Ah, festivals. Those super-extra-multiple band extravaganzas that bring together young & old, fat & thin, cool & lame, true rockers & poseurs. Houston generally seems to have a fair crop scattered throughout the year, especially touring deals like Warped and local biggies like the International Festival, but it seems like this fall has brought on a ton of somewhat smaller-scale festival-type extravaganzas, starting this very weekend:

Sat., September 29 -- The Proletariat's 5th Anniversary Party @ The Proletariat
This one's a pretty neato one, I think, 'cause not only is it the venerable (in H-town club terms, anyway) Prolo's 5th birthday, but they're throwing the party "Honoring The Skyline Network." Which is cool, 'cause while we're not best buds with TSN's ADR or anything (never met the guy in person, sadly), he does a hell of a lot of good things for the oft-overlooked music scene in this town -- if there's a new & good Houston-area band out there, chances are that ADR's mentioned it on his blog even before we've pulled our head/s off the pillow in the AM. I swear to God, it's like he never sleeps. And he's entertaining as all get-out as a writer, to boot.

Of course, since this is one of them aforementioned "festival"-type things, you know there're gonna be bands: DJ Melodic, Wicked Poseur, Paris Falls (yes!), DJ Paramour, You (Genious), DJ Witnes, & Spain Colored Orange will all be on hand to rock the mic/speakers. On top of that, ADR's come up with a swanky new t-shirt to be given away to the first several lucky bastards (I dunno how many showgoers get shirts, sorry) who walk through the door. And it's free, I believe, as is the pizza and Red Bull. (You gotta pay for the beers, tho'.) Admittedly, we're a bit tickled by the shirt, because it list pretty much every fucking cool band we've ever even heard of in this town, but it also includes, um, us, wedged in there between PennyRoyal and Notsuoh. Hot damn, we made it onto somebody's t-shirt...my mom will be so proud.

Anyway, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a good time, honest. Yours truly is crossing his fingers and hoping to be there, but as I am currently on the shitlist of She Who Rules the Household (and we're dog-sitting a friend's possibly-destructive wiener-dog all weekend), it may or may not happen. sigh. If not, I hereby order all and sundry to go and party in my stead. Or face my wrath, whichever.

Labels: H-Town News, Things To Do

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Dang. Y'know how sometimes you keep meaning to mention something, but something else always comes up, so you forget that first thing over and over and over again? I sure as hell do (come to think of it, that pretty much describes my life; what the hell was I talking about, here...?).

Like with this: Georgia rock-n-rollers Black Lips are coming to The Engine Room on Sat., October 6th, to rock the town back and to the left, and when they hit our fair city, they will be taking some lucky soul down to Buffalo Exchange on Westheimer to buy shit, hang out, and just generally do cool things.

Which could be pretty damn entertaining, if you're a fan of the band -- what I've heard off their new album, Good Bad Not Evil, is pretty good, and it'd be, uh, a little weird if you entered just for the clothes and won an afternoon with a band you don't actually like. Can you say "awkward"? (Just sayin', in case it crosses anybody's mind...) Oh, and according to their site, Buffalo Exchange are also giving out Black Lips samplers "with minimum purchase," however much that might be. (No, I have no idea how much $$$ the kids play for clothes these days; my metrosexual coworker blew $200 on a t-shirt a while back, and the ridiculous waste of it made me want to just sit in my chair & weep, I swear...)

Anyway, now for the "mea culpa" bit. If I'd actually posted this back when I meant to post it (like, say, 9/19 or so), you'd have had oodles & oodles of time in which to meander down to the Big W to enter the raffle. But sadly, the deadline to enter the raffle for the shopping spree is this Saturday, Sept. 29th, which only leaves you two measly freakin' days to get your near-urb-anite ass back to the 'hood you used to live in before the yuppies took over. Sorry 'bout that. If you want to snag some hipster clothes and/or meet the band, get on down & sign up quick-fast.

Labels: Free Stuff, Musical Crap, Things To Do, Things To Get

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Gotta do a quick one this time out... Today we've got two reviews up just in the nick for two different shows tonight (Sept. 26th, that is), both of which should be very cool: Josh Small plays Walter's (along with the awesome William Elliot Whitmore & Avail frontma Tim Barry); and out in Spring, Emmure plays Java Jazz with pals Misery Signals (whose frontman also guests on the Emmure disc) & The Agony Scene. It's like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, seriously -- do you go backwoods neo-bluegrass or punishing gut-punch metalcore? Up to you; you can check out reviews of both bands' latest here and here.

Of course, we've got other new stuff up, too, so check it all out. Here's the list:

Reviews: Josh Small; Grails; Emmure; I Am The Pilot; Avagami; T. Hallenbeck; Massimo; & Allene Rohrer.

More to come in October...gaijin || Link || E-mail || 0 comments

Yeah, it might be a little sad, but this made my week -- I honest-to-Yahweh thought Katy-dwelling pop-punk dorks The Phlegmatics had gone the way of the dodo 'til I ran across the band's MySpace page (as far as I can tell, their "real" Website is toast).

