Yep, here we are once again. Just hanging here at the house, frantically attempting to pack up the family truckster to go see the fam and hang out with some very friendly killer whales. Tried to get this in earlier, while waiting to go see a friend's newly-born baby ("newly-born" as in "born at 2PM this afternoon"), but schedules got screwed up, so here I am.

At any rate, it's a damn good thing I'm attempting this now, because just a cursory glance at ye olde show listings reveals that there's a crapload of good stuff going on in the coming week or so. Here goes:

Fri., April 27:
The Steed/The Jonx @ Bohemeo's
Jonx, Jonx, Jonx. Yes, yes. Yes. If you're at all into smart, wryly sarcastic, math-y rock, you really, really need to see these guys. They're one of the best bands in town right now, seriously.

HBC Fest III, featuring Stalking Chloe, Sound Breaking Ground, Dine Alone, Epic, Savage Evolution, Rainchild, Mindflow, Prognosis, Fallbrook, & Truck @ Fitzgerald's
Okay, so I'll admit that most of these bands aren't really my cup of tea -- hard rock/alterna-metal, for the most part (what I've heard of 'em, anyway). But even still, the Houston Band Coalition folks' hearts are in the right place, and they deserve a heck of a lot more support than they currently get. If you're into pretty much any variety of metal/nü-metal or plain old hard rock, this is where you want to be.

Solas @ McGonigel's Mucky Duck
I hope I'm not confusing these folks w/somebody else, but if I'm not, they're a damn fine Celtic folk band. I thought they were long gone, actually...

Tyla/Sister Devastation/Ragged Hearts @ The Proletariat
Here's Stop #1 of the Ragged Hearts' weeklong play-everywhere-we-can blast. It's kind of a dangerous tactic, esp. in an apathetic, splintered-scene city like ours, but what the hey -- they're a good band (think Hanoi Rocks covering Son Volt or Johnny Cash), so hitting at least one stop is well worth your while.

Free Radicals @ Dan Electro's Guitar Bar
Can't pass this one up. Dan E's is a fun place, and I realized the other day that I haven't ever given the Free Rads nearly the love they merit, sadly... The Rising Tide Sinks All is still one of my favorite local discs of all time.

Deep Ella (CD release)/Million Year Dance/The Wartime Social/Five Dollar Friend @ Warehouse Live
I dunno most of the bands here, but dammit, go just to catch Million Year Dance. Yeah, yeah -- they're weird, they're arty, their lead singer wears what looks like nothing but a towel, and they've got some kind of weird yoga thing going on. Who cares? The guy can sing, and the band's fairly mesmerizing, to boot. The wife & I caught them at last year's Press Awards and were charmed out of our jaded, cynical shells.

Chicago/Kool and the Gang @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
C'mon. Fuck Chicago; it's Kool and the Gang. Let me repeat: it's Kool and the Gang. Even if you don't think you know them, trust me, you do -- "Jungle Boogie"? "Funky Stuff"? "Give It Up"? Dirty, sweaty, yet smooth funk, all the way. Kool and the fucking Gang, y'all.

Sat., April 28:
Dale Watson/Miss Leslie and Her Juke-Jointers @ The Continental Club
Damn, I love Miss Leslie; she's like an old-time country star who's stepped through a time warp and ended up in our century. She's a modern-day answer to Patsy Cline, honest, and despite the fact that they barely move while the play, her Juke-Jointers are amazingly good, to boot.

Two Star Symphony/Leslie + the LY's/Tha Fucking Transmissions @ The Proletariat
I desperately need to catch both Two Star Symphony and Tha Fucking Transmissions at some point (although not this one, unfortunately, since I'll be Shamu-ing and all that). Weird show, now that I'm thinking about it -- bizarro, vaguely Balkan-sounding orchestral music + street-level, intelligent indie-hop + I dunno what the fuck Leslie + the LY's sound like. Sound good to you? Go.

Real Live Tigers/Cory Derden/Sabra and the Big Brothers @ Notsuoh
Another I need to see; I've only heard one song by Sabra Laval so far, but it's a great one -- "Gentle Man," although I see she's now got a few more up there. Thankyew, MySpace.

Sun., April 29:
Men, Women + Children/Oohlas/Margot @ The Mink
Nope, not much of a clue on Men, Women + Children or Oohlas, but I recently caught a few of Margot's songs. Wow. I've gotta see this band, and soon. Anybody know if they've got a CD out?

Houston International Festival 2007, featuring Lucinda Williams, Johnny Bush, J. Paul Jr. & the Zydeco Nubreeds, The Stone Coyotes, Hongmiam Cantonese Opera Group, Kaitlyn Knippers, Tody Castillo, Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra, Jesse Dayton, Vieux Farka Touré, Clinton Fearon, Los Texmaniacs, Corey Ledet & his Zydeco Band, Scott & the Soul Tones, Clouseaux, I.J. Gosey, & more @ Downtown Houston
Cool, cool, cool. Not only do you get some of the best musicians in H-town -- Tody Castillo, Clouseaux, Jesse Dayton (okay, yeah, so he doesn't live here anymore) -- but you get roots-country queen Lucinda Williams, to boot. Can't beat that...

Tyla/Modern Kicks/Sister Devastation/Ragged Hearts @ The Proletariat
Yep, Stop #2 for the Ragged Hearts, and this time they're playing with Modern Kicks, who I've heard aren't bad themselves.

Neil Hamburger/Pleaseesaur/The Mathletes @ The Orange Show
Honestly, I've got no idea what Neil Hamburger's about; haven't seen his show, dunno if it's comedy or music, none of it. I do know, however, that The Mathletes are a crazy, quirky, entertaining bunch.

Wed., May 2:
Heaven and Hell/Megadeth/Machinehead @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Oh, hell, yeah. It's Sabbath, dude! Er, kinda... I'm more of an Ozzy man, myself, but if I had the dough, I'd be tempted to go just to do the Henry Rollins "rock powerrr!" finger in the air while Dio sings. And even though I still can't stand Dave Mustaine's voice, I can still remember my friend Travis making me listen to "Set the World Afire," off of So Far, So Good...So What!, waaay back in high school, and thinking the school bus was about to explode in a ball of flame. Good times...

Toots and the Maytals @ The Meridian
Gotta give it up for this one. These guys are legends, and they ain't spring chickens; see 'em while you still can.

Ragged Hearts/Tyla @ The Proletariat
Uh-huh, it's Stop #3. Are all these shows for real?

Thurs., May 3:
Digital Underground/LadyBug Mecca/Nosaprise/Comp1 @ The Meridian
"The Humpty Dance" was the anthem of my senior year in high school. And hey, wouldn't it be neat to see where Tupac got his start? Oh, and I hear local Nosaprise is damn good. Thee Oh Sees @ Super Happy Fun Land
Only heard of these folks very recently, but I'm impressed so far. It's countryish, but it's raw and it still rawks -- reminds me of the Velvets crossed with the Kills, or maybe the Grifters.

Fri., May 4:
The JonBenet/Fuck the Facts/50-50/Indisgust/All Hands on Deck @ Walter's on Washington
Wow. Want to be there the night Walter's finally gets closed down? This looks like it might be your chance... Seriously, though, even a non-grind-head like myself can see this'll be a good one. The JonBenet rule, and they're backed up by four of the rawest, loudest, most bone-crushing grindcore/metal/whatever bands in this hellhole. Rock on, Hate Tank. Here's hoping nobody gets tased...

