Sorry I haven't been able to more fully run down the piles and piles of SXSW-bound bands overflowing into Super Happy Fun Land as part of their SXSW Overflow Fest this weekend -- spent some much-needed time with the fam this weekend, instead, hiking around the Arboretum and then getting buried up to my head in freezing-ass cold sand, and y'know, that stuff kinda wins out, so...

At any rate, I've had the headphones on a while now and have tried to pick out some of the cooler-sounding bands playing in the next few days; see below for what I like for tonight (which is pretty much all of the bands playing, honestly), Monday, March 15th:

GUYSTORM: Surprisingly good, actually, and I'm not generally a huge fan of the whole nu-New Wave electrofunk thing; this makes me think of Radio 4 more than anything else, with the insistent, scraping white-boy funk guitars, mid-fi production, paranoiac lyrics, and overly dramatic vocals. There's also a serious Rapture influence going on, and I get weird hints of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (good Chili Peppers, mind you) in the guitars, to boot. BTW, I can't tell what these folks' name actually is -- it might be just "Guystorm", or it could be "The Guystorm". I've heard it both ways...

LIGHT POLLUTION: I'm not able to find a whole lot about Chicagoans Light Pollution online, unfortunately, but what little I can find is fairly cool -- there's one song, "Good Feelings," and it does a nicely swirly-sounding dreampop rave-up thing with military-style drums and soaring vocals, kind of like a Brit-ified version of The Arcade Fire. They've got more stuff, obviously, and were signed just this month to well-respected indie label Carpark Records (the sometime home of Dan Deacon, Ear Pwr, Toro y Moi, & other cool folks), which is a damn good sign. Check out that one song I've heard so far for yourself right here, should you feel so inclined:

Light Pollution - "Good Feelings" (MP3)

SHELLSHAG: Yes, it's another guy/girl drums-and-guitar lo-fi duo, and they're from Brooklyn, no less. Don't discount 'em too easily, though -- what I've heard so far has been wonderfully fuzzed-out pop with hints of early Smashing Pumpkins or Silversun Pickups (okay, yeah, that's pretty much the same thing...), plus some coolly '90s-sounding, urgent, Fastbacks-like choruses and overdriven rhythms that make me want to go back and break out my Arcwelder albums yet again. Then there's the weirdly doo-wop-sounding "Gary's Note", which comes off like Weezer covering Frankie Valli. Plus, Shellshaf skip that whole hipster-cool Williamsburg vibe completely, instead feeling more like a couple of your goofiest, quirkiest talented friends who just decided to make music for the hell of it, and that, in my book, is never a bad thing. I may have to find the band's new full-length, Rumors in Disguise, honestly...

STREET EATERS: I'll admit that I had these folks pegged as a scummy streetpunk band before I actually heard 'em -- I mean, they're from the East Bay, and they're called the Street Eaters, for crying out loud... Thankfully, they're instead a fist-pumping, anthemic indie-rock duo (yes, another) who meld awesome, Silver Scooter-esque bass-led melodies with eyes-to-the-sky chant-along vocals and politically-charged lyrics; the result is something like a more-minimalist Hüsker Düu or Parts & Labor, and that ain't no bad thing.

CHARADES: Sometimes, it honestly doesn't matter a damn bit what language you're singing in. It's true (for me, at least) with folks like fado artist Mariza, and it turns out it's true for Spanish indie-popsters Charades, too. Not speaking much Spanish beyond being able to ask where the bathroom is, order a beer, and tell you to quit messing with my dog, I've got no idea what frontwoman Isabel Reviriego is singing about, but her candy-sweet, almost Jenny Lewis-like vocals make me not care in the slightest. It helps, of course, that the music the band's playing is driving, cheery, smiling stuff like what Palomar does or what Velocity Girl used to do. (And they've got a song entitled "Harold y Maude", which automatically puts 'em over the top.)

BIRD BY BIRD: I've only got the vaguest idea who The Matches, Bird by Bird main man Jonathan Devoto's old band, are/were, but I do know writer Anne Lamott, who wrote a book my wife really loves entitled Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, so I'm immediately intrigued by the band name & wondering if Lamott was the initial inspiration. Unfortunately, the music itself makes me less interested and more [shrugging motion] "meh." It's mid-tempo, melodic, friendly-yet-melancholy guitar rock that kind of fudges the line between Dashboard Confessional and more cheeseball alternarock. It's not bad, strictly, but it's not great, either.

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

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

Sadly, while I get a fair amount of H-town music news-like stuff sent my way, lately I've been having a hard time keeping up. There was a time when I tried to post every damn bit of Houston-related news I could find up here, but these days, there's just too much, and I've got too little time to digest it all, y'know? So the murky, shark-infested depths of my Inbox currently has a whole bunch of stuff floating in it where I've looked at it and thought, "ooh, yeah -- oughta post about that!" And then...well, there're only so many hours in a day.

Happily, these days it's not on my head alone to post about stuff like this -- hell, it hasn't been for quite a while now, really, although I was feeling the weight when The Skyline Network burned out & closed up shop. Lately the Houston Press has had the ever-talented Brittanie Shey doing her excellent "Magnolia City Mixtape" roundups of anything and everything Houston music-related under the sun (basically, anything that gets sent to her, I think), and now HP Music Editor Chris Gray's stepped into that particular ring, too, with his "Bayou Beat" stuff.

Plus, there's Houstonist, where new Editor (congrats again, man!) Marc Brubaker sorts through his own pile of news-y stuff and posts it online as his "Rock Talk" column. And then, of course, there's a ton of less-centralized scene news on/in 29-95.com, IndieHouston, Free Press Houston & Houston Calling.

(And yes, I know there're a ton of other local blogs/zines/etc. out there right now, but these seem to be the ones that focus the most on the local stuff. Matthew Wettergreen did a cool two-part rundown on local media types right over here and here.)

Step back and think about that for a second, folks. Right now there're at least six (well, seven, if you count SCR) well-known online outlets -- two of which are Big Media (no offense, New Times, but you are Big Media these days) endeavors -- posting what could, at least in some instances, basically be characterized as Houston scene gossip. And that is fucking awesome.

What that says to me, y'all, is that Houston's really and truly to the point of taking its own music seriously -- thanks to the hard work and diligence of a lot of people in bands, in media, and in booking groups, I should add -- even if the rest of the world barely knows we exist. Every time I see some squabble on a message board/comments list about how local coverage here sucks because paper/magazine/site X doesn't write about band Y, I have to shake my head and laugh; trust me, folks, where we are right now is light years from where we were just a decade ago, and that's a very, very good thing. Seriously, there are days when I wish I could do the Freaky Friday thing and be in a band again right NOW, instead of having to look back with nostalgia-smeared glasses at the late '90s and early '00s.

Anyway, with all that said, I still feel really, really lame for not posting about the stuff that gets sent in to the faithful "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com" mailbox, so I'm going to attempt to be more on top of things from now on. (No, really. Stop laughing, dammit.) Here goes:

• DAN AYKROYD, GRAND MARSHAL OF THE ART CARS: Yeah, this has probably been trumpeted from the rooftops by now, but what the hell, it makes me grin from ear to ear just thinking about it, so y'know... According to The Orange Show, none other than Blues Brother #2, Dan Aykroyd, will be the "Grand Marshal" for this year's 23rd Annual Art Car Parade on May 8th. He'll be kicking off the parade and then hanging out in the VIP area with, um, whoever else hangs out in the VIP area at these things (Houston has VIPs -- who knew?). Now, I'm not generally the fanboy type, these days, but I'm sorely, sorely tempted to try to sneak in, just so I can shake the hand of Elwood Blues/Dr. Peter Venkman/Grocer. How burly & mean could Security at the Art Car Parade actually be, right?

• KTRU LIVE, VOL. 2 IN THE WORKS: Cool, cool, cool. I picked up the inaugural KTRU Live comp a few months later than most of the in-the-know crew, I think (had a hard time actually finding a copy; thank you SoundEx!), but even given the lateness of it, I was mightily impressed. Ian over at KTRU did a brilliant job of culling the best damn recordings from some of the high-flyers of our little scene. And yes, know he and his KTRU cohorts are reportedly currently working on Vol. 2, which will apparently be a double album (woo!) with performances by folks like Roky Moon & Bolt, The Literary Greats, & Robert Ellis, among others. Hot damn. Gonna have to try to grab hold of that a little quicker, this time...

