Sorry for the quiet on the Space City Rock front, folks -- your humble Editor-in-Chief (that is, me) has been working on selling the house and buying a different one for a while now, for a variety of reasons, and after many, many months of crossed fingers and a ridiculous number of house searches on HAR.com, we now have one. And, as of this past Sunday, we're all moved into it.

Ready for the downside? Well, it turns out that I wasn't as diligent about checking the house over as I probably should've been when we bought the damn thing -- it'd been totally redone, all the plumbing, all the electrical, the foundation, the roof, yadda, yadda. We start stacking boxes in it this past weekend and start looking around and, "hey, have you seen a phone jack?" Then the father-in-law spotted the phone company's Network Interface Device, not attached to the house but shoved down between the chain-link fence and the rickety wooden fence behind. Still attached to the telephone pole (and apparently still working, which is nice, at least), but attached in no way to our house. Hell, we couldn't even tell where it used to be installed, inside the house or on the siding.

So, we are essentially cut off from the rest of Mankind for the time being (no cable yet, either, although the wires for that are at least still there). I'm calling AT&T to get some jacks put in, but since that costs a crapload (and will probably take another week), I'm seriously considering drilling holes in the outer walls of my brand-ass-new house so I can run phone cable in, D.I.Y.-style. I'm honestly not sure which of the options is worse. sigh.

On top of all of the above, I somehow managed to get myself promoted at The Day Job, which means that now I'm no longer a no-responsibility, go-home-early Flunky but a Boss (albeit a low-level one) in charge of a whole damn project and one other actual live human being. And yeah, that's pretty terrifying -- while I do technically already run the SCR show, it's a little different having to hand out real work to somebody, and it's not something I'm real good at. I'm working on it, though, and am currently swallowed whole by work for just about every office-bound second of my day. Things will get better, I'm sure, but for now, well, Life is kicking my ass.

At any rate, this is all by way of explanation for the complete and utter silence on the SCR site in the past five days or so. Things are more than a little sketchy at the new casa right now, but we hope to have SCR Headquarters up and running soon, with a little luck. Keep yr fingers crossed, y'all, and don't fret -- we aren't dead, just, um, not talking for a little while. We'll be back, I swear.

Labels: Admin Stuff, Public Service Announcements

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

Meant to post this earlier, but eh, shit happens, and so... Seeing as how that whole Muxtape thing is so damn neat, it only makes sense that the Houston Press's John Lomax would be into it, too. I missed his "African diaspora" muxtape, sadly, but the one he put up this past week is damn cool, focusing on -- yeah, you guessed it -- cool H-town people.

As mux/mixtapes go, while Lomax says the tracks are all from this decade, this one feels like a bit of a trip down Memory Lane; there're a recent tracks, like the one from The Scattered Pages, but I'm digging the Panic In Detroit, Jug O' Lightnin', and The Westbury Squares, in particular, and those bands all broke up (I'm pretty sure they did, at least) a while ago. Man, "The Anti Chorus" really, truly makes me miss The Squares; I feel like I never really gave those folks their due while they were around, but now they sound fine, fine, fine.

Anyway, check it out quick, before it gets replaced w/this week's(?) installment...

Labels: Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Download, Things To Hear

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

Damn, this makes me really, really sad (and big "thanks" to David over at the ever-stellar Houston Calling for breaking the news...). In spite of my being smack-dab in the middle of The Week From Hell (job promotion + new responsibilities + immediate deadlines + selling house + buying house + moving all our crap == nonstop fun!), I was seriously contemplating dragging my exhausted, dust-choked ass up to Warehouse Live to finally see Ms. Marshall up close and in person, but alas, 'twas not to be. Hope she feels better soon; them damn vocal cords are tricky things.

Damn, I really wish I'd put Moon Pix on my iPod before I packed it away in the gigantic stack of boxes. Crap...

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

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

Turns out I can't even post an apology for being slow properly. Fuck. I put up the post last night around 11PM, figuring any nite-owl readers would see it & drive themselves down to Sig's for the tail-end of their Record Store Day deal...and then, when I get back online this AM, I see it didn't actually go up 'til 3AM this morning.

Blogger, now you're really starting to piss me off. What good's a blogging app if it posts what you want it to post five fucking hours after it's meant to go up? Hey, what kind of meta-ironic hell am I trapped in if this post doesn't actually go live 'til 2PM this afternoon, when it's 10AM as I type this? Ah, fun.

(And no, I'm not even bothering w/their tech support this time -- I've sent several reports of issues/problems to them over the past couple of years and have yet to hear anything back. It's like a black hole of helpfulness. How's that for customer service, folks? I think I've had better experiences with used-car dealers.)

Labels: Admin Stuff, Random Rambling

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

I suck, suck, suck. In my frantic rush to post about Record Store Day, I woefully neglected to give even the briefest shoutout to the wondrous, magical Midtown haven that is Sig's Lagoon (3710 Main, if you were wondering). Which is doubly stupid considering that in the past six months or so I've shopped there more recently and more frequently than I have anywhere else. Argh...