I'd seen the band once and only once back in '05 or so when I dragged a friend downtown for the Houston Press showcase was bowled over...and then, nada, at least not that I could see/hear about. It would've fit the H-town Rock Band Template: gig like crazy, make friends, get some local press attention, then implode under the weight of the non-stardom all Houston bands have to deal with.

Luckily, that isn't the case here, and the band's resurfaced recently to play some shows -- they're playing tonight, Sept. 25th, up at Walter's on Washington, and then again on Sept. 28th at Rack 'Em Up Sports Bar.

Which is awesome, 'cause these guys are great, seriously. They write those catchy, quirky, too-smart-for-their-own-good pop songs that Rivers Cuomo used to write (before he, ah, essentially ran out of ideas), their guitars have a nicely melodic crunch to 'em, and despite his self-professed nerdiness, frontman Jonathan and bassist Jonas can actually sing. And on top of it all, they all play like they freakin' love it, which makes it all work perfectly. Think Weezer, Nada Surf, Nerf Herder, and The Stereo, throw in the snarky humor of power-pop heroes Too Much Joy, and you'll come close to what these guys sound like.

Oh, and apparently the band's been busy while they've been hiding out -- they're working on a new album, Sophomore Effort (n'yuk, n'yuk), and there's at least one new song ("Unibrow") in their Myspace player from that, even though it doesn't show up in the list (for me, at least). I'm gonna have to keep an eye out for that one, definitely...

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

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Yep, more stuff up for Sept. -- this time out we've got a little pseudo-interview/preview of electroweirdo Dan Deacon, who'll be playing this next Monday, Sept. 24th, up at Walter's on Washington, plus a live review of the recent pre-Labor Day show at The Proletariat with Buxton, Digan, The Church of Philadelphia, and Hollywood Black.

Naturally, we've got a bunch of new reviews up, too, including local instro-metal godz Rustler (whose show this Wed. I sadly missed), Tiny Vipers (coming to town 10/20), and June (coming to town 11/6). There's also a teeny bit of rock-crit schizophrenia going on, 'cause while Peter, the guy who checked out the Prolo show mentioned above, loved Hollywood Black to death, CD reviewer guy Andrew, um, didn't. That's the way it works, though, folks -- different writers have different opinions, even at the same dang e-zine. Hope you can work through the cognitive dissonance...

Interviews: Dan Deacon. Live Reviews: Buxton/Dignan/The Church of Philadelphia/Hollywood Black.
Reviews: Rustler; Tiny Vipers; X27; June; Hollywood Black; Raze to Ashes; Seven Storey Mountain; & Slider.

Keep checkin' on back...

Labels: Interviews, Live Reviews, Reviews, Things To Do

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Y'know, it always seems to go this way, dammit. I've got the best of intentions, have wondrous visions of deeply insightful blog posts I'm gonna put up in time for you, Dear Reader, to decide what the hell to do for the evening...and then an afternoon full of meetings swings my way, and I'm screwed.

sigh. That's how things happen sometimes, unfortunately, at least in the lives of poor-ass bloggers like yours truly who can't afford to kick back at the casa all day and, y'know, blog for a living. If only... Anyway, there's a veritable ton of cool (and some not-quite-so-cool) shows coming up, so I figured I'd throw 'em up here for your edification.

Before I do that, though, there's some stuff worth mentioning in terms of new/rescheduled shows coming up in the not-far-off future:

• The Ignite Tour show w/Just Jinjer, Lynden, & Zack Hexum @ The Meridian: Sorry, but this one's been cancelled. It'd mean more to me, honestly, if I had any clue who any of these folks are, but eh, there you go. Information transmitted.
• The Cure @ Toyota Center: Yep, the band had to cancel & reschedule, so instead of playing Houston on 10/16, they'll be here 6/9 of, um, next year. As in, "next summer." Damn, man.
• Kelly Clarkson @ Verizon Wireless: In case you missed it, Kelly Clarkson's rescheduled her cancelled tour, too, and she'll be here 11/25 @ the Verizon.
• Silverchair @ The Meridian (11/28): Guys, I get that you're not kids anymore. Honest. You really didn't have to grow those godawful 'staches just to try and look grown-up. Hate to say it, but they look like you made 'em out of cotton balls & glued 'em to your lips...

Now for the real shit. Here goes:

Fri., September 21:
Bloc Party/Deerhoof/J versus K @ Warehouse Live
With A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party managed to toss out the best damn Brit-rock record I've heard in ages; there are very, very few musicians that scream "London!" to me, but this album's now on that list. (That's good, by the by.) Plus, Deerhoof rock, albeit weirdly.

Tody Castillo/Patricia Vonne/Molly & the Ringwalds @ The Continental Club
Tody's The Man. He writes better songs than you & me combined.