• ASH WILLIAMS -- ER, I MEAN BRUCE CAMPBELL ROLLS INTO TOWN!: How did I not hear about this 'til yesterday, when a coworker randomly mentioned it? It seems that at this year's Comicpalooza comics/sci-fi/horror/etc. convention (coming March 26-28 at George R. Brown), one of the featured guests on Saturday, March 27th will be none other than Bruce Campbell, of Evil Dead/Army of Darkness/Briscoe County, Jr./Burn Notice fame. Wow. From what I hear, he's not only a hysterically funny actor but a genuinely nice, down-to-earth guy, to boot. Oh, and other guests include Nicholas Brendon, aka Xander from Buffy, and two of my favorite nerdboy heroes from my D&D-loving, Dragon Magazine-reading youth, Phil Foglio and Larry Elmore. Might have to let my inner geek go play...

• WHILE YOU WERE GONE GIVES AWAY A SONG: Okay, so they don't really "give it away" so much as "trade it for your email address," but eh, I'm okay with that, personally... Local emo-ish rockers While You Were Gone are offering up a free MP3 of the song "Pretty Lights," off the band's stellar 2009 release, Winter/Summer, so long as you sign up for the band's mailing list. Which, hey, isn't a bad trade, at least not to me. Head over here to sign on & grab the MP3.

  The band also recently started working with Restless Management, who've worked in the past with quasi-big-namers like Forever The Sickest Kids, Ivoryline, & Sick Puppies. Hopefully that'll give the band a bit of a leg up.

• LATCH KEY KIDS RECORDING: My favorite back-from-the-dead pop-punk-core band of the '90s, the Latch Key Kids, have been busy bees lately, working this past January & February on a brand-freaking-new full-length over at SugarHill. Frontman Tim Guerinot can't say yet when the album'll be out, but he swears it'll be soon. In the meantime, they've played a few shows here in town and are headed up to the Key Bar in Austin on 3/20, then back down here to Walter's, on 3/27. Calendar-marking time...

• I-45'S STILL ALIVE? WHOA...: Speaking of back-from-the-dead bands, I'm heartened to see that "slip-hop" boys I-45 are out and about yet again, playing shows here & elsewhere. I knew Techronious/Tech Ron B had come back from Cali a while ago, but then it seemed like things fizzled out yet again -- apparently that wasn't the case. The band's playing tonight, Friday, March 12th, up at Rudyard's, and after all the SXSW madness they'll be heading out on the "Legalize the Nation" tour, with Reason To Rebel, bringing word of the joys of cannabis legalization to the South, the East, the Midwest, and the West (where they honestly probably already know, but hey).

  Keep an eye out for 'em -- I haven't seen 'em lately, but their shows back in Ye Olden Days of Houston Music were damn entertaining. And hey, check the still-entertaining video for the insanely old-school-sounding "56 Airline" on over here.

• THE PHLEGMATICS GET A DO-OVER (PLUS, GREYTOWN RESURRECTED): Got to talk a bit a little while ago with Jonas, the bassist & backup vocalist for The Phlegmatics, who says that even though their latest album, Billy the Starfighter Pilot vs. the Phlegmatics, hasn't been out all that long, the band's already planning on remixing their first two albums (Alumnus and the aforementioned one), in the process including songs that got left off the original releases. While I dig the albums the way they are, hey, I'm all for new stuff. And yes, they're also hoping to get going a real-live third album, as well.

  Beyond that, it turns out Jonas used to play in yet another old-school band I recall fondly, Greytown -- my own lame-ass band actually played with 'em once, at our one-and-only gig at The Abyss. The Greytown guys are apparently kinda-sorta reforming, too, and are starting work on new stuff for that band. Sweet.

• THE NEXT BIG H-TOWN SUPERGROUP?: I'll admit to being bummed when I learned that quasi-Nordic-themed, heavy-ass metal trio Kvalla had officially imploded when drummer Danny Mee fled to parts northwestward, but I'm happy as hell to hear that Sam from said band is now channelling his need for heavy-as-fuck, head-crushing music into new project Omotai, which also includes -- dum-da-dee-dum -- the ever-cool Melissa from Sharks and Sailors and newly-found drummer Anthony from now-dead metallers Subjugator.

  The trio are releasing their debut EP, Peace Through Fear, sometime around late April or early May, and judging by what's up on the band's Myspace, at least, it's going to be fucking epic. Heavy, sludgy, doom-y metal with thundering drums, menacing bass, and monster-stomping guitars, the kind of music that makes me want to grab the guitar and crank the amp up to 10 and pretend I'm in Helmet or something. Think Neurosis, The Ocean, Isis, or a nastier, meaner Pelican with a ridiculously better drummer. Seriously, I need to hear more.

• CITYSEARCH HOUSTON LIVES AGAIN: Recently got an email from Nikki Metzgar, who's the new editor of Citysearch Houston, a Website that used to be pretty dang neat way back in the early days of the Internets but which I'd thought had died a quiet, unnoticed death years ago. It turns out the site had still been around all along but was really dormant 'til this past October. As of now, the site's looking promising once again, Nikki promises lots of cool stuff to come.

• PARIS FALLS, ON VINYL & DIGGING THROUGH THE VAULTS: Finally, finally, finally got to see the amazing Paris Falls live and in person for the first time recently, opening for the Gold Sounds CD release (which I swear I'll blog about here soon, assuming my memory doesn't vanish completely...), and was suitably impressed. Also got to meet Ray & Jen Brown, the husband-and-wife duo who kinda run the PF show, and they were very cool folks. Ray emailed afterwards to say that the band's actually just finished up a brand-new two-song 7" single that they'll be releasing real soon -- not sure what songs are on it, though -- and that after that there'll be a really-super-limited edition free(!) album of unreleased songs and alternate takes of existing Paris Falls songs. Gonna have to keep an eye out for that...

• HANDS UP HOUSTON, TEN YEARS ON: Wow. Hard to believe it, but earlier this week it was officially ten years since the first show put on by the now-legendary Hands Up Houston booking gang -- kudos to founding members Bucky for pointing it out. HUH died something like five years ago now, with members moving on to things like Super Unison and Noise and Smoke, and in its wake it left a scene much, much improved. The HUH gang came in at a time when music in Houston was at a real low point, with touring indie bands routinely blowing past us on I-10 (which, yeah, they still do, but they do it less these days, trust me) and local bands getting zero respect from, well, pretty much anybody. They put a lot of work into making Houston's scene the cool, vibrant, astounding (yet still secret, somehow, to anybody outside of the Houston 'burbs) beast it is today. Thanks, y'all.

• AND TAMBERSAURO FANS BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF...: Okay, that's a relief. When I heard math-rock heroes Tambersauro were "on hiatus" that that was code for "we're pulling a Guilloteens and just never playing a show ever again" -- especially since the non-Myspace Website for band's own label, Esotype Records, has been taken down -- so it makes me happy as hell to learn that their fourth album, From The Last Day I Saw You, is coming out real soon on Esotype. It's a digital-only deal, at least for now, and I can't fault the band for that -- with the economy in the toilet, it's hard to justify pressing a whole bunch of CDs/LPs/whatever. Either way, it's damn good news. 2008's Theories of Delusional Origin is/was freaking great, seriously...

• BANDS WIN AWARDS, NOBODY NOTICES: I'm hardly the biggest fan in the world of local (crap-)radio station The Buzz, but it still makes me somewhat sad to see that their 2009 Texas Buzz Music Awards went just about unnoticed (that I saw, anyway) in the local non-Buzz media. The one story I saw basically shrugged and said the awards were lame because they didn't include anybody but alt-rockers or metal bands (although that's not strictly true), but hey, who cares? Don't those bands need love? The Houston Press Music Awards aren't typically handing out awards by the dozens to the alt-rock bands scraping it out in this city, and that's just as discriminatory, in my book. Houston's got multiple "scenes" -- it makes sense, then, that there should be multiple awards to accomodate 'em.

  Rant notwithstanding, the main reason I wanted to mention all this is to offer belated congratulations to the bands who won, which include one of my ultimate favorite bands in town right now, the last place you look, who took both "Best Alternative" and "Best Guitar," promising-sounding melodic emocore band Adelaine, whose singer Stormy took "Best Vocalist," and poppier rockers The 71's, who I also like and who took "Best New Band"...although, uh, I could've sworn they'd been around a couple of years now, like since 2006 or so. Am I confusing 'em with a different "The 71's"? Dunno. Aaaaanyway, SCR would like to salute all the winners and hope that next year's awards get more attention outside of the radio station's own airwaves. Congrats, folks!