Sig's folks, I'm really sorry -- y'all are a fine, fine store, and I truly didn't mean to leave you out; I'm just a scatterbrain, is all. I've learned, btw, somewhat belatedly (been offline since lunchtime, I'm afraid, hanging with a certain midget who loves Shrek, rock music, and ice cream, in that order), that Sig's is participating in the Record Store Day shenanigans, and hey, since the day ain't over yet, and the store generally seems to be open late...why not stop by, eh?

Seriously, if you get a chance, even if it's not today, I'd give 'em a look, 'cause it's quite a place. And if you happen to be in the Midtown 'hood between now & closing time (which I think is midnight, but don't quote me), I'm told Sig's is selling all used vinyl at 50% off and are throwing in some cool promo vinyl, too. I hit Cactus this afternoon, and while it was a bona-fide madhouse, they had some truly neat stuff; I'm guessing Sig's is the same kind of deal.

Sorry again for the miss...but hey, while we're on the subject, it 'pears Sig's is having a bash of its own a little further down the road -- they're hosting the Night of the Living Tiki art show, featuring (duh) tiki/hotrod/exotica/skull/etc.-themed art by Crash (aka Cindy Raschke) on this May 12th from 6-10PM. It's a little ways off, sure, but it sounds cool, esp. as the art I've seen so far is pretty stunning and the music for the event will be provided by Clouseaux, Sig's owner Tomas Escalante's tiki-lounge-weirdness band and a badass crew I don't see playing shows nearly enough these days. They're awesome, truly.

That's it, then -- hopefully I'll get something up at some point on the craziness of today, but for right now I've gotta pack and listen to the sound of my glass courtyard door quietly falling to pieces as the warmth of the day leaves... (Lesson-learned memo to homeowners: if you have a courtyard w/glass doors in it, do not have any yard guys you hire weedwhack in there. Weedwhackers are very, very bad, and glass gets expensive when it's door-sized. Seriously.)

Labels: Arty Shit, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Get

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

Okay, so I was a bit confused about this one -- I'd thought today's Record Store Day thing I'd been hearing about from the Cactus Music crew was just something at their happy little store, but noooo...apparently it's North America-wide, if not further. Turns out lots of indie music stores all across the country are throwing wide their doors today and having all kinds of fun & entertaining stuff going on, as a sort of show of indie-store solidarity. Neat, if you ask me...

I can't speak for other stores, but the party's starting over at Cactus, it sounds like. They've got live music from the reportedly-excellent South Austin Jug Band starting at noon (er, right now, that is?), followed by James McMurtry at 3PM, (free?) beer from St. Arnold's, a bunch of new releases (like Jason Isbell's Live at Twist & Shout), free pizza from 1-3PM, a vinyl listening party from 4-7PM, and tons of unspecified freebies (I'm guessing things like stickers, buttons, & label samplers). Plus, you can enter to win a Red Hot Chili Peppers skateboard, autographed stuff, and maybe even a guitar. Hot damn...

So, there you go -- it's a beautiful damn day, so get on out & head over to Shepherd Plaza to enjoy some music and support one of the few true bastions of independent music left in this city (while you're at it, head on over to Sound Exchange, Soundwaves, & Vinal Edge, too; I dunno if they're "celebrating" the day, as well, but you've gotta spread the love, right?). Cactus (the new Cactus, that is) is housed at 2110 Portsmouth, around the corner from Freebirds & Amy's and across the street from all the horseshoe(?)-throwers at The Stag's Head. I swear, as soon as the freakin' lawn guy shows up ("I'll be there in 20 minutes!" was an hour and a half ago...argh), me and The Munchkin will be making our way over there for some big-ass Freebirds burritos & some cool music stuff.

Also On: Just in case you thought the brilliantly-conceived Secret Saturday Show thing had died an untimely death, take heart. I have it on relatively good authority that Austin/Houston dweller Thane Matcek (Sad Like Crazy/ex-All Transistor/ex-Linoleum Experiment/etc.) will be over at The Shady Tavern in the Heights (it's at 1206 W. 20th St.) this afternoon with his newest musical project, band The Judas Bear.

It's gonna be really freakin' cool, people, trust me -- I've been a fan of both Matcek and collaborator Mark's (Richardson, I think?) work for years now, and pretty much everything they touch is strange but good. And is "J.D." J.D. Tucker from Over Sea Under Stone/Lenny Briscoe? Even better...

Lomax over @ the Houston Press recently profiled "Sit Shiva", one of The J.B.'s neatest songs, so I'd highly recommend checking out the song and/or the band themselves up at the Tavern this afternoon. I dunno today's lineup for sure, but per normal SSS operation, DJs start up at noon while the bands play from 2-5PM. And hey, it's free-free-free (as is the Cactus Record Store Day thing, btw), so you can't beat that.

Labels: Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To Hear, Things To See

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

Just a quick note on this one, I'm afraid, since I'm still swamped as hell at work & barely have time to type things that aren't instructions for IT security-type people...argh. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to post a little something, seeing as I'm stunned I hadn't heard more about this before now.

