JOSHUA STARNES: Joshua Starnes is Vice President of the Houston Film Critics Society. He is a contributor to Space City Rock. His Picks are below. 82nd Academy Awards Even if you’ve never heard of Punksawtaney Phil or you still get snowstorms after February, it’s still easy to tell when Spring is on the way, because […]
I’m a little torn about mentioning this on here, but it’s just too damn weird and seems to get weirder by the day. Back in 2008, a very nice woman (I’m not going to put her name up here unless I have to, in case what’s going on isn’t her fault) emailed me, saying that […]
I’m Creg Lovett, and I’m going to be writing a column on Alternative Cinema in Houston. I first came to Space City Rock 4 years ago when a magazine I was writing for crashed and burned, and left me hanging with no place to publish my cover story on Michael Haaga’s Plus and Minus Show […]
Seen some awesomely cool written things elsewhere lately, so I feel compelled to mention ’em here, for the edification of all and because, as said, they’re awesomely cool. Houston Press: “Ghosts of Washington Avenue” Man, this one makes me want to get all weepy. The Press‘s Chris Gray had a nice tribute piece to the […]
That Matt Brownlie, he just doesn’t stop moving, apparently… The latest thing he’s involved with is called Dharma Punx Houston, and the idea is that it’s a Buddhist meditation/ discussion group for folks who want to, well, learn to be better Buddhists. (I think?) They’re welcoming all comers, regardless of “age, dress or lifestyle”; hence […]
[Ed. Note: writer/blogger Rock Houston sent this in a few days after the Houston Press Music Awards Showcase, but yours truly was out of the town & swamped after that, so it didn’t go up ’til, well, right now. Enjoy…] Rock Houston here. The following are my thoughts on the bands I saw at the […]
A bit early, but after missing Steve Earle at Cactus this past weekend, I do not want to drop the ball on this one, especially since the wife & I had to miss ’em the last time they came through town, back in 2007… So, here we go with the good news: weekend-after-next, Friday, May […]
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, […]
Yes, yes, yes, folks — it’s that time of year, again, when we Houstonians get to fly the middle finger high in the face of other burgs and say, “our bands could wipe the sidewalk with yours.” Yep, I’m talkng about the Houston Press Music Awards, for which the nominating started yesterday. So go, go, […]
Absolutely non-music-related, but still, this is amazingly cool. At one not-too-distant point in my life, I went on a seriously heavy travelogue-reading jag, devouring books by smart, quirky people going places nobody in their right mind (or, at least, nobody I actually know) ever goes to. Not all of it was great, I’ll freely admit […]
For a while now, I’ve been passing around mix CDs of music made by Houston-based bands & musicians, forcing the CDs on friends & family with the manic, “why don’t you all understand?” zeal of a fresh-faced missionary kid knocking on apartment complex doors at 9AM on a Saturday so he can spread The Good […]
I know there’ve been a few false starts, but this time all the paperwork’s supposedly in order, so hopefully this is the real deal. First got the word from Omar over at Free Press Houston, and the place’s Website seems to confirm it: artspace/venue/random cool/quirky place Super Happy Fun Land has lurched back to life […]
Much as I love this wee site/e-zine thing and tend to devote the bulk of my writing time (such as it is, these days) to it, heck, nobody can do the same damn thing over and over and over again forever, right? I’ve had a few quasi-successful stints writing for other publications, mostly scuttled because, […]
This one’s not going to mean much to most of you, but I’m going to do it anyway, so bear with me. Back when I was a college student — which is a lot longer ago now than I wish it was, age-wise, and thankfully far off in terms of me being a sane, adult […]
The Wild Moccasins. Dang, that was a good one. Seriously — I haven’t seen a show as flat-out, nonstop, good as this past Friday’s Wild Moccasins CD release show with Buxton & Teenage Kicks in quite a while. There’ll hopefully be a full rundown at some point soon, but I had a blast & wanted […]
Yep, I know I’ve been slow lately when it comes to the bloggerating. I’m going to blame it on the wife, for the moment — she started hanging out on Facebook to chat w/her sister in England, then started running into friends from high school and beforehand, and then I got on there so I […]
No, I’m not talking about doing comedy — anybody who knows me probably knows that I’d pass out cold on the stage were I ever to attempt that — but rather about, um, me in comic-strip form. This is waaaaay old, at this point, mostly because I could never find the thing anywhere online, so […]
Yeah, it’s already begun to happen to me, too — secure in the knowledge that Obama’s headed for the House of Whiteness (I can’t help but think of the classic George Clinton track, “Paint the White House Black,” whenever I think about it), I’ve started to feel sorry for ol’ Dubya. He looks more and […]
Yeah, we made it into the Houston Press, albeit briefly — up-and-coming music writer Jef With One F (who also works his butt off for us when he can, I must confess) was kind enough to mention Space City Rock in his new feature on real-live paper zines. (No, I’m not quoted in the article, […]
[From last night:] I'm watching the ball drop on CNN — the wife likes Anderson Cooper AND Kathy Griffin — and it's…wow. It's freakin' nuts. Holy crap. Griffin, after throwing a rock at the Jonas Brothers, to Cooper's obvious horror: "That's how I roll, Andy!" Just…wow. Happy New Year, everybody…
Well, it turns out Notsuoh‘s potential buyer was a con man with zero dollars, so the longstanding venue/whatever will live on, at least for now. Which truly, truly sucks for owner Jim Pirtle, but — damn, I hate to say it — my black-as-coal, selfish-bastard heart is clapping its hands in childish glee.
