Holy fuck, I am loving this. Longtime Texas (and ex-Houston) scenester Mark Twistworthy has a new blog/site, Texas Punk Treasure Chest, where he’s started putting up classic albums/EPs/etc. of Texas-based punk, hardcore, emo, & whatever else from the past few decades for folks to download and enjoy. And while I probably shouldn’t even need to […]
Back in the day, when I had far more disposable cash than I have right at the moment, I was a big, big, big, totally-and-completely comic nerd. Not Comic Book Guy, thank God, but still, I would hit the comic store (and the music store, too, naturally) as soon as I got paid each week […]
So…who here remembers the Pain Teens? Ridiculously influential, crazy-ass psychedelic, punkish noise band, signed to Trance Syndicate, then broke up a decade later, after like a half-dozen albums and a weird, not-really-into-it dance with the edges of fame? Yeah, them. Well, ex-Pain Teens/Culturcide/Truth Decay member Ralf, now of Future Blondes, and FB bandmate Kirston have […]
On the pseudo-administrative tip, I wanted to mention a couple of new-ish things… Like the fact that we now have the little “player” version of the official, sporadically-updated SCR H-Town Mixtape up on the main page of the site for all to see, click, & enjoy. You can also check out the full-sized Opentape site […]
We’re veering rapidly towards the end of the week and all the work-dodging that entails (not that I’m doing it myself, but y’know), so it seemed appropriate to post some YouTube clips I’ve seen recently of and/or by local H-town folks… First is a bit of an afternoon show last weekend at Cactus Music, with […]
= UPDATE: FYI, since the initial post I’ve heard from The Golden Ghost himself, and apparently not only has he recovered from last year’s injuries, but he will be competing again this year. Go support, y’all! I know, it’s a little hard to fathom, even for somebody like me who’s spent countless hours air-guitar-ing (okay, […]
Oh, man. After stumbling across Breakfast at Sulimay’s recently, I think I just need to quit this reviewing racket; after all, there’s no way I could ever possibly top these people, reviewing-wise, so why bother? I can’t tell if Ann is serious or taking the piss with the whole thing — she likes Young Jeezy? […]
Hey, all — the astute & keen-eyed may notice a few changes to the SCR site over the past week or so, so I wanted to mention what’s new and/or different both so’s nobody gets confused and to perpetuate the illusion that this freaking thing actually does change occasionally (kidding! kidding…um, kinda?). New Classifieds/Board: Yes, […]
I’ve dodged the Twitter bullet so far, and I have to say, I’m fairly glad of that. Heck, ’til the recent dive into Facebook hell and not counting the Myspace “mirror” for this wee blog, I’ve mostly avoided the whole social-networking thing completely. Yeah, I’m a cyber-Luddite on some levels, it’s true; it just feels […]
We’re not an MP3 blog. Nope — I’d never claim SCR to be one of those blogs that breaks/hypes new bands by posting new tracks and whatnot; it’s just not what we do, really. I mean, I’m not against posting MP3s we like by bands we like, but honestly, there just aren’t enough hours in […]
Yes, Jack Black irks me. I like some of his movies, admittedly, but a lot of the time his shtick wears thin fast. So when he showed up and was hysterically funny in the awesome, awesome Prop. 8: The Musical on FunnyOrDie.com, I nearly spit out my morning coffee. Seriously, it’s pretty great. Oh, and […]
Mind == blown. Wow. Hat tip, once again, to HoustonHipHop.com for pointing this guy out (although he’s apparently been fairly well-known for a little while now; I’m slow, I’m well aware…). They’ve got a handful of videos up (there’s an insanely huge pile of others on his YouTube channel, but here’s my favorite: And no, […]
Damn…I apparently missed the grand opening (was there one?) of new local music-and-stuff site Indiehouston.org back in September (gah!), but it’s now alive & running. Looking good, too — they’ve got some cool new interviews w/folks like San Serac and Fertile Crescent, plus writeups of badass locals like The McKenzies (woo!), a bunch of show […]
Y’all might recall that I’d briefly mentioned The Skyline Network’s SceneWiki a while back when talking about the BandCamp stuff, but I’ve finally, finally started delving into it myself over the past few days. And I have to admit, it’s pretty fucking addictive. I still have some issues with the interface, I’ll admit, like the […]
Get this widget! Just a quick note about a good cause, here, not to mention a somewhat unique fundraising idea: on October 18th, SCR writer/local H-town music scenester Jonathan Updegrove is doing the Extra Life 24-hour gaming marathon to raise money for treatment of kids with cancer and research into a cure at the Texas […]
I honestly can’t remember where the heck I stumbled across this site, but I’ve gotta mention it here — FWMJ’s Rappers I Know is pretty damn awesome, particularly for somebody who’s severely lacking when it comes to knowledge of the local H-town hip-hop scene. I’ve never been big on the cash-guns-honeys school of rap, and […]
Think you’re metal? Think you’re one hard-ass motherfucker? Nope. You’re just a pussy wannabe compared to these guys. I mean, have you ever started a riot because somebody proclaimed that Rob Halford is the best metal singer ever? Didn’t think so. Slayer Mob rules! These guys are like Heavy Metal Parking Lot gone batshit-crazy. Vice, […]