It seems that the excellently cool Media Archaeology: Live and Televised art event/festival/whatever has rolled into town right under my very nose & has set up shop over at the Aurora Picture Show, among other locations. You can check the full schedule here, and I'll try to post again w/more on the festivities, but in the interests of just-in-timeliness, you might want to know that Negativland will be performing tonight (April 17th) at Rice University's Herring Hall.

I can't claim to be a huge fan of Negativland's work itself, mind you, but I do respect the heck out of 'em for taking on beloved pop-cultural/branding icons like, um, say, that big-ass band whose name rhymes with equally beloved chocolate drink Yoo-hoo. They were among the first artists to seriously take on the shadowy realm of copyrights and fair use, and anybody who samples, mashes, or whatever the fuck else owes them a huge debt. Without these guys, I doubt there'd be a DFA, an M.I.A., or a, uh, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. (Well, probably not, anyway.)

Anyway. It's tonight, starting at 8PM sharp, which ain't that far off, so get the wheels in motion, yo. Tickets are $8 in advance or $10/$12 at the door, depending who you ask...

Labels: Arty Shit, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do

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

How do I always end up like this? Argh...the day just slip-slides away from me, I swear... Anyway, I wanted to post 'cause in the past 7 days or so we've now put up two separate batches of reviews & such, and I was woefully unable to post about the first bunch before leaving town last weekend. Dang.

But hey, here I am now, so that makes it all okay, right? And tonight's a rush-rush deal, as always, because one of the folks we've reviewed this week, The Ruby Suns, happen to be playing tonight (April 16th) over at The Mink's Backroom annex, along with headliners Scout Niblett & Throw Me The Statue and excellent locals Elaine Greer and Sew What.

It's a show jam-packed with goodness, honest -- the Suns themselves make this crazy, sunbaked Southern Hemisphere-centric brand of psych-pop that for once sounds weirdly like where it's from (i.e., New Zealand), and while I'm not super familiar with Niblett, I really like her cover of "Uptown Top Ranking," weird as it is. Throw Me The Statue I don't know much about, unfortunately, but anybody who takes their name from an Indiana Jones movie's alright by me. Plus, they're on Secretly Canadian, and pretty much everything that comes out of SC is gold, at least to me.

Of course, I can't forget the lovely local folks doing the opening, namely Ms. Greer & Sew What; Greer has been making some big waves in our little scene of late, on the strength of her excellent songwriting & singing skillz, and even though this 'pears to be a solo-acoustic deal and not a "full" gig with her band The Holly Hall, it promises to be good anyway. And Sew What's been entertaining when I've seen 'em in the past, doing their quirk-folk thing; very odd, yes, and yet strangely appealing...

So go. Read the review here, then go. Go, go, go, get out of the house and go in my stead, 'cause I'll be packing damn boxes all night long. Gah. Moving sucks ass. (The doors open at 8PM, btw, and the cover's $10 -- don't let the double digits dissuade you, though, cheapass. Remember, some of these folks are coming all the way from NZ...)

While you're checking out reviews, by the by, I would heartily recommend you see what else we've got up -- there's brand-spankin'-new reviews of new (and some new-ish) stuff by Sun Kil Moon, The Raconteurs, Goldfrapp, Casy and Brian, La Brea, & a ton more. Here's the full two-week-sized pile:

Reviews: The Ruby Suns; Sun Kil Moon; La Brea; Casy and Brian; All Teeth and Knuckles; The Raconteurs; Goldfrapp; Worrytrain; The Epochs; A Step Behind; The Johnbenders; Vopat; ZibraZibra; Danger Radio; Paperwork; partlycloudy; & Shangoband.

More to come, y'all...

Labels: Musical Crap, Reviews, Things To Do

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

Three words (well, technically two words, but y'know) come to mind when I look at the ginormous pile of cool stuff that's going on this weekend: why, God, why? See, 'cause while all you fortunate town-bound people will see your respective cups overfloweth, I will be shepherding three screaming children (not all my own) around Ye Olde Alamo and the Magical Land of Shamu, both of which are in San Antonio, not here. Fuck.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the kids, believe me, but I've honestly been looking forward to this weekend and, stupid me, neglected to factor in the pre-existing family-type plans (the type that involve relatives and nonrefundable airline tickets) when getting psyched about said cool stuff. sigh. I'd damn well better not be out of town when the Press Awards Showcase hits, too, or that's my whole spring/summer season blown...

Anyway, let's hit the high points, shall we?:

WESTHEIMER BLOCK PARTY: Yes, yes, yes. From humble beginnings, the Westheimer Block Party, a mutated, high-voltage descendant of the venerable, much-beloved/much-bickered-over Westheimer Street Festival that's been brought to life by the very cool Free Press Houston crew, has grown to be something pretty damn special. I'll admit that I was a little bemused on my first visit, but the thing's grown by leaps & bounds in the relatively short time since then. And hey, it's free to all, so that's hard to beat...

