Local(-ish) Press Stuff to Check Out

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):

• First (and possibly foremost) the {Houston Press}‘s Craig Hlavaty, he of the semi-unpronounceable last name, has an excellent rundown up this week of his top 10 “breakout acts” here in Houston for 2010. I wholeheartedly agree with most of his picks (particularly {Omotai}, {Weird Party}, {Tax the Wolf}, & {The Mahas}) and really need to check out the rest (although I’d be tempted to throw some others on the pile, myself, notably {Wails}, {Featherface}, {Art Institute}, & criminally-ignored hip-hop crew {The Niceguys}). High-five, yo.
• Okay, so this isn’t a Houston publication, but it’s definitely got a connection… I’ve been a big fan of PopMatters for a decade or two now, even doing some thoroughly half-assed writing for them way back when, and I always love their pedantic, almost academic feel, whether they’re delving into the psychology of video games or the aesthetics of punk rock or whatever. So today I was happily checking out a cool, very thoughtful book review piece entitled “Who Owns Punk History?”…and then realized it was written by none other than local punk icon David Ensminger, currently of {Ozone City Outrage}. Verra nice, sir.
• Ahhh, yeah. Just when I was starting to break out in a panic-sweat about the fact that I’ve been insanely remiss in posting about local Houston music-scene news, Marc Brubaker swoops in to save the day. He’s resurrected the Magnolia City Mixtape column over at the {Houston Press} site, and not a moment too soon — check out the current installment to read all the various tidbits and factoids about all your favorite H-town bands, and probably learn about some new ones in the process.
• Speaking of Mr. Brubaker, he’s also got a cool new Twitter Directory up over at his own {H-Town Rock} site (the new version of which frustrates me by not having a “comments” section, dangit), which lists the Twitter handles of everybody & anybody associated with Houston music. It’s a work-in-progress, of course, but there’s already a respectable pile of bands, studios, venues, media types, etc., in there. Hrm. Probably ought to email him ours, actually…
• Over at {Dryvetyme Onlyne}, they’re getting a jump on the whole “Top 10” year-end madness, with head honcho Adam Newton so far posting his lists of favorite EPs/7″s and good-but-not-quite also-rans for 2010, as well as the top-10s for his crack squad of contributors. He’s wisely held back so far on the biggie of the bunch, his own top-10, so as to increase the anticipation out here in the wilds of the digital frontier. (Or something. Whatever the reason, keep an eye out for it.)
• You may have missed it, but David Cobb over at {Houston Calling} did a great series of “countdown” posts for the reportedly-epic Roger Waters show here back towards the end of last month, culminating with a very cool review of the show itself. Check it out, if you haven’t already.
• Pal and curmudgeon extraordinaire Danny Mee has a great, great post up at {Nonalignment Pact} all about, um, how much most “post-rock” bands suck and are boring as dirt. (Assuming, that is, that you’re not a fan of dirt.) And yeah, I definitely get the point — for every atmospheric instrumental band I hear and like, it seems like I’m forced to wade through a good dozen that knock me flat-out unconscious. And I still think the drummer from Pelican just plain sucks, at least on 2007’s City of Echoes. The best part of the post, though, is that Danny’s got links and videos for every damn band he’s talking about, so you can listen for yourself & weigh in.
• And last but definitely not least, last week over at {29-95.com} editor-dude Andrew Dansby had this massive explosion of info on all kinds of recent stuff, from a detailed look at local boys {Young Girls}, a mention of Jef With One F‘s book signing, a bunch of new releases, a video, and hell, I’ve lost track of what it is I’m typing about. Dang.

There you go; turn on the feed-reader and read some stuff.