I saw the rough cut of this one a week or two back, but now that it’s finally “officially” released, I figured it’d be a good time to post the new Mark Armes-created video for “Wires and Buttons”, by local heroes Young Mammals. I must admit that it’s not my favorite YM song, unfortunately (mostly […]
A few days late, I know, but still this YouTube video unearthed by Ramon over at Free Press Houston has me giggling with delight, so I feel compelled to spread it around: It’s a brilliant little snapshot of life (the local PBS affiliate’s take on it, anyway) at Rice’s own much-loved/oft-hated radio station, KTRU waaaaaaaay […]
Fuck. This week was supposed to be Full-On SCR Time, a whole blast of unadulterated headphones-and-laptop mayhem that would result in me A) clearing the gigantic pile of “oh, crap, I really need to review that” discs off my overburdened desk and B) posting every damn day like a muthafuckah and give myself that happy […]
Memo to the dirtbag who stole Tontons/Studemont Project guitarist Adam Martinez’s gear from his car: you’re a fucking waste of skin who needs to go jump off a building (or, alternatively, return it all right damn now). You’ve officially made the top of my own personal Worst Person in the World list. Beyond the fact […]
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 […]
While I definitely do like our new President-to-Be quite a bit and am over the freakin’ moon that he won, I’ll admit to being a little nervous about what he’ll actually do once in office — based on his Senate record, I have a feeling he’s a lot more business-friendly than some of his grassroots […]
Okay, it’s true — I am excited by all the awesomeness going on this weekend in part because I’ll be doing the Ramblin’ Man thing, all on my lonesome, once the wife takes The Munchkin and heads out to beautiful Shelby, TX. for a girls-only “retreat”-type thing at her boss’s country abode. What with the […]
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, […]
Yes, ladies and gents, it’s true — in the intervening time between now and my last post on the subject, I have indeed been working on revamping, updating, and expanding the Awesomely Huge and All-Encompassing Houston Band Map (anybody got any ideas for a better name?). Check the super-duper-sized version of it here, but be […]
Far be it from me to criticize somebody for the way they decide to promote the things they do (’cause we’d never stoop so low as to criticize people, no, never…), but the crew over at HoustonHipHop.com — a site that goes sadly unappreciated by the indie-rock set in town, btw — have unearthed what […]
The title says it all, really. I should probably just leave it at that, but I feel compelled to explain myself when I make big declarations like this, so here it goes… I finally got a chance to check out Austin/expat Houston band The Eastern Sea this past Saturday night — although it turned out […]
Argh. Feels like deja vu, y’all… Power’s out here at SCR HQ, so I’m forced to e-blog from the iPhone; apologies if anything comes across garbled. CenterPoint assures us the lights will be back on soon, but seeing as the last time we heard that, we were powerless for 12 days, well, we’re a bit […]
Back when I was a wee DJ at KTRU, I ended up hearing a ton of stuff that sounded raw as hell to my relatively-untainted ears. I was reading a shitload of cyberpunk back then, digging up every two-bit Gibson/Sterling clone I could find, and I realized pretty quickly that this music I was hearing […]
It’s been a weird week. Due to the vacillations of our disconnected-from-reality market, The Day Job decided to make a big change to our current vacation scheme; as of 1/1, we can’t roll over our vacation days like we used to. We used to accrue time throughout the year, so you’d have to roll some […]
Some folks may remember that way back in the day, Space City Rock began life — as a journalistic-type endeavor, at least — as a real-live paper zine. Our first-ever issue had a bunch of stuff in it, including an interview with members of my soon-to-be-defunct heroes, Jawbox, that I still can’t really believe the […]
Meant to put this up sooner, but as it always is with life, things intervene. Time will tell if it’s the reality (I’ve got pretty high hopes), but right now, a week after, I’m still feeling like celebrating the fact that a smart, practical, rational guy who looks a heck of a lot like America […]
Decidedly non-music-related, but this guy’s my dad’s personal hero, right up there with John Wayne. Travel guru, TV star, author, & all-round strange guy Rick Steves will be speaking this coming Friday, November 14th, at the University of Houston Cullen Performance Hall. I’m not entirely sure what the heck he’ll be talking about, but he’s […]
Holy crap. I knew it was a big deal that Harris Co., in which a large chunk of Houston happens to be located, went for Obama yesterday, but I didn’t realize ’til looking it up just now on Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections that it’s the first time since Lyndon Johnson ran for […]
Please, God, please let it be real. Seriously. I went to bed in 2000 thinking Al Gore would be President and woke up with Bush. It better freakin’ not happen again. And y’know what? I don’t care that he can’t — or won’t — fix everything that’s wrong with this country. I’m just happy to […]
