Fresh off an appearance on the slightly insane but brilliant cartoon Adventure Time, LA’s experimental producer Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, recently graced Houston with his presence at Warehouse Live…
As it does every year I’ve gone (six times since 2004), SXSW overwhelms me, exhausts me, and most of all makes me glad to be a musician and music fanatic. Anyone who throws the one-liner out there, “there’s no good music anymore!” is just…
When you have been in bands for 25 years, you can tell when a band has put everything they’ve got into a performance. This kind of effort was on display at Fitzgerald’s last night. With the release of their new album, Past to Present, The Wheel Workers…
Recently, while waiting around at Fitzgerald’s for sound check before the Axiom reunion, I had an unearthly feeling. As I wandered around the old club, I felt like a ghost and I could see the shadows of crowds and bands who I had seen there before. I saw familiar, unforgotten faces, old friends…
I have Houston promoter Hector Del Valle to thank for my first exposure to The Bright Light Social Hour; he brought them from Austin to Houston for the Daniel Johnston 50th birthday party concert. I was actually there to see my friends…
As a precursor to this review… I was completely unfamiliar with the term “steampunk,” and only just read about it when researching Rush. Now that I know what it is, I can see how they would be interested in such fantastic designs. In a nutshell, steampunk deals with a futuristic vision using only items of the distant past…
Madonna occupies a very special place in my heart. It’s a place where a lovesick 15-year-old boy dreamt of a perfect, unrealistic love. At 15, I was the prince of infatuation and unrequited crushes. The number one infatuation was a crush on a girl named…
Two Saturdays ago, a much-needed cold front swept through Houston and greeted beloved Georgian Ernest Greene to Fitzgerald’s. Two years after releasing his exquisite debut, Within and Without, Greene returned to Houston…
“I know it seems as if we’ve been sitting on the couch eating Twinkies for the past seven years, Houston,” a bittersweet Shirley Manson exclaimed to her faithful fans. If you wanted to see the ball-busting, heart-throbbing, and hair-raising Garbage…
Sometimes it just feels like no one is on your side. Well, okay, I did get a photo pass and free ticket to the show, so that’s something. But here’s the thing: as long as I’ve been going to House Of Blues, they’ve had a photo pit…
On Saturday, September 29th, 2012, the eclectic and intriguing Florence + the Machine returned to Houston for the second time this year. I was lucky enough to have been able to attend both shows, the first having been at the Bayou Music Center (fka Verizon Theatre) back in May…
“Your great pal Jason Smith has deferred me to you, and you are now approved to shoot Incubus and Linkin Park.” This was the news I awoke to on the morning of August 25th, 2012, a day that forever changed…
The 2012 Rockstar Energy UPROAR Festival arrived in The Woodlands like a travelling circus of hard rock and metal music. Unlike the skater-punk vibe of the Vans Warped Tour, this tour is decidedly mainstream nu-metal and hard rock…
You’ve gone to one electronic music festival, you’ve gone to them all, right? Naaah. Yes, superficially it might seem as though they seem to imitate one another — an echoing hard electronic beat here, a neon tutu and furry leg warmers there, perhaps…
I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about the Kiss/Mötley Crüe (with special guests The Treatment) concert I went to a few Friday nights ago at The Woodlands Pavilion. I was able to work out a photo pass…
I’m an old-timer. It’s true; I’m that weird older guy you see at shows, the one still wearing the band t-shirt (my wife can attest to the fact that band shirts make up a significant chunk of my wardrobe) and trying, presumably, to seem young. I’m That Old Guy…
Friday afternoon, I got the email: “You are approved for a photo pass for tomorrow.” I had actually forgotten I’d asked for a photo pass to the 94.5 The Buzz Bud Light Weenie Roast, and I don’t remember why I asked, aside from the chance to practice photography…
By Sunday, I felt like I was a pro at getting around on the Free Press Summer Fest grounds. The festival organizers were also getting better at knowing what they needed to change…
I can’t recall the last time I saw Say Anything live — it must’ve been at least three years ago, maybe more — but I finally got to see them again in April, the first time since then, and let me tell you, they put on a heck of a show…