• WANT TO DRUM FOR A BADASS POST-EMO BAND?: Speaking of the last place you look, it turns out that as of this week drummer Andy is bowing out of the band for personal reasons. Everything's amicable, it sounds like, but yes, now TLPYL needs new drummer. Interested? Hit 'em up on the Myspace...

• YOUNG MAMMALS STILL IN MOTION: Thankfully, while they released debut full-length Carrots last year to near-universal acclaim (from everybody but me, 'cause I can't fucking find the thing in any store in the area...argh), those energetic youngsters in Young Mammals aren't relaxing just yet. Instead, they're working on not one but two new versions of the Carrots album -- the first's a limited-edition deal with new artwork and whatnot, while the second is a limited-edition (again), hand-made cassette release with (again) new artwork that'll include download codes for people like me who no longer have cassette decks in our cars.

  Plus, they've got filmmaker/artist guy Mark Armes designing a new T-shirt, and they'll be putting out a cassette single of two brand-new songs that you'll only ever be able to get on tape. And yes, again, that'll be a limited-edition deal. Which means you should probably just stake out the front counter at SoundEx right now to get your own copy, or else you'll be one the several million people left out in the cold.

• NEW SOMETHING FIERCE TRACKS UP: Okay, so this one pretty much made my week -- it always does my soul good to be able to hear new stuff from those crazy Something Fierce kids, who seem these days to be veering more and more away from straight-ahead punk and towards Brit-style power-pop. They've always had those leanings, but man, the Undertones-esque melodies seem to've bubbled up to the surface more than ever on the three new demos they've got up on their Myspace right now.

  "Empty Screens" comes off friendly and rough-edged, charging into the room like a buddy you haven't seen in years but who's always welcome, "When You Hurt" is sweet and wonderful, with what sounds like actual keys in the background, and then "What We Need Now" throws a real curveball, tossing in Hold Steady-ish piano and a bumping, Cock Sparrer-sounding rhythm that feels like it was ripped straight off an old Peel Session or something. Sure, the tracks aren't mastered and sound kinda raw and scratchy, but hell, that only adds to their coolness. This band does more with its demos, for crying out loud, than most bands ever manage to do with their whole damn catalogue.

• KIDS BEHIND CAMERAS @ AURORA: No, it's not strictly music-related, but hell, I think it's worth mentioning anyway. The Aurora Picture Show is doing a set of Filmmaking Boot Camps for kids and teenagers this summer, running in mid-to-late July (depends on the session and age), and it sounds pretty incredible -- the Aurora folks will teach kids how to use digital video to make their own films and produce 'em using various means, and they'll expose the students in the class to all sorts of "less traditional" film and video, too. It's not exactly cheap, but it still sounds like a cool deal.

• CELEBRATING THE MENIL COMMUNITY, TOMORROW: Speaking of Aurora, btw, they've apparently got a bunch of stuff going on tomorrow, Saturday, March 13th, as part of the Menil Community Arts Festival, which is an all-day festival thing going on at the The Menil Collection and which'll include poetry, workshops, speakers, & music. Check out the site for the details...

• LOCAL VID-AGE FROM BEN WESLEY & PEEKABOO THEORY: The Houston Press has been featuring some cool, cool videos by local folks lately, and two of 'em, in particular, totally bowled me over. Check out the video for Benjamin Wesley's coolly laid-back "People Will Never Stop Being Crazy" right here, and, on the flipside, go here to see the video for Peekaboo Theory's frantically badass (and heretofore unknown to me) "Immediate Hesitation". Or, hell, just look below for the latter:

• ARTHUR YORIA, LIVE (ON CD) AT RUDZ: I swear, Arthur Yoria's got to be one of the most prolific musicians in town; it seems like every time I turn around -- poof! -- he's released a new album, or EP, or whatever, spitting out songs like it's nothing and then smiling as he walks away. And that's definitely what's happening here, although it's not "new" stuff, per se; Arthur's got a new EP, Live at Rudz, recorded back in June of last year by Joe Omelchuck and his wondrous Rudyard's sound setup. I haven't heard it yet, I'll admit, but it's bound to be good. Each disc reportedly comes with a unique watercolor cover painted by Arthur, and they're either $10 via his Website or live and in-person for $5.

phew. That's about all I can think of/write about for now, y'all. Like I said, though, I'm going to be trying to do this more frequently in the future, so if you're in a band, work for a label, put on shows, do a zine/Website/etc., or whatever the hell else, and you've got some news you'd like to share, send it on over to me at "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com". I'll post it when I can, I promise...

Labels: Alternative Cinema Houston, H-Town News, Moo-vies, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read, Things To See

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some of you might remember that I bitched & moaned a while back about the fact that local noise-rock dudes The Jonbenét are breaking up after their final show at the hopefully-moved Walter's on December 19th.

Anyway, after hearing the news from guitarist Dann Miller, I hit him up with a few questions about the death of the band, their legacy, and what the hell the band members will all be going on to afterwards; he was kind enough to answer.

SCR: What the hell, man? Why the breakup? I know you've been somewhat on hiatus for a while anyway, but didn't you guys add Bryan Jackson not too long ago?
Dann: There's not really a distinct reason for the breakup. After having another bass player quit, it really just slows down the process, and I told Bryan [Jackson] when he joined that he was jumping on a sinking ship. There's a lot of reasons why things slowed down for us, and rather than snail along, we'd rather just call it a day and have a couple last awesome shows.

Is this the absolute-and-total end? No hope of reunion shows or whatnot later on down the road?
Not at all. We're all great friends still; it's not like there's personal reasons behind this, but some of us want to go off and do other things for a while. These could be the last shows, and we're calling them the last shows, but you never know.

I remember seeing something about multiple projects y'all are moving on to -- can you talk about those at all? Glad to hear this isn't the end of all things musical...
Never! I aim to always be in at least one band. Bryan and I are in Black Congress, except he does vocals and I play bass. We are also in a Danzig cover band that I sing in called Dannzig, where I do vocals and he plays bass. We're going to try and play Halloween every year. I live with Mike Murland and his wife, and they've been writing songs for an electronic duo-type thing called Golden Snakes. Drew Ireland is intending on joining the Peace Corps soon, so I think he's slowing it down musically.

Weren't you guys working on some new stuff? Is there anything Jonbenet-related that's still yet to be released, like "The Sun"?
We have four recorded, unreleased songs. They're all up on Myspace right now. Then we have two more that were almost done, but I think we're going to leave them unrecorded, and I might use one for Black Congress.

What was the reaction to you guys' music outside of Houston, just out of curiousity? The Jonbenet was one of the few bands here to be signed to an out-of-town label, so I'd always figured JB shows elsewhere were pretty off the hook.
It varied. We've played shows that were fantastic with great turnouts and people driving from all over to see us, and we've played shows where we were booed and kicked out by bartenders -- i.e., Pittsburgh with God's Temple of Family Deliverance. You can usually tell if it's going to be a good show by the average dress code of the audience. If they have tight pants and Black Sabbath shirts, it's going to be awesome. If twelve of them are wearing basketball shorts and the same straightedge hoodie, it's probably not going to be so great.

Any regrets? Last words? Middle fingers?
Regrets: Well I always hoped we'd be a band like the Melvins and have like 20 records for sale at our merch table, but who the fuck wants to listen to 20 records of the same band? Especially if it's The Jonbenét.

Last words: These were great times of our lives. We saw a lot of shit. Met lots of cool people.

Middle fingers: Too many to think of right now. I can get back to you with a comprehensive database. END

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

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

Seen some awesomely cool written things elsewhere lately, so I feel compelled to mention 'em here, for the edification of all and because, as said, they're awesomely cool.

• Houston Press: "Ghosts of Washington Avenue"
  Man, this one makes me want to get all weepy. The Press's Chris Gray had a nice tribute piece to the impending death of the Washington Avenue strip in this past week's issue, and it's great not only in that it shines a spotlight on an area of town that's seen more clubs come and go than, well, pretty much any other area of town I know of, but also because it's the best, most freakishly comprehensive listing of all past/soon-to-be-past (since Walter's will be moving away in the near future). I had no clue Quiet Riot ever played The Abyss...

  As a bit of a caveat to the maudlin-ness, though, I have to say that, personally, Washington Ave. died a long time ago. After The Abyss/The Vatican went down, The Fabulous Satellite Lounge closed, Rockefellers became a "private event" venue, and Mary Jane's turned into an aging frat-daddy bar, those were pretty much the end for me. Walter's closing is pretty much just the final, long-delayed nail in the coffin.

