Hi. Since I'm the person largely responsible for all this crap, I figured I'd use this page as my own little bio deal. Be warned that the below will probably be pretty damn boring.

Basic facts:
Well, I'm not from around here, but I currently call the hot, chemical-flavored steambath that is Houston, Texas, home. Came here for college and just stuck around, I'm afraid. I used to work for The Man, doing technical writing stuff for big, evil, oil-related companies, but now I'm working for a much-nicer software company and slowly earning my soul back, one tiny sliver at a time. When not at work in the loverly Galleria area, I'm most likely hanging out down in the Meyerland 'hood with my wonderful wife Kim, our two co-dependent dogs, and a curly-haired, extremely cute budding rockstar who writes hits like "Every Rock Song" and "Every Day". I listen to a lot more music than is healthy, read lots of weird shit, and can play the Kevin Bacon Game like a mofo, even if I don't watch nearly as many movies as I used to.

I also try my hand at a number of other pastimes, including traveling as much as possible (Ireland in '99, Fiji in 2000, Morocco, Spain, France & London in 2001, London again in 2004 & 2006, and Denmark & Sweden in 2007, reading, rock-climbing (mostly indoors, since Houston's flat as a pancake), and attempting to learn how to surf. For a while I was running pretty religiously with a freaky group of people called the Houston Hash House Harriers, but I've been slacking for years now, partly because I'm afraid of what they'll do to me if/when I come back after so long. I used to write songs, play guitar & yell in an indie-rock-ish band called The Freshmakers, me & my homey Josh had a little record label, Stupid Gaijin Records, and I also did a guitar-and-a-4-track deal I called Moonrocket, but all those are but a memory now, sadly.

Written materials:
As you probably know by now, this Website here is a music-and-other-things ezine (which was once a print zine, as well) called Space City Rock. I serve as Co-Publisher, Editor, Designer, and Writer/Reviewer for the mag and this site, which is largely why it takes so long for new stuff to go up online. Oh, and I sometimes claim to be a freelance writer, as well, and have contributed in the past to a few other publications (some of which no longer exist, unfortunately), including the Houston Press, Far & Near, Hostelworld.com, Get Lost Magazine, HERE Magazine, BootsnAll.com, and Pop Matters. For a while there I was also doing a cheesy little political rant/commentary blog called Something's Got to Break, but that's fallen by the wayside in recent years...

Below is an almost-complete list of the stuff I've written, in chronological order for the articles and alphabetical for the reviews (it goes all the way back to college), with links to the pieces that are online. Some of it I'm proud of, and some...uh, well, y'know.

Articles:

