Yay, Us!: SCR Wins “Best Local Music Blog”
Uh. Wow. It’s been a rough week at the Day Job, so I’ve been mostly just keeping my head down, trying to get deadlines met & whatnot; the site’s been the furthest thing from my mind most of this week.
Which explains the look of stunned surprise that’s currently working its way off my face, after I happened to glance at the {Houston Press}‘s annual Best of Houston deal and saw that, well, Space City Rock got the nod this year for “Best Local Music Blog”.
I’m floored, y’all. I mean, there is some seriously tough competition out there in the realm of Houston music bloggery — I can’t count the number of times I’ve visited {29-95.com}, {Rocks Off} (who won the reader’s choice award in the same category, and rightly so — congrats!), or {Houston Calling}, in particular, and slapped myself in the head for totally missing out on something amazing. The music-writing people currently at work in this town make me feel like a half-assed slacker most of the time.
So I’m flattered beyond belief that the kindly folks who voted put us at the top of that happy little heap, and I would seriously, seriously point folks to all the other fine publications, e-zines, & blogs that cover music in this city, including the three above but also including the {Free Press Houston}, {Dryvetyme Onlyne} (glad you’re back, Adam!), {Nonalignment Pact}, {Breakfast On Tour}, {Indiehouston.org}, {Pretty Riot}, & {CultureMap Houston}, plus another dozen I’m blanking on, besides.
Thank you, Houston Press crew, and thanks to all the folks who voted for us. Hell, I didn’t even know we were in the running; I (cringe) hadn’t had time to even vote myself. (Whoops…)
Mind you, this isn’t my award, not really. This site wouldn’t exist without the ridiculously dedicated people, both past and present, who’ve worked their asses off listening and writing and emailing and taking pictures over the years. If this were an actual physical award, the list of people I’d need to send it to so they can hold onto it for a week or two would insanely long.
With that in mind, I want to send along a virtual high-five out to the crew of people who’ve been doing the lion’s share of the writing the past couple of years (in no particular order): Dre Giles, Daniel Yuan, Creg Lovett, Robin Babb, Preston Payne, Chris Galis, Spencer Flanagan, Krista Kesseler, Scott Whitt, Pedro, Brian Galloway, Aaron Brown, Brandon Hernsberger, Thomas McLuhan, Quinn Alexander, Bill Reed, ever-anonymous blogger Rock Houston, Joshua Starnes, Justin Bradley, Danny Mee, Jef With One F, Jowell Lydon, Russell Swensen, Chris Reed, Andrew Perkins, Tracy Lyall, & William Cloninger. (If I’m forgetting anybody, please forgive me. My brain’s a bit sleep-deprived at the moment…) This award belongs to y’all, truly.
Plus, there’s the crew who’s been around very literally since the beginning, namely Mel House, Marc Hirsh, and Henry Mayer, and fellow blogger/contributor David Cobb, who’s also the man behind {Houston Calling} & has been a huge help with SCR over the years. And without friend/Web guru Michael McDonald, the site never would’ve survived the transition to WordPress. I owe all of you multiple beers.
And, of course, I owe my lovely wife Kim big for not grumbling too much when I vanish on random weeknights/weekends, sometimes for several hours at a stretch or type frantically on the laptop when I really should be doing actual kid/house/life-type stuff.
That’s about all I can think to say…thanks again, everybody. With any luck, we’ll (continue?) to live up to the hype…
(Assuming, of course, that a massive tidal wave of new visitors doesn’t bring down our ISP. Nah, that couldn’t happen. Right?)
Awesome job, Jeremy! Makes me really happy to be part of this group. We wouldn’t be here without you so congrats!
daniel is right. i’ve always thought this was an amazing opportunity just to be involved. we should celebrate!
Well, it *would* be good timing for a get-together — it’s been a loooong damn time since the last one…
Congrats Jeremy and crew. It’s well-deserved.
And thanks for the kind words — much appreciated.
I would like to echo and add to the congratulations that Mr. Cobb is sending your way. SCR is a bastion of all that is good, right, fresh, and active in the Houston music scene, and it’s long overdue in receiving accolades it’s due.
Thanks for ALL of your hard work (and nice compliments) over these many years. I really appreciate it.
Goes hand in hand with the mediocre local music scene. Seriously, what a joke this “blog” is…a bunch of fan boys writing “reviews” about their buddies’ bands.
To each their own, sir.
I have to say, though, that you can slam SCR all you want, but if you think Houston’s music scene is mediocre, you’re either a moron or have shitty taste in music. Just sayin’.
I’ll give you major propos for sticking out for the local scene, especially since you are probably buddies with most of the bands featured here. But the reality is that as “good” as many local bands may be, none of them (and I’ve seem many) don’t really bring anything new to the picture. Want facts? Please name one Houston-based act to reach critical acclaim at a national level on the last 10 (and please don’t say “Beyonce” or “Blue October” (who left town a while back, by the way) as other equally crappy Houston publications often like to proudly name drop).
