Well, I haven't heard anything yet about a rain date, so keep yr fingers crossed... After much eager anticipation, tonight is the Houston Press Music Awards up in never-this-genuinely-cool-otherwise downtown H-town. A ton of bands, a fair amount of rain, and lots of hipsters & wide-eyed suburbanites, all for a mere $10. Check here for our schedule and picks, or the Press site for the original. My little bro's bailed on me, sadly, but I'm planning to brave the wet downtown streets, even still...

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

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Okay, so this makes me feel a bit better -- got my very own copy of the new Something Fierce/The Hangouts split-7" (out on Manic Attack!!! Records) yesterday in the mail. And unsurprisingly, it fucking rocks.

Alright, so I haven't yet listened to the Hangouts side (sorry; I will soon, I swear), but I couldn't resist slapping side A on and checking out "Teenage Ruins" and "On Your Own", both by H-town's own Something Fierce kids. In-depth review to come, but here's the brief version: holy shit. My 3-year-old daughter and I both went berserk dancing/pogoing around the room while the record spun, goofy-wide grins on our faces, 'til I collapsed on the floor in (pathetic) exhaustion. And that's a good thing.

(And hey, I'm sorry to hear about the recent clothing thievage on the tour, you guys, but just remember, whatever doesn't kill you...)

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

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Ah, crap. I'm not a drama geek, really, despite being a do-you-want-fries-with-that? English/History major in college (which tends to require a lot of dramatic lit-reading), but this makes me sad: Infernal Bridegroom Productions is no more. Fuck. Due to "insurmountable financial difficulties," the indie theater company's 14-year run ends this month.

And trust me, that's a big blow to our city's theater scene -- I have yet to run into anybody who's as experimental as the IBP folks have been when it comes to theater, and dammit, we needed that kind of edginess out there. They put on some really, really great shows (I particularly liked their production of Rhinoceros from a year or two ago).

We're gonna miss y'all; I wish there was another way...

Labels: Arty Shit, H-Town News, Public Service Announcements

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So, a while back indie-emo solo guy (and perennial SCR favorite) Jonah Matranga came to town to do one of those stop-by-on-the-way-to-SXSW shows. I caught his show up at Super Happy Fun Land and then hung out for a bit in the wee hours of the morn with Jonah and show organizer, temp Jonah bassist, SCR writer, and horror filmmaker Mel House at House of Pies. In the midst of devouring his key lime pie, Jonah started talking about how he really wanted Mel to do his next video, to which Mel warily responded (I'm paraphrasing, but I'm pretty sure it's close): "Um...are you sure about that? You know what kind of stuff I do, man..."

It turned out, though, that Jonah knew exactly what he was looking for. He declared that he wanted the video to be gory and violent, with rampaging zombies and limbs getting hacked off and people being bludgeoned, and the more he talked about it, the more excited he got. Laughing and shaking his head, Mel happily agreed to do it, and then Jonah said it'd be really cool if in the video he could dismember a music critic...like, say, me. Riding high on a wave of chocolate & sugar, I agreed: "Yeah, yeah, sure. If you guys make the video, I'll be a zombie, I promise." And then I promptly forgot about it completely for five months.

Pre-emptive moral of this story? Be careful what you agree to under the influence of chocolate cream pie, friends. Against all odds, I got the email week before last from Mel, asking if I still wanted to be a zombie in Jonah's video, and...well, I figured I pretty much had to show up. I'm sure as hell no actor -- the last dramatic thing I was in was a half-assed play we did in high school French, something to do with a guy getting a haircut that my friends and I faked our way through just so we could tag along on an out-of-town school trip -- but I figured I could be a freakin' zombie, right? I loved 28 Days Later, have seen bits & pieces of the Day of/Night of/etc. the Dead franchise, finally caught Shaun of the Dead the other day, and read the excellent, awesome World War Z not too long ago, so I'm not totally ignorant of the way zombies are supposed to act. How hard could it be?

I'll get back to that, but the upshot is that I spent two nights (Fri. & Sat., 6/7PM-1:30AM) having my face covered (mostly) in latex and greasepaint, perfecting my zombie lurch, being splattered/slathered with fake blood, getting whacked in the head with a severed arm (which I'm glad was fake, 'cause Jonah nailed me good a couple of times), drooling a lot of "mouth blood," and being devoured alive by mosquitoes. (Check out some really bizarre pics here, if you're curious.)