• "Pale Riders: Rustler roar into town out of the steamy Louisiana swamps," Space City Rock, November 2007
• "Bomb the Suburbs: The Western Civilization Escape the Neat Lawns and Flags for the Montrose Indie-Rock 'Hood," Space City Rock, May 2007
• "Rocking to Give Back: Take Action! Tour founder Louis Posen talks about how to run a punk label and help the community at the same time," Space City Rock, March 2007
• "We Like Things: Our writers rave about things from '06 (or thereabouts) that we happen to love," Space City Rock, January 2007
• "Live: Kings Of Leon/The Stills/Satin Hooks," Space City Rock, October 2006
• "Digging Out of the Heart of the Mountain: Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous finally steps back into the spotlight," Space City Rock, September 2006
• "Throw the Rules Out the Window: Atmosphere hides the vitamins in the Twinkies and gets the punk kids to listen," Space City Rock, March 2006
• "Specialist in All Styles: The Handsomes step onto the stage and see where it takes them," Space City Rock, January 2006
• "Lighting the Way: The Spirit of Face to Face Rises from the Grave," Space City Rock, January 2006
• "Can You Hear The Most Unlucky Sound?: Federation X drags the Rawk kicking and screaming back out of the Northwestern woods," Space City Rock, Issue #10, Fall 2005
• "Live: I've Been Warped -- Vans Warped Tour 2005 (or, How Not to Run a Music Festival with Good Bands and a Bazillion Kids in Houston in the Summer)," Space City Rock, Issue #10, Fall 2005
• "Here to Stay: Arthur Yoria fights anxiety disorders, jaded crowds, and Austin-Houston animosity, and comes out on top," Space City Rock, Issue #9, Spring 2005
• "Live: Helmet/Totimoshi," Space City Rock, Issue #9, Spring 2005
• "Overexposed: Too Perfect, Too Real.," Space City Rock, Issue #9, Spring 2005
• "Clouseaux: A Musical Earthquake in the Bayou City?," Space City Rock, Issue #8, Winter 2004
• "Heavy Sounds: Exploring the incredible, unlikely stages of The Polyphonic Spree," Space City Rock, Issue #7, Fall 2004
• "Butter for Guns? Houston Rock Stalwarts Groceries Head in a New Direction," Space City Rock, Issue #7, Fall 2004
• "Overexposed: When Good Movies Go Bad," Space City Rock, Issue #7, Fall 2004
• "Bolivar Diary," HERE Magazine, May 2004
• "The Eight Creeping Tentacles of Death of...The Octopus Project!," Space City Rock, Issue #6, Fall 2003
• "No Labels: Don't Call Okkervil River 'Country'," Space City Rock, Issue #6, Fall 2003
• "No Sound: Tex Kerschen, Swarm of Angels/NTX & Electric Sex," Space City Rock, Issue #6, Fall 2003
• "Overexposed: Finding Neo," Space City Rock, Issue #6, Fall 2003
• "Eulogy for the Hazard Street Bridge," HERE Magazine #6 (Fall 2002)
• "Run Through The Jungle," Hostelworld.com, September 2002
• "The Weakerthans: Who's Afraid of Americans?," Space City Rock, Issue #5, Fall 2002
• "Up Navua River: Dealing with the Cultural Sideshow," Far & Near, April/May 2002
• "Playbill: Fugazi," Houston Press, March 28, 2002
• "Go Lightly: Traveling Fast & Cheap Doesn't Have to be Hell," Get Lost Magazine, March 2002
• "World Enough and Time: The Gloria Record's slow road to success leads from Austin to Nebraska and back," Houston Press, January 31, 2002
• "Reach for the Sky: The selfishness of Hands Up Houston nourishes Space City's beleaguered indie scene," Houston Press, November 1, 2001
• "Bad Moment #2: Falling Down Mountains in Fiji," BootsnAll.com, May 2001
• "Got a bad reputation, baby: The Fatal Flying Guilloteens burn the house down," Space City Rock, Spring 2001
• "Overexposed: Confessions of a Movie Junkie," Space City Rock, Issue #4, Spring 2001
• "List: Favorite Places in Ireland," Get Lost Magazine, April 2001
• "An Ode to Soup: An Irish Chowder Mini-Odyssey," Get Lost Magazine, April 2001
• "Wading at the Edge of the World: Cold, Wet, and Mostly Alone on the Irish Coast," BootsnAll.com, February 2001
• "The Adjusters: New Political Sound of Right Now," Space City Rock, Issue #3, Fall 2000
• "The Stereo: It's Only Rock & Roll," Space City Rock, Issue #3, Fall 2000
• "Words with The White Papers," Space City Rock, Issue #3, Fall 2000
• "Overexposed: Too Many Damn Movies," Space City Rock, Issue #3, Fall 2000
• "No Sound: Jon Solomon, My Pal God Records," Space City Rock, Issue #3, Fall 2000
• "Into the Great White Unknown: Culture Clash in Canada," Get Lost Magazine, September 2000
• "Conversation Topics for Lonely Foreigners 101," Get Lost Magazine, April 2000
• "Velcro Mary: Hello from the basement," Space City Rock, Issue #2, Fall 1999
• "The one true meaning of...Hayflick Limit?," Space City Rock, Issue #2, Fall 1999
• "Give 'em a Middlefinger," Space City Rock, Issue #2, Fall 1999
• "Live: Tilt/One Man Army," Space City Rock, Issue #2, Fall 1999
• "Terabithia," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Not Done Yet: Damon Allen Grows Up," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Pop Has Freed Us," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Radio Free Montrose," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Madman with a Pen: Scott Gilbert," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Quickie: Jawbox is Dead," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Live: The Push Kings/Junior Varsity," Space City Rock, Issue #1, Spring 1999
• "Outdoor Show brings Escovedo, other artists to campus," The Rice Thresher, March 31, 1995 (with Eric Rutherford)
• "Do not pass go: get thee to Fitzgerald's to see Curve," The Rice Thresher, November 12, 1993
• "As promised, part II in a series about Bands at Rice," The Rice Thresher, October 1, 1993 (with Marc Hirsh)
• "Jazz, techno, pop, ska and punk: musical gumbo never tasted this good; Bands at Rice," The Rice Thresher, September 24, 1993 (with Marc Hirsh)
• "Rush roars through Summit," The Rice Thresher, February 21, 1992
• "Van Halen veers into Houston," The Rice Thresher, February 7, 1992
• "Metallica thrashed Summit," The Rice Thresher, January 24, 1992
• "Highlander 2 lacks first's style," The Rice Thresher, November 8, 1991

That's about it. Anybody who wants to can contact me at "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com", but I can't guarantee that I'll necessarily respond; lots of e-mail, y'know...