The truth is that this town is a cultural wasteland where most people are not interested in anything that is not mainstream bullshit. Local bands keep working hard only to play in front of a small crowd of friends and familly (and essentially for free) while Nickelback continues to pack the house and makes a killing every time. How do you explain this? Same applies to many national bands who come to Houston only to find out they will be playing to a close-to-empty venue. Then you wonder why your you don’t see “Houston” listen on favorite band’s tour dates.
You get it know? It has nothing to do with my “shitty taste.” Facts don’t lie: the Houston music scene is mediocre, irrelevant and deservedly ignored at the national stage. We are ages behind big cities like NYC, LA, Seattle, etc (and even Austin, which for a small city has a kick-ass music scene) when it comes to promoting anything of artistic value. Any musician with talent, common sense and serious aspirations knows better than staying in this town. Just sayin’
For the record, you’re giving me *far* too much scenester credit in terms of who I know & don’t know — I’m friends with some of the folks we talk about on the site, sure, but far from all of ’em. And the people I *do* know in person/reality, I know because I saw/heard their band, thought they were incredible, and said “hi.” We don’t say nice things about *anybody*’s band just because they’re friends of ours. Period.
I think you’re getting confused as to what you’re talking about here, btw. When you talk about “the Houston music scene”, you seem to be talking about the bands about half the time and about how much/little attention said bands get the other half, and those are two *very* different things.
Do you honestly think “critical acclaim at a national level” equals “good music”? Please. If that were the case, Nickelback would be universally considered a good band. You remind me of a friend from college who once told me that because a band I was trying to get him to listen to wasn’t played on the radio, they must not be very good. Which is absolute bullshit.
I’ll agree that Houston falls behind in terms of promoting stuff that’s got artistic value, particularly in terms of music; that’s part of the reason this site exists. Even within the city, as you point out, people don’t necessarily come out to shows with local bands — that’s got very little to do with the bands themselves, however. Houston music needs more visibility, within Houston and without. I’ll wholeheartedly high-five you on that one.
But “deservedly ignored”? That’s where the shitty taste comes in. Everything you’ve pointed to has nothing to do with the actual *quality* of the music people are making here, which I happen to think is pretty amazing.
We receive an insane, overwhelming amount of music, in every format imaginable, from VHS tapes to MP3s. I have to listen, at some point, to most of it. And after listening, even to bands from record labels I love, from scenes in places you point to like Seattle and NYC, I *still* find myself coming back to a rapidly-growing pile of awesome bands from right here.
I firmly believe that bands like, say, listenlisten, Grandfather Child, Roky Moon & BOLT, Fat Tony, or The Literary Greats, to name only a handful of the crew, if stacked up against some of the most-hyped, most-“good” bands out there, would wipe the floor with the competition.
If you disagree and think those bands suck (or are mediocre, whichever), hey, that’s your deal — but your “facts” boil down to nothing more than your *opinion* of the bands in question AND the wrongheaded assumption you seem to be making that airplay/national visibility/big crowds == goodness.
So here’s *my* “facts” for you: the Houston music scene is vibrant, mindblowing, and currently flying under the radar of the national media, for the most part. And if any musician feels they need to leave Houston to “make it,” well, more power to ’em, but I respect the folks who stick it out here & make music because they love making music a whole lot more. Just sayin’, again.
I never said or implied that commercial success = critical acclaim. Nickelback, Lady GaGa, etc get bad reviews all the time and still manage to sell a shit-ton of records. Maybe I went a little too far by calling the scene “mediocre”, but to me “scene” means not only bands but also the fans, the venues, the community supporting art and the press.
As far as “taste” goes, there are a lot of good bands in Houston, but it’s just my personal opinion that none of them bring anything fresh and original into the picture. Those bands you pointed out are great in their own right, but I doubt anybody with an ounce of objectivity would label them as “groundbreaking.”
Anyhow, nothing personal towards SCR. I was just expressing my frustration both as a fan and a musician and glad to hear we can agree on some things.
All the best.
I’ll grant you that the scene here has a ways to go, particularly in terms of paying *attention* to the bands that’re here — that said, as somebody who’s watched it for a decade-plus, it’s come a long, long way.
I’ll have to disagree with you on the bands, however; I’m continually amazed at the music who comes out of this city. How many bands *anywhere* are truly groundbreaking musically? I doubt any scene in the country could claim more than a couple, and a lot of the ones I’ve seen held up as such have been not much but hype, to my mind. If a scene’s not truly a scene unless every band’s mindblowing, I doubt anywhere qualifies.
But hey, to each their own.
As for the “nothing personal against SCR” bit: um, okay. Kinda funny, then, that you started off by calling the blog a joke run by a bunch of fanboys writing about their friends’ bands. Nope, nothing personal ’bout that.
Have fun…
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