E Muzeki @ McGonigel's Mucky Duck
Caught these folks at the Renaissance Festival last fall, and they were freakin' amazing. They mash together a pretty wide range of European folk music, from Celtic to Eastern European, and it all comes out sounding like a band of gypsies playing next to a roaring blaze somewhere in the deep, dark forest. Ooh, spooky. (Plus, my daughter danced like a maniac while they played, so that's always a good recommendation; she has surprisingly good taste for a three-year-old.)

Mono/World End Girlfriend/Grails/Ceeplus Bad Knives/Dunnock @ The Mink
I downloaded some Mono songs a while back on a whim, and I have to admit that they do the atmospheric, mostly-instro thing quite well -- maybe they're not quite up on par with, say, M83, but they're close.

Orange Is In/The Loving Ones/The Mayapples/The Blue Threads @ Notsuoh
Sadly, local rockers The Nautical Mile have reportedly called it a day. Luckily, frontman Matt (and maybe other members of the band, as well?) is also in The Mayapples, whom I'm told are cool. Check 'em out if you get a chance.

That's it. Have a good weekend, and don't let anybody argue you into doing anything stupid. We're looking out for you, man.

Labels: H-Town News, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Do

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Yes, you too can join the ranks of the elite, unpaid, unloved host of KTRU DJs who spin strange, intriguing music at all hours of the day and night on H-town's/Rice University's wonderful KTRU 91.7 FM. Since most of the DJ kids are headed home for the summer, KTRU lets non-Rice students apply every year to be summer DJs and fill in the gaps left by out-of-school student types. It's not all glamour and glory, mind you -- post-graduation, yours truly was a DJ for a summer (or two? can't remember...), and it was a near-midnight slot on a weeknight, which meant that, yes, I'd get home around 1AM or so and then have to wake up a few hours later to go to work.

But hey, if you love music and have always wondered what it'd be like to be a real-live DJ -- and no, we're not talking Dean & Rog, here -- then, by all means, fill out an application. Believe it or not, they do take all types; an unqualified love of Japanoise isn't mandatory. Hell, they let me DJ, even when I think I put Rush and Pearl Jam down as two of my favorite bands. (And no, I have no regrets. Nope, none.)

Labels: H-Town News, Musical Crap, Things To Do

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Hey, if you happen to be looking for something to do this weekend, the ever-cool Lawndale Art Center is looking for volunteers to help out with their "20th Century Modern Market" exhibition deal. They need folks to help set up before and clean up after the Preview Party tomorrow night (Fri., April 27th), and if you help out, you get to hang out. Then they need even more folks the next two days, Sat.-Sun., April 28th-29th, for Market Weekend, which is apparently some kind of market for "Mid-Century Modern design furniture, accessories, clothing, jewelry, rugs and art". Oof...sounds interesting, at least. For those two days, though, they need people to take tix, sign up members, and all kinds of other stuff.

Feel like helping out? Get a hold of Jimmy at "jcastillo" at "lawndaleartcenter dot org" / 713-528-5858 or Matt Wolff at "mwolff" at "lawndaleartcenter dot org".

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Things To Do

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Argh. Why does this happen to me every freaking year? Seriously, every year for the past half-decade or so, I manage to somehow miss the start of the WorldFest-Houston Film Festival, only finding out it's going on a day or two after the fact, and this year has turned out to be no exception, sadly. Dimwit that I am, I blanked on the fact that WorldFest always starts when the International Festival starts, which means the festival kicked off without yours truly this past weekend.

Luckily, it ain't over yet, but will be continuing on all week (through Sunday, April 29th) up at the AMC Studio 30 on Dunvale. Which makes me a little sad, by the way -- I get why the festival organizers moved the show from the sketchy Meyer Park 16 up to a big, fancy-shmancy movie theater like the spaceport-looking Studio 30, but I still miss the days when the festival ran at the departed Meyerland Theater, which used to be about a 20 min. walk from my house. (To add insult to injury, not only did they rip out the movie theater nearest to me a few years back to expand the Meyerland Plaza shopping center, they still haven't filled more than a teeny-tiny bit of the expanded section. Yeah, apparently we really needed more store space, didn't we? Fuckers.)

If you've never been to the festival, you seriously ought to check it out -- they show some weird, freaky, intriguing, and downright entertaining films, most of which don't hit the "big" indie festivals like Sundance or SXSW. I've seen some very, very, very good movies (May and August, Jacob TwoTwo and the Hooded Fang) and some awfully bad movies (Hotel, some crazy movie with Holling from Northern Exposure as a guy who digs up an Egyptian queen in his back yard) at past WorldFests. Even the bad ones, though, were at least interesting, and the documentaries and short films always seem to be pretty cool ('cause hey, if you're watching a bad short film, at least it'll be over soon...). And of course, there's also the lure of second-string/has-been stars popping in to promote a flick -- a friend and I once did a double-take to see Eric Stoltz standing around the dingy Meyerland Theater lobby, glad-handing for a film he was in. Very weird.

Hrm. Okay, so now I just need to figure out how to cajole Grandma into taking the munchkin some night this week...

Labels: Moo-vies, Things To Do, Things To See

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This could make the show below a little, er, surreal:

Sun., May 6 - Mute Math/Somebody Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin/The Cinematics @ The Meridian

Labels: Random Rambling, Things To Do

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Yep, today, April 22nd is Earth Day, which, although not technically Earth's birthday (like we know when that is), is still a good occasion for celebrating the wonders of this planet and everything on it. I don't think there're any festivals or anything, but what the hey -- if the weather holds, at least it'll be a good time to get outside. Pretty soon we won't be able to set foot in our backyards and city streets without a canteen and burnoose...

Note, by the way, there's another Earth Day, one that took place back on March 20th. Apparently there's some kind of feud between the two; maybe it's a West Hemisphere-East Hemisphere kinda thing, with Oxfam-ers doing "green" drivebys on Sierra Clubbers (recycleable paper shell casings?) and innocent Wilderness Society members caught in the crossfire. (O maybe not. And heck, since I donate to all three, the situation would cause ethical dilemmas for me that'd make The Departed look like SpongeBob Squarepants.)

"So, now that it's Earth Day," you ask, "what can I do? How do I celebrate this wonderful pseudo-holiday?" Well, I could tell you to send Earth Day e-cards to your friends and family, but really, it's a lot simpler than that: get the fuck outside. No, really. Turn off your computer, right freakin' now, and go. I mean it.

Labels: Random Rambling, Things To Do

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Well, it's looking like a damn good weekend to check out some of the bands of one of the coolest record labels currently calling the H-town area home, Mia Kat Empire -- they've got two shows this weekend w/different bands, but haven't been able to really publicize 'em much. (They've been in the process of moving their record label offices down from Kingwood, so they've been a little slow on the promotional side.)

Here's the info:

Sat., April 21 - Matt Ellis and the Mayapples/Buxton/Meryll/Arms and Sleepers/Great Unwashed Luminaries @ Super Happy Fun Land
I don't know a ton about these bands, unfortunately, but I do know that MKE band Matt Ellis and the Mayapples were known 'til very recently as "The Nautical Mile," and I've enjoyed the heck out of what I've heard from their MySpace site. The scattered songs I've heard by Buxton have been cool, too, and I'm told Meryll (from Austin) are great. (Arms and Sleepers and Great Unwashed Luminaries are a mystery to me, sorry, beyond that they're from College Station...)