I even got to do what Mel called his "Spike Lee shot", where they stuck me on a dolly with a camera in my face and rolled the dolly slowly down a hallway. I think the effect was supposed to make it look like I was floating along down a darkened hallway while I groaned zombie-like and clawed the air, but I was mostly attempting to not break down laughing hysterically. I have to say that it ranks up there as one of the silliest moments of my life, but I still can't wait to see how it turns out.

And thanks to my brief foray into the music video world, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a horrible actor -- I figure that if you have trouble convincingly portraying a mindless, reanimated corpse, then you're probably not cut out for the acting biz. I also learned that while latex peels off relatively easily, you have to scour your skin with dish soap to get the damn paint off (I wised up the second night and asked one of the FX guys). I probably still look like that My Chemical Romance guy around the eyes, even a week or so after the fact. And creature slime is really gross, especially when it's dripping off the side of your head. Yum.

Weirdly, I think the whole crew of us must've been the quietest, most reserved zombies I've ever seen (stealth zombies?). We mostly just grunted or went "uhhhh" really softly, almost under our breath. Which was okay, 'cause it's a music video, and the song'll be playing over the whole thing anyway; there was no dialogue to speak of, really, just Jonah singing the lyrics. I think the idea was to make it sort of a combination of Nosferatu and George Romero '70s-style horror flick. At one point Mel told us we could make zombie noises, if we wanted to or if we thought it'd help, but when we did we all agreed that it felt totally silly. Plus, people kept breaking into Thriller when we did the noises, so we mostly ended up just going back to the quiet grunting.

The coolest part of the whole thing, actually, was how friendly and nice everybody was. A lot of the actors and crew knew one another beforehand, but nobody made my random zombie shmuck self feel like a dumbass or an outcast. Everybody was cool, from Jonah and his beautiful and talented co-star Heather Westwood to the FX guys to my fellow members of the undead to the guys moving the lights and props around. Y'all rock, seriously.

The FX people did an amazing job, in particular -- the lead guy, Marcus Koch, of FX house Oddtopsy Productions, had been flown all the way from Tampa for the job (he also did the effects on at least one of Mel's movies, which I'll get to in a sec, and has his own out now, a creepy killer-clown thing called 100 Tears, the trailer for which scares the shit out of my clown-phobic ass), and he and local makeup folks Gilbert, Kristi, Patrick, and Mary from Rancid House managed to pull off some ridiculously gory shots without the benefit of a warehouse full of rubber masks or fancy gadgets. I'd never realized how low-tech some of the neatest-looking special effects stuff really was 'til I saw 'em in action.

I should mention, by the way, that I dunno how many, if any, of the folks on the shoot got paid to work on the music video; it was all about The Love, baby. I know us zombie extras were all volunteers -- some were friends of Mel's, some were local horror-flick lovers eager to dress up like the living dead, and some were fans of Jonah's who were happy to have anything to do with a video for one of his songs. On the first night I was there, all the members of local indie-rock/post-punk band Radio Pioneer (ex-The Tie That Binds/Eye Against/Cedar of Lebanon/Badger/etc.) were in attendance, duly dressed up in full zombie makeup. It helped, somewhat, that Mel's now playing bass in the band & is good pals with Dwayne, who I think was there all four days of the filming and got "killed" in an especially gruesome way. (Oh, and at least two of the guys in the band served as Jonah's backing band on last year's "mini-tour" of Texas.)

Then, on Saturday night three of the "cast" drove all the way in from fucking Bridge City, Texas (sister town to infamous Vidor, TX), just for the chance to get made up as shambling creatures of the netherworld and then get axed by Heather in the zombie-killing portion of the video. And yep, when filming wound down at 1:30AM or so, they all wiped/peeled off the makeup & piled back into the truck to drive back to Bridge City, about two hours from H-town. Now, that's dedication, people. Horror fans are truly a whole other breed, I swear...

It was also a treat to finally get to see Mel in action in his filmmaker mode -- I've known the guy for probably close to a decade now (IWB in tha house?), and I've seen the fruits of his labors (the latest of which, Closet Space, looks damn creepy -- it'll be premiering in August, so I'll post more details on that soon) several times, but I've never actually seen him do the director thing 'til now. Always interesting to see a different side to a friend...and luckily, he didn't smack me around when I kept snickering and walking into the wrong part of his shots. (It's wife/hostess/actress/zombie wrangler Melanie who's the real enforcer, anyway.)

