Sorry, couldn’t resist the song reference… I know I’ve been somewhat quiet lately on local fave band The Western Civilization (since we ran the interview last spring, actually, although they did appear in our best-of-2007 wrap-up), and frankly, that’s pretty inexcusable. My only defense is that they’ve been somewhat quiet themselves lately, since coming back […]
Written on March 27, 2008 | Posted in
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UPDATE: And…poof, the tickets are gone. Damn, that didn’t take long at all. Congrats to winner JD! Yep, slam poet/rapper/artiste extraordinaire Saul Williams will be in town this next Tuesday, April 1st over at Warehouse Live — with the utterly awesome Dragons of Zynth, I’ve heard, although they weren’t on the venue’s Website the last […]
Written on March 27, 2008 | Posted in
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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 […]
Written on March 26, 2008 | Posted in
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Dammit, dammit, dammit. I hate to admit it, but I tend to ignore all the emails I get from what look like crappy dance clubs, and sometimes it bites me in the ass. Like now, since I just bothered to look at one email & discovered that Talib Kweli, of all people (the non-Mos Def […]
Written on March 17, 2008 | Posted in
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SXSW defeated me. For the past two days I’ve hardly been able to get out of bed (by which I mean floor) my bones have ached so completely. My brain hurts, my body hates me, and I’m sad because it’s over. And churches are stupid. Anyway, my last day in Austin for this year’s sxsw […]
Written on March 17, 2008 | Posted in
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Yeah, yeah, I know it’s from back in 2005 or so, but homeboy Marc brought it to my attention recently, and now I feel completely and utterly compelled to post it here: Robbie Fulks’ “Fountains of Wayne Hotline”. The first time I listened to the song (sorry, Marc, it took a while for the iPod […]
Written on March 15, 2008 | Posted in Uncategorized
Thank god for tap shoes. But more on that later. Day three at sxsw was fucking strange. I’ve been trying and trying to think of ways to capture it for you guys, but I’m afraid I’m going to come up a bit short. Words won’t do it. I’ll try anyway. I know each day I […]
Written on March 15, 2008 | Posted in
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Wow; that was probably the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. But more on that later. I’m halfway into this year’s sxsw and already I feel like I’m taking advantage of the festival–I know a badge seems like a ton of money (and when I get home and see my electric bill then look in […]
Written on March 14, 2008 | Posted in
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Greetings, spacecity-ers. I’m here in Austin at the annual music orgy that is sxsw, ready to embark on the monumental task of trying to remember my days. I want to first say thank you to Jeremy for allowing me to contribute to his blog and for giving me the assignment to be the first ever […]
Written on March 13, 2008 | Posted in
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Dammit, will the string of bad news just quit, already? I know it may not seem like much in The Grand Scheme of Things, but it feels frighteningly like the Scene is eroding right out from under us Houston music types, like sand being washed out by the tide. Case in point: as of today, […]
Written on March 12, 2008 | Posted in
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I know, I know — it’s about damn time. This little site/magazine/e-zine’s been rolling for 10+ years (counting the “pre-zine” days, at least), and we’re only now getting ’round to covering the colossal musical clusterfuck/lovefest that is South by Southwest. Despite the fact that the happy little Austin music festival has ballooned in the intervening […]
Written on March 11, 2008 | Posted in
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This week’s killing me, I swear. In addition to needing to tend to the work & home life, I feel awash in the head-high tide of SXSW sideswipes with which our fair city’s currently being blessed — tonight, for example, what would otherwise have been a humdrum, nothing-goin’-on Tuesday night is instead filled to overflowing […]
Written on March 11, 2008 | Posted in
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Mentioned these folks already, but I was able to snag a couple of MP3s today & listen to ’em while I wait for the Phone Company Man to show up & make my telephone all better, and now I feel much more knowledgeable about Boston’s The Motion Sick and qualified to say that, yeah, they’re […]
Written on March 10, 2008 | Posted in
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Yeah, of late the future of fabled local music-scenester blog The Skyline Network was looking a mite shaky, and frankly, folks were worried, including me. TSN’s ADR knows more about H-town’s indie-rock-etc. scene than, well, pretty much anybody, and the thought of his well-written, insanely in-depth glimpses of the H-town musical underbelly going away Houmidity-style […]
Written on March 10, 2008 | Posted in
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This reunion thing is getting really, really old. For example, I honestly, I just can’t get excited over the “ha-ha, just kidding!” Pavement maybe-reunion that’s being bandied about; the band was interesting while they were around the first time, but that doesn’t mean I still give a crap about seeing ’em play live. Most of […]
Written on March 5, 2008 | Posted in
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Yeah, you really shouldn’t, ever. Naturally, we’re happy as hell to hear the news, but dang, way to make liars out of us poor SCR saps, Mr. Keith… (And hey, our little interview somehow ended up as a reference to the Face to Face Wikipedia entry; does this make us big-time? Hrm, maybe not.)