Sleeping In The Aviary/Fired for Walking/Novox @ Rudyard's
I'm annoyed at myself about this one, 'cause I've got the Sleeping In The Aviary disc in hand but couldn't get it reviewed & on the site in time for their show...fuck. I'm especially pissed 'cause, well, it's really damn good -- crazed, hyper pop-rock like The Buzzcocks, The Subways, Harvey Danger, and Ohioan weird-rockers Machine Go Boom all locked in a closet and fed bad speed. Listen to the songs off their album, Oh, This Old Thing? here.

The Defenestration Unit @ Brasil
Somehow, I keep missing posting TDU's shows -- which is bad, 'cause they're a lot of fun (and nice folks, besides), sorry, guys...

St. Jude Benefit, featuring Fire Team Charlie, Elaine Greer, & Paula May @ Notsuoh
Don't know the bands really well, but I've heard good things about Elaine Greer. And hey, it benefits sick kids, so y'know.

Greenbelt Collective/Come See My Dead Person/The Hungry Villagers @ Super Happy Fun Land
I just like this show 'cause there's a band playing called "Come See My Dead Person," which I find disturbingly funny on multiple levels.

La Porte Fall Back Festival, featuring B, The Church of Philadelphia, Buxton, Goodnight Belle, The Sam Dinkins III Quintet, & Wilfred Chevis @ 300 West Main St. (La Porte; 6PM, free)
Yep, this weekend's also the La Porte "Fall Back Festival," which has something to do with harking back to the heady days of the 1920s in, um, La Porte. Seriously? This isn't just a big freakin' joke? Hell, I didn't think La Porte was that old... At any rate, there are some excellent bands playing Fri. & Sat., including the heartbreakingly good Church of Philadelphia, Buxton, perpetual faves The Western Civilization, and excellent folksters Papermoons and Listen Listen. If you're in the La Porte 'hood, or maybe feel like making the drive down...

Sat., September 22:
VHS or Beta/Walter Meego @ The Mink
Okay, so I've got no idea if this is really happening; emails from VHS or Beta's PR people say they're playing The Mink tomorrow night, but The Mink's Website says otherwise. Go fig. (If they are playing, btw, it'll be good, honest.)

Houston Metal Fest, featuring PinHed, Brutally Mutilated, Hypodermik, BludStreem, Lay To Waste, Virus, Consumned, Lycophile, 28th St., Dead Trip, All Severed, Suffer Stream, Last Rosary, Prototype 13, Deep Above Surface, Nhuvasarim, Anguish In Exile, Eternal Decimation, BloodVoid, Volatile, Demuredin, Lao Tzu, Burnt Face Jack, SoulDenied, Cymblem, Lifes Hand, Sever The Silence, Vehement, & Hidrolyx @ The Meridian
Urgh. Rrrraawwwr. snort.

Starbucks Mixed Media Music Series, featuring Notorious MSG, Peekaboo Theory, BBC, Karina Nistal, DJ Ceeplus Bad Knives, & Extraman @ MFAH (5601 Main)
Good DJs spinning, emcees spitting, and all of it happening in the august confines of the MFA. Fucking awesome. (And I've gotta love somebody who calls himself "Notorious MSG"...)

The Gold Sounds/Poorman's Sharp Knives @ Super Happy Fun Land
The Gold Sounds are Deer Park, TX's answer to the Kings of Leon -- raw, bluesy, Southern-tinged rawk that's been given a dose of brown acid, handed guitars, and unleashed onstage. They get trippy and downhome, but no matter what they do, it's still pretty inspired rock. Need to hear more of 'em, actually...

Orents Stirner & the Spirit Noise Academy/Slivered/The Soarce @ Jet Lounge
I'm gonna get out to see Slivered one of these days, I swear. Frontman Robin used to play bass for Hayflick Limit, one of my all-time favorite H-town bands, and while he's doing something a little more "standard rock"-like these days, it's still good.

La Porte Fall Back Fest, featuring Science Monsters Galore, Hollywood Black, Papermoons, Listen Listen, The Western Civilization, Keaton Branch, The Alsace Lorraine, Roly's Vaudeville Review, Sideshow Tramps, The Octanes, Abel Salazar, Step Rideau and the Zydeco Outlaws, & Shape Shifters @ @ 300 West Main St. (La Porte; 4PM, free)
Yep, Day 2...

Sun., September 23:
Average White Band/Fondue Monks @ The Meridian
Hey, shut up. "Cut the Cake" is a great song, and I refuse to hear otherwise. It's the best song equating sex to eating that you'll ever hear, dammit.

Tokyo Electron/Born Liars/The Monocles @ Rudyard's
Dunno Tokyo Electron, but Born Liars & The Monocles are two of the best bands repping that grimy Houston garage-rock sound these days; well worth checking out.

Mon., September 24:
Dan Deacon/White Williams @ Walter's on Washington
Yeah, I'll admit that I don't entirely "get" Dan Deacon, but even still, "Crystal Cat" is strangely alluring. And I've heard his live shows rip the roof off.