In the end, I had a blast. By the second night I was a teeny bit more comfortable with my zombie-ness and at least knew a few folks' names, so it felt like I was hanging out with a bunch of laid-back, friendly acquaintances, albeit those slathered in green and white makeup. One of the most surreal bits of the night was when I came out of the bathroom in Mel & Melanie's house (their carport doubled as the "studio") to find their living room filled with zombies, all lounging around and silently, seemingly seriously watching a CSI marathon.

For those who're bound to ask, no, I've got no clue when/if the video'll be on MTV (or Fuse, or whatever). Jonah's still a fairly underground guy, so big-time TV airplay might be a bit of a stretch. But hell, I'd expect it'll be up on YouTube at some point (along with the other three videos he and Mel apparently shot during the course of the zombie-filming days; not sure when they fit all the rest in, but supposedly they did) -- keep an eye there for a video for "Not About A Girl Or A Place", which'll be on Jonah's new album, ...And. It should be entertaining, at least, even if you're not a Jonah fan like I am (the song, by the way, was pretty good, with a chorus that's a little reminiscent of "Mother Mary," from his Far days).

If you do manage to catch it, yours truly will (hopefully) be the first zombie to get clubbed with the severed arm and/or the confused-looking zombie "floating" down the hallway to menace the protagonists. Feel free to laugh yourself silly; I can pretty much guarantee I'll be doing the same...

Labels: Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To See

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Yeah, so I'm probably overreacting just a smidge on this one, but c'mon: doesn't this sound exactly like how Gamera got his powers?

"Gamera is really neat / He is made of turtle meat / We are eating Gamera!" Ah, MST3K, how I miss you.

(And hey, maybe JJ Abrams is as smart as everybody seems to think he is, after all...)

Labels: Random Rambling, Things To See

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This is probably going to be old news to the poor souls who braved the sporadic downpour to drive from God-knows-where (Alvin/Spring/Tomball/etc.) down to Reliant Park yesteday for the Houston stop of the Warped Tour, but the weather forced the Tour crew to shut down this past weekend & reschedule for, yes, today, Monday, July 16th.

Go here for details straight from the horse's mouth, but the gist is that all tickets for the H-town show will be honored and anybody with a Houston ticket and valid ID from TX, OK, or LA now has the magical ability to go to any other Warped Tour show for free. No, I have no idea if that means you can go to more than one (i.e., see it today and then fly/drive elsewhere and see it again); if so, that'd be pretty damn cool. (Note that I'm also not sure I'd spend 9+ hours in a car to another state to test that theory, mind you.)

Anyway, on the good side, A) the show is now being moved inside Reliant Arena, which, as longtime readers of this e-zine will know, is a really freakin' good thing, and B) it seems fairly likely that a lot fewer people will be there today. So, if you're a ticketholder and you'd rather skip the usual crush of kids and/or imminent sunstroke/brain damage from the Houston heat, you might think about playing hooky from work and heading on down. Hell, you've already paid for it, right?

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

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Yes, it's that heady time of year, when local musicians, fans, and media types alike all swoon and pant in eager anticipation of the year's Houston Press Music Awards -- who will win the coveted "Best Experimental" award? Who will get snubbed, both by the voters and the indie-hipster elite? Who will be left crying on the red carpet with shiraz stains on their dress?

Okay, maybe it's not quite like that, and maybe the awards themselves don't mean a hell of lot to all who (or don't; us H-town types love the taste of sour grapes, don't we?) receive them, but the fact remains that the HPMA showcase is the coolest, most diverse, most entertaining festival-type thing we Houstonians currently have (sorry, Free Press/Westheimer Block Party folks; you'll get there, though, so keep it up!). I love wandering downtown on foot, bopping from bar to bar and band to band, hearing bands I've been meaning to check out for God knows how long, stumbling across amazing music I'd never heard of before, and mingling with spiky-haired punks and Downtown Pretty People alike -- and if I squint hard enough, H-town's downtown area almost starts to look like the downtown area of a "real" city, a place where people other than the homeless congregate and enjoy themselves. It's like our very own South by Southwest, minus the gotta-impress-the-label pressure, artiness (well, some of it, at least), and unwarranted hype.

To make things even sweeter, the HPMA showcase also happens to be a hell of a lot cheaper than SxSW -- 10 measly freakin' dollars. Yep, $10. On Sunday, July 29th, you can check out 50 or so of this city's best bands, singers, whatever, for a third of what it costs to fill up my damn car these days. Wristbands are on sale now, actually; normally you'd just buy 'em the day of, but apparently you can get now "advance" wristbands at Cat Walk (1431 Westheimer), $10 for one or $15 for two. If you're into getting things done early, you can also cast your vote now if you don't feel like filling in the ballot on the back of that big, sweaty guy who's got you mashed between a pole and the bar while an actual band's playing.