  Good memories: I saw my first-ever "local" show at The Abyss, when my friend Andy's band The Suspects opened for a skinhead ska-punk band I can't remember the name of, and a very large skinhead girl kept stomping on my (foolishly) sandal-wearing feet. (I saw the same band blow The Toasters off that stage a few years after.) My friends and I were pretty much the audience for Too Much Joy's one and only show there, and we yelled loud enough and danced hard enough that the band came up to us while headliners Material Issue played and gave us beer. It was beautiful. I saw Agent Orange play there once, and showed up late to The Smoking Popes' show, just in time to go berserk to "Writing A Letter."

  Lots of memories about Mary Jane's, too, although a lot of 'em revolve around my own band's lame-ass shows there -- we had some good times playing with the likes of Trompedo, Hayflick Limit, & The Lonely Guys (among others) up on the MJ's stage. In the pre-Pam Robinson days, the place was nearly a DIY affair; then-owner Toby always seemed to show up around 11PM to run the sound, even if the show started at 10PM. I remember our drummer having to play soundman for the opening bands at least once.

  When the place was (briefly) the Shimmy Shack, I saw Jawbox there and had to pick my face up off the floor; caught The Gloria Record, Jets To Brazil, & The Weakerthans(!) there in later years. When Mary Jane's/Fat Cat's shut down, that was really the one that hurt...

• Nonalignment Pact: "Interview: A look at music licensing and copyright clearance"
  I'll admit that I'm a dork when it comes to stuff like this, but I find the whole concept of music licensing pretty fascinating. And yet, I don't really quite get it, y'know? It's intriguing to me in the same way that fusion's intriguing -- it sure seems like a neat idea, but I've got no clue how it actually works.

  So it's cool to be able to get a glimpse inside the workings of the machine from somebody who's actually been there, namely Annie Lin -- who some remember from her time playing on the scene here in town (and, yes, from back in the day at this here site, too).

  These days she's out in SF at The Rights Workshop, after a long spell in NYC working at The Orchard, so she's become (at least, from where I sit) something of a high roller in the music-licensing game. (Oh, and she's still playing live, too, which is very cool.)

  Kudos to Marshall at Nonalignment Pact for coming up with this one; it's seriously one of those things where I read it, smack my forehead, and say, "dammit, why didn't I think of that?"

• Houston Music Examiner: "Kelly Clarkson offers her 'Moonman' to Kanye West, supports Taylor Swift and Beyonce"
  Thanks to David Sadof for this one... I've always had a soft spot for Kelly Clarkson -- partly because I've watched far, far too many seasons of American Idol and have yet to see anybody survive it the way she has, sure, but partly because she seems to have a lot more of a spark than most pop singer/songwriters out there right now.

  And her recent blog post to Kanye West following his asinine stealing of the MTV Video Music Awards spotlight from Taylor Swift (and seriously, is this going to become an annual thing for the guy? Damn, I hope he at least was drunk like he claims...) cements the deal. It's freaking priceless, and in it Clarkson makes the point that hadn't even occurred to me 'til now (and yes, I know I'm slow), that it wasn't even an award he was up for. Thank you, Ms. Clarkson.

Oh, and if you're ever looking for other stuff we/I happen to think is cool, you can either look at the "More Stuff To Read" section over there on the right or see our/my Google Reader Shared Items page. Should you care about stuff like that, of course...

Labels: Entertainobabble, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To Read

gaijin || Link || E-mail || 3 comments

Sweet -- it makes me damn happy that the Zine Fest Houston folks are still doing their thing, and it's nice to see 'em re-running the Zine Night thing they did a while back, over at CopyDotCom on Westheimer. Tomorrow night, Wed., September 2nd, the ZFHers are throwing their second installment, with the doors thrown wide open to zine creators & interested parties of all kinds. Here's the details:

An informal gathering of zine creators (and those who are interested in creating zines) for the purpose of networking, skill sharing and collaborating.

Last time, we created a 24 page zine using collage materials found on site.

CopyDotCom staff will be available to help with technical issues. Slight discounts may be available on some CopyDotCom services during the event.

Admission is FREE. Feel free to bring zines you have made, projects you are working on, ideas for skill sharing, questions for the technical experts, collage materials and ideas for collaborative projects.

Keep real-live paper-and-ink zines alive, y'all.

Labels: Free Stuff, Things To Do, Things To Read, Zine-Type Stuff

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

Holy freaking crap. Y'know, I really hate it when one'a them pesky Internet rumors pops up on the screen and makes my stomach feel like it's dropped into my feet, and I had that exact thing happen this AM when I read that now-venerable H-town venue Walter's on Washington is moving (or maybe closing). My jaw dropped, my heart sunk, and my brain furiously started stutter-stepping and trying to even comprehend the idea of the place being gone. I mean, the place has shows scheduled through November, for crying out loud; they can't close their doors, dammit.

Thankfully, it turns out it's the former (i.e., moving) and not the latter. Chris Gray over at the Houston Press was able to track down Walter's owner Pam Robinson, and apparently she's in the near-final stages of finding a new, winebar-/Condoman-less home for the club and all its denizens, which is good news for both Robinson, bands, neighbors, and music fans.

Well, mostly. I'll be sad to see the old place go, honestly -- I never thought Walter's would measure up to the legacy of long-dead venue Mary Jane's, but over the past several years, it's become one of my favorite places to see bands, even more so than MJ's. Hell, the sound has steadily improved since I first started seeing shows there, to the point where it's no longer just a boomy, muddy-sounding room and much, much more of a Good Place to Actually Hear Music. (And people do care about that stuff -- the lousy sound at The Engine Room was partly what kept me away from a lot of shows there.)

No word yet on where or exactly when the whole switcheroo will happen (hopefully it'll be smoother than that interminable, soul-crushing Super Happy Fun Land move), but Robinson's figuring on the new place being up and running by November, with the status quo continuing 'til then. phew.

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Read, Venues

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I know I've mentioned this before, but hell, I happen to think it's very cool, so I think it's worth re-mentioning. Local musician and all-round cool guy Jason Smith, who plays bass/keys in sweet, flat-out rock band Alkari, also happens to be an architecture nerd, focusing on a particular local H-town architect named William R. Jenkins who built a bunch of (some-still-extant) houses down in the Westbury area.

Jason just finished an actual book on the guy, to boot, entitled High Style in the Suburbs: The Early Modern Houses of William R. Jenkins, published by the Houston Mod group, and tonight marks the official (I think?) launch of the book with a presentation and discussion tonight (Thurs., August 20th) at 6PM at the Downtown Houston Public Library (500 McKinney). The library presentation will be followed by a book signing/reception thing at Architecture Center Houston (315 Capitol), around 7PM. Both "parts" of the evening are free, as far as I know.

I've gotten to take a look at the book, btw, and while I'm not the architecture guru Jason is, I was/am mightily impressed. It's been a bona-fide labor of love for him, and that shows. Makes me want to drive around and check out all of the remaining houses profiled in the book, seriously. If this sounds like your thing, get on over to downtown, eh?

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Hear, Things To Read

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

Unless you've been dead for the past few months (or, okay, you don't happen to live here in Houston), odds are you've heard about the sure-to-be-epic Free Press Summerfest spanning Saturday and Sunday of this next weekend (the 8th & 9th, non-calendar-having punks) at Eleanor Tinsley Park. And trust me, "epic" is the word -- they've got a slew of badass headliners, folks like Broken Social Scene, The Sword, & Prince Paul, plus about a million of H-town's absolute best bands.

Seriously, if you gave me a piece of paper and asked me to come up with a list of everybody in town right now who rules, it'd look pretty much like the lineup for this thing: O Pioneers!!!, Muhammidali, Buxton, Fat Tony, The Tontons, Roky Moon & Bolt, The Small Sounds, Perseph One, etc., etc., etc. I won't bore y'all with the full schedule, but it's available right up here for those who need to know who's playing where when.

You can check out some very nice writeups, by the way, of folks playing the Summerfest, both over at Brigitte Zabak's blog I Keep Mine Hidden and at David Cobb's Houston Calling site. They're good writers and good people. Brigitte's already written News on the March, B L A C K I E, The Tontons, Young Mammals, and Austinites Explosions in the Sky, What Made Milwaukee Famous, & UME, and David's so far previewed Buxton, The Octopus Project, & Chase Hamblin. I applaud these two fine, fine writers for taking on a task that I myself am too freaking lazy to do...

