SPACE CITY ROCK: SCR Blog

ABOUT THIS BLOG

The official Space City Rock Blog, featuring news on local Houston musical happenings and occurances, random venting about various things, and fervent ravings on the wonders of music, art, film, and anything else.

E-mail news, info, death threats, etc., to "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com"

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ms. rosa // 11:53 AM

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Steven // 2:00 AM

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Sonia // 9:40 PM

Jay Lee // 12:44 AM

I Drink Your Milkshake! [8/28/2008 03:57:00 PM]:

Okay, not exactly; that's just what pops into my sugar-addled brain every time the topic of oil comes up (my daughter now thinks it's hysterically funny to say, btw, particularly w/a silly accent). I'm getting a bit irked about all the pro-drilling stupidity going on, and, well, Daniel Day-Lewis's insane-yet-still-kinda-right declaration seems appropriate to the ridiculousness going on with the debate over whether or not we should open up more of the U.S., offshore and on, to drilling. So here's my own take on it -- those not wanting to hear the politics and/or my ranting, tune out now.

I'm going to put this in as blunt and straightforward a way as possible: if you think that letting oil companies drill in more places here in the States is going to lower the price you pay to fill your SUV, you've either been conned by the propaganda or you're just a flat-out moron.

For one thing, the traditional economics of supply-and-demand have little to do with the price U.S. oil companies are gouging us with at the pump -- they're just trying to make as big of a buck off of us as they can, raising prices as high as we're willing to stand. It's not that oil companies don't have enough oil for us, so therefore they're forced to raise their prices; from some pundits I've heard, you'd think the reason those po' widdle oil companies have raised prices so drastically in the past few years is because they just can't pull enough petroleum from our cherished U.S. soil, and so they're forced (forced, I tell you!) to go overseas for oil, where it's more expensive.

This is utter crap. We Americans consume 25% of the world's oil yet have only 2% of the world's proven reserves, including the areas where the Bush admin & their cronies want to open up drilling. So oil companies are going to have to go to overseas oil no matter what the hell we do, just like they have for years, even back when gas was below $2 a gallon. There's no way with the current demand for us to get all our oil from beneath U.S. soil. The only way to fix that problem is to lower the demand, but that's apparently something our government's not real concerned about (and, for obvious reasons, neither are the oil companies).

Plus, the rhetoric sure makes it sound like all those dastardly, America-hating environmentalists have somehow blocked 'merican oil companies from drilling in the dirt of their native-born home; I mean, they wouldn't be so hot to drill in new places if they already had places they could drill here at home, right? Not quite. Lookie here. From the looks of that map -- taken from Dept. of the Interior & Bureau of Land Management data -- oil companies can already stick a drill bit into most of the western United States and much of the Gulf of Mexico (apparently the eastern area's thought to be tapped out, since it's an extension of the western area, and, yes, I drink your milkshake! -- sorry, couldn't help it), plus most of northern Alaska, with just about all of Alaska's offshore areas wide-open. Roughly 80% of the country's offshore oil fields are open for leasing right now, and only 20% of the areas already leased are producing.

And, contrary to what Sean Hannity apparently thinks (or chooses to lie about, however you'd like to look at it), yes, there is oil in all those existing leases. In the offshore areas alone, there's an estimated four times more recoverable oil than the total amount the pro-drilling crew is saying we could get out of those untapped areas they're trying to get open. That's 86 (or so) billion barrels of oil in areas oil companies already lease. We think, anyway. Because it's all guesswork, on some level -- nobody's really got any clue for sure how much is out there, on either side.

If we did know for absolute certain, though, would that make a difference? Hell, there are apparently fewer oil rigs operating in North America now than in past years, despite the fact that these folks could drill in a ton of places. And drilling in ANWR, where right-wingers and business-firsters have been dying to drill for years? Yeah, that'd lower the price of gas by about a nickel, a decade or two from now. Assuming the oil companies even bother to exploit their newly-granted concessions. Which they might not do.