This time out -- Saturday, April 12th, to be specific -- the show looks absolutely fucking stellar. I'm not going to run down the whole schedule here -- you can go here for that (although be warned that, fate being what it is, some things are bound to shift between posting on the Internets and the Real World).

For this edition of the WBP, there're even honest-to-God headliners ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead & HEALTH, who're playing Numbers in the evening-time with badass locals Young Mammals (aka The Dimes, but I have to say, I like the new name much better; makes me think of The Discovery Channel, oddly...), Spain Colored Orange, & By the End of Tonight, as well as DJs Ceeplus Badknives & Damon. I'm not a huge Trail of Dead fan, truthfully, but I dig the hell out of a song or three ("How Near, How Far" is excellent, even several years past), and I'm told HEALTH kick ass -- as for the other folks, I can personally attest that yes, they all do indeed kick ass themselves.

Now, for the earlybirds, you've got your choice of stages, starting at noon or so tomorrow -- there'll be bands playing at the Avant Garden (ex-Helios/The Mausoleum; downstairs & upstairs), Numbers (inside & outside), & Mango's (ex-The Oven, next door to the Avant Garden; inside & outside). There will be bands assaulting your ears from left, right, and above, which can make this sort of thing disconcerting, so here're my personal faves to check out:

AVANT GARDEN (OUTSIDE):
2:15-2:45 -- The Watermarks
3:00-3:30 -- Buxton
3:45-4:15 -- Piano Vines (this one really hurts; every time these folks play, I'm out of damn town...)
6:00-6:30 -- Papermoons
7:30-8:00 -- Elaine Greer (not sure if this is with the rest of The Holly Hall or not)
8:15-8:45 -- Sabra Laval

AVANT GARDEN (UPSTAIRS):
1:30-2:00 -- Antarctica Starts Here
3:45-4:15 -- Cop Warmth
9:00-9:30 -- The Gold Sounds

NUMBERS (OUTSIDE):
1:30-2:00 -- American Sharks
2:15-2:45 -- Perseph One
4:30-5:00 -- Thee Armada (hate all you want; they're a damn good post-emo band...)
7:30-8:00 -- H.I.S.D.

NUMBERS (INSIDE):
3:45-4:15 -- Southern Backtones

MANGO'S (INSIDE):
4:30-5:00 -- The Takes
7:20-7:50 -- Satin Hooks

MANGO'S (OUTSIDE):
3:45-4:15 -- Rise Over Ruin
4:30-5:00 -- The Wild Moccasins

Obviously, there're more excellent people playing all over the damn place, but dangit, I had to pare the list down some so as to not overburden you, Dear Reader, unduly. I probably have anyway, seeing as some of the above folks are playing at the same time -- now'd be a perfect time to start working again on the old cloning project you've had sitting in your garage for the past six years, right? Whatever you do, just go, wander around, listen to bands; the beauty of this type of show is that you're absolutely guaranteed to hear/see something you like, even if you don't like all of it.

Good on ya, Free Press-ers. I really, truly, with my heart of hearts wish I was gonna be out on Westheimer tomorrow. But eh, the family thing's gotta come first, and the kids want some damn killer whales, so...

KTRU OUTDOOR SHOW: And then, even though you won't be recovered from all that sun & car exhaust & rock, well, you need to head on over to Rice University campus on Sunday, April 13th for the 17th Annual KTRU Outdoor Show. Being a former DJ, I've got a special place in my heart for KTRU, and the Outdoor Show's a significant part of why -- when I was but a wee student, the Outdoor Show introduced me to a whole slew of bands/musicians I'd never gotten to see or hear before, and it truly opened my eyes to musical life beyond the hedges, since in my day, most students rarely left campus unless they lived off-campus (I think it's changed, from the large no. of cars I see parked when I go by there now). The Outdoor Show was like bringing the music to the students, since the students wouldn't go to it.

My first-ever Outdoor Show, I happened to catch Alejandro Escovedo for the first time, and it dropped my jaw to the ground -- even now when I hear "By Eleven," I get this sad, wistful smile on my face and feel this strange tight feeling in my chest. It's crazy. And then there's the infamous NoMeansNo show, which was one of my first encounters with punk at its absolute wildest...

At any rate, this is a good, good deal. Like the WBP, the Outdoor Show's also free for all & sundry, and runs from noon-9PM, roughly. I think (although don't quote me) that there's even free food & St. Arnold's beer. And there're some damn good folks playing this time -- I dearly love headliners Parts & Labor, for one, 'cause they do that paranoiac/majestic-noise squall like nobody else, Nosaprise is downright decent local hip-hop, Balaclavas rock my socks off (need to listen to their 2 EPs again, actually), and Dead PA is actually the new(-ish) electronic project of Population Zero, an old friend from my band days, so I'm bummed I won't get to see him live & in-person for the first time in a loooong while.

So go, go, go. Fight the hangover & sit out on the grass with the students & parents & all that. Trust me, it's a good time.