But wait, there's more! As per the tag line up there, the ever-cool Omar of Free Press Houston, who're throwing this shindig (duh) has been kind enough to hand over 4 passes to the festival, which we'll be giving away to four lucky, totally-randomly-selected people out there who happen to read this.

If you want one, email me at "gaijin at spacecityrock DOTDOTDOT com" with the Subject: line "Sunstroke me, please!" and include your name, your email address, and your phone no. (just in case). You've got 'til 8AM tomorrow to get your name in the hat; at that point, we will use our usual ultra-scientific method of selecting names, which typically involves cajoling the house midget into pulling four scraps of paper w/names scrawled on 'em out of a hat.

Fire away, folks. And if you don't win, don't do anything drastic like jumping off the Hazard St. bridge -- day passes are still only $10, with two-day passes for $16 -- it's recession-style affordable, yo.

Oh, and if you want to see a truly, truly disturbing (and funny) promo for the festival, well, you're in luck:

FREE PRESS SUMMER FEST COMMERCIAL from mark armes on Vimeo.

Labels: Charitable Things, Free Stuff, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read, Things To See

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

Halle-freakin-lujah, y'all. This is awesome news -- Shane from listenlisten just emailed to break the news that his band just got a sweet, richly deserved writeup in Rolling Stone's Hype Monitor section. Congrats, you guys!

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

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

Um. What the...? Okay, so I happened to be looking through my Google Reader pile today, and I'm scrolling along through all the posts on various things related to H-town, music, or both, and -- whoa, hold on, is that The freaking Skyline Network, posting again?

And yes, yes, it is. Apparently ADR has decided to pick up his digital pen, done a bit of redecorating, and and is back at it. Except that, uh, he's no longer posting about the various in-jokes and coolnesses of the H-town scene. Instead, these days he's posting about oil-related stuff, stuff relating to his job (I'm guessing, anyway).

Which is cool, and he's still the damn good writer he always was, making all that geophysical stuff sound a lot more intriguing than I remember it being in that former life of mine when I used to write about drill fluids and environmental regs and whatnot. Plus, I really like his Top Five Movies About Oil Ever Made.

Good to have you back, man. Hopefully one day you'll grace us again with some more pretzel-twisted prose about music, eh?

Labels: H-Town News, Political Stuff, Public Service Announcements, Things To Read

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

Yes, the world of zines (and most other types of printed/self-published art & writing, whatever you want to call it) is a thing near & dear to my heart. And I know firsthand how much of a ridiculous pain in the a--er, labor of love it can be to get a zine from brain to real-live paper. Granted, it's been many long years since I did the print thing, and I have a feeling the tools with which people create zines are much improved from what they were, but still, it takes a lot of commitment, hard work, & vision to pull it off.

Which is why I think the Zine Nite that'll be held next Wednesday, July 29th, at Copy.com on Westheimer (right next to the old Tower Theatre, aka Hollywood Video) is such a cool idea. The event's sponsored by the Copy.com folks (duh) and the hard-working Zine Fest Houston crew, and the idea isn't just to show off one's work but to actually collaborate, share helpful info/tips/etc., and work on your zine(s). The ZFH and Copy.com folks will all be on hand to answer questions, and there'll be room to work, as well as the usual networking and displaying of different zines.

It runs from 9PM to midnight, according to the event invite; check the link for more details... This sounds like a very, very cool deal, truly. Hats off to ZFH and Copy.com for getting it together.

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read, Zine-Type Stuff

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

SCR blogger Lance Higdon is currently out and about in this grand country of ours, criss-crossing the land in a borrowed minivan to bring the space-y, atmospheric noise-rock expanses of his band Golden Cities to folks outside of the Houston metro area for the first time (I think?).

They're in Richmond, VA, as I type this, headed on up the East Coast after to hit such Cities-less places as Brooklyn, Philly, & Rochester before they veer westerly towards Ohio, Illinois, & the rest of the Midwest. And along the way, Lance is chronicling the band's travels on the quasi-official band blog, Space Rock From Space City (a site which, as you can probably imagine, we feek a weird kinship to).

Here's the most recent post, excerpted somewhat from that site:

We are staying tonight with a friend of Meghan's uncle in a cabin on a mountain in northern Georgia. This is the first place we've been with steady internet access so i'll have to give the highlight reel of the past two days:

-Staying up all night Friday moving out of my old house, packing the van, packing my bag for tour, doing inventory on merch & forgetting to buy either shampoo or soap.

-Driving 12 hours from Houston to Birmingham without major incident.

-Playing a good set with a good band at a great bookstore/community center/performance space in Birmingham on a Saturday night...to the staff & the other band.

-Trying to get into Sarah Sheridan's apartment & having her landlady open the window over the course of a minute wherein we were waiting for something akin to the judgement of God.

-Getting free breakfast from the same landlady.

-Trying to fix Seymour the Projector's film loop.

-A car literally turning across three lanes of traffic & crash into a barricade in Atlanta, with the driver walking away from a completely totaled car.

-Playing a great house show in Athens, where we were gifted with homemade beer soap!

-Driving to the top of a mountain in a minivan with a trailer hitch making lovely scraping noises over the roots & rocks in the road.

As with all of Lance's writing, it's entertaining shit; I'd highly recommend subscribing or otherwise keeping an eye on his blog while G.C. make their way 'crost the US of A. And best of luck to the band -- hopefully their luck'll hold out...

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

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

Okay, so that's stretching it a bit -- the show tonight at the Mucky Duck isn't technically a Trout Fishing In America show. What is is, though, involves the TFIA guys and happens to be pretty cool.

See, TFIA are originally from right here in H-town; bassist Keith Grimwood went to school at U of H and played with the Houston Symphony, while Ezra Idlet apparently went to Lamar High (I think?). Back in the early '70s, Idlet was part of a rootsy/folky rock band called Wheatfield, formed at a Lamar H.S. talent show. The band made its name playing in and around Houston for a few years before legal wrangling over their name caused them to morph into St. Elmo's Fire, and somewhere in there, Grimwood joined the band, as well. St. Elmo's Fire played a few years more, winding up in 1979.

Since then, though, the members of Wheatfield pop back up each year (not sure how long it's been happening, honestly) for an annual reunion show at -- yes, you guessed it -- the Mucky Duck. And that's what's apparently happening tonight, Tues., June 2nd, with both Idlet & Grimwood in attendance. I'm kinda betting they won't be playing any Trout Fishing tunes, but hey, you never know.

I should note, btw, that Trout Fishing's got an actual book out now, based on a character from one of their "kid" songs (although really, I've always had fun at the "kid" shows, myself) & called My Name Is Chicken Joe. It'll include a CD to go along with the book, naturally; you can check out both the book & title song right here:

Anyway, there you go; head over to the Duck & experience some long-gone H-town music scene history...

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Hear, Things To Read, Things To See

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

Tonight, tonight, tonight...punker-than-you H-town label/print conglomerate Ditchwater Records is staging its second-ever (I think?) record release show extravaganza tonight, Friday, May 29th, up at Rudyard's.

It's a joint 7" release thing, celebrating new releases from both sneering, knife-wielding glam-rockers The Wrong Ones (not to be confused with the Glaswegians of the same name) and crazed noise-punks Dead Roses, and both bands will be doing their thing throughout the night -- I'm told Dead Roses play first, then the Wrong Ones, then a second set's worth of Dead Roses-ness, for those who either can't make it in time for the first one or just can't get enough.

The insanity begins at 10:30PM, and the $8 cover gets you both 7"s, which is way fucking cool by me, yo. Plus, Ditchwater Head Honcho Lady Rosa Guerrero is also releasing the brand-new, eagerly-anticipated issue #3 of the companion Ditchwater photo-zine she does, and that on its own is worth seeing; she's doing a fine job of documenting in film the many strange and wonderful denizens of our inbred little scene.

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

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

Sweet...looks like the Houston Press's Chris Gray (on whom I flaked ridiculously a while back and am sincerely apologetic, btw, should he ever read this; sorry, man...) has put up the list of nominated folks for this year's much-anticipated Houston Press Music Awards. And when I say "much-anticipated," I swear I'm serious; more awesomely good shit has come out in the past six months or so than a poor, defenseless music writer like myself can ever keep up with. My pile of CDs I Really Need to Listen To Soon is growing at a seemingly exponential rate.