Why don't they drill where they already can? Got me. I'd guess it has to do with drilling being costly business; any oil company that tries to drill in too many places at once is going to run out of capital eventually. Plus, rigs themselves take time to build -- the hardware just doesn't currently exist to exploit every single possible oil field. Of course, there's also the reality that it's in some ways cheaper to drill overseas (since that's where the finished product's going to end up anyway, but I'll get to that), in places like Nigeria where oil companies can pay the government to look the other way and do whatever the fuck they want, consequences be damned.

Why bother drilling at home, with all those pesky "no-toxic-sludge!" regulations and oversight bodies, when you can drill somewhere nobody in your home country thinks twice about? And no, that's not likely to change if domestic drilling gets expanded, despite the promises of people like Charles Krauthammer, who somehow got temporary amnesia and forgot that yes, we did have spills when both Rita and Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Barring a colossal shift in power in Nigeria and other oil-rich/cash-poor countries around the world, it's going to remain cheaper to drill there than here.

(Okay, so Nigeria's a bad example, since the Nigerians have taken matters into their own hands and are trying to make it too costly for companies to drill there; they've done enough damage that now they're not the biggest exporter in Africa. The new no. 1, though, Angola, isn't much better.)

As I hinted at above, by the way, even if we did let oil companies drill wherever the hell they wanted to, where's the guarantee that it's "our" oil? That's the point of an oil lease, after all -- you get to take the oil/gas out of the ground and sell it to whomever you want. Meaning, in this case, probably to China, which is our biggest competitor for petroleum world-wide.

Heard that myth about the Chinese drilling off the coast of Cuba? It's total bunk -- they haven't drilled a thing yet, although they've got an agreement with Cuba to drill on their land one of these days. But heck, they don't need to drill in American waters to get our oil. All they have to do is offer more per barrel than we're willing to pay. If we get oil out of newly-opened Atlantic or Gulf waters, a decade down the line, where's the oil going to go? To the highest bidder, folks. Think appealing to the oil companies' sense of patriotic duty is going to do a bit of good? Somehow I suspect the only color they're going to answer to is green...

The funny thing is that the oil companies' pump-side price-gouging appears to be shooting them in the foot; they've apparently pushed us Americans too dang far, to the point where we've taken matters into our own hands and -- gasp! -- quit using as much gas & oil as we used to. Seriously; according to the Energy Information Administration (part of the Dept. of Energy), when gas prices leapt up last summer, consumer demand started falling like a rock, with people cutting back pretty severely because they just couldn't afford the price of gas.

Oh, and they're flocking to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, abandoning those monolithic Excursions in favor of Accords and Focuses (Foci?). And now that people aren't buying the gas, the oil companies are forecast to start dropping prices back to somewhat-saner levels very shortly, bringing demand back up, although the EIA's prognosis is that consumer demand won't get back up to what it was in early '07. Check out the graph (the vertical line is where we are now):

Now, to me this begs the question: how is it that the U.S. is supposedly so severely strapped for oil that we desperately need to drill in previously-protected areas, and yet when people go cold turkey and quit buying it, the price can magically drop back to what it was a year or so ago? Is the EIA projecting that the oil companies will miraculously find their old, sucked-dry oil leases happily refilled with Texas tea, with the likeness of Jesus's face mysteriously appearing on the derrick girders? Or is it just that the oil companies, their media lackeys, and the governmental shills they pay to smooth things out for 'em are all full of shit?

Labels: Political Stuff, Random Rambling

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Seaweed Postponed 'til the Cold Winds Blow [8/27/2008 11:38:00 PM]:

Crap. It's been a long, long, looooong time since I listened to any Seaweed, but the announcement that they'd reformed & were coming through town had me pretty excited -- felt like I'd stepped into the Wayback Machine and rewound back to college, all of a sudden. I was rarin' to get my mid-'90s indie-rock on. Now, though, it appears the show (which was scheduled for October 18th at Walter's) is postponed to a later date.

From the I Heart U crew comes this terse message:

Scheduling conflict with the band.
Tickets will be refunded this week,and they are working on a make up date.

The upside, of course, is that there are at least plans for a makeup show, so that's cool -- better than cold-turkey Andrew W.K.-ing us unfortunate Houstonians, yo. Per the band's Myspace, they're hoping to swing back through Texas (it's all TX dates, not just us, that're being pushed) sometime around Christmas.