Sun., April 22 - Peekaboo Theory/The Western Civilization @ The Proletariat
Holy crap do I love The Western Civ. Seriously; their debut disc (on Mia Kat Empire, naturally), Letters of Resignation, never left my car's CD player yesterday (okay, except when I took it into the office to listen to it there, but you get my meaning). Even on my way to catch the unbridled garage-rock fury of Something Fierce, I was blissing out to the gentle-yet-bitter sounds, the gorgeous vocals, the whole deal. It may be early to make year-end-list predictions, but I'm confident Letters of Resignation will be at the top of mine. And, luckily, they happen to be playing tomorrow night as part of the Mia Kat doubleheader, along with fellow locals Peekaboo Theory, who I haven't heard yet but am very curious about.

Ch-ch-check it out, y'all.

Labels: H-Town News, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Do

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I'm a little late on this one, sadly -- there's an art/music exhibition/festival-type thing being put on this weekend by the Aurora Picture Show (and curated by Nick Hallett of Harkness A/V), and it, uh, technically started Thursday night with art by cinema experimentalists Brian McClure and Ray Sweeten and continued Friday with a Nautical Almanac/Dynasty Handbag show over at Domy Books. Dang...sorry 'bout that.

Luckily, it's not too late to catch the latter third of the Media Archaeology: Below-Fi festival tonight, Sat., April 21st, over at The Orange Show. Glitchy digital sound maker Tristan Perich will be playing, as well as Big Easy Ninth Ward-dwellers Quintron and Miss Pussycat, who are always entertaining in their bizarro swamptronica boogie kind of way. And the whole thing includes visual stimuli by Brooklynites Mighty Robot A/V.

Anyway, it sounds like it'll be an entertaining deal -- make it on out if you can...

Labels: H-Town News, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Do

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I don't get out much these days. In fact, I've only gone to see shows sporadically for quite a while now, long enough that I can count on one-and-a-half hands the number of times I've caught a live show this past year. My evenings these days consist of coming home from work, eating dinner, playing with the fuzzy-headed midget who lives down the hall & calls me "Daddy!" when she's not punching me in the head (the wife says it's because children, like dogs, can sense who the alpha animal is, and she knows I ain't it), getting ready for bed, and then either hanging out and chatting with a couple of friends, watching TV, or working on this site or work for my day job.

It's a comfortable little routine, if a bit sad, comfortable enough that on the occasion that somebody comes through town that I really, really want to see, I'm hard-pressed to pry my homebody ass off the couch. After all, the Sci-Fi Channel's always re-running either The Dresden Files or Stargate: SG-1, and the Discovery Channel's pretty enticing most nights (Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, The Deadliest Catch...). Lame, lame, lame, I know, but there's something weirdly nice about just hanging at the house. Ergo, that's what I find myself doing, most nights.

There was a time, mind you, when I would've been out the door at 10PM, off to see whoever the hell was playing at Emo's, Rudz, Mary Jane's, The Blue Iguana, The Mausoleum, or The Abyss (for the non-historically-minded, in order: dead; still Rudz; dead; now The Proletariat; now sometimes Helios; and dead). I was in a band, of course, which meant that I was pretty much guaranteed to see somebody else I knew wherever I went. Band people, then as now, tended to stick together, both out of a sense of scene loyalty and at least one-sided respect for one another's music. I lived down near Rice, a 20-minute walk to Cactus and a quick car ride to either Montrose or the Heights; music was always pretty close at hand. Those were good times.

Things change, though, so here I am. I now live on the outskirts of Meyerland, down in SW Houston (whenever you hear the words "fatal shooting in Southwest Houston" on the nightly news, it's usually within a half-mile of my house) and even on the rare occasions when I do make it over to Montrose, so many of the landmarks of my relative youth have either changed or vanished that I feel like I barely know the place. Usually, I just run whatever errand I've got and then flee back to the safety of the near-'burbs.

Now, lately I've been attempting to get out to shows more often. It's been rough, 'cause I really do have a lot of other shit to do, between the day job, the e-zine, and my real life. But tonight, the love of my life's out of town on a company retreat, the munchkin's having a sleepover at Grandma's for the night, and I'm on my own. So what do I do? Well, hell -- why not hit a show or two? Staying in an empty house all night is damn depressing, particularly if you're used to the constant companionship of two other people (I love my dogs, yes, but they don't really count, I'm afraid). I made a plan: I'm getting out, if only for the night.

I had hoped to catch Sharks and Sailors opening for The Appleseed Cast up at Walter's, but when I checked on the Super Unison site it looked suspiciously like the show was sold-out (anybody know if it was or not?). Plus, I was running late from an after-work goodbye party for a former coworker, so by the time I got my shit together, it seemed pretty likely that I'd miss S&S entirely. (Melissa, in the unlikely event that you read this: I swear I'll make it out to see you guys soon. Honest.)

So I opted to shoot for just the second stop on my little jaunt: Rudyard's to see Something Fierce play. I swung by Diedrich's on the way for some coffee (it's been a looooooong week at work), reveling in the warm, syrupy waves of nostalgia that seem to hit whenever I cruise through my old 'hood at night. It's like the darkness hides the fact that it's not the same place I used to know, covering up the holes where my old haunts once were and lighting everything up in that neon glow. Nighttime's a good time for a little time-traveling, at least for me.

When I got to Rudyard's, though, it all evaporated. The place was packed, but I was dismayed to find that I only recognized one person, Bring Back the Guns guitarist Erik Bogle, who gave me a warm "hey, how's it going?" & handshake as I pushed through the plastic flaps at the upstairs entrance. Honestly, I'm amazed the guy remembers me at all, esp. with the haircut -- thanks, Mr. E...

Beyond that one guy, though, I felt like a party-crasher at a family reunion. Everybody seemed to know one another, meandering from table to table shaking hands, hugging, high-fiving. And there I sat at the bar railing, wondering what the fuck I was doing there. Where were all my friends, all the faces I used to see when I went to watch, say, Schrasj or The Suspects play? Long gone, it seemed; like me, almost everybody who was part of the H-town music scene when I was has packed up and moved away, becoming teachers, real estate agents, big-shot music journos. What the hell was I doing there? Rudz wasn't my home, not anymore. I was on the outside looking in.

So I sat there, feeling pretty fucking sorry for myself, 'til a nice lady named Deborah sat down on the next stool over and asked me who had just finished playing. She'd come to see Something Fierce, too, because she knew frontguy Steven G. from the Daily Grind and had promised to come see his band. She quizzed me on where I lived, wincing when I said I had once lived right down the road, at Willard & Morgan, but now lived in the Land of Meyer. She'd lived "out," too, in a house with a pool, a yard, the whole nine yards, 'til her husband passed away. Then she'd decided to move back in, to an apartment right around the corner from Rudz.

She was a regular, and she shook her head disapprovingly at the crowd, noting that she only saw one other Rudz regular. "I think most of these folks are from elsewhere," she said, to which I responded that I couldn't really complain about that, seeing as I was technically from elsewhere, too. "Yeah, but you're from here," she told me, "you've just moved away for a while." It's funny, but the comment was strangely reassuring. Maybe my old home wasn't dead & gone, just different? I dunno.

