Drew or Brendan Canning, not sure which) stopped in mid-song, yelling at the two fuckwits to chill out, something like, "One shithead go one way, and the other shithead go the other. There; thanks for stopping the show, idiots." The crowd cheered, the band kicked back in, and on went the show.

Now for the bad part: in the end, the music was just kind of eh for me. Admittedly, I didn't go into this a fanboy; the one album I own is You Forgot It in People, and even that I've always been sort of lukewarm on. Some incredible songs ("Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl"), but some just, well, eh. And that's sort of how the performance hit me -- nice enough, and it was cool to finally get to see 'em, but certainly not the be-all and end-all of music.

They came off like a somnolent Kings of Leon at points, the resemblance helped along by the sleazy porno 'staches all the dudes in the band seemed to be sporting, and while it could've been my energy ebbing in general, dammit, the performance made me want to take a nap. Sorry, y'all. It still made me smile to see the crowd go nuts for the Canucks, though. Hopefully they -- and the other out-of-towners, all of whom got great receptions, from what I saw/heard -- will be back.

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY: And last but not least, the ultimate act of the first day of Summerfest, and another one I'd been seriously looking forward to. Been listening to Explosions in the Sky for several years now, and given the open-sky atmospherics they're known for, I figured, why fight the crowds? It was time to sit and relax. Beyond my old-ass self no longer being able to stand up properly, EitS just lend themselves nicely to sitting on a blanket in the grass, nodding and smiling along while the sun slowly sets.

So that's exactly what we did; we made our way up the hill (via the cardboard-sledding slope from earlier in the day) and then tried to worm our way to an open spot a little ways down. No mean feat, really, because the hillside was ridiculously packed by that point, but we found a spot and crashed. As the band wound its way through alternately gentle and thundering instro-rock, we could survey the whole scene, from the shining skyscrapers to the east over to the hardcore volleyball players to the west, and as the sun went down, we could even watch the skaters at Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark, across the bayou. Everybody nearby was smiling and laughing as the music echoed off the hillside; it was honestly pretty much the perfect setting for it.

We hung out 'til close to the end of the festival, then headed down to see things from the ground level for a little while before things wound down. Explosions themselves seemed louder now than most of what I'd heard in the past; there were more furious crescendoes than I'd expected, with the band's two guitarists and bassist thrashing around onstage and dropping to their knees to pound away at their guitars. The basic foundation remained the same, though, with those haunting, distant, somehow West Texas-feeling melodies and determined rhythms.

As soon as the band put down their instruments and waved goodbye, the mass of people surged all at once up the hill like a tidal wave in reverse. Crowds of strangers spilled out onto the darkened Allen Parkway, most seemingly headed towards downtown; it was kind of an eerie sight. Jowell jokingly suggested we should start doing a zombie lurch/walk, and it felt pretty appropriate -- if anybody'd been passing by and seen the horde of people on foot in the middle of the road, passing in and out of the streetlights, they'd be forgiven for freaking out a little bit.

Off Allen Parkway, into downtown, and back to the car (which was still there, thankfully, despite my fear that the garage might close earlier than the listed time of 10:30PM). And then on home to attempt to recuperate.

RANDOM NOTES:

• First off, yes, I did indeed go a little crazy with the photos -- what can I say? I don't often get the chance to take pictures of bands during daylight hours, and that's really where my little Canon point-and-shoot does best, so I figured I ought to take advantage. I'm going to swipe a page from Ramon's playbook here and include a handy-dandy little slideshow, too:

  
  

• In a fit of manly pique Saturday morning, I decided to skip any form of sunscreen in favor of my trusty baseball cap. (What can I say? It covers the bald spot my daughter keeps pointing out.) And then, because shoes seemed too damn hot, I grabbed the sandals and tossed the Merrells in the trunk. Which would've been great, except that about five minutes into the first band I saw, my feet felt like they were on fire.

  I am such an idiot. When do I ever, ever, ever tan my freaking toes? Answer: never. They went up like snowballs on Satan's doorstep. I could feel the skin searing, literally, fried by the sun's unforgiving rays. Call this one Egregious Mistake #2. Big, big, big "thank you" to Lance Higdon of Tambersauro & Golden Cities, drummer and Latin teacher extraordinaire, for selflessly lending me his sunscreen to slather on my rapidly-reddening feet. You saved my ass, man. Walking to and from Day Two of the festival would've been excrutiating, I suspect, had my sandaled feet been burnt to a crisp on Day One.

  

• It turned out that I really lucked out when it came to my choice of lines to stand in when I got to the festival. I had no idea that the Will Call line started at the opposite end of the festival area from where I was, and that worked in my favor, because from all reports I heard, that line was insanely huge. David Cobb waited in line for something like an hour and a half for his pre-purchased wristband, and Brandon Lemons (Co-pilot/Springfield Riots) told me that after two hours of waiting in the Will Call line, he nearly gave up and bought a whole new wristband, chalking the already-purchased one up as a loss. Ouch. Lines suck.