In the meantime, now I've just got to dig up a copy of Spanaway. Because sadly, no, I own no Seaweed in any form other than crappy-sounding, half-melted tapes I dubbed in secret up in the old KTRU Music Library. I was but a po' college student on work-study, after all, w/little $$$ to buy the millions of albums I desperately wanted...

Labels: Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To Do

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Gone Too Soon [8/26/2008 01:04:00 AM]:

No, she wasn't in a band (that I know of, anyway), and you're not likely to have seen or heard of her unless you went to the same college I did, but hearing that she's left us has hit me hard, all the same.

Trust me when I say that when I knew her (too darn long ago, now) she was a pretty amazing kid, always smiling and making people laugh. I'm sorry to see you go, Emma. I know it's got to be beautiful wherever you are now.

Labels: Random Rambling

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Is Pandora Next? [8/21/2008 03:11:00 PM]:

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Yes, it makes total fucking horribly perfect sense that once the Powers That Be (in this case, the Copyright Royalty Board, rather than the RIAA, but they're all heads of the same terrible beast) took down Muxtape, they'd go after dear, sweet, kind Pandora. And yes, they are. Crap, crap, crap, with an extra side helping of crap.

Man, this frustrates me. It's starting to smell like there's some kind of Vast Bad-Music Conspiracy dedicated to forcing you, me, my little brother, and all our coworkers from ever listening to anything other than horrible, awful mainstream radio stations ever again. Can somebody please explain to me why, exactly, places like Pandora are forced to pay insanely-expensive per-song fees, when plain-old radio stations (the satellite stations apparently pay fees, too, but they're smaller) have to pay squat?

"Want to hear some new music, based on stuff you already know you like? Whoops! Not any more, sorry...here, listen to some Nickelback -- you'll love it, trust me. You went out and downloaded that obscure-as-hell album by Grammar Debate!, and now you'd like to create a virtual mixtape so you can share it with your friends? Uh, no, that's not actually allowed, either. What was that? You're fed up and want to start your own radio station, so you can let other people listen to the cool music you like? Well, heck -- good luck with that! No law against it, of course, but I hope you've got some friends with deep, deep pockets, 'cause we Americans don't hand over our airwaves to just anybody, y'know..."

One final interesting wrinkle: it turns out that the Powers That Be don't really like radio all that much, after all. Back in June, the recording industry group musicFIRST laid the smackdown on broadcasters nationwide, claiming that they were themselves pretty much pirates because they didn't pay for the songs they play. Hoo-ah. So, not only do the labels & their cohorts want to kill The Little Guy, but they want to hurt The Big Boys, too. (I wouldn't be fooled by the fact that actual musicians/bands are signed up w/musicFIRST, by the by; when the RIAA is involved in anything these days, that makes me question the group's overall motives.)

Now, the thought of The Buzz & its ilk getting shot down by their pals in the record industry makes me snicker a little, it's true, but I'm totally mystified as to what the hell they think they're really going to accomplish with all this. What's the end goal of this whole mess, anyway? To destroy any outlet for music other than Wal-Mart?

(Thanks to Hear Ya for the link...)

Labels: Entertainobabble, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 4 comments

Mux No More? [8/20/2008 12:01:00 PM]:

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 Heart Chris Bell (& Off the Kuff) [8/18/2008 01:22:00 PM]:

I've sung the guy's praises before, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that I'm happy as heck to see Chris Bell once again running for office. He was my Rep. for a very short time before being redistricted down to the Texas/Mexico border by Tom DeLay and his state legislature cronies as payback for going after DeLay for ethics violations (seriously; look it up), and he always impressed me quite a bit both there and in the H-town City Council. I backed his run for Governor in '06 and watched in dismay as he lost to Governor "Goodhair" Perry, so I'm glad he hasn't given up but is trying to get back on the horse, albeit at a lower level.

He's running for the Texas (not national; see Rick Noriega, who's also a good guy, for that) Senate this time out, trying for the seat left open by Repub Kyle Janek, who moved from Houston to Austin last year & therefore couldn't represent his H-town constituency. The Repubs appear to be falling all over themselves to find a replacement for Janek, but Bell's stepped in strongly, and his push for better healthcare & education for Texans, more oversight on Big Bidness, and real-live ethics up in Austin has made him an impressive contender, at least from where I sit.