Going down the list, I'm happy as hell to see a bunch of folks I voted for, myself, made the cut -- the last place you look, The Wild Moccasins, American Fangs (and seriously, Something Fierce's "Teenage Ruins" was 2008's Song for me, but this year's is definitely the Fangs' "Le Kick"), The Small Sounds, Benjamin Wesley, & Something Fierce, for a few. I'm kinda disappointed Springfield Riots, Scale The Summit (Best. Metal. Band. In. Town, I swear to God), Tambersauro, Phillip Foshée, & listenlisten didn't make it, because they all really, truly rule my life right now, but eh, I'll take it.

What's left? Nothing but a month or two of mulling-over of your voting options before the Awards Showcase madness on July 26th, which'll most likely feature the bulk of the bands listed; mark yr calendars now...

Labels: H-Town News, HPMAs, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read

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

A bit early, but after missing Steve Earle at Cactus this past weekend, I do not want to drop the ball on this one, especially since the wife & I had to miss 'em the last time they came through town, back in 2007...

So, here we go with the good news: weekend-after-next, Friday, May 29th, the fine gents who do FOUND Magazine, Davy & Peter Rothbart, are stopping here in our fair city as part of their "Denim and Diamonds Tour". I have no freaking idea what's up with the title, no, but I do know that this tour's to promote their latest FOUND book, Requiem for a Paper Bag, which is reportedly a little different from their other books (which are mostly collections of past issues of FOUND) in that in addition to the usual entertaining detritus, the book also includes essays & short stories by folks like Chuck D & Seth Rogen.

If you're totally in the dark as to the idea behind the mag itself, well, the Rothbart brothers and their loyal, maniacal cadre of collectors/foragers/etc. comb the dumpsters and garbage cans and attics and gutters and backseats of America to gather the weirdest, most intriguing bits of scribbled-down kitsch/strangeness they can find, from painfully-bad love letters to notes from middle school in the '80s to crayon drawings to random signs to, well, look at their Find of the Day section for some examples.

The issues I've seen/read of the mag are utterly fascinating, to me -- the little bits and pieces are like glimpses into the absurd underbelly of modern life, all the stuff people write and think when they think nobody's watching. I dunno what the "live" FOUND show will be like, really (readings from the new book & maybe some recent/good finds, I'm guessing?), but from reports I've heard, past shows have been pretty incredibly cool.

Cooler still, of course, is the venue; just like last time, the Rothbart brothers' appearance this time out is sponsored by the utterly awesome Aurora Picture Show gang, but this time out the festivities will take place at the also-awesome St. Arnold's Brewery.

The price is $10 for Picture Show members and $15 for non-members (21+ only, sorry), and that relatively low price gets you all the beer you can drink, plus all the entertaining FOUND stuff. (And hey, if you've never checked out St. Arnold's, go see the old place before they move on over to their soon-to-be new home at 2000 Lyons.) Doors open at 7:30PM, and the show itself starts at 8PM -- I'd get there early, if I were you.

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To Do, Things To Read, Things To See

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

Yeah, yeah, I know -- as if there wasn't already a ridiculously huge pile of stuff to do this weekend? Don't sideline this one, though, because it promises to be damn cool.

This year's edition of Zine Fest Houston will be happening this coming Saturday, May 16th, over at the ever-fun Caroline Collective, and will shine a light on the awesomeness of zines in general and local Houston-based zines in particular. I went to last year's(?) out at The Shady Tavern and had a very cool time talking with the Kirke from Teenage Kicks (who does/did zines, in addition to doing the band thing 'til relatively recently) and (briefly) with the folks who do the very cool Film Monitor zine.

Plus, this year there's some discussion/workshop-type things starting at 2:30PM or so, like a workshop on bookbinding(!), panel chats with good folks like the old Space City News crew, Lauren Trout from Arcade Distro, and Omar Afra from Free Press Houston (does that guy sleep? yeesh...), readings from various zines, and performances by Sew What, Dallas's Texas Red Legs, "improv poet" Larry Lorrack, & others. Seems a bit more "scheduled" this time around, but as somebody who thinks this stuff needs to be highlighted & loved & improved upon, I think that's awesome. Check the ZHF Website for the full list of what's on.

Oh, and the absolute coolest part of the thing, to me, is the zine exhibition they'll be running inside from 2-9PM, displaying tons and tons of locally-made/written zines and publications from, well, it sounds like all eras of this city's zine-making history. And organizer Shane Patrick Boyle and cohort Jo Collier are planning bigger & better exhibitions like this, to boot -- this Zine Fest exhibit is just Stage One for what they're calling their Local Archival Project, the aim of which is to document & preserve Houston's underground-press history. Big, big salute to y'all for that...

It's free to check out the festival, and they're charging relatively cheap prices for table space, so if you've got a zine or something, email Shane at "tables" at "zinefesthouston dot org".

Labels: Arty Shit, Free Stuff, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read, Things To See

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

In case you hadn't noticed, venerable funk superstars Parliament swung through town back on April 30th, playing to what was reportedly a good-sized crowd over at the House of Blues. A friend of SCR (who shall remain anonymous to save 'em from any reprisals & whatnot) went and said the show itself was great, but that the way the HoB handled things, unfortunately, wasn't. Here's their report:

So anyway, it was a great show. They go on at exactly 10pm and everyone from back in the day is playing. Up to twenty people on stage at a time, depending on the song. Scarface shows up, Peter Brown (mayoral candidate) is on stage with [frontman George] Clinton for a bit and dances (that was surreal), and crowd is very diverse.

Next up, midnight rolls around. They're still playing and in a middle of a song. HoB turns on the house lights and they continue to play. HoB cuts the mics and they continue to play, although at this point all you can hear is the drums and Clinton yelling at people to keep singing. Well, the crowd isn't leaving and thirty minutes earlier Clinton said the show was at the halfway point (and my friends that have seen them said they typically play upwards of four hours), so HoB decides to close the curtain on them and the crowd finally gets the point and starts grumbling. A few are chanting varying forms of "fuck house of blues", but it doesn't really catch on. I got in for free, so wasn't as upset as I would have been if I had paid $30, but am still rather pissed that they would do that.

I know HoB has major power over touring bands, due to their network of venues and dealings with Livenation/Ticketmaster, so not sure if it's even feasible to try and push bands back to spots like Warehouse, but I'd love to not have a venue that's willing to shut down a legendary group like P-Funk. Now the New York Dolls are playing there, so I'm conflicted. And I might have gone to Crystal Method, but not if it's going to be shut down at midnight.

Damn. I mean, I can understand needing to get folks out so you can clean the place up and everything, but A) this is Houston, that magical place where bars all over the city can remain open 'til 2AM, and B) this is P-Funk we're talking about, here. Had the HoB folks never heard about a P-Funk show when the booked the band? From every report I've ever heard, the band puts on long, long, long shows -- their Baltimore show earlier this tour supposedly ran for three-and-a-half hours.

Given that, kicking the band off the stage and cutting the power seems, to me, pretty damn dumb on the part of the HoB. Is this company policy or something, to shut it all down at midnight, no exceptions? I have yet to check out the new-ish Houston branch of the chain, so I can't say what the place is like, but to hear about the venue treating a bona-fide legend like Clinton & his crew like this makes me want to skip it entirely. Way to alienate fans, y'all. Better watch out, or just like Sir Nose, your nose'll grow...

Labels: Entertainobabble, H-Town News, Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Read

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

Absolutely non-music-related, but still, this is amazingly cool. At one not-too-distant point in my life, I went on a seriously heavy travelogue-reading jag, devouring books by smart, quirky people going places nobody in their right mind (or, at least, nobody I actually know) ever goes to. Not all of it was great, I'll freely admit (sorry, Doug Lansky), but some of the travel writers I encountered were/are absolutely, mind-blowingly great: Lawrence Millman, Tim Cahill, Redmond O'Hanlon, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Tim Severin, Tony Horwitz, Freya Stark, & George Packer, for a few.

Pico Iyer, though, was -- at the time, at least -- kind of the top of the top. As a writer, he's intensely thoughtful, able to take a bizarre, incongruous scene like, say, the title-inspiring moment of Video Night in Kathmandu, and transform it into a serious, intelligent, utterly brilliant meditation on the technologization and cultural saturation of society. He writes like Jimi Hendrix played guitar; that is, so jaw-droppingly well it doesn't make you want to necessarily pick up a guitar, since you're unlikely to be able to do what he can do, but just get hold of more of what he does.

