Okay, so I’ll admit that a little chunk of my soul crumbled and died when I heard that Roky Moon & BOLT! were soon to be no more, splintered off to different cities and future projects and whatnot; I really, truly love/loved that damn band…
Back up in the city proper now, so I’m back onto the SXSW Overflow Fest writeups, for all the bands playing tomorrow night, Sunday, March 18th, up at Super Happy Fun Land. It’s been quite a run so far, and it’s still rolling on strong…
I’m going to be away from the laptop for a while this weekend, so this is going to have to be a twofer for the ongoing writeups of the ever-cool SXSW Overflow Fest up at Super Happy Fun Land…
Alright, so I know there’s a been a ton of upcoming-release info floating to the surface lately, and I swear-swear-swear I’m going to mention it at some point very soon (no, really), but I just got handed some news on that front that I feel utterly, completely compelled to talk about…
There’s a small, select handful of bands in this city that honestly can do no freaking wrong in my eyes; literally everything they do somehow turns out to be awesome, in spite of all of the pitfalls of making music in this town. And {The Tontons} are up close to the top of that pile…
Holy shit, y’all. Aside from the growing host of H-town’s own homegrown heroes ({Fat Tony}, {B L A C K I E}, {iLL LiaD}, hasHBrown, {Nosaprise}, & {The Niceguys}, I’m looking at you) and perennial favorite Atmosphere…
A little slow on this one, I know, but it seems almost more appropriate now that the cops think they know the identity of the person who murdered Austin scene icon Esme Barrera…
Alright, folks — here we are. It’s Saturday, January 14th, and tonight is definitely the biggest night we’ve had in a while in terms of shows. Seriously; for a few days there, it seemed like I was hearing about one awesome-sounding show after another…
Once upon a time, I happened across this CD. I was going through the “Local” racks at one of this city’s few, fine music stores (the long-gone “old” Soundwaves, most likely, before they moved onto Montrose proper), and lo and behold, there was this neat-looking album…
There’s a crap-ton of new stuff exploding out of our sweaty, steamy city right now; so much that I can barely keep up with it, honestly… It seems like every time I turn around, there’s a new band/project/etc. meandering its way through…
More good news, albeit from a different front… {Indian Jewelry} (and ex- of the beloved band Japanic) frontman Tex Kerschen will be up at DiverseWorks tonight…
Yep, more awesome news for H-town’s favorite (okay, okay, my favorite) throwback poppy punks, {Something Fierce}: the band just announced that they got picked at today’s Song of the Day…
Call me a cynic if you want, but all the spiritual stuff surrounding {Tyagaraja}‘s work — whether solo or with his previous band, Million Year Dance — has always made me twitch, just a little. I know, I know; I just can’t help it…
When bad news hits, it all hits at once, it seems like, and this week’s no exception; got word the other day that {Mydolls}/{No Love Less} guitarist Kathy Johnston, passed away…
Holy sweet hell-yes, folks. Got word this morning (after being email-less all weekend) that the supremely awesome guys in the variously-spelled {listenlisten} recently hit the Daytrotter studios…
A good, long (well, for me, anyway) Memorial Day weekend coming up, and it’s looking like a damn busy one, to boot, starting with tonight, Friday, May 27th. First off, there’s a cool-ass lineup of garage-y, punk-y goodness going on at the Big Star Bar…
As reported by the {29-95.com} folks back around the start of the year, local songwriter, multi-band-playing ninja, and all-’round old-time country boy {Robert Ellis} signed a little while ago…
Six days in, and god-knows-how-many to go… Next installment of the Super Happy Fun Land SXSW Overflow Fest tonight, and things are looking a bit busier than they have up to this point; see here for the evening’s full schedule…
Nice. Got word this AM from Steven Garcia of always-awesome local pop-punks {Something Fierce} that a cool-ass digital sampler by the band’s label, Dirtnap Records…
Thanks to Craig Hlavaty of the {Houston Press} for this one… Steven Blush, the author of the book American Hardcore: A Tribal History has a new(?) section of his Website…
An hour didn’t seem so long to wait once we entered the Senses Fail tour bus. La June and I had arrived promptly at 3 o’clock, looking for someone to speak to about the interview we had set up at 4…
Getting near the home stretch, folks, for the Super Happy Fun Land SXSW Overflow Fest, and tonight’s installment (today being Monday, March 22nd, btw) promises to be another pretty stellar pile of bands… (And hey, there’s a flyer for this one; ooo-kay.) Tonight’s lineup — which I think may’ve actually been somewhat in place before […]
Yep, it’s Tuesday, March 16th, another day of the SXSW Overflow Fest up at Super Happy Fun Land, and while I’ve heard varying reports on attendance — one writeup I saw said there weren’t many actual fans there, which is damned depressing, but then apparently WB39 was supposed to be coming up last night to […]