We talked a while longer, discovering to our mutual surprise that we both worked as tech writers and happened to at least know of some of the same people. This city really is a small place, sometimes. Then, after a lengthy band change (I missed Born Liars, unfortunately, but DC's The Points were pretty damn good), Something Fierce came on.

I'd wanted to see the band for a while now, even before I fell head-over-heels for Come For The Bastards, their only album, and I have to admit that I was stunned at how good they were. Roaring, right-on-the-edge of collapsing guitars, solidly catchy yell-along choruses, a ridiculously tight rhythm section, Ramones-style pop songs dressed up in vitriol and distortion -- they fucking rocked, and the crowd did, too. The only other time I've actually felt the floor at Rudyard's move up and down like that was the last time The Suspects played there.

After a few minutes, I was smiling and air-drumming. By about a third of the way through the band's set, I was beaming from ear to ear. And it was then that it hit me: who cares if things aren't like they used to be? I can't resurrect the past; even if I could, I'm not the same person I was back then, and neither are the people I knew. What really matters is the moments like tonight, when the music's loud and good, the people are friendly, and for a little while, at least, the city feels like it's smiling right along with you.

It's those moments that drew me to the music in Houston in the first place, way back when I was a shell-shocked kid from central Texas; it's been a long time since I felt them, so long that I'd nearly forsaken the H-town scene altogether. My guitar's gathering dust in the closet, my old show-going friends have grown up & moved away, and the bands I used to love were gone, so why bother paying attention? Why go to the effort of listening to some local band, when I just got the new Dntel in the mail? Somewhere along the way, I'd lost the connection I used to feel to the music made here in our fair city.

Tonight, though, felt like I'd come full circle. I was an outsider, sure, but it fit; I'd been gone a long time, after all. The bands I grew up with may be dead & buried or in hibernation, but recent months have shown me just how good the bands that are around really are -- just take a listen to folks like Something Fierce, Sharks and Sailors, The Western Civilization, Arthur Yoria, Blades, The Jonx, Listen Listen, Georgia's Horse, Casino, .belville, Ryan Scroggins and the Trenchtown Texans, The Jonbenét, Paris Falls, Jana Hunter, Spain Coloured Orange, Tody Castillo, Sinews, Clouseaux, The Dimes, Million Year Dance, The Scattered PAGES, Black Math Experiment, Co-Pilot, Ume, Radio Pioneer, While You Were Gone, Buxton, Miss Leslie & Her Juke-Jointers, Program, Thee Armada, Another Run, Ragged Hearts, Antarctica Starts Here, Satin Hooks, The Finalist, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, LOW.Z, Bright Men of Learning, Blaggards, Mansion, The Ka-Nives...the list goes on for fucking days. There's so much good music going on out there right now that I can barely begin to wrap my arms around it. And the strangest part is that knowing that makes me very, very happy.

So thanks, Deborah, Something Fierce, and all you people who came out to see the bands at Rudz tonight. Because of you, tonight made me feel like I was home again, for the first time in a long while.

Labels: Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Random Rambling

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Yep, got a bunch of new stuff up, just in time for tonight -- two of the bands reviewed, ADULT. and Parts & Labor, are playing together at The Mink, and they sound like they should be darn cool to see/hear. ADULT.'s not really up my alley, but they sound interesting, at least, and P&L's new album drops my jaw every time I hear it. Read the reviews, check out the show...

Interview: He Is Legend. Reviews: Parts & Labor; ADULT.; Love Me Destroyer; The Jennifer Echo; The Agency; The Broken West; Die! Die! Die!; Morello; & Toof. Rock out, y'all.

Labels: Interviews, Reviews, Things To Do

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Yeah, yeah -- late, late, late, I know. Sorry; it ended up being one of those weekends that make me actually like living in this slowly-sinking swamp of a city, so I couldn't bear to spend it indoors on the laptop (although I do now have wireless, so...hmm). I spent part of the weekend with my father-in-law, fixing up the dilapidated shed in the back yard into a much-handier workshop/lawnmower storage shed, part of it wandering around on the roof of the house cleaning out gutters and looking down on the neighbors, and then hung out in the backyard yesterday under blue-blue-blue skies, cleaning the pool and singing Bob Marley songs to my little girl. Don't believe the people who turn their noses up at home ownership -- yeah, it's a lot of work, but sometimes the domestic house-owning life's pretty good. Uh, except when it means you leave people hanging, of course...here we go:

Tues., April 17:
De La Soul/Rhythm Roots All-Stars/DJ Hier @ Warehouse Live
De La really shouldn't need any introduction. I'll admit that back in high school most of my friends thought my De La Soul-listening friend Pat was a weirdo to be rockin' 3 Feet High and Rising when the rest of us were blasting Public Enemy or N.W.A., but damn if he wasn't ahead of his time, and so were these guys. De La pretty much paved the way for the whole "positive hip-hop" movement to follow, including The Roots, Mos Def, The Pharcyde, & Del tha Funkee Homosapien. Come to think of it, Pat was also the first person I ever met who was into Social Distortion; hmm...

Anyway, this will be freakin' awesome. And the best part? It's free-free-free. No, seriously -- sponsored by those odd Scion people. Go here to RSVP (and possibly sign your soul away, but we don't know anything about that, nuh-uh, no way). You've got 'til 5PM tomorrow to throw your name in the pile, and even then, be warned, 'cause the site explicitly says "Entry is NOT guaranteed." Get there early, folks.

Wed., April 18:
ADULT./Parts & Labor/Dan Deacon @ The Mink
A good one, guaranteed. ADULT. are very, very strange, but intriguingly unique, a pair of electronicists who mash together Throbbing Gristle noise and kinda-danceable beats, and Parts & Labor are holy-fucking-crap amazing, dour NY rockers who've grabbed the Hüsker Dü songbook and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Anthemic noise rock; their new album, Mapmaker, absolutely rules. Review to come soon.

Fri., April 20:
The Marked Men/Something Fierce/The Points/Born Liars @ Rudyard's
The Appleseed Cast/The Life and Times/Sharks and Sailors @ Walter's on Washington
Los Straitjackets/Big Sandy/Clouseaux @ The Continental Club
Oh, man...this one's gonna be rough. Not only do these shows have some darn good out-of-towners (The Appleseed Cast & Los Straitjackets, in particular; gotta love surf-rockers in luchador masks...), but there're three of my absolute-favorite local bands all playing on the same damn night. Something Fierce do pop-smart garage-rock like you wouldn't believe, Sharks and Sailors make it look like Houston's moody indie-rock scene has a hope for making it out of the city, and Clouseaux's just in time for the start (hopefully) of the warm summer weather, with their tiki-lounge stylings. This is one of those times when I really wish all our clubs were situated closer together...

Another Run/Brown vs. Board @ Notsuoh
Another couple of good local bands, both of whom I'd been meaning to check out for a while now; heck, I thought Brown vs. Board was dead & gone, actually. Glad to see that's not the case...

Sat., April 21:
Lucero/Catfish Haven/American Princes/Chin Up, Chin Up @ Walter's on Washington
Hot damn. I checked out Lucero a while back on the recommendation of Houston Calling's David Cobb, and he was right on the money. Dirty, dusty, somewhat country rock that sounds like what the Replacements might've sounded like if they'd grown up in Austin rather than Minneapolis, downing Pearl and Lone Star rather than Pabst and Schlitz (or whatever the heck those Minnesotans drink).