That's my feeling about the guy, anyway. Which is why I think it's great that he's in town tonight to promote & read from (I'm assuming) his newest book, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. I haven't yet read it, sadly, so I'm going to have to point you to John Nova Lomax's excellent interview with Iyer on the subject, over here. It seems at first blush to be an oddball piece for Lomax, it's true, but it comes out really well -- I'd highly recommend checking it out.

And then, of course, going to see Iyer himself. He'll be at the Westin Galleria Hotel (5060 W. Alabama) tonight, Wed., April 29th; doors open at 6:30PM, with Iyer going on at 7PM, and tickets are $5 if you happen to be a member of the Asia Society (who's sponsoring the visit; thanks! although he's for some reason already listed under "Past Programs") and $10 if you're not... Hopefully it's not already sold out, btw; the flyer's got a number to call to RSVP, so get on it.

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements, Random Rambling, Things To Do, Things To Read, Travel Stuff

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

Some weeks, it seems like every time I turn on the computer there's a new Website/ezine/whatnot focused at least partly on the H-town music scene. And hey, that's pretty awesome -- the more exposure this stuff can get, the better it'll be for all parties: the bands, the fans, the labels, everybody.

As I think I've mentioned before, I've heard complaints that there're too many music-y blogs, ezines, and whatever else around here, but honestly, if you look at any other city anywhere near Houston's size that has a respectable music scene, they've got ezines and magazines piled on top of one another. It's insane, really. Go looking for music blogs focused on Austin, for example, and you'll come away feeling overwhelmed. (I do, at least.)

Plus, given the rate of attrition when it comes to stuff like this in H-town, hell, we need to be thinking like 1800s farm folk and trying to have as many freaking children as we can afford so some will still be around by teenager-dom to bale the hay and plant the crops. Sad though it is, not everybody survives, y'all (rest in peace, Skyline, Public News, Houston's Other, Houmidity, The Rag, I'm Not Afraid, et al.). And if past history is any clue, if we don't love, write about, praise, and promote our hometown bands, nobody's gonna do it for us.

Anyway, soapbox aside and horrible metaphor over, there're some new kids on the block lately, in name if not in the actual "new"-ness of the contributors, so I wanted to point everybody to 'em and emphatically say, "yes! go read! now! why still here, with stupid, lazy SCR guy?" Or something. Here you go:

29-95.com: aka The Big One. Heard rumors about this "big Chronicle music thing" back at the inaugural BandCamp installment, and yep, here it is, in the flesh. Not sure if it's out of the "beta" stage yet, but even still, I'm liking it. It helps that two of the people involved happen to be Sara Cress & Joey Guerra, ex- of the Chron's HandStamp blog (which has now closed up shop, btw) and both very cool, very knowledgeable folks who've probably done more for coverage of local music in this city's sole daily paper than anybody -- and I repeat, anybody who's worked at the Chronic since I've lived here. They made me like the damn paper at least a little bit, and that's no mean feat. And then there's also the ever-lovable, extremely talented Joe Mathlete, who's lending words & art both to the effort and gives the whole thing a half-sarcastic, funny-as-hell air.

Now for the weird bits. This is a Chronicle/Hearst deal, right? Right? I'm assuming it is, given that I'd heard this was coming from a Chron staffer and it includes at least two other Chron people, and yet, there is no Chron branding going on. Anywhere. Which is...I dunno. Weird, at least?

I mean, if the Chron for some reason doesn't want to A) associate its name with 29-95 or B) associated 29-95 with the Chron, that's their business, but from the admittedly-little I know about marketing (I was a PR guy for a few years, there, so I know the taste of that particular Kool-Aid), making the decision to not cross-brand something like this seems a little self-damaging. Surely 29-95 readers aren't going to see a Chronicle logo and think, "ugh! You mean those people are behind this? Screw that, I'm going to the indiehouston site, instead!"?

Again, though, their business. As long as the writing stays as good as its been so far, I'm down.

Houston Music Examiner: It's damn good to hear, er, read David Sadof again, I have to say. Many, many moons ago, the guy's radio show, Lunar Rotation, was like the non-video equivalent of MTV's 120 Minutes back before it, too, became a corporate suckfest -- David always, always played stuff you could hear nowhere else (with the possible exception of KTRU, sometimes), and he did it on big-time FM radio. His was the last non-KTRU/KPFT radio show I ever gave a shit about, honestly, because he was quite obviously playing things he loved & was passionate about, rather than recycling "new" music that actually came out a decade-plus ago or playing the same ten bands every soundalike station in the country's force-feeding its listeners at any given second. He was a DJ because he actually liked spinning good records. Talk about a dead profession, there...

At any rate, he's come back around again, this time in (digital) type, and is covering all sorts of music-related things, both local and non-, in intensely-detailed, damn-I-wish-I'd-blogged-about-that fashion. He's one of those bloggers who makes me feel even more like the lazy non-blogging schlub I usually am. I'll confess that I don't really get the "Examiner" thing -- it feels like a version of the About.com thing updated for the Blogger Era -- but I've got him on the feed reader and am keeping a close eye. You should, too.

Show List H/Town: Not a "real" blog, no, but still something I've been trying to check out as it's been getting on its feet, and I have to say that I like the way they're doing it. Who needs another list of upcoming shows here in town? Hell, I do, despite the fact that I do one myself -- I can't get everything, can't talk about everything, and not everybody knows or wants to come to SCR to see what's going on, so I'm all for more people in the pool. C'mon in, y'all.

Plus, I like the fact that getting your show on the list doesn't require the manual effort of, say, me. If I were smarter about these things, the venerable SCR Shows List would probably be somehow automagical, too. So keep it up, Show List H/Town folk -- the hard work is much appreciated. (Although I was a wee bit butt/hurt with the ricochet-smack in today's Rocks Off column, which I ran across while putting this together. Ouch.)

610 Exchange: Haven't yet read as much of this one as I'd like to, but it's already on the list of stuff I'm trying to keep up with regularly. In particular, they (he? she?) do some nice writeups of upcoming stuff, to the point where they give April over at the Free Press Houston a run for her money. Kudos, 610 Exchange...

weworemasks: Another I'm not super-familiar with yet, but fuck, they're prolific as hell and can write like mofos. I'm jealous, y'all, especially since they interviewed P.O.S. back in March -- something I attempted to set up last year but got dissed by the label/PR people for. But hey, I love the guy's music, so any press he gets is good, right? This is a bit of an oddbal blog, btw, since it's half based here and half in Plano (I think?). Still, well worth reading.

There's more, but my reading time these days is somewhat limited, so eh... Also saw both AudioADD, Lords of the Loop, & Houston's Most Hated recently and thought they looked interesting, enough that I'm adding 'em to the pile. And, of course, there's always the mainstays, for those currently dwelling beneath a rock or something:

Breakfast On Tour
Broken Record
Dryvetyme Onlyne
FWMJ's Rappers I Know
Free Press Houston
Houston Blues Society
Houston Calling
HoustonHipHop.com
houstonist
indiehouston.org
JazzHouston
Nonalignment Pact
Rocks Off
Spacetaker.org

If I've missed anybody, all apologies. It's late, and my brain hurts. G'night...

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

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

For those who like things cinematic (and good, obviously), there's some really, truly cool stuff coming up. Today (Thursday, April 16th, that is) marks the start of the third-annual Houston Palestinian Film Festival, a showcase of movies by Palestinian filmmakers, and it looks pretty great. Here's the overall mission statement, if you're curious:

The second annual Houston Palestine Film Festival brings an honest and independent view of Palestine and its diaspora’s society, culture, and political travails through the art of film. This group of groundbreaking cinematic texts rise above the degrading stereotypes or reductively politicized depictions that are so familiar to Houstonians. A major goal of the Festival is to directly expose our local community to the perspective of artists as a first step toward circumventing the many government and media filters that pollute our understanding of Palestine and the wider region.

The Festival runs across the next two weekends, April 16th-18th and 24th-25th, mostly at the Rice Media Center, and tickets to each night of films run $7 for adults & $6 for kids, students, & seniors, which is pretty much a bargain for the multiple, mostly-short films you get each night. The full schedule's up here, but everything listed looks interesting (to me, at least). I think my favorite's Space Exodus, but that's just because I'm a sci-fi geek.