Tues., September 25:
Interpol/Liars @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Haven't heard the latest Interpol, but I've still got a soft spot for 'em. And besides, Liars are pretty interesting...

Pinback @ Numbers
I just don't get the mania surrounding these guys (er, guy). The music's alright, but it's nothing mindblowing, and certainly not to the point of blog-adulation I've seen.

Wed., September 26:
William Elliott Whitmore/Tim Barry/Josh Small @ Walter's on Washington
Crap. I really wanted to review Josh Small's disc before this show, 'cause it's pretty great. These guys are all part of the new wave of "old-new" country that's out there now; think O Brother Where Art Thou, and you might get close. Oh, and Tim Barry used to play in a little band called Avail.

Thurs., September 27:
The Points/Maaster Gaiden/American Sharks @ Rudyard's
Garage-y punk out your ass.

Punky Reggae Party, featuring Grimy Styles, Queen Majesty, Witnes, & Dayta @ The Proletariat
Not a clue who these folks are (other than local DJs Witnes & Dayta, who're good), but "punky reggae" sounds intriguing.

Jeff Scott Soto (former lead vocalist for Journey)/Stalking Chloe/Sound Breaking Ground @ The Meridian Red Room
I hate to say it, but this show's really just more sad than anything, y'know? I hate to break it to any of Soto's fans out there, but "Journey" without Steve Perry wasn't Journey. Sorry.

Fri., September 28:
The Western Civilization (tour kickoff)/Hollywood Black/Papermoons/Elbows as Weapons @ Walter's on Washington
Yes, yes, yes. I love the Western Civ like they were my own kids (um, if I were fifty rather than thirtysomething, that is). They write some damn good songs, enough to make me brave ridicule by wearing their T-shirt to work (it always gets draws odd/confused comments, for some reason). Oh, and Papermoons are great -- I'm eagerly awaiting my very own copy of their newly-released 7" in the mail now.

High on Fire/Mono/Panthers/Coliseum @ The Meridian
That's a hell of a bill, right there -- it's like the Monsters of Post-Rock tour, with loud guitars, drums, and bass smacking you down from all sides. Personally, I'm a fan of Mono more than Panthers or High on Fire, but I get more into those noisy soundscapes, these days...

The Factory Party @ Dean's Credit Clothing
Only recently gotten into these guys, but they're great; see here.

Do Make Say Think/The Jonx @ The Engine Room
I'm so-so on DMST, but hot damn, The Jonx rock. Expect a "Featured Band" writeup very, very soon. (I promise.)

Velvet Revolver/Alice in Chains/Sparta @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
I could care less about VR, and Alice in Chains is going to be, ah, a bit weird minus one of the more crucial band members. Sparta, though, I'd love to see live.

Lanky/Tody Castillo/Hank Schyma @ Rudyard's
Again: Tody rocks. And not too surprisingly, so does Hank Schyma, frontman for the Southern Backtones -- I saw him do his solo thing at Rudz a while back, and he was great on both the covers and his own stuff (still love "Blue in July").

Sat., September 29:
5th Anniversary Party (in honor of The Skyline Network), featuring Wicked Poseur, Ugenius, Cliché, Spain Colored Orange, & more @ The Proletariat
This one's a dual-purpose celebration, apparently -- it's both The Prolo's 5th Anniversary shindig and a little par-tay in honor of scenester-blog The Skyline Network. Good reasons to party, plus some damn good bands.

The McKenzies/The Factory Party @ The White Swan
Second chance to check out The Factory Party...

Earnie Banks/Piano Vines/Joy In Tomorrow/Seraphim/The Mechanical Boy @ Fitzdown
Woo-hoo! Cool, cool, cool indie-folk people Piano Vines are playing Fitz, and it should be awesome. I'm gonna try to make it out to this one.

That's it for now, 'cause I've gotta fight traffic down 610 & go put a midget to bed...

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

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Okay, so maybe I don't have my Cynic-O-Meter dialed up as high as it probably should be right now, given the current reign of shameless corruption, but didn't we create the office of "Director of National Intelligence" specifically to coordinate all our intelligence agencies and make sure we never again put political gains over national security? Like, say, by lying about how effective a controversial law the President pushed through was, just so when it comes up again it'll get made permanent? Fucking wonderful.

While I'm at it, did anybody see General Petraeus's testimony before Congress? No? Well, you didn't need to bother, anyway -- there's a handy-dandy FAQ on what he said (and also on what he really said) right here. And anybody who thinks that "oh, no -- generals, the guys in charge of our military, they never play politics," has obviously never come into close contact with the military. Once you get above a certain rank, folks (Major, if my dad's experience is anything like the norm), the sad reality is that high-ranking military officers are political creatures. Going by this guy's recently-unearthed presidential ambitions, I'd say he's no different...