HOUSTON INDIE BOOK FESTIVAL: Gotta run, but I absolutely can't forget to mention this, it's just too damn cool. The Gulf Coast journal & Domy Books are hosting the neato-sounding Houston Indie Book Festival this Saturday, April 12th, right down the road from the Block Party @ Domy -- it's free, it runs from 10AM-5PM, and it's going to be a blowout of indie/underground publishing madness. Here's the info from the organizers:

Readings by David McLean, Mat Johnson, and others.

From the organizers, publishers, and magazines. Browse hundreds of titles from the underground out in the sunshine. Grab a cup of coffee at Brasil. Rub shoulders with Marjane Satrapi.

Start the spring with books and magazine right with all the magazines and books you can carry off from our FIRST ANNUAL HOUSTON INDIE BOOK FESTIVAL and Fifth Annual CLMP Literary Magazine & Small Press Fair in Houston, where hundreds of regional and national independent literary publishers will converge to sell their discounted journals and books.

The fair is co-sponsored by Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, Inprint, and The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Inprint inspires readers and writers in Houston. Inprint programs and events provide something for everyone and play a vital role in Houston's rich and diverse cultural life.

CLMP is the nationís only nonprofit support and advocacy organization serving the independent literary publishing community.

This program made possible in part through support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

And yes, re-read that second sentence again: "[r]ub shoulders with Marjane Satrapi." Wow. Satrapi's the writer behind Persepolis, an awesome two-part bio-comic about growing up in post-Islamic Revolution Iran, and it's utterly brilliant. You might know what I'm talking about, by the by, because her books were recently turned into what I've heard is an excellent animated film. I'm totally flabbergasted that she's appearing in our little podunk city -- she's actually going to be doing a reading of some sort at Hobby Center, but she'll be dropping by Domy, as well.

Again: why, God? What did I do to deserve this? Couldn't you have scheduled the family trip for the weekend when REO Speedwagon & Up with People were in town, instead? sigh.

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

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

I can't believe this finally happened. I also can't believe anybody still cares, especially enough that they'd do something dumb like this. Of course, "handed over" is not exactly "released" -- who knows what the label'll do with it now -- but still. That's what's known as calling somebody's bluff, y'all. Prepare to pony up, Cadbury Schweppes...

(On a side note, does anybody else out there find it disturbing and strange that a fucking soft drink has its own Myspace page? Who in the hell would want to be add a soda as their friend? Although now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if Jamesons has a Myspace page...)

Labels: Entertainobabble, Musical Crap, Random Rambling

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

Quick note, 'cause I've got to run home to feed kittens & eat pizza (why do I hear Rowdy Roddy Piper in my head right now? weird...). There's what sounds like a very cool documentary playing tonight @ 7PM at Avant Garden, called BRAD: One More Night at the Barricades -- it's about Brad Will, a longtime activist and videographer who was shot and killed (possibly by a local governmental official) while filming the teacher strike/protests in Oaxaca, Mexico. I'd heard of Brad through Indymedia stuff, but sadly didn't know he was dead until I saw the note about this film...sigh. Damn shame; he sounded like quite a human being.

Anyway, the film promises to be impressive. From the organizers:

When Mexican paramilitary forces shot Brad Will in the chest, killing him, his camera fell from his hands. But it didn't stop recording. It continued moving from hand to hand telling Brad's story, as well as the story of the movement of movements that he was part of. From the squats of New York to the forests of Oregon, from the anti-globalization protests in Seattle, Prague, Quebec to the popular uprising in Oaxaca, Brad's camera paints us a picture of what his life was about, and what so many of his friends continue to struggle for.

They're asking for $5-$10 donations, but say that nobody will be turned away. Go check it out, y'all.

Labels: Political Stuff, Public Service Announcements, Things To Do, Things To See

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

This is absolutely priceless -- check out the video at the end. I'm bummed that there's no footage of Something Fierce, and Be My Doppelganger sound like they would've been cool to see, despite the blown-out videocam mic, but honestly, the part that kills me is the spliced-in post-shutdown commentary by Ramon & Rosa's adorable six-year-old son. I'm very heartened to know that I'm not the only parent with a ridiculously precocious, punk rock-loving kid who hates The Man.

Labels: Cool Web Junk, H-Town News, Random Rambling, Things To See

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

Fuck. I've been steaming about this for a couple of weeks now, but I just can't get over it -- I'm still mad as hell that Jericho got cancelled for the second damn time, this time permanently.

Beyond the fact that the CBS rocket scientists, in their infinite wisdom, put the show in a weird-ass spot at 9PM on Tuesday nights, when/where nobody could apparently find it (hell, I had a hard time watching it at that time & on that night, for some reason), it just feels like a total shame that such an honestly good show got shafted like this, particularly when total crap like Big Brother, My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, & Don't Forget the Lyrics! are still on the air. (I can't even remember the name of that god-fucking-awful "spill the beans about all your past infidelities" show, sorry, or that'd be first on the list.)

In fact, I've been thinking about it and thinking about it, and I just can't shake the feeling that it was a truly great show, although arguably still in its early stages. (Warning: for those who have yet to see the show, some spoilers to come...)