Written on March 2, 2008 | Posted in
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Dang, gotta make this quick. Some good, good, good stuff tonight, but I’ve blathered about Too $hort, Thee Armada, etc., once already, so I’m gonna skip those… If I could get out & about this evening, I’d be flipping my patented three-sided coin to decide which of these shows to be at: Treehouse Project/Slivered (CD […]
Written on February 29, 2008 | Posted in
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Y’know, on the one hand the Maxim mess is pathetic and disturbing (and props to Broken Record for talking about it before anybody else I subscribe to did), but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t strike me as being mostly hysterically funny. I mean, c’mon, how much more “meta” could we possibly get? My favorite […]
Written on February 27, 2008 | Posted in
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So, if you happen to not be able to escape from the house this evening to check out the NOFX/Latch Key Kids show, the Wiggins/Aunt Dracula show, or the Aiden/Schoolyard Heroes show (or, heck, even if you can get out of the house), all is not lost. Simply turn on that trusty stereo and point […]
Written on February 26, 2008 | Posted in
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Big, big, big “thank yous” to Sara Cress & Joey Guerra over at HandStamp for this one. Earlier today they leaked a bit of the lineup for this year’s iFEST, formerly known as the Houston International Festival, and hot damn — Bettye LaVette is on the bill. There’re lots of other good folks, too, both […]
Written on February 26, 2008 | Posted in
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Okay, I’m getting some seriously mixed signals here, folks. According to their PR people and JamBase, funky, soulful, retro-indie-rockers Catfish Haven are playing up in the glorious ‘trose at Rudyard’s this very eve, possibly alongside another band of Chicago-dwellers, the excellent Redwalls (whose booking people also have the show listed). When I visit Rudz’s Myspace, […]
Written on February 26, 2008 | Posted in
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Yep, got a bunch of new stuff up lately, including a nicely-sized (I think, anyway) pile of reviews. There’s one of the new NOFX live disc, which is surprisingly good despite the title (these days I find myself blasting “You’re Wrong” and “Franco-Unamerican” while driving around, at least as long as my daughter’s not in […]
Written on February 22, 2008 | Posted in
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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 […]
Written on February 9, 2008 | Posted in
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No time for the “real” Rundown today, sorry — there are many, many fine shows going on this weekend, but yours truly is totally swamped (and experiencing technical difficulties w/the site, to boot; argh…). I’m bound and determined, though, come hell or high water, to get my ass out of the house to see Sharon […]
Written on January 25, 2008 | Posted in
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There are days when you just have to shrug and figure, “well, at least I got a semi-entertaining story out of it.” Like, say, this past Monday. Yours truly was all ready-set-go for the Foo Fighters/Jimmy Eat World/Against Me! gig this week up at Toyota Center (which I’d never been to before; okay, and I […]
Written on January 24, 2008 | Posted in
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I dunno whether it’s some weird alignment of the stars or the writers’ strike or what, but H-town shows have just been insane lately. Not that they’re not often good, of course, but that in recent weeks they’ve been stacked three deep each and every weekend night. Crazy… At any rate, tonight (Friday, Jan. 11th, […]
Written on January 11, 2008 | Posted in
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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 […]
Written on January 8, 2008 | Posted in
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Well, 2007’s done, and a new year’s now upon us. And as I sit here and listen to the booming fireworks off in the distance (and the, er, somewhat sharper reports closer to home), it’s been a hell of a year, especially in terms of music coming out of our fair city — to be […]
Written on January 1, 2008 | Posted in
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At the risk of being totally meta-referential by patting a guy on the back while he’s patting me on mine, I’d like to urge all & sundry to check out Ramon Medina‘s two-barrelled blast of year-end wrapping up over at both the Free Press Houston and Nonalignment Pact sites. I’ve been meaning to point to […]
