Yeah, I got out there a bit late — I didn’t make it to this year’s Houston Press Music Awards Showcase downtown ’til 6PM or so, which meant I missed 2 hrs’ worth of cool-ass bands. Perils of domesticated life, unfortunately; it gets hard to force myself to hop in the car & abandon the […]
The best-laid plans, damn…every time I put off posting about this stuff, it bites me on the ay-uss. We got some new stuff up last week — brand-new show reviews! — and earlier this week — brand-new reviews! — but I procrastinated, figuring I’d post about it sometime this afternoon. I had a quickie medical […]
Back at the keyboard once again, post-Grand Canyon debacle (which I will post about, btw, for those who give a crap; still trying to organize thoughts & force myself to actually type it up), and we’ve got two updates’ worth of new stuff up for all to ogle and admire and deride, as they/you see […]
UPDATE! Argh, I screwed up — ignore the art show stuff at the bottom & check the next post, instead… Yesterday evening I dragged homeboy Jowell on up to Notsuoh for the rescheduled, shifted-around, and somewhat downsized (Ex-)Keene St. Warehouse Party. I had some serious misgivings about the whole thing, I have to admit — […]
As I walked into an almost-empty Meridian, I wondered, “Am I at the right show? Is Black Mountain still playing tonight?” Then I remembered I was in Houston. And everyone was either recovering from SXSW or still there. As the opening bands came off-stage, The Meridian‘s small red room started to fill, but not enough to pack the house, which made for a great intimate setting…
Although this show took place a while back now, it has taken me this long to wrap my head around why a band as talented and musically interesting as Manchester Orchestra would tour with a band as uninspiring as Say Anything. I still can’t give you an answer…
Yeah, this last update was a big one — we’re gonna have to skip a week or two after this, as I’ll be flying out tomorrow AM for Arizona, off on The Great Grand Canyon Adventure/March of Death ’08, so we tried to get a large bunch of new things up on the site… First […]
There is probably something snide to be said about seeing Radiohead (amidst all those fake plastic trees, amiright?) at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands, but I don’t know what it is, so I won’t even try. I mean, out of the 21 U.S. cities on the In Rainbows tour, Radiohead chose ours, so I won’t talk about the imitation Riverwalk (and what better to imitate than the Riverwalk?)…
[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, […]
Spent most of the day either having an impromptu pool party with The Munchkin or driving to & from the in-laws’ house, but I managed to make a relatively quick stop at the Zine Fest Houston up at The Shady Tavern (still going on, actually, so stop on byi; check the details here). And while […]
Yep, got some more new stuff up online this week, including a review of shaggy-headed Tyler boys Ivoryline, who’re playing tomorrow (Sun., 4/6) at Warehouse Live with Family Force 5, The Myriad, & The Maine — I dunno a thing about the rest of the bill, but Ivoryline aren’t bad, at least not on record. […]
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a real punk rock show. There was that Misfits 25th anniversary debacle a while back, and then I saw X with the Rollins Band, but by and large, it seemed as if my punk days were firmly behind me. Like most 31-year olds, I had kind of gravitated away from snotty three-chord diatribes somewhere in my mid-to-late 20s…
Yep, we are officially all-all-all about the just-in-time updating, today. Like I just slapped a review of the latest A Wilhelm Scream disc, Career Suicide, up on the site, in the hopes that it will get some of you crazy, wonderful people out there to go, go, go see this band when they play this […]
Damn, I’m beat. Not because I spent today trudging around Austin in the hot, hot sun, mind you, but because I spent today kiddie birthday party-hopping, hitting two exhausting, extremely loud gatherings of munchkins in one long, long afternoon. I managed to overdose pretty severely on frosting, greasy pizza, bouncy castles, and Hannah Montana, all […]
To say that Walter’s on Washington is the best venue in Houston in which the possibility exists to interact with the performing artists would not only be an oversimplification; it would not be doing the place justice. Walter’s is important to Houston because artists are almost literally forced to coexist with their (sometimes overbearingly obsessed — good for you, Houston) fans…