To put it bluntly, I really like the guy. He's honest, straightforward, and smart, and was astoundingly responsive back when he was in the U.S. Congress -- to date he's the only politician I've ever gotten a non-form response from, and I think that says something. Excellent local politiblogger Charles Kuffner over at Off the Kuff has a really nice interview up (in MP3 format) w/Bell on his site; check it out here.

Labels: Political Stuff, Random Rambling

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

Ditchwater on Wednesday [8/18/2008 12:57:00 PM]:

Yes, I definitely live in the digitalized-to-hell online world, it's true, but that doesn't mean I don't still keep warm a quiet, soft spot in my heart/soul for things made of paper. Once upon a time I scoured zine racks at SoundEx & Soundwaves, trying to find the coolest, most intriguing, most eye-opening/mind-blowing zines I could dig up, some local and some not (e.g., Punk Planet, I'm Not Afraid, Beer Frame, Cometbus, Brown Paper Sack, Velvet Comics).

These days, well, the realms of zinedom have shrunk considerably, I'm guessing due both to the advent of the Interwebs and cheap-ass blogging technology and the steadily-rising cost of living. I have run across some new(-ish) zine-like things in recent years, but not nearly as many as I used to. Which makes me sad.

One strange benefit of the Great Zine Die-Off, however, seems to be that the survivors tend to be very good. Take one of the newest arrivals, local photo/scene icon Rosa Guerrero's excellent, excellent, excellent Ditchwater photo-zine. Now, I dunno about you, but as cool as things like Flickr can be, I still get a weird thrill when I look at real-live printed pitchers, and with Ditchwater, that's what Rosa serves up -- all pictures, little text, no filler. Seriously, the zine's damn neat; if you've ever wanted a glimpse into the sordid, self-referencing, sarcastically earnest underbelly of the H-town scene, well, you can feast your eyes upon DW's often-candid, sometimes-dirty, always-intriguing Xeroxed pages.

To me, it's especially cool to witness Rosa's evolution as a photographer, which is why I'm totally looking forward to this Wednesday, August 20th, 'cause I'll be attempting to escape the house/couch in favor of the official, real-live, free release party for Ditchwater #2 at Sound Exchange. I'm dying to see the new stuff & how it compares, esp. since Rosa seems to magically appear at every cool show in town, camera in hand. What she's doing is documenting our scene in all its down-and-dirty glory, and that is absolutely the coolest thing, to me.

So, do like I'm going to try to do and get on out. Like I said, the party itself's free (although the zine's not, but that's kind of the point), it runs from 7-9PM, and it'll feature musical guests Chocolate Crucifix, about whom I know zero but a name (okay, and the fact that they're from Pasadena). Oh, and free Smarties will be available to all, in case that's what really gets you motivated.

Additional Memo to Narcissistic Wannabe-Scenesters: while I can't say for certain, I'm guessing pictures will be taken at the party, so if you want to maybe get yourself etched into the photographic record of the most bad-ass music scene currently in existence -- and no, I'm not making fun -- get your ass to SoundEx and somehow make yourself photogenic. Just don't be the annoying person who jumps in front of everybody. Nobody likes that.

Labels: Arty Shit, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To Do, Things To Read

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Wreckless Eric! Amy Rigby! [8/17/2008 09:23:00 AM]:

I feel almost sacreligeous mentioning this right now, given the bad-bad-bad local news of the day/weekend, but fuck, I need the good to balance out the bad. And the good is that Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby (who happens to be Eric's wife, as of this past April) are apparently playing September 14th at The Mink, along with Mom & Voices + Organs. Holy fucking wow.

If you've got no clue who Eric is, well, he's one of only a handful songwriters left from the big wave of British power-pop back in the late '70s & early '80s, up there with the likes of Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, & Elvis Costello. He's best known for his one real "hit," "Whole Wide World," which is a beautiful bit of pop songwriting genius that is so unpretentiously simple and straightforward that it hits that perfect spot right between your heart & gut, something few songs ever do. Check it here:

Of course, girlfriend-and-now-wife Rigby's no slouch, either -- hell, our man Marc actually interviewed her a few years ago, and we've long been impressed w/her music, too. It does my soul good to see two talented-yet-underrecognized people like this meet and get together, seriously, especially when it means they put out new stuff and tour all the way down here to Houston. Kudos to the Pegstar people for making this happen. I'm over the moon, seriously.