It was really that good; I mean that seriously. I'd initally written it off as some kind of right-winger's wet dream of a show -- survivalism after the bomb, every-man-for-himself bullshit -- but it turned out to be something that crossed all lines and hit upon some of the deepest, darkest shit that's roiling under the surface of our wonderful, soul-shattered Modern America. It was all about community, about banding together to help one another rather than just looking out for your own (well, within your own town, anyway), about loss and grief beyond measure, about people not being all bad or all good but just being people, and about being able to pick up the pieces after disaster strikes and making a new life.

Oh, and it was also about some fairly radical ideas, like localism vs. nationalism, the government not always being in the right, screwing up and living with the mess, and unchecked corporate power. Heady stuff for a show about a small town in Kansas that's been all but ignored by the rest of the world (barring the desperate, warlike next town over and some ominous corporate mercenaries, anyway) after somebody decided to nuke most of the population centers in the U.S.

Plus, despite me & the wife making ruthless fun of some of the characters, particularly in the first season -- sorry, Sprague Grayden/Heather Lisinski, but for the bulk of the first season you were pretty much just some kind of combination between a hapless '50s housewife and Velma from Scooby-Doo -- the characters and actors showed some impressive development. Everyman semi-hero Skeet Ulrich/Jake Green was likeable as all hell, as resourceful as MacGyver, and yet still susceptible to things like, well, the urge to run out and blow the head off the guy who got his dad killed. That's what I'd call human, personally.

Not everybody was always right or wrong -- even Michael Gaston/Gray Anderson hit a few things on the nose, despite pulling such legally questionable shit as co-opting deputy Jimmy to interrogate Lennie James/Robert Hawkins when Anderson, um, didn't actually hold any kind of position of authority. Hawkins, for his part, was nicely vulnerable and real when it came to his utter failure as a dad and/or husband, in spite of being a badass at everything else. Which, honestly, makes perfect sense; I'd find a combo SuperDad/Secret Agent Man totally unrealistic, personally.

My favorite character-related bit, though, was the convoluted, Odd Couple-esque, growing-in-spite-of-everything relationship between Brad Beyer/Stanley Richmond & Alicia Coppola/Mimi Clark, which was -- for my money, anyway -- the best, funniest, sweetest, most believable on-screen chemistry I've seen since Rob Morrow & Janine Turner fought nonstop up there in little Cicely, Alaska. I can't honestly remember the last time I actually wanted a relationship to work out between two characters on a TV show as much as these two. It kills me not to be able to see what happens between the two of 'em.

The reason this is all coming to me right now, though, is more about the plot than the characters. While watching Season One on DVD (missed most of the first go-round, myself) and catching up to Season Two pretty much in time for The End, I've also been reading Michael Eric Dyson's excellent Come Hell or High Water, about the Katrina disaster/clusterfuck/tragedy. Dyson dissects the whole thing quite nicely, laying blame on everybody, Democrat & Repub, but primarily smacking down the federal government for utterly dropping the ball, whether due to patrician ignorance of how The Po' Folk live or good ol' cronyist incompetence.

It was the part about all the no-bid contracts that flew into effect quickly (but not quite quickly enough, as it happened) after Katrina that made me see the parallels between Jericho, KS, and post-Katrina New Orleans, LA. Two disasters, two inadequate responses from a fractured, self-interested federal government, and two near-takeovers by corporate power. 'Cause c'mon, that's exactly what's happening in New Orleans since the water came, believe it, starting with all those Big Red H rebuilding contracts.

Seen in that light, Jericho seems downright Mother Jones-ish in its condemnation of BushCo, USA. Hell, even the eventually-revealed blueprint for the attacks -- a contingency plan for a nuclear strike on 25 different American cities, written up by a contractor -- is ripped right out of the shady world of real-life, no-bid government contracting. A plan very much like that really does exist, although it's focused primarily on preparing logistics for the event, things like the number of bodybags to purchase and the distance a wastewater zone needs to be from a tent city. It's real and it's creepy as shit, trust me.

I know it'll sound eerily like I'm echoing the show here, but I know because I worked on the damn thing. Not as a writer, mind you, but doing editing and formatting and making it look purty/readable. The plan's part of a set of contingency plans created for a DOD program called LOGCAP, which stands for "Logistics Civil Augmentation," that gets awarded out to one of a handful of super-big contracting companies (including KBR, Fluor, and, I believe, Dresser & Bechtel). The contracted company commits to being able to provide all the services, facilities, manpower, etc., specified in the contingency plans they come up with, should the U.S. government activate one or more plans. Think of the whole thing as government outsourcing for big, bad events.

LOGCAP was how Halliburton got its foot into Iraq. It's also how they started billing the U.S. insane amounts for laundry, non-functioning trucks, and awful food for the troops. Don't get me wrong -- there are a lot of good people who work for Halliburton. It's just that that much $$$ flying around makes it real easy to start overcharging, scamming, and skimming. LOGCAP isn't that bad an idea, really, but when you hand off something like that to people outside the government, it gives those people a whole lot of money -- and power -- whether you're talking about Baghdad, Jericho, or, well, New Orleans.