Yet another cool show in a week crammed ridiculously full of cool shows (have you seen what all’s going on this weekend? yeesh…), tonight — Wed., February 23rd — is a pretty damn special deal for local ’60s-pop re-envisioner Chase Hamblin, who got tapped to open for none other than Texas-bred psych legend and real-live […]
Another cool-sounding thing happening tonight (Thurs., Nov. 5th, again), this time for all your musicians & band members & whatnot out there. Seems Martin Atkins (ex-Killing Joke/PiL/Ministry/Pigface) will be holding a “band seminar” tonight from 7-9PM at the AvantGarden, where he’ll be talking about, well, the perils of touring. He’s apparently got a book out […]
Got some MP3s I’ve run across lately that I wanted to mention, esp. since some of ’em are fairly timely for shows tonight & in the near-beyond. I’ve got a bunch more to post, too, but am on half-time Baby Duty, so this’ll have to do for now. Enjoy… The Jealous Sound – “Priceless (Alternate […]
Glad to get some good news from that crew of seemingly ever-dwindling Northside(?) emo/post-emo bands — female-fronted, light-handed yet majestic emo-rockers While You Were Gone have finally come back out of seclusion. About damn time, y’all. To be fair, in the intervening time since they released their excellent debut EP, Heavy Lies the Crown — […]
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but hell, I happen to think it’s very cool, so I think it’s worth re-mentioning. Local musician and all-round cool guy Jason Smith, who plays bass/keys in sweet, flat-out rock band Alkari, also happens to be an architecture nerd, focusing on a particular local H-town architect named William R. […]
So…who here remembers the Pain Teens? Ridiculously influential, crazy-ass psychedelic, punkish noise band, signed to Trance Syndicate, then broke up a decade later, after like a half-dozen albums and a weird, not-really-into-it dance with the edges of fame? Yeah, them. Well, ex-Pain Teens/Culturcide/Truth Decay member Ralf, now of Future Blondes, and FB bandmate Kirston have […]
Friend Conor has been singing the praises of SF-dwellers Cryptacize for a while now, but I’ve been slow to come around, I’m afraid. It’s mostly a matter of expectations, I think — I went into it knowing guitarist Chris Cohen from his work with Deerhoof & The Curtains and singer/guitarist Nedelle Torrisi from her solo, […]
We’re veering rapidly towards the end of the week and all the work-dodging that entails (not that I’m doing it myself, but y’know), so it seemed appropriate to post some YouTube clips I’ve seen recently of and/or by local H-town folks… First is a bit of an afternoon show last weekend at Cactus Music, with […]
Yeah, it’s been a while, and the MP3s have been piling, piling, piling up; some are just kinda “eh” to me, but once I get a chance to sift through things, there’s always some good stuff to download, like the tracks linked below. I honestly wish I could post more of the stuff we get […]
Another one (er, two) I can’t believe I let sneak up on me; I still have yet to see The Paper Chase live, although I’ve been a fan of John Congleton and his dark, creepy-ass indie-noise-rock for a few years now. They’re playing tonight, thankfully, up at Walter’s on Washington, along with cool (although more […]
Okay, so that’s stretching it a bit — the show tonight at the Mucky Duck isn’t technically a Trout Fishing In America show. What is is, though, involves the TFIA guys and happens to be pretty cool. See, TFIA are originally from right here in H-town; bassist Keith Grimwood went to school at U of […]
Oh, man. After stumbling across Breakfast at Sulimay’s recently, I think I just need to quit this reviewing racket; after all, there’s no way I could ever possibly top these people, reviewing-wise, so why bother? I can’t tell if Ann is serious or taking the piss with the whole thing — she likes Young Jeezy? […]
Ah, this is why I love checking the P.O. Box — if nobody’s able to get to it for a few days, stuff piles up like mad, & then when we do check, it’s like Christmas. And sometimes it’s Christmas for other folks (namely, you, good readers of this here site), which is just as […]
Yep, it’s the latest installment of the Bandcamp deal this Sunday, May 10th, over in Midtown at the Caroline Collective, and once again it’s a damn useful topic for folks in bands & labels & whatnot. They’re calling it Bandcamp: COPYRIGHT, and as the name (hopefully) suggests, the focus this time out is on copyrighting […]
I was a diehard Tori Amos fan for several years and a handful of albums, but I’m sad to report that I’ve drifted away from her work these past half-decade or so — I’m not actually sure why that was, except that maybe it was a combination of less $$$ to spend on music and […]
For a while now, I’ve been passing around mix CDs of music made by Houston-based bands & musicians, forcing the CDs on friends & family with the manic, “why don’t you all understand?” zeal of a fresh-faced missionary kid knocking on apartment complex doors at 9AM on a Saturday so he can spread The Good […]
Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to SCR homey and longtime contributor Marc Hirsh, who in addition to being an all-round great writer and reviewer, killer foursquare player, and funny guy, is currently on the air on NPR’s “Here & Now”. He’s talking about his latest project, exposing the “Sensitive Female Chord Progression”, the […]