You can check out a quick glimpse of the festival offerings below:

Damn, almost forgot -- while the festival starts tonight, the kickoff isn't actually a film showing, but a live performance by Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian-American actress who's in fest film Salt of this Sea and is a respected writer and poet who's a veteran of the HBO Def Poetry Jam. She'll be at the El Dorado Ballroom (2310 Elgin) from 7-11PM tonight, along with Salt of this Sea director Annemarie Jacir. (The tickets for tonight, btw, are $10, rather than the usual $7...)

Movie Night at Domy: No, I know it's not exactly new-"new", since Domy has screened various cool films on a regular basis for a while now, but starting tonight they're teaming up with the brainy movie buffs behind Film Monitor, an awesome little (and yeah, I do mean "little") H-town zine that thinks waaaay more about serious film than I do, to spotlight a bunch of classic films, one every Thursday through I-dunno-when.

Check here for the schedule -- thankyew, Free Press folks -- and get your ass on up to Domy some Thursday night. Movies start at 8:30PM, they're free, and the inaugural film in the series is Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast; what the hell else could you want?

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Moo-vies, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Read, Things To See

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

Yes, it's that long-awaited moment: H-town prodigals (now dwelling in Austin, apparently) Papermoons have returned, albeit temporarily, to grace us with their amazingly cool presence. Last year the duo put out their debut full-length, blowing away folks here and elsewhere with their gentle, comfy-blanket, folk-fringed indie-pop masterpiece New Tales (and since I'm all about the self-referentialism, see here for a review of said product written by little ole me), played some reportedly-excellent shows, and then...um, moved away. Crap.

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like they're planning on fleeing Indie-Hipster-Ville a la Joe Mathlete any time soon, but hey, at least they're stopping by to say "hi!," right? Us H-towners will have to take what we can get. Come get it while you can tonight at Walter's on Washington -- doors at 8PM, cover's $7.

Thankfully, tonight's also features some real-live current local people who are good, good, good, like countrified, "old-timey"-sounding, folk-meets-the Beach Boys crew News on the March (about whom I need to blog other things soon, actually; and again, revieweration here), who're pretty great in their own right.

Then there's Phillip Foshée, who I somehow keep just missing seeing at various shows he's played but whose gorgeously beautiful, sweet, & lonely Christmas track "Warm in Texas" I enthused about back in December makes me desperately want to see the guy live.

Also, I've been warned that while he didn't make it on the show flyer, local does-everything indie-rocker/popper BDM (aka Ben Murphy, of too many damn bands to count, but most prominently & recently Bright Men of Learning) will also be burning up the stage tonight -- not sure of the timing, but whenever he happens to go on, it'll be cool, honest. (Ignore any self-deprecating things he may say in that regard, btw.) And for a third time: review up here.

And, for those not interested in the above, here're the Thursday Runners-Up, both of which sound intriguing themselves:

Agartha/Football Etc. @ Rudyard's
Sorry=Ok-Yes/The Witz/Riot Up Front/Brutally Normal/K-O @ Notsuoh

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

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

Much as I love this wee site/e-zine thing and tend to devote the bulk of my writing time (such as it is, these days) to it, heck, nobody can do the same damn thing over and over and over again forever, right? I've had a few quasi-successful stints writing for other publications, mostly scuttled because, um, I'm a lazy, half-assed bastard who likes to do stuff at his own pace (memo to aspiring writers: "real" publications tend to not like that so much), but these days I'm attempting to get into it more regularly.

The explanatory part out of the way, here's my little bit of self-promotion: the "Recording" column in this month's issue of 002 Magazine is by yours truly, a hopefully-entertaining little interview deal with local psych-soul-popsters The Tontons, who rightly deserve all the freakin' press they can get. They manage to be genuinely cool folks and badass musicians, which is no mean feat.

Apologies to the band if I screwed anything up; I wish I could've used more of the interview itself, 'cause I had fun chatting with y'all out on The Mink's back patio waaaay back when we did the interview, but y'know, space limitations and all. (I may be able to run the full thing here at some point, though; need to double-check on the kosher-ness of that, but cross yr fingers.)

Big, big thanks to homey Lance Walker for the hookup on the 002 thing, btw. If the Powers-That-Be over there like me (and it looks like they barely touched what I sent in, so I'm feeling hopeful on that front), there may well be more of these things coming down the pipe, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, pick up a copy of the issue, check it out, yadda, yadda -- if you happen to be a non-Houston-metro-dweller, you can view it on the 002 site, too, so no worries there...

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

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

No, I'm not talking about doing comedy -- anybody who knows me probably knows that I'd pass out cold on the stage were I ever to attempt that -- but rather about, um, me in comic-strip form. This is waaaaay old, at this point, mostly because I could never find the thing anywhere online, so I pretty much dropped it & forgot about it. (More on that in a minute.)

At any rate, back in the spring of 2007 one of the PR folks I'd talked to at Vice Records (he'd sent us CDs to review & was a nice guy all-round) emailed me out of the blue (along with others, I'm assuming) to ask if I had any entertaining/embarrassing drunk stories I was willing to share in the pages of Vice Magazine. I responded that no, I didn't have any about me, but I had a few I thought were pretty damn funny that I'd witnessed. Not embarrassing to me, really, but potentially embarrassing to others.

He said, "hey, send 'em on," so I did, fully not expecting to ever hear a word about it again. A month or so later, though, I get another email with a "writer's agreement" attached -- turned out they wanted to use one of my funny-drunk-friends stories for this series sponsored by Colt 45 malt liquor called "Tales of Colt 45". No money, but eh.

Another week or three goes by, and I get another email, this time with a graphic attached. Yes, ladies & gents, my own little tale spun out in four-color comic-strip form, courtesy of real-live cartoonist/illustrator Rick Altergott. And boy, was/is it fucking bizarre. I chuckled, showed the wife, & figured I'd never, ever see the thing in print. I never heard anything else from the Vice Recs guy, so I shrugged & moved on with life...

Fast-forward a year and a half, and lo and behold, I stumble across a mention of "Tales of Colt 45" on some random blog. Turns out it did go up on the Vice site, for all the world to see. Check it out right here, if you dare -- it's the first story in the "book." (To get to it, mouse over the top-right corner & click to turn the "page.") And yes, that's me, apparently, looking even more like Shaggy than I did in college.

I can't claim everybody'll find the story as entertaining as I do, but it cracks me up to read the story and remember the actual incident. Not that I'm faulting Vice or the artist, mind you -- the story had to be kept short, so I didn't go into that much detail -- but a couple of points that make things funnier (at least to me):

• This was in high school. We were a bunch of underage kids getting loaded (well, everybody but yours truly, anyway) at my friend Travis's house way the fuck out in the country.

• The only neighbors within earshot of the house were a bunch of rednecks, and they didn't give a crap what we were doing. I only wanted to wrangle the drunk morons back inside because as Sober Guy, I wanted to keep an eye on 'em.

• There was no Colt 45 involved. I remember beer, but it was whatever the GIs on the post were willing to buy us when we approached them outside one of the many local Stop-N-Gos, and I've got no clue what kind it was. I mostly remember everybody playing quarters with the bottle of Canadian Mist Travis's dad had left at the house.

• Eric, the friend who knocked himself cold trying to teach me to do the Electric Slide, is black. Not that that matters for the story, of course, but I find it ridiculously funny that he's whiter-than-white white in the strip, complete with beatnik turtleneck and Brian Johnson hairdo. (Eric, in the unlikely event that you ever read this, um...sorry?)

• And yes, one of the guys at the party did walk full-tilt into the side of the house, although I don't think it was Eric. Also, the guy didn't knock himself unconscious that time; he just staggered back to his feet and said, "Oh -- the porch is over there."

• The party ended up more uncomfortable than funny, in the long run. One guy passed out on the floor and woke to find himself covered head-to-toe in shaving cream, after which he angrily chased the rest of us around the house. Another guy nobody liked puked next to the toilet and then bailed without telling anybody what he'd done. The people who were the most trashed all wanted to drive around the Texas Hill Country roads in the dark, for some reason, and had to continually be coaxed back into the house (one eventually backed his car over a gigantic tree stump and had to abandon the vehicle). And the only girl around was Travis's even more underaged sister, whom me & one of the other guys tried to keep any of the drunk idiots from groping or otherwise doing something really stupid. Oh, and on the way out to the house, we saw a giant cross burning on a not-too-far-off hilltop, which freaked the shit out of everybody. phew.

Ah, the memories. Enjoy...

Labels: Funny Shit, Random Rambling, Things To Read, Things To See

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