See, there's also a contingency plan out there for a catastrophic event in the Caribbean or Latin America, with an ensuing mass of refugees in urgent need of shelter, food, water, and medical care either somewhere in the southern U.S. or at Guantanamo Bay. Sound familiar? Weirdly, I didn't see any sign of that particular plan being activated for New Orleans, but other LOGCAP plans were -- supposedly, the Blackwater mercenaries sent into The Big Easy after Katrina were part of a LOGCAP contract.

This is why I like/liked Jericho -- the people writing the show basically went head-on at both KBR/Halliburton (which are now two different companies, I know) and Blackwater, tying them to an ambitious Congressman from Montana who, it turns out, had close ties to KBR analogue Jennings & Rall/J&R. (And just to make the Jericho connection to Blackwater more explicit: "Blackwater" == "Ravenwood." Capisce?) All of which is pretty ballsy for a Big Three primetime TV drama. We're not talking Democracy Now!, here.

Anyway. I'm just wanting to express how impressed I was with the show, not to mention how sad it makes me that it's gone away. I've heard rumors that it might come back on cable, but I'm not real optimistic, as great as that'd be. And yeah, it'd be pretty great. (Watch the Season 1 DVDs and the Season 2 episodes online or on the SciFi Channel, if you don't believe me.) Keeping my fingers crossed that we haven't seen the last of Jake, Hawkins, Stanley, Eric, Mimi, Emily, & the rest.

Labels: Entertainobabble, Political Stuff, Random Rambling, Things To Read, Things To See

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

Yep, got some more new stuff up online this week, including a review of shaggy-headed Tyler boys Ivoryline, who're playing tomorrow (Sun., 4/6) at Warehouse Live with Family Force 5, The Myriad, & The Maine -- I dunno a thing about the rest of the bill, but Ivoryline aren't bad, at least not on record. You can check out writer Bill Reed's review of the album here & see if it's your thing, as well.

Plus, there're writeups on the new Mark Lanegan/Greg Dulli collab/project The Gutter Twins, the Fake Problems disc that brought writer Teri Sue back to the musical world, and the cool new Marion Brown tribute disc by Michiganders His Name is Alive. All of which, btw, are damn cool. Reviews of all three are up on the site.

On top of that, we've got up reviews of a couple of shows, like the badass punk nostalgia-fest with NOFX, No Use For A Name, The Flatliners, & lone-gone local guys Latch Key Kids and the Beach House/Papercuts show at Walter's a little while back -- check 'em out here and here.

Here's the full pile:

Live Reviews: NOFX/No Use For A Name/The Flatliners/Latch Key Kids & Live: Beach House/Papercuts.

Reviews: Ivoryline; The Gutter Twins; Fake Problems; His Name is Alive; The Autumn Offering; The Millions; Scott Reynolds & The Steaming Beast; & Stereo Total.

More to come this month; keep checking back.

Labels: Live Reviews, Musical Crap, Reviews, Things To Do

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Damn, I swear I was gonna post about this earlier today... From Ramon over at the Free Press, it 'pears local cool kids (and my personal heroes) Something Fierce will be playing today at 5PM over at the Starbucks at 2050 W. Grey. They'll be joined by Indianites Be My Doppelganger & fellow locals alarma!, as well as possibly hamburgers & hot dogs.

How the bands hooked this shit up, I'll never know, but this should be worth it just to see the looks on the faces of all those River Oaksies when confronted by the awesome power of The Rock in all its middle-finger-flying glory. I predict screaming, vomiting, and frantic Blackberry calls to the cops, so you'd better get there early. (You have half an hour; get on it.)

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

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

Since I've started trying to bring the little digital camera I got for Christmas to more shows lately, I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for the Days of Yore here in Houston's murky-yet-vibrant scene. There was a time when I'd bring my trusty Pentax to every damn show -- esp. the ones we played -- and try to get pictures of fellow H-town musicians doing their thing for, well, pretty much nobody but other H-town musicians.

They were strange times, but fun. And more and more lately I feel like our big-little scene's gone back to that time again; there are a ton of great bands, after somewhat of a dry spell with only a handful of brave stalwarts soldiering on through (Bring Back The Guns, the Guilloteens, etc.), and the people seem more tightly connected than they were before, kinda like what I remember of my own band days. We played with friends, for the most part, or people who became friends, and luckily, most of our friends were much better musicians/songwriters than we were. We didn't give a crap who came, but just got on a stage, plugged in, and played for the hell of it. Again, Now feels a lot like Then, at least to me.

Anyway, in the pre-moving frenzy, I stumbled across an old photo album where I'd fortuitously stashed a bunch of my attempts at rock photog-dom, pictures of such venerable bands as Pop Deflation, the aforementioned Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Ultramagg, & (I think) Inbred Whiteboy, heroes all. Seeing as these were all from the pre-digital camera-happy past, I had to scan all the damn things in, but looking at 'em now, I think it was worth it. Here're a few of my favorites:

Pop Deflation @ The Oven
(And yes, that's Melissa Lonchambon of Panic in Detroit/Sharks and Sailors fame sitting on the floor.)