(Oh, and ignore the tour dates listed on Wreckless Eric's website, btw; apparently the duo canceled their New Orleans show to play Houston. phew...)

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To Do

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Toypunks at the Aurora, Tonight & Tomorrow [8/16/2008 04:11:00 PM]:

In somewhat cheerier news: the awesome-sounding Toypunks documentary will be showing tonight & tomorrow night (August 16th-17th) at the Aurora Picture Show. Showtimes are 8PM tonight & 3PM tomorrow.

The film looks at the crazy, Technicolor world of Japanese toys, which these days blend in with fashion, design, and art in general, w/lots of interviews with influential people in the field. Houston-based (I think?) filmmakers Chris Nelson and Carl Wormley will be there to show the movie, and Nelson's doing a talk at the Menil on Sunday at 1PM called "Video Salon: From Superflat to Anime Network to Toypunks". I have yet to see the movie, but it sounds damn cool to me (and no, I'm not a Japanese toy junkie)...

(Thanks, btw, to the Domy folks for the heads-up!)

Labels: Arty Shit, Moo-vies, Random Rambling, Things To Do, Things To See

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A Few Changes (For the Good, I Swear) [8/16/2008 12:47:00 AM]:

phew. Well, that wasn't nearly as painful as it could've been -- as of late-late last night, Space City Rock is officially off Old Crappy Expensive Webhost and on New Smooth-Running Cheap(er) Webhost, and with any luck, most folks won't have noticed any difference. If you do find something broken/weird on the site, definitely let me know; I haven't checked every page yet...

Anyway, I'm posting this partly because, well, I can. Whee! Y'see, the whole Blogger-and-Network-Solutions thing has been fucking up my blogging capability for so damn long that I'd cringe every time I wanted to put something up. My mind would immediately flash back to the last time I tried, posting and re-posting and re-posting and re-posting and re-posting for an hour or so each time before giving up and coming back later on, fingers crossed that maybe this time it'd done its thing while I was gone. It was killing me, seriously. Blogging was up there with weedwhacking the back yard on The List of Painfully Annoying Things I Don't Enjoy, and that's not a good place to be.

But no more, dammit. I'm free, free, free, finally, after far too long. It'll probably take a little while to work out the kinks w/the new webhost, but hopefully this'll mean more posting from yours truly -- more weird crap culled from the Interwebs, more not-so-fresh local music news, more political babbling, the works. All the good stuff, naturally.

BTW, the migration also kicked me towards making a few minor tweaks to the main SCR page design; namely, I finally got rid of the old "Subliminals" thing up there at the top that most people probably didn't even realize was there & that I hadn't updated in, oh, 2 years or so. It makes me a little sad to see it gone, yeah, esp. since it'd survived from the very start of the long-ago print 'zine days, but it was a maintenance nightmare and not real useful. Rest in peace, little buddy.

Actually, though, it's gone only in physical form, not in spirit. The "Currently Rocking" section is toast now, too, replaced with a list of neato things I/we enjoy just called "Stuff We Like". This is where all the old Subliminals stuff will go from now on, updated more regularly and there for all to see. Enjoy...

Labels: Admin Stuff, Random Rambling

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Sun, Shows, & Shyness: Secret Saturday/Sunday + Missing Ariel Pink (& Getting Balaclavas, Instead!) [8/08/2008 02:30:00 AM]:

Sorry for the quiet, folks -- we've had to undergo some fairly major behind-the-scenes changes of late, site-wise, and things aren't quite yet working the way I'd like, so I've been having to put off the ranting/philosophizing a bit. Basically, Blogger started up with its semi-monthly Bartleby phase again, refusing to post sometimes 'til a day or two after I put in the actual post (if the post goes up at all), and only then after much kicking and re-posting.