Now, for the lineup. Here's who's currently playing, as of the listing on the Houston Press site; my own personal picks are in bold (and man, is the 8PM slot gonna be rough...):

St. Pete's Dancing Marlin
4PM		EyeAgainst
5PM		Chrome 44
6PM		Sky Blue 72
7PM		Molly & the Ringwalds
8PM		Zydeco Dots
9PM		Sharks & Sailors
Slainte
4PM		Lee Alexander Band
5PM		Pride Kills
6PM		Jack Saunders
7PM		Insect Warfare
8PM		The Blaggarts
9PM		Arthur Yoria
Venue
5PM		Sean Reefer & the Resin Valley Boys
6PM		Snit's Dog and Pony Show
7PM		The Grit Boys
8PM		The Scattered Pages
9PM		Spain Colored Orange
Verizon Wireless Theater
7PM		The Mighty Orq
8PM		The Handsomes
9PM		The Dimes
10:15PM		Saliva
Bar Bollywood
4PM		Dizzy Pilot
5PM		Peekaboo Theory
6PM		Black Math Experiment
7PM		Paris Green
8PM		Tody Castillo
9PM		Fondue Monks
Grasshopper
4PM		Poor Dumb Bastards
5PM		Kemo for Emo
6PM		El Orbits
7PM		The Aqua Velva
8PM		O Pioneers
9PM		Bring Back the Guns
Hard Rock Café
5PM		The Jonx
6PM		Katie Stuckey and the Swagger
7PM		Miss Leslie & Her Juke Jointers
8PM		D.R.U.M.
9PM		Sideshow Tramps (form. Medicine Show)
Life Lounge
4PM		Trenchtown Texans
5PM		Wayside Drive
6PM		The Flaming Hellcats
7PM		The Wiggins
8PM		Ragged Hearts
9PM		John Evans
Livé
4PM		Allen Oldies Band
5PM		Whorehound
6PM		Opie Hendrix & the Texas Tall Boys
7PM		Dune, Tx
8PM		Satin Hooks
9PM		Million Year Dance
Mosaic
10PM		James Reed
10:30PM		Ethan Klein
11PM		Josh Dupont
11:30PM		Jessica Lazano
12AM		Ill Set
12:30AM		DJ Sun
1AM		DJ Red
Red Cat Jazz Café
4PM		The Octains
5PM		9 Volt
6PM		Cl'Che'
7PM		LL Cooper
8PM		Drop Trio
9PM		Karina Nistal
RocBar
4PM		Collective Hallucinatin
5PM		Deadbolt Zen
6PM		Deep Ella
7PM		Southern Backtones
8PM		Glass Intrepid
9PM		LoneStar Pornstar

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

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It's probably at least partly because I just finished watching American Hardcore, a decent documentary that covers a scene I missed out on utterly and completely -- the two local bands I knew of in beautiful Killeen, Texas, were both crappy metal bands (we had nothing but metal, rap, and country, in various combinations); I didn't get into hardcore until much later, and then only kinda marginally -- but it feels like as good a time as any to remember a couple of H-town scene icons who've left us recently.

Hunter Ward's the most recent, so I'll kinda work backwards. Hunter was the youngest member (I think, anyway) of longtime Houston punk heroes Poor Dumb Bastards, who're one of the last holdouts of the punk scene that was around when I first came here for college. He was a fan of the band who was able to live out that fanboy dream of actually joining the band you love to watch up there on the stage, but all that was cut short on June 30th, when he died of a suspected drug overdose. Which is a damn shame; because of the changeability of H-town, musicians in this city don't generally seem to fall into that whole "live fast, die young" mentality, but instead just sort of meander off into middle age and obscurity.

Which brings me to the second casualty in recent days. I totally missed the news when it happened, somehow, but back in March Damon O'Banion, the singer for Dixie Waste, Drunken Thunder, and probably a dozen other bands I can't remember, also passed away of a suspected overdose. (There's a really sweet tribute here). Damon was a little different from Hunter; he had moved on, moving up to Austin and working in the Whole Foods marketing department, he was married, he had a kid (er, "ward," according to the obit), and yet both artists suffered the same fate.