I’ve been somewhat out of the political realm the past few years, after diving head-on into it back in 2001 or so; when my daughter came into my life, I simultaneously realized I needed to quit worrying about this shit quite so much and that I really, truly enjoy the music side of things more […]
Ah, fuck. I knew it was too good to be true for long… Apparently the joy-sucking, soulless, we-drowned-our-inner-child-in-the-bathtub-for-$5 jerks at the RIAA have taken down the very-popular Muxtape site. Ah, yes — another well-placed strike on that dastardly segment of the music-listening population that actually likes music they can’t hear on the similarly soulless radio […]
I tend to not watch a whole lot of videos these days, partly because I get bored watching some band pretend to Rock Hard while actually just miming at their instruments (sorry, folks, but playing electric instruments in the rain just does not work the way you wish it would) and trying to look Badass […]
So, I’ve had my 4G iPod for a few years now — same one I initially bought, never replaced or upgraded or anything like that. It kept me sane during my time as a contractor, esp. at The Big Red H and ExxonMobil’s Bell St. office (right next to the elevator; yay!), and while I […]
Okay, so now that I’m gonna have to enter Witness Protection or hope that the guys in the band alluded to repeatedly here are very forgiving, I feel the need for something entertaining. Serious discussion is great & all (and I think this thread is probably gonna go down in history as the longest this […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 — […]
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 […]
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s from back in 2005 or so, but homeboy Marc brought it to my attention recently, and now I feel completely and utterly compelled to post it here: Robbie Fulks’ “Fountains of Wayne Hotline”. The first time I listened to the song (sorry, Marc, it took a while for the iPod […]
I’m not going to pretend to have a clue what the hell’s going on, but damn, this is too freakin’ funny. Ah, Technoviking, you make me proud of my somewhat sketchy (long story) Nordic roots.
Y’know, I’d wondered what the heck had happened to Cameron Dezen (now “Cameron Dezen Hammon,” officially). She put out a truly brilliant solo album a year or three ago, Love + Rescue, and then…well, nada. The last time I even saw a show listed was the Houston Press Awards like 2 years ago, now. Anyway, […]
Nothin’ much to report at present, but I thought I’d pass off a couple of truly scary things. For the strong-stomached among you, The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World. For the, uh, equally strong-stomached, there’s also this. I cannot freakin’ believe my ugly mug now graces the (Web) pages of SPIN. That’s disturbing, […]
I have to say that one of the best, most wonderful things about this crazy Interwebs tube thing is the ease with which you can find music. Sometimes I think fondly back to the days of my youth, when I’d comb the racks of tapes at the local music store — which seemed like the […]
This is too freakin’ cool. (Either that, or I’m a big, big dork.) It takes some practice, but now I can switch directions pretty easily — at one point I had to multiply 5 x 5 in my head to get it to go from counter-clockwise to clockwise…
Okay, so this one’s Pt. 2, but it’s technically Pt. 1 of this coming weekend, which is gonna be absolutely insane: Fri.-Sat., October 12-13 — The Axiom 20th Anniversary Party/Reunion @ Fitzgerald’s Yep, posted about this one before, but now’s the time, folks, so brace yourselves: The Axiom is officially lurching back to life for […]
And here’s one to lighten the mood a bit: Geostationary Banana Over Texas. ‘Cause there just ain’t enough fruit floating around up at high altitude, y’all. Although, sadly, it looks like the H-town environs only merit a loop or two of the banana’s projected path; it’ll be spending most of its time floating over Austin. […]
My wife found this link while Googling the Russian Mafia after we went to see the excellent, excellent, excellent Eastern Promises a while back (seriously; we both hated A History of Violence and cringed when we realized at the theater that David Cronenberg was directing Viggo Mortensen in this one, too, but we were blown […]
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, […]
Yes, I feel the need to lighten the mood now, and besides, I absolutely have to post this (and besides, I love the fact that I just did two posts in a row with the word “fucking” in the title). More info here, and more to come on this little blog, as well. Just watch:
Just a little time-wastage for the workday… If you’ve never seen any traceurs in action, you have got to check out the video below. I’ve seen some more involved parkour/free running stuff recently, both in Luc Besson’s District 13 (which stars the guy in this video, David Belle) and in the new James Bond flick, […]
Ah, Internet, how we love you. No, not because you help us find the nearest drycleaners or figure out effortlessly which curly-haired actress was in Felicity (for the record, yes, it was Keri Russell; sorry, Kim…), but because you open our eyes to the obscure world of weird, weird, amazingly neat things that lurks out […]
Anybody who knows much of anything about indie-rock or punk knows who J. Robbins is. The guy’s an honest-to-God icon in the indie/punk/hardcore scene, dating from his days in Government Issue and Jawbox (one of my all-time favorite bands, as well as one of the most intense, awe-inspiring live bands I’ve ever seen) up through […]