With three EPs under their collective belts, The Manichean boys — Cory Sinclair, Justice Tirapelli-Jamail, and their capable entourage of musicians — are not the young upstarts that I met three years ago…
I didn’t really enjoy the Free Press Summerfest… I devoured it. When I go to a concert with my wife, I try to enjoy myself, take it slow, kick back and relax, but by myself…
This was the fourth installment of an exhilarating, up-and-coming summertime weekend music festival in the fair city of Houston, thrown by the preeminent local events and entertainment rag of the same name, the Free Press. In its first year, the Free Press Summer Fest featured Broken Social Scene as one of the headliners. Don’t get me wrong…
ZZ Top cancelled their June 23rd Houston show; beer drinkers, hell raisers, bikers, and bearded freaks alternately pouted and cussed. SCR bought a ticket to see them in Manshantucket, Connecticut, during the first weekend of their “Gang of Outlaws” tour…
I’ve been seeing John Mills-McCoin around at Houston shows for years now. I finally introduced myself to him at Mark C. Austin‘s Houston Invasion shindig at SXSW; anyone he meets is an instant friend. There are a handful of Houstonians that I see more than anyone else at shows I attend…
As has become the standard every few months, The Supersuckers have returned once more to put on a good old-fashioned rock show at The Continental Club. And once more, the show delivered on all fronts…
A short while back, I was offered the chance to shoot photos of Radiohead and review their Houston show at Toyota Center. Of course, I jumped at the chance, but then I thought, what would I really write about the show that wouldn’t be said better…
Disclaimer: I spent a lot of time in high school and college watching anime. I loved it and even now, I get a little giddy thinking about Hayao Miyazaki‘s next film. So when SCR passed around a flyer…
On Saturday, October 29th, Halloween came early this year at legendary Fitzgerald’s. For, seemingly from the bowels of hell itself, up came The Age Of Hell Tour. For the night, this included four notable bands…
Sometimes daily life gets in the way of doing very important things that perhaps on their own might not necessarily require a significant amount of time to complete, but when paired with the humdrum requirements of day-to-day prior obligations…
On Friday, September 2nd, Houston was served up a wonderful and reflective night of peace, love, and retro-fitted classic rock from the ’60s and ’70s, as “Hippiefest 2011” came groovin’ into the Arena Theater…
We came, we saw, we left early. We were berated for lack of press pass (thanks, booster club!). We rather unsuccessfully tried to reaffix our apparently fictional press passes back to our shirts, pants, sweaty legs, and, finally, camera bags. We jammed…
The H-town stop of the Vans Warped Tour was held this year at The Showgrounds at Sam Houston Race Park, and as always, Warped had something for everyone’s taste, with 66 bands on multiple stages. Houston was the second stop of the Tour…
The more I think about this recent batch of reviews I’m writing for SCR, the more it seems like they are the serialized version of my memoirs entitled How I Incrementally Noticed That I Was Definitely Getting Older. It feels like those types of themes keep popping up…
I hesitate to type this, because I feel like when I do, one of the last sparks of youth left dimly flickering within my soul will be extinguished forevermore. But fuck it…I am so glad I brought earplugs to this show…
The Avalanche Tour onslaught hit Houston April 12th. The Tour brought aboard The Art of Dying, Halestorm, Skillet, Theory of a Deadman, and Stone Sour…
Damn. First off, yes, I do realize it’s been two freaking weeks since the end of this year’s Free Press Summerfest, and a week-and-a-half since the first installment…
After only the first couple of hours of being at this year’s Free Press Summerfest, I was feeling really freaking old. There was a time when I could pull off an all-day festival in the blistering heat of summer…
I have to mention up front that May 6, 2011, ended up being one of the best days of my life thus far, for reasons pretty much unrelated to Wilco and more related to a voicemail I received just before the show…
It was freaking genius. The thought didn’t actually hit me ’til the band was underway, honestly, but then it all made beautiful, perfect sense. In the run-up to their official tour kickoff show, Roky Moon & BOLT! let potential show-goers know…
I could be completely off the mark, but when it come to live music, it’s always felt like Houston has been starved for choice. Maybe it’s the numerous venues that have been torn down to be replaced by generic bars, or maybe it’s the fallout from the Walter’s on Washington incident…