Secret Sideshow/Jenny Westbury/listen listen (CD release) @ Notsuoh
I'm not super-familiar with most of these folks, but I've caught a few of listen listen's tracks on their (er, his) MySpace page, and they're very, very cool indie-folk oddness. Worth a listen.

Houston International Festival 2007, featuring George Clinton, Ruthie Foster, C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, John Evans Band, Kevin So, Soul Fruit, Baby Jay, Maggini Orchestra, Southern Backtones, Papa Mali, Jimmy Lafave, Richardo Lemvo & Makino Loca, Ba Cissoko, Matt Andersen, The Lee Boys, The Medicine Show, Changlu Wu School of Music, Brother 2 Brother, Mike Reed, New Birth Brass Band, & more @ Downtown Houston
George Clinton! George Freakin' Clinton! Lots of other good bands, yes (John Evans, Southern Backtones, The Medicine Show, etc.), but still: George Clinton! Don't get my funk stepped on...

The Nautical Mile/Meryll/Arms and Sleepers/Great Unwashed Luminaries @ Super Happy Fun Land
Locals The Nautical Mile are cool, from the scattered tracks I've heard; check 'em out now, though, because I seem to recall hearing that they were breaking up soon.

Spring Metal Fest, featuring Dead Trip, Lao Tzu, Lay To Waste, Blood Void, Sovereign, Sever the Silence, Lycophile, & C.O.Y.A. @ Fitzgerald's
Do I know any of these bands? Nope. Does it matter? Nope. What better way to celebrate spring than to demolish your eardrums and headbang for an hour or two?

Sun., April 22:
Peekaboo Theory/The Western Civilization @ The Proletariat
Ah, yeah. Dunno Peekaboo Theory, but The Western Civilization's Letters of Resignation knocks me down every time I put it on. Sweet-yet-bitter, rocking-yet-lush, and just an all-'round good band. Catch 'em while you can.

The Kimonos/Stnng/Blades @ The Backroom (The Mink)
Another good local deal -- The Kimonos rock, and while I haven't yet been able to catch 'em live yet, the songs on Blades' MySpace page are pretty great.

Houston International Festival 2007, featuring Angelique Kidjo, Grupo Fantasma, Savoy Doucet Cajun Band, Hamilton Loomis, Cookie Joe, Amazones Women Master Drummers of Guinea, The Mark May Band, The Lee Boys, Norma Zenteno, Ba Cissoko, Sister Sister Y Los Misters, Feufollet, The Mighty Orq, Matt Leddy, Brian Jack & the Zydeco Gamblers, Los Pekadorez, & more @ Downtown Houston
Beyond the fact that I love the band name "Sister Sister Y Los Misters" (ah, Texas...), Angelique Kidjo is amazing. And being that she's from Africa, she doesn't get to H-town real often.

Tapes n' Tapes/Harlem Snakes/The Dimes @ Numbers
Okay, I give. I'm still scratching my head as to how Tapes n' Tapes have become so celebrated, but what the fuck -- The Dimes rule. Go for the locals, stay for the bigshots.

Wed., April 25:
The Church of Philadelphia @ The Continental Club
This one's partly a note for me, 'cause I really need to see this band. I've heard amazing, wonderful things...

Thurs., April 26:
Fishbone/The Expendables/Supervillains/Ryan Scroggins & The Trenchtown Texans @ Fitzgerald's
What can I say? It's Fishbone. I grew up listening to Truth and Soul and The Reality of My Surroundings, nearly drowned in a mud pit while watching 'em at Lollapalooza (during "Swim," naturally), and I still love those guys. Shame about the weird cult shit, yeah, but heck, at least some of the original members are still around. Plus, Ryan Scroggins & The Trenchtown Texans are one of the coolest local ska/reggae bands to come out lately; well worth going early to check 'em out.

Labels: Things To Do

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Ah, Internet, how we love you. No, not because you help us find the nearest drycleaners or figure out effortlessly which curly-haired actress was in Felicity (for the record, yes, it was Keri Russell; sorry, Kim...), but because you open our eyes to the obscure world of weird, weird, amazingly neat things that lurks out there over the horizon. Case in point: the Spoonbox. I can't really describe it; you just have to watch the video. It's the most mesmerizing, strange bit of Internet video-and-music I've seen since the Mentos & Diet Coke musical.

(Thanks, by the way, to the newly-inaugurated life is a thrill blog for the link; liat is H-town's finest musician/artist people get together to post the freakiest, funniest crap they can find online, and so far it's damn entertaining.)

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

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Man. So I just caught Avril Lavigne on SNL, and...well, damn. I haven't seen somebody that wooden on a stage in a long, long time. She's punk the way a twelve-year-old girl from the 'burbs thinks punk should sound and look like. I mean, c'mon, when your backup singers are more dynamic and interesting to watch/listen to than you, it's probably time to hang it up. How in the hell did we let this happen, people? Granted, SNL had fellow Canucks The Arcade Fire on not long ago, but still, the fact that Ms. Teen Punk Rawk is probably Canada's biggest musical export is downright horrifying. It makes me long for the days when Alanis Morrisette or Celine Dion were the biggest musical things going out of the Great White North, and that's fucking scary.

Labels: Musical Crap, Random Rambling

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Not sure when they put 'em up, but local boys Radio Pioneer (ex-The Tie That Binds/-Guns of August/-etc.) have got two new awesome songs up on their MySpace page. Both "We're Not Sorry" and "The World" hit all those emo-indie touchstones we (well, me, at least) love so damn much, from Samiam to Face to Face to Jawbreaker -- alternately loud/soft guitars, bitterly angry vocals, floor-punching choruses, and just a hint of screamo desperation. Good shit, definitely, a step up from their 2-song "EP" (which I already like). Guitarist/singer/cool guy Dwayne told me a short while back that the reason the band's been absent from the stage of late is because they've been recording some new stuff to release somewhere along the line, and if this little taste is any indicator, it's gonna be great...

Labels: H-Town News, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Download

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phew...I was frantically trying to get some new reviews up today, primarily because Arbouretum are playing tonight at The Mink, and after (finally) hearing their 2nd album, Rites of Uncovering, holy fucking crap is that show going to be good. Read the review on the site (link below). Go. See. Be stunned and amazed (and very, very sad). Seriously.

Live Review: The Lemonheads. Reviews: Arbouretum; Unsane; Lifetime; Hella; Mabou; The Mains; & Motion Commotion. More soon...

Labels: Live Reviews, Pseudo-Reviews, Reviews, Things To Do

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Damn. This is a shame; I know Kurt Vonnegut was getting up there in years, sure, but with him gone I feel like yet another chunk of my heroes of old, people who spent their lives fighting against the outright stupidity we get force-fed every single day, has disappeared. A bit of the smart, sarcastic, weirdly funny edge that makes life interesting is gone from the world.

Labels: Entertainobabble, Random Rambling

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Oh, yes. While culling through the bazillion or so shows coming up in the not-far-distant future this past week, I happened to notice newly-booked shows by a couple of really, really cool out-of-towners:

Sun., May 6 - Son Volt @ The Continental Club
Holy...um...wow. How is it that I haven't heard people screaming to the skies about this show? I honestly couldn't tell you the last time Son Volt (ex-Uncle Tupelo, godfathers of "alt-country" movement, the sadder cousin to Wilco, etc.) played H-town, which may well mean that they haven't in about a decade now. I haven't heard the new album yet, but their last one, Okemah and the Melody of Riot, is a fine, fine disc, so I've got high hopes. No idea who's playing with 'em, sadly -- Bright Men of Learning would be a damn cool fit, though.

