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If you're in the mood for Southern Rock a little grittier than the sanded-down licks Skynyrd will bring to the Woodlands next month, you could do a lot worse than Blackfoot. Also from Jacksonville, Ricky Medlocke's bunch knocked around for most of the '70s until opening up the hard-rock throttle on 1979 hits "Train, Train" (featuring harmonica from Medlocke's grandfather) and "Highway Song." Even better, Blackfoot is playing at Beaumont highway biker bar the Hawg Stop. Tonight!

Of course that's not all...

[This could be your poster here too. Email chris.gray@houstonpress.com.]

Memoirs about the famous written by family members usually fall into one of two categories: hero-worship hagiography or score-settling axe job. Astrid Young’s reflections on sibling Neil, though, creates an entirely new genre: A Famous Relative book…without much of the famous relative.

That’s right. Because despite the fact that the front cover features a huge honking photo of Neil (he’s on the back as well) as the selling point, there’s shockingly precious little about the author’s brother on the pages inside. Actually, Neil is Astrid’s half-brother, as they shared a father [noted Canadian journalist and commentator Scott Young] but not a mother. And since sis is about 16 years Neil’s junior and grew up in a completely different household, those hoping for anecdotes about a teenage Shakey bent over his guitar working out lyrics (“Down by the river…I smacked my baby? No, I need something stronger…”) will be sorely disappointed.

“As I write this book,” Astrid offers early on. “I’m hoping to enlighten myself as to who this Neil Young guy is.” Not the most promising of openings, to be sure (shouldn’t she have figured this out a bit earlier?) - and one that is left unfulfilled. “He is truly rock and roll royalty, which makes me, I suppose, a princess of sorts,” she continues. Uh, yeah…

Earlier this afternoon, I took a little trip down past Produce Row to Sugar Hill Studios, "The Abbey Road of the South," according to co-owner Dan Workman. (Among many other things, the entire Sugar Hill staff are huge Beatle fans, making it even cooler.) Sugar Hill opened in the '40s and is the longest continually operating recording facility in the Southwest; hits like "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," the Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and Destiny's Child's "Survivor" have been recorded there. While I was there, I sat down with Workman, former drummer in Houston post-punk performance art terrorists Culturecide, for a brief interview that only touched on Sugar Hill's vast history.

Here is the slideshow. - Chris Gray

[Relax, people, it's just a poster.]

Take a gander at your live-music options for this evening (Saturday and Sunday, once again, will be up tomorrow). First up, there's Dallas alt-country firebrands Macon Greyson at the Armadillo Palace:

...or tap-dancing Omaha indie sprites Tilly and the Wall at the Engine Room. Adorable!:

Only suckers try to get their songs on the radio anymore. The truly savvy musicians know the real action is in TV/movie placement, somewhere Five Times August - the nom de stage of Dallas native/resident Brad Skistimas - has excelled of late. The singer-songwriter landed "Save It for Later" on MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila 2 ("the season finale," he pointed out) and really started turning some heads when "Better With You" surfaced on that network's Laguna Beach.

A scruffier, equally charismatic James Blunt, Five Times August is like catnip for the ladies. Of the 40 or so people on hand at Mojo last night (every seat was full), about 80 percent were female, of the well-off, white, not-quite-out-of-college-yet variety; the dress code was summer top (blouse, tube or spaghetti-strap halter), jeans and flip-flops or heels. Several gazed at Skistimas like he was the second coming of Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves. Meanwhile, their male companions (what few there were) invariably had on either a golf shirt or ballcap... but never both.

[From time to time, Rocks Off will post flyers and posters from local gigs that catch our eye. Tonight's Recession Thursday installment at Numbers is a good place to start. If you'd like us to post yours, email a jpeg to chris.gray@houstonpress.com.]

If there's anyone directing traffic at the intersection of music and comedy, it's Eric Idle, co-founder of England's immortal Monty Python troupe and ace Beatles parody band the Rutles. Idle's latest whimsy is the comic oratorio "Not the Messiah," where he and Spamalot collaborator John du Prez riff on both Handel and Python's 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian. An L.A. resident for the past 15 years, the genial Idle spoke with the Press last week while vacationing in Provence, France, where "it's even hard to take a phone call - that's about the most work you can do."

On “Not the Messiah”:

"It’s mock opera – a grand subject, so it’s very easy to mock. The great advantage is everybody knows the plot. For this one we did Brian, which is probably the most closely plotted of all the Python films."