Well, I pretty much lucked out, I think, this past Thursday. The wife was having a moms’ group thing (something involving chocolate & a lot of women) at our house, so the munchkin went to Grandma’s for the night & I was banished temporarily from the premises. And lo and behold, in spite of it […]
A little slow, I know, but what the hey — that’s how I roll, generally. Managed to drag my couch-sitting/munchkin-minding self out of the house this past Saturday, mostly because there was just too damn much Rock going on in H-town to ignore. I had a hard time deciding, considering that Thee Armada, Alkari, My […]
Update time, update time… This time out, we’ve got 2 things in particular that I’m very excited about. The first is a review (by yours truly) of the brand-new Linus Pauling Quartet CD, All Things Are Light. And while you should really go read the review for yourself, I can give you the upshot here: […]
Damn, this is gonna have to be quick. We’ve got a bunch of new stuff up, two weeks’ worth (sorry, missed last week’s post), and there’s a ton of awesome, awesome shows this weekend, to boot, that I’m not really gonna have time to talk about… First of all, writer Peter (aka “Pedro”) did us […]
I guess you can go home again. Literally, for me. My wife and I dropped off the kiddos at my parents’ house and headed to Fitzgerald’s for the long-awaited and anticipated Axiom 20th Anniversary Party. From the official blog, you could feel the excitement for this event, with many musicians and fans reuniting in Houston to remember our misspent youths and that venerable club, The Axiom, which gave a generation of Houston kids a place to explore art, music, and general weirdness…
Another sultry, wet Houston Wednesday, this time in the newly smoke-free Walter’s on Washington, where I was pleasantly discombobulated by the clear view of the newly expanded stage. While I have always loved Walter’s odd scene, touchy relationship with the locals (on any evening the cops could storm the place), and the strong pours, it needed a space for five to play without the threat of poking out eyes with pointy metal guitars…
Yep, more stuff up for Sept. — this time out we’ve got a little pseudo-interview/preview of electroweirdo Dan Deacon, who’ll be playing this next Monday, Sept. 24th, up at Walter’s on Washington, plus a live review of the recent pre-Labor Day show at The Proletariat with Buxton, Digan, The Church of Philadelphia, and Hollywood Black. […]
Yep, just a couple more things up before I head off to wander the fjords and freeways of Scandinavia, in search of traces of my wife’s Viking forebears — as of this AM, we’ve got up a cool, cool review of the Battles/Ponytails/Sharks and Sailors show in town a month or so ago (give or […]
I got to the show late, and only caught 400 Blows and Unsane. The crowd was strong and noisy, surprising considering all the bands were from out of town. 400 Blows is a cool 3-piece, a pint-sized drummer, charismatic lead singer, and guitarist running two Marshall half-stacks plus a bass amplifier, allowing the trio to sound much bigger than their number might suggest…
New month, new reviews (live and otherwise) & such. A number are actually fairly timely, this week: New Atlantic is playing 6/3 @ Java Jazz out in Spring with theAUDITION, Monty Are I, The Graduate, & 1997(!); Illinois is playing 6/7 with the fuckin’-A Hold Steady(double-!) & Blitzen Trapper; Julie Doiron is playing 6/8 @ […]
Tuesday night is pretty much the definition of an off-night for gigs, but nevertheless, your fearless reviewer braved the boho attic that is The Mink for some midweek hedonsim. Before the gig even started I managed to lacerate my thumb on something, proving that A. I am a special and unique snowflake, and B. aspirin really does make you bleed more than normal…
phew…I was frantically trying to get some new reviews up today, primarily because Arbouretum are playing tonight at The Mink, and after (finally) hearing their 2nd album, Rites of Uncovering, holy fucking crap is that show going to be good. Read the review on the site (link below). Go. See. Be stunned and amazed (and […]
Hiding behind a cream-colored beanie and an I Clover New York t-shirt, Evan Dando made his way unassumingly onstage at Clear Lake’s answer to live music, The Scout Bar. Accompanied by Vess Ruhtenberg (bass) and Devon Ashley (drums) of The Pieces, The Lemonheads began their first tour in over a decade just a few short weeks beforehand…
Yep, new stuff up for the new week. Featured Bands: Sharks and Sailors; The Western Civilization. Live: DragonForce. Reviews: Loney, Dear; Die Hunns; The Jonx; Lucas Cates; Sebadoh re-issue; Teenage Harlets; tvfordogs; & Mike Uva.