Labels: Political Stuff, Random Rambling

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I think one of the best things about the whole Myspace thing, at least w/regards to bands & music, is that it brings me back to the experience of actively looking for new music that knocks me on my ass. When I was a kid I'd scour tape bins for that ultra-obscure band (mostly cheesy metal, mind you, 'cause that was my passion those days) that I'd never heard but who just might change my young musical life.

It was frustrating a lot of the time, esp. given that this was pre-Internet, pre-order-anything-online, and pre-iPod, but I stumbled across a number of bands that way that I probably never would've bothered with otherwise, like Queensryche, Anthrax, or Suicidal Tendencies. Any time I found something that was actually good, it felt like I'd just lifted up a manhole cover in the street to discover pirate gold beneath. It was a great feeling.

The past several years, though, I've spent my time just kinda relying on whatever comes my way, not actually bothering to put any effort into the music search. Sure, I'll read CMJ and the handful of blogs I check on a quasi-regular basis, but even then the gems (Peter and the Wolf, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings) are few and far-between.

Enter Myspace. Now I can spend endless hours blipping from one profile to another, sampling band after band after band that I (and, most likely, you) have never heard of. This is especially cool when it comes to local folks, since odds are their music's not available on Amazon (yet, anyway), and yours truly doesn't get out of the house much lately.

At any rate, here're the latest extremely cool local bands I've tripped over while following some link or another in the Great Web of Myspace Friends:

• The Factory Party: Okay, so I wondered at first how these guys could've just popped up out of nowhere like that without me hearing about 'em before now. Except that, uh, it seems they didn't -- The Factory Party's the new name for Thieves Like Us, a band I've been curious about for quite a while now. With new name in hand, the band's apparently readying an actual EP, and going by the songs they've got on their profile, it's gonna be great -- droney, chiming, dance-friendly indie-rock with a nice Silver Scooter feel to it. Looking forward to the EP, y'all...

• Glasnost: Honestly, I'm not that big a fan of the whole nu-New Wave schtick -- I missed out on it the first time around, for the most part, so it doesn't have the nostalgia hold on me, and while there are a handful of folks out there who do it well, there are far, far more who just plain suck and yet keep on putting out albums. Locals Glasnost (which includes members of Das Automatik & DJ Cuba Gooding Jr.), happily, are in the former category, in my book -- they do the disaffected, jaded pose as well as anybody, the vocals come off like Morrissey at his best, and they layer some nice beats & synths that sound menacing and melodic at the same time. A good damn time.

• Rustler: Oof. I'd heard these guys were good, metal in the best possible way, but I didn't expect the rumors to be all that accurate, y'know? Well, that shows what I know. Full-on instrumental metal with a weird backwoods-Texas twinge to it; lots of intricate basslines, alternately nimble and heavy guitars, and stomping, thundering drums. Like Mastodon without the D&D imagery.

• The Loving Ones: Damn...there're only two songs up on these folks' Myspace profile, which is somewhat frustrating when it's actually good, y'know? On the vocal track of the two, I can't claim to get what the heck vocalist/guitarist/mini-viola (what?) player Sally is singing about, but I like the washes of noisy melody and the rhythms behind it -- it reminds me of a less-funky Morcheeba, weirdly enough (and I mean that in a good way). The other track is all rhythms and spacey noise, a slow-building Explosions in the Sky-esque bit of cinematic rock, and it's quite promising for that, as well.

Enjoy...

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

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Just a quick little update-time post... First off, tonight at Walter's on Washington, excellent nu-yallternative folks Oakley Hall is gonna be rockin' the house (gently, mind you); I've heard their new album, I'll Follow You, and I think it's damn fine, but former expat Houstonian Justin has a more in-depth review up on the site now, too. It should be a good show, so check out the review & then get on up to the Heights, eh?

Of course, we never do anything halfway (um, nope, never...), so there's a decent-sized pile of other new reviews up on the site now. Here's the list:

Reviews: Oakley Hall; Patton Oswalt; Mick Harvey; The Basement; Bad Brains; Bear Claw; Glenn Mercer (ex-Feelies!); & Teedo.

That's it for this week, but we've got quite a bit of good stuff waiting in the wings, so check back.

Labels: Reviews, Things To Do

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Okay, so this is a little weird. When I was a wee musical tadpole back in college, there were a handful of bands that really smacked me sideways, music-wise, and made me realize that hey, maybe there really was all this incredibly cool music out there on the edges where the radio didn't go. Superhunk, Jawbox, Belle & Sebastian, My Blood Valentine -- they totally remade my world.

Also on the list were a band of proto-emo guys from Austin who called themselves Mineral, a dark, urgent, and thankfully non-grunge Seattle indie-rock band called Silkworm, and a patiently surging slocore band called Seam, who also happened to be the first band I ever saw at Emo's (playing with Don Caballero, if memory serves (which, come to think of it, it might not)).