Wed., May 16 - The Rapture/Shiny Toy Guns @ Warehouse Live
Props to David over at Houston Calling for catching this one first; just goes to show what happens when I don't check my e-mail for a few days. sigh... Anyway, I haven't ever seen the Rapture live, but last year's Pieces of the People We Love swung in out of left field and slapped me across the face hard enough to earn it a spot in my top-ten list for the year. Funky electronics with soul and genuinely ass-shaking beats; awful hard to top...

Thurs., June 7 - The Hold Steady @ Walter's on Washington
Sit back for a sec and let me relate a brief anecdote from last fall's The Hold Steady show up at Walter's. Went up there to meet Doug D. (in briefly from NZ), somewhat excited about seeing the band (having fallen head-over-heels in a big way for Separation Sunday) but wary of getting my hopes too high. From the beginning, the crowd was an odd mix -- middle-aged biker-looking guys with beer bellies standing around next to bored-looking hipsters with wallet chains.

Bright Men of Learning rocked (damn, they're everywhere!), and then Sean Na Na got up and were, uh, more entertaining than I'd expected (it was a really odd moment when it clicked that the guitarist was actually Denver Dalley, ex-Statistics). Then the Hold Steady came on, and over the span of an hour or so, won over even the most jaded of the cool kids and the most Zep-loving of the old dudes. They were freakin' amazing, like Hüsker Dü in their prime channeling The Boss. Seriously, by the end things were less like a band playing a show and more like a tent revival. Lots of sweat, full-on rock solos, beer, and big mustaches (mostly courtesy of keyboardist/organist Franz Nicolay, also of World/Inferno Friendship Society); it was nuts. I couldn't keep from grinning.

The best part of the night, though, was near to the end of the set, when one of the three Big Old Dudes standing near me leaned over, smiling ear-to-ear, and punched his buddy in the arm and yelled:

"Man, don't it feel good to go to a fuckin' rock show?"

Hell, yeah.

(Oh, and by the by, the reason the HS are swinging through town again is 'cause they've got a new limited-limited-limited release live EP, Live At Fingerprints, coming out on April 17th. If you spot a copy, grab it, 'cause there ain't many of 'em -- check where you can find the EP here. Looks like Vinal Edge is the only H-town store that'll be stocking it.)

Thurs., June 7 - Sage Francis/Buck 65/Alias/Buddy Wakefield @ Warehouse Live
Man, the 7th is gonna be rough. Not only are the Hold Steady playing, but over on the edge of downtown, so is Sage Francis, who is hands-down one of the most interesting, angriest, weirdest rappers out there today. The embarrassing part of this, though, is that I didn't even know he has a new album coming out May 8th (Human the Death Dance), despite me having followed the guy fairly obsessively for a while...damn.

At any rate, this will be yet another good show, one so good I dunno what the hell I'm gonna do with myself on this one random Thursday in June. Hrm. Not only is Sage the shit, but Buck 65 is entertaining (and strange), and what I've heard from Alias has been pretty cool, too. What to do, what to do...

Sat., June 16 - Unsane @ The Proletariat
Commence drooling. I'm nowhere near a big Unsane fan, honestly, but without the band, fully half of the post-hardcore bands currently growling and slashing away these days wouldn't even exist. Expect this show to be packed, esp. since it's at the not-so-big Prolo.

Fri., July 13 - The Fray/Gomez/Eisley @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
I don't really care for The Fray all the much and don't know a thing about Gomez, but openers Eisley are worth the price of admission all by themselves. Fey, beautiful rock songs about robots and monsters and whatnot, all sung/played by a crew of interrelated kids who are way too pretty to be as odd as they apparently are. Haven't heard their full-length, 2005's Room Noises, but both their previous EPs, Laughing City and Marvelous Things, are excellent.

Labels: Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Do

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Alrighty, folks, here's what's coming up that I like -- damn, this is starting to feel like I'm picking horses or something...weird. Anyway, I have to admit to being a little surprised at some of the awesomely cool shows going on over the next month or so; normally, after SXSW packs up for the year, everybody heads back north and forgets about us poor bastards for the next 10 months or so. Not the case this year, apparently...

Fri., April 6:
TV On The Radio/The Noisettes @ The Meridian
Damn, tonight's a rough one. TVOTR is probably going to be the biggest draw, although I'm a little ambivalent sometimes -- when they're on, they're on (e.g., "Staring at the Sun," which I could listen to for days on end), and when they're off, they're just, um, bizarre. At the very least, it'll be interesting.

Yo La Tengo/David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights @ Warehouse Live
Y'know, I can't for the life of me explain why, but I've never gotten into Yo La Tengo. It's not that I don't like them or anything -- I've just managed to unintentionally stay mostly ignorant of 'em. Don't own any albums, haven't been to any shows, etc. I'm told they're amazing, certainly, so take that for what it's worth, but for my money, David Kilgour's the reason to be at the Warehouse tonight. He used to play guitar for the Clean, a NZ band a friend (hi, Marc) forced on me once a long time ago and who were pretty amazing in their day (they re-formed back in '00 on Merge). The guy's an excellent songwriter, and he doesn't come here real often (if he's ever been here before, I haven't heard about it), so I'd get to this show early.

The Show Is The Rainbow/Wicked Poseur/Ceeplus Bad Knives/Bad Motor Scooter/Dunnock @ The Mink (Backroom)
Okay, so this is just me being curious. I've heard some strange things about Wicked Poseur (which includes Matt B. of Bring Back The Guns, I'm told), so just seeing them is part of the draw here. Of course, there's also some good DJing from Dunnock, Ceeplus (both of whom are good), and Bad Motor Scooter (whose name I like). If you'd rather keep it lower-key than the packed rooms over in the warehouse district, this is your show.

Thee Armada (tour kick-off)/The Mechanical Boy/Otenki/The Last Place You Look/Stadium @ Fitzgerald's
I dunno Thee Armada, but The Mechanical Boy aren't bad in an emo-indie-rock kind of way; I like The Last Place You Look, though, and really like what I've heard of Stadium -- clean, clean, beautiful melodies and rock guitars. Kinda fits their name, actually.

Comeback Kid/It Dies Today/This Is Hell/Endwell @ Java Jazz Coffeehouse (Spring)
Yeah, yeah -- I know it's in Spring, but hell, if you want to catch any of the Victory roster of pseudo-hc bands roaming the country these days, that's where you need to be. Comeback Kid rock a heck of a lot more than I'd guessed they would.

Sat., April 7:
Relient K/Mae/Sherwood @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Nope, I'm not a Relient K fan, although I don't have anything against 'em -- I just love-love-love the gorgeously overblown shy-boy rock thing Mae does (Destination: Beautiful rules; I can skip a large part of The Everglow). Sherwood ain't bad, either.

KTRU Outdoor Show, featuring Ratatat, 120 Days, Despot, The Dimes, & Moxie @ Rice University
Ooh. I love the Outdoor Show -- have ever since I was a wee college student. You hang out on the nice cool grass with your friends, you see amazing bands/musicians you probably never would've seen otherwise, and fuck, it's free. You absolutely cannot beat that. Of course, if you're a discerning bastard like me, it also matters that 120 Days are cool, The Dimes are one of the best bands in town, and Ratatat are intriguing, if not exactly my thing.

