Once upon a time, Houston hip-hop was a secret. Beyond a couple of well-known names like the Geto Boys or UGK (who, hell, were actually from Port Arthur), nobody outside of the immediate Houston/Beaumont area had any…
Moving into Saturday, April 13th, now, and there’s still a crapload of excellent things going on. Quite a few are early in the day, for some reason, so I’m trying to get this in somewhat early, at least…
Back around to another Friday (January 20th, this time) and yep, busy as ever. I’m personally pretty damn psyched about a couple of tonight’s shows, but first some update-y things…
More good news, albeit from a different front… {Indian Jewelry} (and ex- of the beloved band Japanic) frontman Tex Kerschen will be up at DiverseWorks tonight…
I almost never watch any of that godawful pile of awards shows these days (especially not the MTV-hosted ones). The recaps {Houston Press}‘s Shea Serrano does for each one are a large part of the reason why…
Argh. I meant to post about this earlier in the week, but other stuff kept getting in the way…sigh. Today (Sat., July 9th, that is) is a very cool happening, going on at a few different venues — it’s the official launch of the brand-new book by local punk hero…
Damn — I’m starting to feel like an even bigger slacker than I normally do, folks. Over the past year or so, I’ve watched as my H-town music-critic brethren not only write brilliantly and humorously about things musical but also step out into the wider world…
There’s been some good, good stuff popping up in the past few days on our local H-town music-media/etc. friend sites, and I wanted to take a sec to just point a wobbly finger at it and say, “Go! Read! Now!” (assuming you haven’t already, that is)…
It’s a little weird to think about, honestly, but I’ve heard a lot of rambling/accusing about nepotism and favoritism lately: writers promoting their buddies’ bands, regardless of how good they are, etc., etc. And yeah, I’ve gotten dinged for it myself, rightfully or not…
Thanks to Craig Hlavaty of the {Houston Press} for this one… Steven Blush, the author of the book American Hardcore: A Tribal History has a new(?) section of his Website…
John Nova Lomax‘s hero, the late, great Sig Byrd, wrote about Houston in a way that made the city feel downright intimate. Tiny, in fact. The city was smaller then, in the 1950s, but as he spent mornings downtown, afternoons in the then-nearer suburbs…
Yet another one of those weekends when we Houston-dwelling folks are spoilt for choice, seriously; there’s enough good stuff going on tonight & tomorrow that if you claim to be bored & unable to find anything good in Houston, music-wise, you’re a fucking idiot. Here goes: Sat., April 17: sIngs (CD release)/ Casiotone for the [...]
This is a pretty neat one… In case you haven’t heard, longtime SugarHill Studios engineer Andy Bradley and veteran Houston music chronicler Roger Wood (whose book, Down in Houston, I’ve been wanting to read for a while now) collaborated on a new book about the history of SugarHill and its predecessor(?), Gold Star Studios. It’s [...]
I’ve raved before in this here thing about Cleveland’s mr. Gnome and their idiosyncratic, hypnotically awesome amalgam of noisy rawk, metal sludge, ethereal vocals, and trip-hop groove, but dammit, I’m going to do it again right here, at least briefly. The band’s playing tonight (Thursday, April 8th) up at Rudyard’s, and trust me when I [...]
phew. Eight days into the SXSW Overflow Fest at Super Happy Fun Land, and there’s still plenty of bands to catch. I’ve been attempting to digest at least a little bit of each & spit out what I think (see here, here, here, & here), and frankly, I’ve been stunned at how flat-out good 90% [...]
Sorry I haven’t been able to more fully run down the piles and piles of SXSW-bound bands overflowing into Super Happy Fun Land as part of their SXSW Overflow Fest this weekend — spent some much-needed time with the fam this weekend, instead, hiking around the Arboretum and then getting buried up to my head [...]
Sadly, while I get a fair amount of H-town music news-like stuff sent my way, lately I’ve been having a hard time keeping up. There was a time when I tried to post every damn bit of Houston-related news I could find up here, but these days, there’s just too much, and I’ve got too [...]
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 [...]
Some of you might remember that I bitched & moaned a while back about the fact that local noise-rock dudes The Jonbenét are breaking up after their final show at the hopefully-moved Walter’s on December 19th. Anyway, after hearing the news from guitarist Dann Miller, I hit him up with a few questions about the [...]
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 [...]
Sweet — it makes me damn happy that the Zine Fest Houston folks are still doing their thing, and it’s nice to see ‘em re-running the Zine Night thing they did a while back, over at CopyDotCom on Westheimer. Tomorrow night, Wed., September 2nd, the ZFHers are throwing their second installment, with the doors thrown [...]