Years went by, and I followed all three bands along, album after album. Mineral died after a handful of 7"s and two stellar full-lengths, then morphed into The Gloria Record, who played what was possibly the most atmospheric, best-sounding show I ever saw at the former Mary Jane's/Fat Cat's. Silkworm fought the good fight in the indie underworld for something like fifteen years, releasing albums that were excellent, good, and okay in varying numbers. Then they lost drummer Michael Dahlquist to a tragic, horrific car wreck in 2005 and, unable to continue without Mike, called the band over.

Seam, for its part, combined folks from both the Chapel Hill and Chicago indie scenes; soon-to-be Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan actually played drums in the band for a year or so back at the start. The band released albums until '99 or so, when they split up and members went their separate ways (to Ee and Poem Rocket, I think, for two). One by one, the bands either crumbled or drifted off into the ether.

Flash forward a few years, and it seems the people in the bands above couldn't keep away from their instruments forever. So, lo and behold, we now have Zookeeper and Bottomless Pit, complete with sample tracks. Enjoy...

Zookeeper - "Snow in Berlin"

Zookeeper is Chris Simpson of Mineral & The Gloria Record (along with cohorts from Zykos, Sad Accordions, & a few other outfits), whose songwriting talents have taken a decidedly non-"emo" turn this time 'round. I dunno if the whole album, Becoming All Things (out on Belle City Pop), is like this one song, but "Snow in Berlin" is jaunty and swinging, with nicely chaotic instruments and a front-porch hoedown feel to it; despite the Germanic subject matter, this is about as far from cold, Teutonic electro-rock as you can get, don't worry. Think harmonicas, barroom pianos, drums just this side of the Black Crowes, and countrified yelp-along vocals. It's a far cry from Simpson's past work, whether in The Gloria Record or Mineral...and I'm guessing that's kind of the point. But hell, it's still very, very good; can't wait to hear the full-length.

Bottomless Pit - "The Cardinal Movements"

Bottomless Pit, on the other hand, consists of Silkworm members Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, ex-Seam drummer Chris Manfrin, and Brian Orchard, formerly of .22. This one, off of the band's debut, Hammer of the Gods (due out on Comedy Minus One), comes as a bit less of a surprise -- the guitars are murk and chimey like on the best Silkworm tracks, always with a hint of discordant despair lurking behind the notes, and the vocals (not sure whether they're by Midgett or Cohen; I cringe to admit it, but the only Silkworm-er I could ever tell apart vocally was Joel Phelps) have a detached-yet-threatening tone to 'em, like some kind of inevitable crash is coming near. At first I'm a little bit "eh," probably due in part to me yearning to hear Michael Dahlquist back behind the drum kit, but after a listen or two the track starts to dig in like a wire slowly being tightened across my wrist (but in a good way, of course).

I have to say, it's nice to see that even though things do indeed change, they still manage to come back around in some new form.

Unfortunately, Bottomless Pit isn't coming to town anytime real soon, but Zookeeper (and Simpson) will be in H-town this coming Sunday, September 17th, playing at newbie(?) venue Boondocks (1417 Westheimer) with tourmates Umbrellas.

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

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Regular readers might remember that back at the end of July yours truly got to play a bloodthirsty, mindless creature of the night in a video for emo-indie guy Jonah Matranga's new track "Not About A Girl Or A Place", filmed by SCR bud Mel House. Well, I missed the big-screen premiere, sadly, but naturally, the video's online (aren't they all?). Check it out:

If you watch closely, by the way, you can see yours truly on the far, far right side both when the zombies first surround the table and then again when Jonah's playing guitar. Later on, though, director Mel foolishly includes a closeup of me (oh, man) pretending to zombie-stalk the couple through the house (boy, am I not an actor...). Don't let my being in the video detract from things, though, 'cause it's excellent in spite of me. Love that last scene...

Labels: Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To See

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I knew this had to be online somewhere:

It's been a long, long time since anything on SNL made me laugh so hard I cried, but this past Saturday, this one did the trick. Robert Smigel, you're a god-damn genius. The voices are absolutely perfect (although no, they're not done by the same folks; thanks, IMDB -- and who knew Esai Morales was the voice of Dora's Papi? weird...), and as somebody who's seen waaaay too many episodes of Dora the Explorer (and Go, Diego, Go!, naturally), the way the characters "interact" is dead-on. Well, mostly, but I imagine you'll get that when you see it. I love the "can you break a fifty?" bit.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Things To See

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Yep, I'm dragging my sorry ass out of the house this evening to catch The Rentals (Myspace) up at Warehouse Live (with Copeland and Goldenboy, neither of which I know a damn thing about; sorry...). And I'm really, truly looking forward to it; believe it or not, Matt Sharp & co. are one of those few bands out there that I've always wished I got to see back in the day, up there with the Pixies, Nirvana, and the Clash.