Ryan Scroggins and the Trenchtown Texans/The Umbrella Man @ The Continental Club
When I first heard of the Trenchtown Texans, I snickered at the name -- I mean, it's just a tad bit presumptuous to tag yourself with the name of the Jamaican ghetto Bob Marley came up in. I have to say, though, they're a fine ska/reggae band, one of the coolest I've heard in years; dunno The Umbrella Man, but I hear it includes ex-members of Los Skarnales, so that's a good sign.

The Mathletes/Cartwheels in Central Park/The Defenestration Unit @ Notsuoh
These kids are strange -- very, very strange. And yet somehow still oddly appealing. And plus, Mike from TDU's a nice guy.

Sun., April 8:
Vast/Antarctica Starts Here @ The Continental Club
If you happen to get sick of chocolate and screaming children on Bunny Day, this is pretty much your only option. Luckily, it's not a bad one. I don't know Vast at all, but Antarctica Starts Here are a really promising bunch of local folks who do that nu-shoegaze/spacerock thing well. Kinda weird that they're at the Continental, but what the hey...

Wed., April 11:
Pixie's Big 25th Birthday Bash, featuring Trigger Minor, Jalambo Chispa, Whorehound, Leatherbal, Hell City Kings, & Morgue City @ The Meridian
Metal, metal, metal, in big steaming chunks. I've got no clue about most of the bands, but I've heard good things about Whorehound, enjoy Morgue City, and like the heck out of Hell City Kings.

Thurs., April 12:
Old 97's/The Small Stars @ The Meridian
Say what you want about 'em: the Old 97's put on a good show.

Bright Men of Learning/The Mathletes/Kilian Sweeney's Redo Makeshift Honorary Band @ Rudyard's
This one's pretty special. Not only do you get local quirky pop people The Mathletes and excellent laid-back Son Volt-goes-Pavement rockers Bright Men of Learning, but you also get the return of all but one member of H-town legends de Schmog, plus a bunch of special guests.

Fri., April 13:
Sebadoh/The Bent Moustache @ Walter's on Washington
I'm torn on this one, I really am. I used to love Sebadoh to a ridiculous degree, back in the day...until I saw them play Fitz, that is. They were so dull and slow that I wanted to leave before their set was half over. Here's hoping Barlow's got it together this time 'round.

Morningside Drive/The Finalist @ Warehouse Live
Not a whole lot to say on this one beyond that I've heard bits and pieces from both these bands over the past few years and have found 'em surprisingly enjoyable. Dig 'em up on MySpace if you're still wary.

Clandestine @ McGonigel's Mucky Duck
Woo-hoo! I'm over the moon that these folks re-formed; they used to be one of the leading lights of Houston's Celtic music scene, 'til they vanished into the morning mist. Glad they're back, and in their home territory, to boot -- this'll be a good one.

The Scattered PAGES/Rich Hopkins/Lisa Novak @ Rudyard's
I really need to see the Scattered PAGES live, dammit. It depresses the hell out of me that I had to find out about one of the coolest bands in town through CMJ...

Stingaree Music Festival, featuring The Medicine Show, Ryan Bingham, Hayes Carll, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Adam Carroll, Dedringers, Graham Wilkinson, Romi Mayes, John Evans, Sam Baker, The Gougers, Combo Mahalo, Stone Coyotes, Todd Snider, Travis Linville, Dedringers, Roger Marin, Corb Lund, Jesse Dayton, D.L. Kaiser, Wrecks Bell, Graham Weber, & Sisters Morales @ Crystal Beach (Bolivar Peninsula)
No, most of these bands aren't my cup of tea, but damn, the idea of hanging out in the sun & surf of Bolivar and chilling out to a dozen or so bands (over 3 days; the festival runs 'til 4/15) sounds pretty good.

Have a good Bunny Weekend. Don't make yourself sick eating too many eggs; not everybody can be Paul Newman.

Labels: Things To Do

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Anybody remember de Schmog? Sure, you do; you can't lie to us. Well, ex-de Schmog frontman and all-round nice guy Kilian Sweeney (who happens to possess one of the coolest names ever, by the by) will be back in town next week from the windy wilderness of Chi-town.

On Thurs., April 12th, he'll be playing a non-de Schmog de Schmog show with the other de Schmog guys -- we're told that without Diane Koistinen, it really isn't a de Schmog show -- performing as the Redo Makeshift Honorary Band, which may or may not also include Linus Pauling Quartet's Ramon Medina, The Defenestration Unit's Mike Switzer, Joe from the Mathletes, & Chris Bakos. Guess you'll have to make it up to Rudyard's (seriously, where the hell else would they be playing?) to see.

They'll be sharing the bill, by the way, with The Mathletes and awesome-awesome countrified alt-slackers Bright Men of Learning (which happens to include ex-de Schmogger Jonathan Sage on bass; ah, what a tangled web...). It's gonna be a damn good show, honest.

Beyond the musical stuff, though, Kilian's also got some art goin' on. More specifically, while he's in town he'll be putting on an art exhibition he's calling The Cardboard Art Show, which is a bunch of cardboard-only pieces created by artists from all over the place. People whose art will be shown include Space City Rock's own sometime Austin correspondent Justin Crane, Bobbindoctrin impresario Joel Orr, cool lady Rosa Guerrero, the aforementioned Mike Switzer, and ex-Project Grimm/Mike Gunn guy John Cramer.

The whole thing's sponsored by the Chicago-based Birdhouse Museum, runs from April 13th to 20th, and you can check it all out up at Super Happy Fun Land in the Heights. Friday the 13th (ooooh) is opening night. Be prepared for some creative, kooky, cool, possibly really-freakin'-weird stuff.

In other local arty-related news, those wacky folk over at Domy Books has announced that they'll be having a closing party/catalog release for their recent Daniel Johnston exhibition, Where are the ducks when you need them? (which is a question I've asked myself many times, I should note). It'll be on Fri., April 13, from 7-9PM at Domy (1709 Westheimer), and supposedly Johnston will be there in person to join in the festivities. Should be a good time...

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Things To Do

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A little late notice, I know, but here it is: tonight's Gym Class Heroes/RX Bandits/P.O.S./K-os show at The Meridian is gonna be fucking insane. Why? Well, while I do like the Heroes ("Papercuts" is a fine, fine track), enjoy the Bandits (who contributed one of the best tracks on the first Rock Against Bush comp, "Overcome (The Recapitulation)"), and am curious about K-os (haven't heard him yet, sorry), it's P.O.S. who's the real draw for me.

Seriously, the first time I heard last year's Audition (which, sadly, wasn't 'til this year, or it definitely would've made my best-of-'06 list), I was floored. P.O.S. (Stefon Alexander to his 'rents) and his Doomtree crew take hip-hop and deconstruct it like only a connoisseur of punk rock could, throwing in metal guitars, screamed vocals, and beats that don't just slam but crunch and blast, throwing all expectations and rules out the window in the process.

