Just a quick one, since the details are already up here; in case you haven't already blocked out your afternoon this coming Sunday, October 19th, well, BandCamp, over at the Caroline Collective, is where you need to be. At least, if you've got any interest in seeing the scene in our fair city thrive & grow & succeed & all that. This means band people, label people, club people, booking people, zine people, the whole shebang.

Now, personally, I'm not of the sky-is-falling bent when it comes to Houston music -- there's nothing at all wrong with the music made here, and a hell of a lot right. I'm immensely proud of all the great bands that've come out of H-town, especially lately, and even when I think back to the Good Old Days when beloved, underrecognized bands like Celindine, Sprawl, and The Jinkies ruled the land, the Good New Days we've got going on right freakin' now blow them away. No disrespect to the great bands back then, because they really were awesome, but there weren't nearly as many of 'em roaming the stages & sidewalks then as there are now. I honestly can't think of a time since I've lived in this city when the scene's felt as vibrant and talented.

To my mind, The Scene is nowhere near being dead, despite the dire predictions that seem to have been trotted out every 6-8 months in the 15 or so years since I moved here. Saying The Scene is dead is like saying we're fighting a war on terror; both propositions take a immaterial concept and try to quantify it, and that's just plain nuts. The only thing that'll ever definitively kill The Scene in this city is if somebody drops a gigantic Cone of Silence over the whole fucking thing, and even then people will probably just move on to mime-rock.

So what if some Pitchfork-approved indie bands skip us? Fuck 'em. Odds are you won't even remember their names by the next slew of ultra-hip bands appear, anyway. Besides, they skipped Omaha for a long, long time, too, I'm told, until the bands there started to get noticed on their own merits. I see Houston going the same route, which means we need to focus on our own. That's what BandCamp's about; it's about helping people who make music not only meet up with fellow music-related people, but also work on their own DIY skills so they can break out wider into the Greater Houston area. In a city this big, you can't just expect that people will magically find you; you've got to put in the effort to find them.

Anyway, that's my pitch for this deal. I'm going to be there, although I wussed out on the whole "talk" thing -- being about as non-professional a "journalist" as you can get, I don't think I'm all that qualified to tell folks how best to approach the press, and while I used to do it for my own band back in the day, hell, that was in the pre-MP3, pre-YouTube, pre-online press release days. There're plenty of panels & workshops to check out, though (look at the wiki to see what's on the list), although I must agree with Ramon that the question of who's bringing the beer to band practice is sadly going unanswered. (Ramon, man, you make my day.)

It's your call: be there or be Killing The Scene.

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

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