  I can't say for sure, but I suspect that nobody, not even the festival organizers, planned on the crowd being as gigantic as it ended up being. The number I heard a day or two ago was 30,000 people, and y'know, having been there, that sounds plausible. (I'm notoriously bad at guesstimating numbers of people/things, though, so take my opinion for what it's worth.)

  At the end of the day, though, I think it worked as well as it really could have. Everybody I spoke to, even folks who had to wait more than an hour in line, was still psyched as hell to be there to witness this thing; I didn't meet a single person during the time I was there who didn't think the occasional hassles and logistical issues were worth it to see the bands, hang out in the H-town sun, and stand around grinning with friends. I can only recall seeing one guy who looked like he'd rather be somewhere else, and I think that was because he was either sunstroked or utterly drunk and was about to puke on his pants. For all the rest, it was nothing but enthusiasm & smiling faces. (Okay, but I'm still very, very glad I chose to stand in the buy-a-pass line, rather than the pick-up-my-pass line.)

• While I'm on the subject, though, let me take a moment to vent a bit. Lines suck, hard, sure but lines to get tickets so you can get in more lines suck harder. So it was doubly painful to have to wait in line for coupons to get food and beverages, then get in line to actually get the food and beverages. Man. Waiting in line at the one booth I'd found that sold water was one of the few really frustrating experiences of the weekend. I have to ask: what's up with the coupons? Is that some kind of TABC-mandated thing? It just didn't make much sense.

• Bands I Didn't Get to See/Missed -- Ghost Town Electric, Juzcoz, Mechanical Boy, Perseph One (who, sadly, was one of my top must-sees; got there too damn late), The Tontons (seriously need a copy of that new album), The Watermarks, I am Mesmer, Muhammidali, Los Skarnales, Ryan Scroggins & the Trenchtown Texans (caught part of 'em through the fence while waiting in line), Young Mammals, The Octopus Project, & Tha Fucking Transmissions.

  
  

• While I'd initially scoffed at the idea of everybody wearing swimsuits, the beach-party vibe for the whole thing was freaking awesome. At times it felt less like a festival and more like a gigantic crowd of park-goers just hanging out and having a good time doing whatever the felt like doing -- playing volleyball, listening to music, dancing, painting, hanging with friends, whatever. The folks who decided it'd be fun to sled down the hillside on cardboard boxes made me smile; I haven't done that since I was in 4th grade...

• I grabbed hold of event organizer/artist/musician Shelby Hohl as he sped by at one point (he'd just rushed the crowd in front of the main stage with a case full of water bottles, handing 'em out to anybody in the mass of people who could grab one) and said, "you're in American Fangs, right?" He shook his head and said he used to be, but not anymore. When I asked him why, he just grinned and said, "Because I had better things to do. Like this!" Which is interesting, since the Fangs were originally supposed to play Summerfest, but are instead out on tour right now with Burn Halo...

• Finally got to introduce myself in person to the aforementioned B L A C K I E (aka Michael LaCour), who not surprisingly is a very nice, very down-to-earth guy. When I told him I was liking the online Dope & Doper EP, he mentioned he was taking his time working on a full-length, trying to get it exactly right, and had a 7" in the works, plus the long-threatened split cassette with Cop Warmth, to boot. Looking forward to all of it.

  
  

• I think I saw Ralf Armin of Dead Roses roaming about the festival -- he was standing not far from me during The Sword's set -- dressed up as some kind of crazed indie superhero, tights, cape, and all. Um. Does he do that often?

• Ran into photog/musician Marc Brubaker once again at the Summerfest; does that guy go to every freaking show? Good to hang out with him again, though -- he & cohort Adam Newton are psyched to be playing yet again as Prairie Cadets coming up, this time August 16th at The Mink with cool folks Benjamin Wesley, The Julys, & Finnegan. Record more songs, guys, eh?

• Anybody want to claim the strange little Asian guy who seemed to be everywhere, dancing like some kind of serene, X-ed out Buddhist monk with long, grassy hair? He was damned entertaining, and I've got to respect somebody who's that willing to just, well, do whatever the hell they're gonna do and not care that people are laughing or pointing or whatever. I remember him dancing at the last Block Party, too, when the joint Limb/Narreme set was going on...

  The only name I've seen for him is "Happy," and who knows? It definitely fits. By the end of the weekend, he was getting hugs from random people and making friends all over the place. I missed it, but apparently during Bolt's set (I think it was Bolt?) on Sunday, he was lying underneath the big trailer parked next to the second stage and suddenly emerged, "like he was being born" (in the words of somebody who witnessed it), as the band exploded onto the stage. Wow. The guy was something else.

Labels: H-Town News, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Public Service Announcements, Summerfest

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