In some ways, the sound's pretty familiar -- the production owes a lot to fellow Twin Cities denizens Atmosphere (which makes sense considering that P.O.S. is on Rhymesayers, and rapper Slug guests on two tracks), and shares the same self-deprecating wiseass sense of humor as a lot of P.O.S.'s Rhymesayers labelmates. The guy's delivery reminds me at points of Slug's and at points of, um, Eminem's, especially on tracks like "Paul Kersey to Jack Kimball," where he snarls and spits like he's Mathers' long-lost brother. I don't mean that as a slam, by the way -- say what you will about Em, but the guy can throw down on a track if he's got some decent beats.

Despite the familiarity, though, Audition ends up being something I, for one, sure as hell haven't ever heard before. The crushing fury of "Half-Cocked Concepts" (which owes itself partly to Emily Bloodmobile's production) leaves me gasping for breath and pounding my fists on the table/steering wheel every time I listen, "De La Souls" makes me smile, with its sweetly contemplative sound and cool guest vocals from the Bouncing Souls' Greg Attonito, and strange, slippery "Safety in Speed (Heavy Metal)" incorporates but isn't overwhelmed by Craig Finn's meandering observation-poetry (never clicked before that Predator featured two future governors, actually...), which is definitely saying something about how good the track is as a whole.

I love the metal guitar and frustration on "P.O.S. Is Ruining My Life," dig the lyrics on "Living Slightly Larger" ("I got the skills to pay the bills / And that's about it"), and freak other drivers out when I'm headbanging to those awesome blasts of horns and hard-soul drumming on "Stand Up (Let's Get Murdered)." I listen again and again, and each time something new pops its head up -- that doesn't happen to often these days with jaded ol' me.

The sad part is that I'd bet a lot of hip-hop headz out there would look at P.O.S. sideways, just because of his skate-punk background (he still plays in a punk band called Building Better Bombs on the side). And that's a damn shame, because this is well worth listening to, even by so-called purists. But who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and the guy just needs more publicity -- if a fellow ex-skate-punk like Lil' Jon can make it big, there's no damn reason why P.O.S. shouldn't be able to.

Alright, with the raving/ranting out of the way, are you ready for the bad news? According to the Meridian's Website, the show's sold out. Ah, shit. I was actually gonna try to weasel my way out of the house tonight for this one, but lazy ass that I am, I couldn't be bothered to get tickets in advance, so...I'm screwed. Damn.

But hey, this is Houston, which means that there's bound to be some shady guy in a hoodie hanging out in the parking lot trying to scalp tickets to the show, right? Or, heck, maybe this is another one of those sponsored-by-Camel deals, and your cigarette-smoking pals can hook you up -- it'd explain a lot if that were the case, by the way, since I'm kinda stunned to see a show with these folks all sold out...

Either way, if anybody makes it in (or had the foresight to get tickets before now), let me know how the show is, eh? Everything I've heard about all these people live has been good, esp. with P.O.S. -- when I got to talk w/Slug a while back, he raved about touring with 'em/him, and he sounded pretty sincere about it, so y'know.

(P.S. Stay tuned for an interview with P.O.S. sometime in the next few weeks. Our man Mars (aka Brian P.) will hopefully be meeting up with our current favorite hip-hop people this very evening, if all goes as planned. Keep yr fingers crossed...)

Labels: Musical Crap, Pseudo-Reviews, Things To Do

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Just a quick early warning-type note: yours truly spent a good 2 hrs. last night at the Empire Cafe (mmm...Milky Way good...) chatting with the large crew of people involved in either/or soft-rockers The Western Civilization or their record label Mia Kat Empire, and a real-live interview thingy will be coming once I can actually transcribe the damn thing. (Have I mentioned that I'm starting to loathe microcassette recorders? Particularly ones that run out of batteries midway through the interview but keep the "batt" light on? Why I didn't just record it straight to the iPod, I don't know...)

I know I've blathered about these folks in the recent past, but once again I feel compelled to say that this band is very, very cool, one of the best things I've heard out of our fair city in quite a while. And after last night, I can say that they're a genuinely nice bunch of people, as well. Check out the new CD, Letters of Resignation (avail. on the MKE site), and keep an eye out for the innavue...

Labels: Admin Stuff, H-Town News, Pseudo-Reviews

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Yep, new stuff for the new month, with more to come (hopefully very) soon. For right now, we've got a new featured band & some new reviews... Featured Band: Miss Leslie and Her Juke-Jointers. Reviews: Comeback Kid; local H-towners Ragged Hearts; The Comas; Analog Heartbreak; Sue Foley; Mess Up the Mess; The Sleeping (reissue); & Stemage.

Labels: Featured Bands, Reviews

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Case in point: my wife bought my three-year-old daughter a cloth Dorothy doll (of Wizard of Oz fame) a while back, and noticed today while the midget was playing with it that the doll for some reason had gigantic ears that were tucked under her hair. The subsequent exchange went like this:

My wife: Hmm...I think we'd better put those ears back in under her hair; they're pretty big.

My daughter [to Dorothy]: Yeah, Dorothy -- you'd better go get yourself some smaller ears on eBay!

Um. Wha? Oh, man...

I should also note that the munchkin can turn on her own little computer -- a repurposed throwaway from my old company with the fonts cranked up to huge, a cute pink mini-keyboard and mouse, and iTunes (she's gotta have her Gogol Bordello and that Kenny Loggins classic, "One Small Voice"...) and some kiddie games installed on it -- and even click on the icons for the Baby Einstein Website (she likes the free video clips) and start up her Teletubbies "game." Which is, sadly, more than my mother-in-law can currently do with a computer. Damn.

Seriously, the generation of kids growing up now, where computers, the Internet, and MP3 players are as ubiquitous as water are going to be freakin' sca-ry. Bet on it.

Labels: Random Rambling

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

Sadly, I am neither quick nor witty enough to have come up with a decent April Fool's post, so instead I'll just point you to somebody who has:

"Jandek: It's Truck Month"

Props to a.different.ryan for making me read the damn thing about twelve times before realizing what fucking day it is. Funny and terrifying, at the same time...

Labels: H-Town News, Random Rambling

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

Okay, so hopefully me posting this isn't letting the cat out of the bag to their current drummer or anything -- one would hope he's been informed and not just left hanging a la Dave Mustaine getting booted by Metallica -- but local indie-rock kids .belville have made it known that they do indeed need a new drummer. (And yes, I'm fairly sure the "." before the name's actually part of it. If anybody could confirm, I'd appreciate it; I've been asked by two different people recently.)

I should note, by the way, that these guys are among the most promising local bands of the past few years, and one I desperately need to hear more from. I snagged a few tracks a year or three back that I enjoyed quite a bit, but then the band seemed to vanish completely, only to resurface not too long ago -- they just posted a new song on their MySpace page, "Vie Olin," that's freakin' incredible.

So, if you're a drummer and you might be interested in the gig, here's what the band's looking for:

"We are looking for someone who can keep time, is very creative, and will have creative input towards the music. You must have your own transportation, be able to pay a share of band room rent at Francisco's downtown, and be willing to tour. We do not do drugs or excessively drink, and would prefer someone who does the same. No age or gender preference, and we can provide equipment for you. Go to www.myspace.com/belville to hear what we sound like. Keep in mind that you are not expected to mimic our previous drummer."

If that sounds good to you, you can contact the band via MySpace, e-mail 'em at "fromholin" at "gmail dot com", or call either Jay (281-798-6991) or Jonny (281-798-5669). Hopefully these folks find somebody good, 'cause they