Written on December 31, 2007 | Posted in
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Jee-sus ‘effin Kee-rist, it’s been a hell of a couple of weeks. Yours truly has been hammered by multiple deadlines in advance of the coming days off (all next week! woo!), and as a result I’m just now managing to climb out from under my work-imposed rock to discover, holy crap, there’s been a lot […]
Written on December 21, 2007 | Posted in
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As any more-than-casual reader of this little site probably knows by now, I really and truly heart Austin folk/rock/pop/whatever band Okkervil River. Frontman Will Sheff is hands down one of the best, most talented songwriters going these days; ignore ’em, and you’re seriously missing out. Anyway, the reason I’m bringing up OR now is because, […]
Written on December 17, 2007 | Posted in
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Just a quick note to let you know that this next week’s installment of the Grey Ghost CD-R series is gonna be ever more supremely badass than it usually is — it’s reportedly one eleven-minute Hell’s Angels clusterfuck entitled “Hawg!”, by none other than the Linus Pauling Quartet, who thanks to their latest album All […]
Written on November 30, 2007 | Posted in
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Been meaning to mention this for a while now, but I wasn’t actually sure what the deal was — it’s a little hard to plug/describe, seeing as the participants are, well, pretty much anonymous (although ADR over at Skyline seems to know who’s gonna be playing from time to time, via his vast network of […]
Written on November 30, 2007 | Posted in
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Got an email the other day from SCR contributor Creg L., who happened to run into ex-Sprawl/-Middlefinger/etc. frontman Matt Kelly (who lives in Austin these days, I believe, or at least somewhere between H-town and there) at the Meat Puppets show a short while back. He got to talking to Matt and one of the […]
Written on November 30, 2007 | Posted in
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Y’know, I’m to the point with my cynicism that I almost expect to get screwed, on some level, by big corporations. I figure that if there’s a way to get my money and not give me what I thought I paid for, they’re gonna go for it. I’ve been burned before by a few companies/restaurants/car […]
Written on November 27, 2007 | Posted in
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Following a recent discussion over on the Hands Up board, I figured it’d be a good time to post this. Pretty much everybody in town who likes music knows KTRU, the Rice University radio station that lives at 91.7 FM — whether you love it or hate it (and people seem pretty much to fall […]
Written on November 27, 2007 | Posted in
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Argh…meant to post earlier, but had to run out to eat & then do all the daddy stuff, I’m afraid. If you run/drive fast, though, you might be able to catch it — there’s a very cool art opening going on tonight up at Sound Exchange as I type this, and I’m really wishing I […]
Written on November 17, 2007 | Posted in
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I figured heck, I’m in a video-posting mood, so why not keep it rolling… The two videos below amply demonstrate why even now, a decade after the band broke up, I still can’t help but think of NYC madmen Barkmarket as the quintessential heavy rock (not metal, mind you, but loud, heavy, stomping rock) band […]
Written on November 13, 2007 | Posted in
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Wow. I’m guessing that this has already been bandied about the Interwebs, but I hadn’t heard ’til this AM (courtesy of Vice‘s VBS.TV venture), and it’s utterly blown me away: My Bloody Valentine have reportedly reunited and are doing a new album (check out Soft Focus – Kevin Shields Part 1). Holy crap. Granted, Shields […]
Written on November 12, 2007 | Posted in
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Y’know, I’d wondered what the heck had happened to Cameron Dezen (now “Cameron Dezen Hammon,” officially). She put out a truly brilliant solo album a year or three ago, Love + Rescue, and then…well, nada. The last time I even saw a show listed was the Houston Press Awards like 2 years ago, now. Anyway, […]
Written on November 2, 2007 | Posted in
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