The weird part, though (to some, anyway), is that I'm not really looking forward to hearing all the stuff off of Return of the Rentals (beyond the track I swiped for the post title and "Friends of P," naturally), but instead am super-freakin'-excited to finally get a chance to (maybe?) hear some of the songs off of the criminally-underrated Seven More Minutes live. My life just won't be complete 'til I can hear "Hello Hello," "Barcelona," and "My Head Is In The Sun" at full rock-out volume, honest.

I'm aware that the above sounds like insanity to some Rentals fans, but fuck it -- while I do love Return, it still smacks of "hey, I got a Moog; let's mess around and come up with some songs!" Seven More Minutes, on the other hand, is the sound of a band (and songwriter, in Sharp) becoming a mature outfit and ditching the gimmicks. Beyond that, the songs are bleak and cutting, a glimpse into the not-what-it's-cracked-up-to-be life of a rockstar sideman who decides he wants to get the hell away from it all and go somewhere where he can be anonymous and just lose himself (Spain, to be exact). In my book, Seven More Minutes is up there as one of the best, most criminally overlooked followup albums in rock history (right next to Primitive Radio Gods' White Hot Peach). This may or may not prove my point, but what the hey -- here're some songs from Seven More Minutes to take a listen to (since, y'know, apparently nobody's heard the damn thing but me):

• "Hello Hello"
• "She Says It's Alright"
• "Big Daddy C"
• "Barcelona"
• "My Head Is In The Sun"

Whoop -- better get a move on, since the doors opened at 7PM, and it's already 8...

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

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No, not the city, but Houston Calling, the excellent, excellent blog by Envy Music Editor (and sometime SCR contributor) David Cobb has moved from its longstanding home over at donewaiting.com to its very, very own Web home at "www.houstoncalling.net". Go check it out, and make sure you change your RSS feed stuff, too (like I had to). (Oh, and the old "www.donewaiting.com/houston" URL no longer seems to work, just so you know...) Congrats to David -- he's a darn good writer, and we here at SCR find out about local stuff from his site about half the time (the other half being pretty much evenly split between the Hands Up board and The Skyline Network).

Labels: H-Town News, Public Service Announcements

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Ah, yes -- home sweaty home. Been back a week or so, actually, but I've been feeling a bit weird about the Internet thing and music in general (more on that in a sec); sorry it's taken me so long to finally crawl back online.

It's strange to be back in H-town, I have to say. After spending a few weeks wandering the clean, efficient, pretty streets and highways of Denmark & Sweden, it was something of a shock to return to the steambath that is this city, with the freeways that are ugly, ugly, ugly and practically drowning in advertising, the streets where garbage always seems piled high pretty much permanently, and the people who're only friendly to you if they want something from you (mostly, anyway).

Granted, Scandinavia was expensive as hell -- I can't bring myself to look at the latest credit card bill, because I think it'll send me running out into the street, screaming. But y'know, at least you get something for it. We were there partly to visit family, most of whom live in Uppsala, a large university town north of Stockholm, and Soderfors, a teeny-tiny ironworking town 45 min. or so further north, and so we quizzed them in-depth on taxes, the educational system, crime, the whole deal.

The tax thing's heavier than it is here, naturally -- most citizens pay 30% of their earnings, with the wealthy paying up to 50% -- but apparently it used to be worse, with the richest people in the country actually owing 100% or more of what they make each year (Astrid Lindgren, the author of the Pippi Longstocking books, got hit like that, I'm told). A while back they decided to make it a bit more sane, though, and dropped the cap to 50%. Again, though, you get something back for your money, a lot more than you do here. Free education through college for anybody who wants it (I only met one guy, a cousin named Jan who happens to be a skinhead & classic car fanatic, who hadn't gone to college; he works at a custom concrete fabrication yard), healthcare whenever you need it, benefits when you're out of work, in school, or retired, a ton of vacation time, the whole nine yards. After feeling like I've watched my tax dollars get flushed away for the past five years, in particular, it seems very tempting.

The funnier part, though, was when the Swedes started asking us about life in the States and Houston in specific. It was a little ridiculous to see the beefy, tattooed skinhead guy lean across the table to me with a worried look on his face and ask, "but is it safe to live there? Do people get murdered or robbed?" And, trying to be honest about our country/city, we responded by saying that no, it's not all that safe, and yes, people do indeed get killed or robbed, every single damn day. We also joked about freeway cameras -- Sweden's covered with 'em, and if you see a flash up above the roadway, that means you'll most likely get a speeding ticket in the mail -- and about how the first time they tried 'em here, it seemed like people shot most of 'em up. (They thought that part was pretty entertaining.)

Of course, there's also the matter of scale -- Sweden's only got like 8 million people or so in the whole country, about a fifth of whom live in Stockholm. Houston alone has, what, 5 million people, and that's probably not counting people who live in Katy, The Woodlands, etc.? Traveling to the U.S. for these folks, especially the more countrified, Stockholm-hating cousins in Soderfors, would be like somebody from Delaware traveling to Texas.