I'm feeling a bit bad about being so hard on Blogger, though, because I realized somewhat belatedly that the problem was actually on the Network Solutions (our ISP) end. Switch to a different hosting company, and -- poof! -- my Blogger problems go away. Damn. Sorry, Blogger crew... Unfortunately, the hosting switch isn't complete yet, so this post may yet be delayed by a week or so (who knows?); once I get a few last kinks ironed out, though, this whole deal will be much, much better. I hope. Keep your fingers crossed, eh?

(BTW, yes, this site will be transitioning to WordPress one day soon -- thanks to Marshall for technical assistance on figuring out how to import the posts -- but that process is going slowly, mostly due to me being totally new to it & not having a whole heck of a lot of time...)

Part 1: Secret Saturday/Sunday
Anyway, administrivia out of the way, I wanted to post a bit about how damn cool last weekend's Secret Saturday/Sunday Festival at The Shady Tavern turned out to be. I didn't end up being able to bring The Midget with me -- The Wife declared that the sun would fry her wee brain like an egg, despite my protestations that there would be shade, and we'd be in it -- but I did make it down for a couple of hours on Saturday and had a blast.

I pulled up just as The Tontons started their set, so I was over the moon about that -- between this performance and their set at the HPMAs, I'm seriously impressed by this band. They're honestly one of the best bands I've seen lately, and that's out of a big, big list. Frontwoman Asli is really something else, even cooking in the summertime heat, and the rest of the band are like a finely-tuned machine. I felt for the Tontons' drummer, though, since the poor guy's kit happened to be situated just out from under the edge of the gazebo/stage where they played, enough that he had the sun beating down on him the whole damn time. Gah...

Hung out a bit with the guys from Co-Pilot after that, despite missing their set (sorry, you guys! I swear I got their as fast I could...). Chatting with Derek is always fun; he's one of the few survivors left around from The Kinda-Good Ole Days when I attempted the music-making thing myself, having played shows with my long-dead band as the frontguy of Scooter (who I still miss, honest) and then drifted out of the musical orbit the same way I did for a few years there. It always feels like he & I are kind of at the same place in our respective lives, so it's cool to talk to him on those rare occasions when Co-Pilot plays. Plus, I got to meet brother/guitarist Brandon for the first time, after having emailed back & forth a good dozen times, so that was a good thing.

While I sat & chilled -- quite literally, camped out in front of the big-ass fan -- with the CP folk, Lazy Horse took the "inside" stage, playing to a fairly big crowd of onlookers. I'd never seen 'em before and, seeing as there was no published schedule, had no freakin' clue who they were, but they turned out to be a decent garage-y punk band (and quite a bit, uh, older than I'd thought they'd be).

I also noticed the "Media Center" table tucked away inside the Tavern at this point, and suddenly felt ridiculously media-inadequate watching ADR from The Skyline Network and who I think was Dusti Rhodes from the Houston Press both liveblogging the shit out of the show (nice, nice coverage, y'all, seriously...). Sadly, I'd not only left my laptop at home, but the whole blogging thing was totally down right then as I attempted Stage 1 of the Grand Transition Away from Network Solutions. sigh. Next time, dammit. Good guy that he is, ADR said hello as he careened by on his way to talk to some band or another (or, hell, maybe he was just heading for the beer; I dunno)...

After Lazy Horse came Hearts of Animals (I think; I may be confusing the chronology a wee bit), so I forced myself to move away from the comfort of the fan and step out into the blazing sun again to hear Mlee & Cley weave some bubbly/hazy sunshiny melodies. I don't think I've had a bad time seeing HoA yet, and this was no exception. There were some technical difficulties, like the mic shocking Mlee every time she got near it, but it all seemed to work out pretty well.

As she played, I happened to finally meet Jason from local rockers Alkari, after many emails exchanged -- he recognized me & introduced himself, and turned out to live right down the road from me, weirdly enough, down here in the SW H-town 'hood. We chatted a bit 'til HoA wrapped up, and then I started thinking about how I could gracefully bail & go meet the fam for dinner.

I ran into Steven from Something Fierce, though, who commanded me to not leave 'til after he'd played (and maybe stay for UME, after), 'cause they were going on next. In the meantime, Like Yeah took the interior stage with her acoustic & big-ass sunglasses and was unexpectedly charming for a solo folky singer/guitarist-type thing. I found myself enjoying it in spite of myself.