I didn't know either guy, but I knew the bands -- like I said, the PDB were around when I first moved down here, and so was Dixie Waste; both bands were part of my introduction to the Houston music scene, which was as exciting and crazy to my rural/gangland-living self as if I'd stumbled across a long-lost tribe of aborigines living in the apartment next door. I didn't love all of it, naturally, but damned if it wasn't different. It felt like I'd come home. And losing two pieces of that, at least to me, is heart-wrenching. Y'all are missed, believe me, even by those of us who only knew you through the music.

I don't have any idea what memorial-type things have been planned for Hunter, but KPFT's Rad Rich is donating the proceeds of this year's Backyard Bash to Damon's widow, Leslie, to go into a college fund for his daughter, Raven. The festivities are scheduled for Saturday, August 18th at The Meridian, starting at 3:30PM, and there're a ton of cool local and non- folks playing: The Drunks, Whorehound, Aftershock, The Flamin' Hellcats, Morgue City, Donkey Punch, Brian's Johnson, Amplified Heat, Luxurious Panthers, Poor Dumb Bastards, DollyRockers, & Bark Hard, plus probably a few others.

So come on out and raise a glass/guitar for both Damon and Hunter; it's a good cause. What a damn shame.

Labels: H-Town News, Random Rambling, Things To Do

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[Ed. Note: Whoops. It's been pointed out to me that there are actually four people in S&S, not three. Which I knew, but blanked on, somehow, when I posted. Sorry, y'all...]

Tonight NYCers Parts and Labor return to H-town for the second time in, what?, three months? And damn if we (well, me, at least) aren't glad to see 'em. Last year's Stay Afraid was a speaker-destroying ball of staticky-yet-hooky noise, and it was great (esp. "A Great Divide," which I swear I hummed to and from work for about three weeks straight); this year's Mapmaker, however, is even better, a squalling, majestic stormcloud of melodic, noisy, blustery fury that makes me want to pump my fist in the air and make Rock Guy "whoo-hoo!" noises. Every time I hear the album, I can't help but think of the awesome, awesome, overpowering version of "New Day Rising" that kicks off Hüsker Dü's incredible live album, The Living End (incidentally, TLE was also one of the handful of albums I listened to back in college that somehow set me on the half-assed music-reviewing/playing path I've been on ever since). These three grim-looking guys take what are essentially poppy anthems full of yearning and run them through the biggest distortion pedal and amps you can imagine, and the sound is fucking spectacular.

Better still, they happen to be playing with one of my favorite local bands, a trio I can't say enough good thing about, Sharks and Sailors (who I'm told are busily recording for a new album, which is very good news). Pummeling, pounding, angry, but still melodic; I think they'll be a pretty good fit. Cool "experimental" rockers (yuk, yuk) Satin Hooks are playing, too (and recording a new album, as well; weird), and they just seem to get better every time I see 'em. Opening is either Black Congress or L.A.W.S., neither of whom I know a thing about, so you take your chances there -- even still, though, this is going to be a great show.

And because we here at Space City Rock love you, all of you (no, we really do; okay, maybe not you, but the person sitting/standing next to you, anyway), we've got a brand-spankin'-new interview with Parts and Labor's B.J. Warshaw up on the site. (Danny, you are The Man, and while we'd dearly love to keep you around, here's hoping the Press comes to its senses...) It's good stuff, if we do say so ourselves -- we're biased, admittedly, but still. Check it out, listen to the linked MP3s ("Fractured Skies," off Mapmaker, and "A Great Divide," off Stay Afraid), and then get your ass on over to The Proletariat tonight (Wednesday, July 11th, for the calendrically-impaired). Good shit, honest. We wouldn't lie to you.

Labels: Interviews, Things To Do, Things To Download

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[Ed. Note: Sorry, y'all; this was supposed to go online last night, but thanks to fucking Blogger/FTP problems that seem to pop up every few months, it didn't. Hopefully it'll get posted soon...]

Yep, it's update time -- just got a bunch of new reviews online (some current, some not...), one of which is a review of Finnish "vampire-rockers" The 69 Eyes, who're playing tonight at The Meridian with Wednesday 13 and Fair To Midland. Check out what writer Nick had to say, then head on over to downtown if you like what you hear, er, read. Here's what else we got:

Reviews: The 69 Eyes; Machine Go Boom; The Rosebuds; Campo Bravo; Fake Problems; The Inevitable Backlash; P (reissue); & Sencirow.

That's it for now -- have a happy Fourth...

Labels: Reviews, Things To Do

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