We invited everybody to come visit, naturally, but most smiled and just said, "maybe." Jan, in particular, seemed interested -- he said he'd heard New York was awful, so he wanted to visit another U.S. city -- and we told him that Houston's far from a tourist-friendly town (unless you're into sports, I suppose), but that there are things to do here. His dad, however, laughed and said what I think must've been the Swedish equivalent of "yeah, right!", so maybe it ain't really likely. The $1200 a person pricetag for plane tickets might play a bit of a role in that...

Rather than take the bus or train cross-country, by the way, we drove. We rented a sweet, sweet Volvo S80 (pickup not as good as I'd hoped, but it held all of us plus our ridiculous amount of luggage, had heated seat cushions, and ran on biodiesel(!)), which sadly became the Crapmobile after we made the mistake of parking under a tree outside our hotel in Norrköping. We got the insurance, so hopefully that'll cover birdshit, but maybe I'd better check the credit card bill after all and make sure we didn't get hit with a cleaning charge or something -- one thing I noticed in Denmark and Sweden is that absolutely everything costs something.

Just to give a quick rundown of our trip, we started in Copenhagen, over in Denmark, which was very cool -- I wish we could've stayed there longer, but we had hotels booked all the way across Sweden. We saw the Little Mermaid, rode the rides in Tivoli (well, a few of 'em, anyway; one ferris wheel ride for the three of us cost about $20), and visited the near-death commune at Christiania, which was extremely strange. Imagine an abandoned military base taken over by hippies and artists and then sort of left to see as the years went by, with quiet people biking everywhere and staring in a not-too-friendly sort of way as you wander past. (Not that I blame them, mind you -- I found out after the fact that the cops staged a huge incursion back in May and sparked a riot; thinking back now, it makes a lot of sense that most people seemed paranoid and hostile. Heck, we could've been police infiltrators...)

After that it was a train ride across the Oresund Bridge and into Sweden. We hung out at the Malmö Festival in Malmö (mostly 'cause it was outside our hotel room window), then rented a car and headed south. We hit the recreated Viking village at Foteviken, played in the sand on the south coast at Mossbystrand, hiked up to the incredible standing stones at Ales Stenar (which means, I believe, "old stones"; duh...), situated right on top of a grassy cliff overlooking the Baltic Sea, and then proceeded to get lost, get crazy pantomime directions from a Swedish lady, flatten a tire, and discover that our cottage at the hostel/resort place we'd booked into in Växjö had been given away. Ah, fuck. Best Western Royal Corner, you guys are lifesavers, as are the kind mechanics the next block over who stayed open to refill our tire for free. (Everything in rural Sweden shuts down between 6 and 7PM, with the possible exception of bars and restaurants.)

From Växjö we first went to see an awesomely spooky abandoned castle, Kronobergs Slott, then drove north to Linköping, where we checked out some cool old 19th-century Swedish buildings and I got lost while trying to get back to the car (yes, again). Then on up the freeway to Norrköping, which is this old industrial city that's been "reclaimed," with the old waterways and industrial buildings turned into parks and museums and such. Another place I wish we could've seen more of, but we were due to meet my wife's sister's family in Uppsala and didn't want to be late. We zipped through Stockholm and on up into Uppland, meeting the fam and having the first of several cool family get-togethers.

That night we went out on the town, mingling with Swedish students who all looked like they could be models for Gap ads and settling down at a river-side bar to drink. Well, okay, not me -- I don't drink much in general, but I would've if I wasn't driving, 'cause drunk-driving in Sweden is a major taboo, and the first time gets you slapped with a hefty fine, an automatic 3 weeks in jail, and the suspension of your license besides (I didn't ask what happens to repeat offenders). We had a good time, sitting around discussing religion and politics -- cousin Stefan's a religious history grad-turned-Cisco administration professor, and cousin Elisabeth's husband Michael's a lecturer in political science. When Michael turned to me and regretfully confessed his secret love for Rush (the band, not the asshole radio guy; he follows them from town to town when they tour Sweden), I could tell we were pretty deep in the cups.

After Uppsala was Soderfors and more merrymaking, this time with the whole tribe in attendance. The whole thing was a whirlwind, and I won't go into it here 'cause the names & stories wouldn't mean much to anybody else... And finally, we hit Stockholm, staying in the top-floor suite of the Hotel Sven Vintappare in an amazing old building built in the 1600s in Gamla Stan, the city's "Old Town" district (which is on its own little island in the middle of the city and is largely car-less). Yet another place I dearly want to go back & visit -- we got to see some of the sights, like the Skansen open-air history museum, Pippi Longstocking-land in Junibacken, the Vasa Museet (which has gotta be the only museum in the world devoted to a ship that sank before it ever left the harbor), and the Riddarholmskyrkan, where all the kings and knights are buried, but there's still a ton we didn't do.

Argh -- gotta go; par-tay time in the park looms. More later...

Labels: Random Rambling, Travel Stuff

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