And then, Something Fierce. I swear to God, they get better each time I see 'em -- they ripped the roof off, with a little help from an, ah, enthusiastic friend of the band whose name I'm blanking on & who charged out in a dress & not much else to dance to the raw-yet-tuneful rawk. It's funny, but while one of the reasons I love SF is the sheer ferocity (duh) of their guitars, I also love 'em because underneath lurk some damn fine, nearly classic-style pop songs. The new stuff I've heard brings that to the fore a bit more than the louder/angrier old stuff, so I'm seriously looking forward to checking out the in-the-works full-length. And the show was made all the more entertaining by the two preteen girls sitting out the far door of the "stage" and occasionally throwing sticks or rocks at the band while they rocked out. Ah, kids...

After that, I really and truly did have to bail, stopping to chat w/organizer J.D. (also ex-Over Sea, Under Stone, current Lenny Briscoe) about the show he'd put on. I told him the best thing about the whole deal was the laid-back, no-pressure atmosphere -- something Derek & I'd talked about earlier on -- like shows from when yours truly was a lot younger, and how I missed stuff like that. It didn't feel like the Scene Police were on hand, just a bunch of people getting together to see some bands, not even caring necessarily which bands they caught, 'cause they were all great. (Which is true, btw.) I drove home smiling, thinking about how awesome it all was.

Part Two: Tonight at Walter's
I hate to say it, but for me shows at Walter's are the antithesis of laid-back. It's partly the fact that it's a "venue" more than a "bar," a place where you go to see bands and not just to hang out -- at least, I don't think many people do, since there aren't nearly enough chairs. At the same time, though, it's also just more of a stressful situation than the above, in that I generally do care about when Band X is going on, I rarely run into people I know (unless I forcibly drag 'em there myself), and I always feel tense just being there. I don't drink or smoke, so what the hell can I do while Band X breaks down & Band Y sets up?

This isn't a judgment on Walter's or the folks who put on or play shows there, mind you; this is me, pure and simple. I've just gotten to the point where late-night shows when I can't cajole a friend into coming out just aren't fun for me anymore, y'know? I'm officially Old, I know, but I found myself wishing at several points tonight that I could just go home & read the new Hellboy: Darkness Calls I got at the bookstore earlier in the evening.

I think part of the problem is that I'm really not much a part of The Scene anymore. I just flat-out don't know very many people, so there's often nobody at a show that I know and/or can talk to unless, hell, I bring 'em with me. I'm trying to work on that, though -- in the past, I've really almost prized my anonymity, at least w/most people. There would be a few people who knew me, a somewhat larger number of people who knew me but who didn't know I did the site, and a ton of people who don't know me at all or that I do this thing. And I kind of liked it that way. I'm generally pretty shy, so I have to work up a bit of nerve to say "hi" to somebody & tell them I like what they're doing, and the relative anonymity made me feel secure somehow.

On top of that, I'm a bad, bad, bad, horrible, awful self-promoter. I suck at it. I just hate doing it, I feel cheesy doing it, so I don't. I cringe like a freak on those rare occasions where I "out" myself and say, "yeah, I do this Website called Space City Rock." Not that because I do this SCR thing, I'm part of some bastion of utter coolness, though -- in fact, that's kind of my point. When I say that, I feel like the cheeseball guy who looks at the doorman at the club, perplexed, and says, "do you have any idea who I am?" 'Cause honestly, I'm nobody special. Somebody referred to me recently as a "celebrity," and while he meant it in a very, very cool way, my immediate reaction was to want to run & hide. This site is special, sure -- I'm proud of it, and I definitely think that it is -- but me, no way. I'm not the important part, here.

That said, I am trying to be less of a hermit, these days. I'm trying to be braver about introducing myself to folks, whether they're scenesters, musicians, media types, or whatever else, because I'm starting to feel like isolating myself and running away is a bad idea. For one thing, eschewing the self-promotion also means maybe missing a chance to promote SCR and the bands/musicians we like. Which is pretty dumb. And I'll admit that I do get tired of staring blankly at the floor or scribbling notes to myself on scraps of paper in-between bands, when I could be talking w/people I've at least met and talked to before.