"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," from Life of Brian

On Monty Python’s musical talents:

"We made an album with lots of songs [1980’s Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album]. Mike [Palin] and Terry [Jones] wrote “The Lumberjack Song” and “Every Sperm is Sacred.” I wrote "The Penis Song" and “Sit on My Face” - mine were a little ruder. I found it easy because I play the guitar."

On the sheep in "Not the Messiah":

"The sheep are very important. Of course the shepherds witness the angels in the sky. We have these specially made sheep, Animatronic, made by this puppeteer who works on Sesame Street. She made me a penis fish one time. We were going on tour for obscure reasons, and took it on the Bill Maher show. She didn’t work on Sesame Street at the time."

[Ed. Note: Welcome to our new feature spotlighting rare grooves and funky tracks from Houston's lush musical past, courtesy of the bottomless archives of Music Listings Editor Brett Koshkin.]

Acres of Grass, "Football" - I spent a long time wondering who Acres of Grass was, until Ovide owner Skipper Lee Frazier told me last year the group was in fact Houston legends TSU Toronadoes plus or minus a few players. Former Toronadoes drummer Dwight Burns claims the group was pulled together by guitarist Michael Spencer, not in the group, who studied under the tutelage of late Kashmere Stage Band Director Conrad Johnson. Unfortunately, like many details from this era, the exact name seems to escape the written record. Nevertheless, this gritty guitar-led instrumental (except a few shouts about doing the football, baby) is one hell of a 45.

James Young and the House Wreckers, "Barkin’ Up the Wrong Tree" - Possibly one of the meanest and shortest funk workouts to ever come out of the Bayou City. Bandleader and sax player Young got his start in Beaumont in the fifties, performing under the moniker Big Sambo. His song "The Rains Came" (later covered by Sir Douglas Quintet) charted, reportedly selling a half-million singles. With such exposure, the NAACP took notice and politely asked him to change his name, noting Big Sambo isn’t exactly the most politically correct moniker.

South by Southwest's daily music-news aggregator The Daily Chord stumbled across an interesting item today on former Houstonian Bill Bentley's new Sonic Boomers blog. Longtime music writer Geoffrey Himes, who penned the Born in the USA entry in the 33 1/3 album-guide series, writes a lengthy essay about Southern Rock, basically a platform for him to tell us all how much he loves Drive-By Truckers. Hear hear... and don't forget, the Alabama boys (and girl) will be at Meridian September 24.

"Gregg Allman once told me that he hated the term Southern rock," Himes says. "Rock and roll, he pointed out, was created in the South, so all rock is Southern. To call something Southern rock, he argued, was redundant: 'It's like saying, 'Rock rock.'"

Think of Swedish music, and it's usually ridonkulously catchy pop artists like ABBA, Roxette and Robyn that come to mind, not bonecrushing death metal, right? Yes, but... turns out in Europe's land of the midnight sun, death metal is no longer the sole province of Norwegians. It hasn't been since 1990, when At the Gates formed in Gothenborg, which is also the largest seaport in Scandinavia. Before splitting in 1995, At the Gates recorded the albums The Red in the Sky is Ours, With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness (awesome), Terminal Spirit Disease and Slaughter of the Soul. The band reformed earlier this year and hits Warehouse Live tonight at 8 p.m. with the excellently named Darkest Hour, Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust. Tickets available at www.warehouselive.com. Bring your mom! - Chris Gray

"Blinded By Fear":

"Terminal Spirit Disease":

If those of us in the audience at Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band thought we were freaked out when Texas singer-songwriter icon Alejandro Escovedo walked out to join the Boss for "Always a Friend," the first track off his excellently reviewed new CD Real Animal, during the first encore, just imagine how Escovedo himself felt. Actually, you don't have to, because he just spilled his guts to Backstreets magazine, the official publication of Springsteen's fan club, before playing a show at Washington, D.C.'s famous 9:30 club.

According to an interview posted yesterday on backstreets.com, “We were driving towards Houston," Escovedo recalled, "when I got a text message from [manager] Jan that said Bruce wants to do 'Always a Friend.' 'Are you in? Can you make soundcheck in 45 minutes?' We were two hours out!”

Escovedo - who had never even seen Springsteen live before - missed soundcheck, but was able to rehearse the song with Springsteen twice in the Boss' dressing room before Springsteen called the entire band in. So how was it? How do you think?