Holy freaking crap. Y’know, I really hate it when one’a them pesky Internet rumors pops up on the screen and makes my stomach feel like it’s dropped into my feet, and I had that exact thing happen this AM when I read that now-venerable H-town venue Walter’s on Washington is moving (or maybe closing). My [...]
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but hell, I happen to think it’s very cool, so I think it’s worth re-mentioning. Local musician and all-round cool guy Jason Smith, who plays bass/keys in sweet, flat-out rock band Alkari, also happens to be an architecture nerd, focusing on a particular local H-town architect named William R. [...]
Unless you’ve been dead for the past few months (or, okay, you don’t happen to live here in Houston), odds are you’ve heard about the sure-to-be-epic Free Press Summerfest spanning Saturday and Sunday of this next weekend (the 8th & 9th, non-calendar-having punks) at Eleanor Tinsley Park. And trust me, “epic” is the word — [...]
Halle-freakin-lujah, y’all. This is awesome news — Shane from listenlisten just emailed to break the news that his band just got a sweet, richly deserved writeup in Rolling Stone‘s Hype Monitor section. Congrats, you guys!
Um. What the…? Okay, so I happened to be looking through my Google Reader pile today, and I’m scrolling along through all the posts on various things related to H-town, music, or both, and — whoa, hold on, is that The freaking Skyline Network, posting again? And yes, yes, it is. Apparently ADR has decided [...]
Yes, the world of zines (and most other types of printed/self-published art & writing, whatever you want to call it) is a thing near & dear to my heart. And I know firsthand how much of a ridiculous pain in the a–er, labor of love it can be to get a zine from brain to [...]
SCR blogger Lance Higdon is currently out and about in this grand country of ours, criss-crossing the land in a borrowed minivan to bring the space-y, atmospheric noise-rock expanses of his band Golden Cities to folks outside of the Houston metro area for the first time (I think?). They’re in Richmond, VA, as I type [...]
Okay, so that’s stretching it a bit — the show tonight at the Mucky Duck isn’t technically a Trout Fishing In America show. What is is, though, involves the TFIA guys and happens to be pretty cool. See, TFIA are originally from right here in H-town; bassist Keith Grimwood went to school at U of [...]
Tonight, tonight, tonight…punker-than-you H-town label/print conglomerate Ditchwater Records is staging its second-ever (I think?) record release show extravaganza tonight, Friday, May 29th, up at Rudyard’s. It’s a joint 7″ release thing, celebrating new releases from both sneering, knife-wielding glam-rockers The Wrong Ones (not to be confused with the Glaswegians of the same name) and crazed [...]
Sweet…looks like the Houston Press‘s Chris Gray (on whom I flaked ridiculously a while back and am sincerely apologetic, btw, should he ever read this; sorry, man…) has put up the list of nominated folks for this year’s much-anticipated Houston Press Music Awards. And when I say “much-anticipated,” I swear I’m serious; more awesomely good [...]
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 [...]
Yeah, yeah, I know — as if there wasn’t already a ridiculously huge pile of stuff to do this weekend? Don’t sideline this one, though, because it promises to be damn cool. This year’s edition of Zine Fest Houston will be happening this coming Saturday, May 16th, over at the ever-fun Caroline Collective, and will [...]
In case you hadn’t noticed, venerable funk superstars Parliament swung through town back on April 30th, playing to what was reportedly a good-sized crowd over at the House of Blues. A friend of SCR (who shall remain anonymous to save ‘em from any reprisals & whatnot) went and said the show itself was great, but [...]
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 [...]
Some weeks, it seems like every time I turn on the computer there’s a new Website/ezine/whatnot focused at least partly on the H-town music scene. And hey, that’s pretty awesome — the more exposure this stuff can get, the better it’ll be for all parties: the bands, the fans, the labels, everybody. As I think [...]
For those who like things cinematic (and good, obviously), there’s some really, truly cool stuff coming up. Today (Thursday, April 16th, that is) marks the start of the third-annual Houston Palestinian Film Festival, a showcase of movies by Palestinian filmmakers, and it looks pretty great. Here’s the overall mission statement, if you’re curious: The second [...]
Yes, it’s that long-awaited moment: H-town prodigals (now dwelling in Austin, apparently) Papermoons have returned, albeit temporarily, to grace us with their amazingly cool presence. Last year the duo put out their debut full-length, blowing away folks here and elsewhere with their gentle, comfy-blanket, folk-fringed indie-pop masterpiece New Tales (and since I’m all about the [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