Fatal Flying Guilloteens @ The Oven
(Pre-dual vocalists, pre-John Adams, and pre-McManus leaving town for the first time, even.)

Junior Varsity @ ClubSafeParking
(Holy shit, I miss JV.)

Ultramagg @ The Mausoleum
(Glad to know these guys are still around...)

Charlie (The Suspects/The Magnetic IV) @ Rudyard's
(The picture honestly doesn't capture the full awesomeness of this tattoo. The colors were amazing. I think he had the other arm done w/something like this, too...)

The Lonely Guys @ Mary Jane's
(Hey, Peter -- remember this one? You were damn entertaining that night...heh. I smell blackmail material...)

So, there you go -- if you care to check out all of 'em, there're online here and open to all. I've also been finding & slapping up some previously-digitized stuff from the old SCR print 'zine, so some of the pics may look familiar to readers of the actual paper version of this thing. I'm hoping to add some more soon, but my other photo albums are already packed away & stored in a closet at the in-laws' house, waiting to be (maybe) unpacked at the new place, so further scanning will have to wait 'til then.

Oh, and the astute viewers of this site might've noticed a new little doohickey over there on the right -- under Our Pics, I've finally got a Flickr badge running, cycling through all the SCR-/band-related pics currently in my Flickr account. This "Web" thing's turned out to be pretty neato...

RE: Moving: Since I hinted at it above, I might as well clarify -- yep, we're moving. Not the e-zine, mind you (the P.O. Box will stay the same), but my actual home. I feel compelled to mention, btw, that moving has got to be one of the most terrifying/frustrating experiences known to man. We just sold our current house & bought another, so now we have to figure out how to pack and move our ridiculously large amount of shit (we're both packrats, despite my wife's protestations that she's not), not to mention make it fit in the new space. Gah. This is why it's taken us five years longer to get 'round to doing this than we'd originally planned...

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Random Rambling, Things To See

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

This is utterly, spectacularly, jaw-droppingly horrifying. Check out the brilliance of the quote in the 7th paragraph down; I can't even bring myself to copy-and-paste it here. Fuck. People, what the hell is wrong with all of you? Because if you bought this crap, trust me, something most certainly is. Screw the prospect of another 8 years of BushCo -- this makes me want to move to another country.

Labels: Musical Crap, Random Rambling

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

Ladies & gentlepeeps, I give you, the first-ever super-official, fancy-shmancy SCR Muxtape, for your enjoyment and the hopeful elevation of the bands included therein. Gape in awe at its Houston-swelled glory.

Yeah, yeah -- I know they're likely a fad and are being slapped up left & right, but I swear to God, the muxtape thing is exactly what I've been looking for. I've wanted to do some kind of mixtape-type thing of all local H-town bands I love for a loooooong while now, and had toyed w/both putting up the MP3s themselves and creating our own SCR podcasts. Neither of which worked, the former because the prospect of tracking down & emailing every goddamn band whose song I wanted to post made me feel physically ill and the latter because I'm too inherently lazy to figure out how the hell to do a podcast.

The muxtape idea, on the other hand, appeals to me because it's so ludicrously simple, lets me put songs I love by bands I love up there without fearing I'm ripping food from their mouths (or that they're gonna grab me off the street someday and give me a beatdown, whichever), I can randomly stumble across cool music other people have up on their muxtapes, and I can update my own whenever the heck I want.

Which is the plan, by the by -- the Space City Rock Muxtape will evolve, if you will, as I add & remove songs over the next however long it lives. Songs will be both new & old; freshness doesn't matter, as long as I like 'em (as evidenced by the inclusion of Celindine in the current 'tape). Plugging the songs in there last night, I found myself wishing there wasn't a 12-song limit; I've already got a list a page long of songs to include in future updates. I'll post about 'em here when the songs change, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed here & be updated automatically when stuff changes.

Anyway, here's the mix as of the moment, in playlist order:

1. Teenage Kicks - "Bound For Glory"
2. Stadium - "Nine Twelve Twenty-One"
3. The Jonx - "Cashews"
4. Celindine - "No Crest"
5. Co-Pilot - "Low Earth Orbit"
6. Piano Vines - "Sun King"
7. The Gold Sounds - "College Radio"
8. Fatal Flying Guilloteens - "Reveal The Rats"
9. While You Were Gone - "Thief"
10. Alkari - "The Code"
11. Paris Falls - "Hazard Street Bridge"
12. The Church of Philadelphia - "This Time Around"

(If you happen to be in a band whose song(s) I've got on the muxtape, btw, and you don't want to be on there for whatever reason, just email me at "gaijin" at "spacecityrock dot com" and I'll get it off there asap. Don't want no hasslin' from The Man, y'all.)

Labels: Admin Stuff, Cool Web Junk, Musical Crap, Things To Hear

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