So, if some random guy named Jeremy comes up to you, says hello, & tells you he really likes your band, I swear he's not a stalker or anything; he just wants to chat with you music-making people. (No mace, please.)

Anyway. This is what happens when I stay up too late, all foggy-headed to begin with, and have free access to the computer with only Bessie Smith as background... So I went up to Walter's tonight in part to see a couple of local bands I've been meaning to see for a long time and in part because writer Brandon encouraged me to check out headliner Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. (I tried, man, I swear...) I'd been kicked out of the house for the evening so the moms' group could get together & par-tay, so I figured it'd be a perfect time to head up to the Heights & catch some bands.

The first of the night, The Wiggins, was playing when I came in, to an almost-empty dancefloor. Which was a shame, because one-man-band Jon was damned interesting -- he beat raggedly on an electric guitar, pounding out chords that were barely audible over the distorted, dirty-as-fuck beats crashing out of his drum machine and yelling in an almost-monotone about something I couldn't figure out. All while wearing sunglasses, naturally. It was garage-y, it was noisy, it was crazy, and it was primitive, and there was something endearing to the whole mess, like listening to the Velvet Underground or The Modern Lovers. Jon Wiggins is like a man out of his time, and I wish more of the crowd there tonight had gotten where he was coming from.

The followup act, though, pretty much ruled the night for me (and for a lot of other folks, I suspect). Tonight's show was the official LP release for Balaclavas, who've re-released their six-song Inferno EP in totally remastered format; I talked with bassist Brian afterwards while snagging a copy of the vinyl, and he declared it to be a totally different listening experience from the original CDEP, with a shitload more bottom-end and a very different sound throughout. Haven't tried it yet, but I'm hoping to give the CD & the LP a side-by-side test this weekend, so I'll let you know how it goes...

I'm serious when I say the band ruled, by the way. I'd hear the two EPs before, but I'd never seen Balaclavas do their thing live before, and it was freaking great. They play this wiry, riding-the-edge kind of post-punk, the kind I don't hear nearly enough of these days. Okay, let me amend that: I don't hear enough good stuff like this these days. These three guys bring the spirit of Gang of Four or Wire more than anybody I've heard in quite a while, local, national, or international. Bassist Brian and drummer Charlie(?) lope along underneath with almost a reggae/dub feel, while guitarist/keyboardist Tyler(again, ?) screeches, chimes, and howls over the top. Awesome stuff to hear, even with the technical problems the band had to deal with tonight.

I didn't realize Wicked Poseur or out-of-towners Chairlift were playing tonight, so seeing them each threw me off a bit, unfortunately. Wicked Poseur were intriguing, with the dual-guitar attack and all, but it felt like the crowd (including me) just wasn't into it. Sorry, y'all... Same goes for Chairlift, but the NYers ended up actively irking the crap out of me by taking what felt like a half-hour to tweak the sound in their monitors. Yes, at Walter's, where the sound isn't bad, mind you, but it's definitely more bare-bones than a lot of places. It just seemed over-the-top, esp. for a band nobody knew was playing opening for a band people were dying to see (i.e., Ariel Pink). The band's singer/keyboardist kept putting off the crowd, telling them "don't worry, guys, it'll be worth it." My response: eh, not really.

So I did the Old Dude thing, and I bailed. Didn't get to see Ariel Pink, sadly, but I just couldn't hack it any longer, I'm afraid. Ah, well. Maybe another time...

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Random Rambling

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Metal Ain't Cheap, Y'all [8/01/2008 02:36:00 PM]:

No, I'm not talking about those cheesy "we'll buy your scrap metal and strip your wires for free!" ads on late-night TV, but about the upcoming Rock the Bayou metalliganza that's coming this Labor Day, August 29th-September 1st, over at what used to be Astro World (S. side of 610 at the Astrodome/Reliant Stadium/etc.) but has been re-christened (at least temporarily) the Rock the Bayou Grounds.

The four-day festival features nearly every cheese-metal band you've ever heard of, with only a few exceptions (what, no White Lion? no Sleeze Beez or Winger?), and includes some of the more obscure me