Update: Latchkey Kids + New Reviews + Three Shows To See Tonight (The Sword/Band of Annuals/Lenny Briscoe!)

[UPDATE: Anybody know how to convert all my blog posts over to WordPress? I posted this damn thing last evening, and yet, when I got back online this AM, lo and behold, it still wasn’t up there. Fuck. Sorry, y’all…]

Update time, update time — if you happen to glance at our happy little homepage, you will notice (hopefully) three things: A). it, uh, looks differnt; B). hey, new reviews!; C). holy shit, an actual interview!

So, in order: A). Yes, it does. While trying to think of ways to make my life easier when deciding what review/feature to put up where & when, I decided to split the dang thing up into two columns and widen the whole shebang. If it now sails off the right side of your screen, my apologies, but my Sanity required it of me. I dunno, btw, how well it’ll look on all browsers — if you’ve got an older browser, you may only see the one column and have to scroll way down to get to the features. Time to upgrade, yo!

B). Double yes! New reviews, and many, many of them, including cool stuff by The Sword, Wild Sweet Orange, Band of Annuals (more on two out of those three in a sec), The Old Haunts, Normal Love, Fuck Buttons, & more. Enjoy them here. (Caveat!: some reviews may or may not be negative and/or cause bad feelings. Read at your own risk.) Oh, and we’ve also got some very cool reviews of live shows by Radiohead & Citay — the former’s from May, but the latter’s from back in March, ’cause we’re still trying to catch up. Look for more show reviews soon.

C). Yes, yet again! I was able to chat a bit with Tim Guerinot of legendary and now resurrected Houston punk rockers the Latch Key Kids, and I think the interview came out quite nice. Check it out here. I’m afraid we missed their show up in Austin last weekend, but hopefully there’re more shows to come — we’ll try to keep you better informed on that front.

Now, naturally, that’s not all — two of our reviewed bands of the day also happen to be playing this very evening, as does another quite-worthy crew of locals. You’ve got your choice tonight:

1. You can head to Rudyard’s to catch full-on sword-and-sorcery-lovin’ metalheads The Sword, who’re laying down the stoner/thrash jams alongside Torche (who I’ve heard are good) and Stinking Lizaveta (whose name irks me, for some reason). Haven’t seen The Sword live, sadly, but Gods of the Earth is a fine, fine album, especially when listened to while reading old-ass pulp fantasy novels.
2. You can hit Boondocks and alternately drown your sorrows or smile cheerily with the oddly-matched pair of Band of Annuals and Houston’s own Program — I love both bands, don’t get me wrong, but melancholy, gentle country and all-out pop/rock? Eh; either way, the bands themselves are excellent. Band of Annuals’ Let Me Live has itself been living in my car stereo for the past several days and makes me want to take up drinking in a big way.

3. You can venture over to Mojo Risin’, which I think is the cool little coffeeshop right next to the also-cool eatery Spaghetti Western, up in the Heights, and see/experience the swaying, dreampop-y indie-rock of husband and wife team Lenny Briscoe (who are both extremely nice folks, to boot), plus delicately strange folkster Like Yeah. Jerry Orbach would be damn proud.

There’s your mission for the evening. Go to it. In the meantime, here’s the full pile of new stuff:

Interviews: Latch Key Kids

Live Reviews: Radiohead; Citay

Reviews: Band of Annuals; The Sword; Wild Sweet Orange; Fuck Buttons; The Old Haunts; The Dagger Brothers; The Grand Archives; Normal Love; & The The Pleasures of Merely Circulating.

Stop back in & see us soon, eh?