Henry Rollins is one of my heroes. I dig his music, his spoken word/comedy, his books — I’ll even go see crappy movies that he’s in just because I like to see him act. Yeah, I’m talking about Jack Frost, and I’ll probably rent Wrong Turn 2 eventually, as well. I’ll also always take the Rollins side in the Black Flag debate…
Bands spawned from other groups always seem to have a rougher time of it than their original bands, and usually with good reason. Was the duo of Page and Plant better than Led Zeppelin? Was Slash’s Snakepit better than Guns’N’Roses? Far from it, so being skeptical of a group like The Raconteurs is not an unplausible concept…
In the end, it felt more like we were witnessing a social experiment of some kind, albeit from the inside. We’d gone to see Kings Of Leon and The Stills downtown at the usually-very-comfortable Meridian, and worked our way through security, surprised to see so many people coming out to a show on a Tuesday night. I figured it was just a sold-out show, although given the bands that was in itself kind of strange. We Houstonians ain’t always the hippest lot, particularly en masse…
I really went to see the JonBenet, in deference to the miserable spectacle that “your liberal media” has made of a pathetic pervert in the not-too-distant past while ignoring the sickening horror of civil war in Iraq and the fact that our beloved New Orleans is, for all intents and purposes, still under water metaphorically if not in reality. The Bush mouthpiece in charge of rebuilding New Orleans says the levees are “back to pre-Katrina and getting better”…
A lengthy line of black clothing-clad fans extended out the front entrance to the Reliant Arena on this hot Houston summer day; they ignored the unbearable heat because they were ready for an ear-splitting day of heavy metal. Headlined by the legendary Slayer, the Unholy Alliance Tour also featured a slew of newer groups, so there was a diverse range of ages among the attendees…
On June 22nd, the stars had aligned to make a super lame night. I was about to see Sonic Youth, my all-time favorite band (since sixth grade, I swear), but my friends had flaked, the ticket was gone, and I didn’t have enough cash to pay for a damned t-shirt. I stormed into Warehouse Live alone and upset, twenty-five dollars poorer, and convinced the night would amount to jack crap…
In downtown Houston, I’ve lately spotted a number of music fans sporting t-shirts celebrating the local band Sharks and Sailors. Intrigued, I was able to catch their live show one night at The Proletariat (on Richmond near Montrose). The show I attended was just one day in their media-publicized, four-day mini tour, where four different bands from four different cities…
This year marked the beginning of a new summer music festival called the Sounds of the Underground Tour. The tour brought to arenas across the country heaps of underground metal bands from record labels such as RoadRunner, Century Media, Metal Blade, and Trustkill. Unfortunately, the tour didn’t come to Houston, but there were several “off-dates,” where a select group of bands from the tour played shows at small venues in nearby towns…
The evening started at approximately 7:30 PM with these local Houston guys’ performance. The music could be classified as the middle ground between hardcore and pop-punk; there were plenty of heavy guitar riffs, and the vocals alternated between unintelligible screams and tenor singing. The singer jerked his body around in time and occasionally swung the microphone around his arm…
On March 26, 2005, the moment finally came for me to be exposed, live in concert at the Reliant Arena, to one of the most talented, heaviest bands of our generation. The graphic videos, the darkly crazed crowd, and the animated tactics of Slipknot filled the arena with a vibe found in very few other places. Even just the audience was well worth the time spent by any who attended, just because of the spectator sport of being in the middle of such a show…
Renowned surrealist Salvador Dali once said, “Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.” Dali obviously never saw Streetlight Manifesto live. Through the pursuit of art, man has made his most valiant attempts at perfection — Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, Bogey in Casablanca, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper — but few artists of late have come close to perfection in their respective field. Enter Streetlight Manifesto…
