Houston Music Blog

Brendan Mullen, documentarian of the early L.A. punk scene, died this past Monday at the age of 60. From the basement of a porno theater to The Decline of Western Civilization, the Scottish-born implant helped chronicle early American West Coast punk both orally and through the written word, ending his life's work with a series of books on the scene.

Below, five videos in his memory. First, here's Mullen in the seminal documentary on L.A. Punk explaining in technical terms why punk is better than disco.

​Singer/guitarist Joe "Joe Queer" King is the sole constant in The Queers, a pop-punk concern that's closing in on the big 3-0 and has shed more members than your dog's had fleas. As the name suggests, this band is pretty much about acting retarded, girls, acting retarded and girls; did we mention acting retarded and girls?

If you've heard any Screeching Weasel or Mr. T Experience albums, you get the idea, and already know whether or not this is your scene. Much like Bad Religion, Rancid and NOFX - all of whom would probably be aghast at the comparison we're about to make - The Queers are one of those cultural propositions that makes sense for a year or two, until one outgrows them without realizing it and is left wondering "Why did this shit ever matter to me so much?"

Dig on these video of Israeli titans Monotonix playing last night at Super Happy Fun Land. We followed the band from the floor of the venue, to the bathroom of the venue, to the dumpsters, and all the way out damn near the train tracks off Polk. We have a harrowing sweat-drenched slideshow coming tomorrow morning, along with a review. But hell, with footage like this and the video below, anything we say won't really do this video justice.

Monotonix at Super Happy Fun Land in Houston (Full Tilt Boogie, Ya'll)

​Say what you will about Blink-182, but the common thread amongst all major pop-punk bands is that they have the inherent effect of being gateway bands - a sort of Fisher-Price "My First Punk Band," as singer/bassist Mark Hoppus once described Blink at the height of their mania in the wake of 1999's Enema Of The State. One also can't overlook the immense influence of that album's cover girl, Janine Lindemulder, on the thriving nurse-fetish scene.

Punk rock has a funny way of repeating itself in cycles that confound the old guard and bring in new meat to the tribe. A more publicly palatable punk band will come along and swoop up kids in need of a social family. Most kids won't stay in the fold long enough to lay down roots, while others will become lifers and take what they have learned into almost every facet of the rest of their lives.

Every few years it takes a band like Green Day, Rancid or Bad Religion to lure kids into the circle and soon enough they will either by card-carrying obnoxious teens armed with three chords and the truth, or casual fans wearing the T-shirt to school. In 1999, that band was Blink-182 for a majority of impressionable kids, for better or worse.

The following was written by Aftermath after he busted inside his house just hours before dawn on Saturday morning after he saw Motorhead that night. Knowing fully well that a band such as Motorhead would be nearly critic-proof and not in need of the same scrutiny of say, a Taylor Hicks show, he decided to record his thoughts on the show while they were still soaked in eight bourbon & Cokes and innumerable cups of Lone Star. See them in real-time on Rocks Off's Twitter page.

Photos By Eric Sauseda

So like we just came back from Motorhead and we can't hear ever-loving shit. For serious, Aftermath is trying to be all studious and tell all the good readers about how amazing the show was but that's like trying to tell people why bacon tastes so goddamned good. It just is so slag off. Explanations do not apply to Motorhead or Lemmy Kilmister, who will henceforth be referred to as only Lemmy.

​Rocks Off is proud to announce that we will be bringing our Beatles: Rock Band gear to Lucky's Pub next week on Thursday for The Houston Press' "Best Of Houston 2009 Birthday Bash" for all of you guys to settle any scores you may have still left open from last week's release party at Coffee Groundz. The fun and games start at 7 p.m. and run until closing time at 2 a.m.

We will be setting up shop upstairs at Lucky's in our special Rocks Off loft, where dirty deeds will be done dirt cheap, or at least a reasonable market price. There will be plenty of alcohol throughout Lucky's to sate your thirst and to aid in better game play. We noticed that all of you guys got progressively better at the game as you guzzled down the Beatles-themed drinks that the coffeehouse was slinging, which you see evidence of in the video below.

Craig Hlavaty

​ Tomorrow night Lemmy Kilmister and Motorhead hit the stage at Warehouse Live, and Rocks Off will be there, at least physically. We don't plan on remembering the show so we have diligently trolling YouTube for videos to fill in any memory lapses we may have from heavy indulgence and fanboy euphoria.

The band is synonymous with danger and disarray. Their logo the "Snaggletooth" and all its interpretations denote something frightening and alternately free at the same time. Lemmy's distinctive facial features and grizzled contentment are pure rock 'n roll, even if both are subject to ridicule from their detractors. The band isn't metal and they aren't punk, but they contributed to both genres' disparate lineages and became the one group that each sub-culture could share a beer over.

​So far 2009 has seen the debuts of about a dozen or so new Houston bands that have rocking our collective nuts off. Muhammadali, Passengers, Roky Moon & Bolt, the inimitable 10th Grade Cutie, the solo debut of Benjamin Wesley and the classic-rock-filtered garage of Giant Princess, just to name a few have been burning up our headphones.

So here comes The Energy to the party and not a moment too soon. Made up of members of NO TALK, The Homopolice and Wicked Poseur, The Energy plays their first show on Sunday at the Mink on a bill that also includes the like-minded Secret Prostitutes. The three-chick and one dude assault of Lafayette's Blast Rag closes the show, led by a howling raven-haired tattooed gal with more ink than we even have.

Thanks to Mr. Jesse Dayton for showing us this clip

Les Paul, the musician who literally created the definitive sound of rock 'n roll with his slew of equipment inventions, has passed away at the rockin' age of 94. Seriously if you make it that far after spending your life in smoky halls and recording studios you officially own. The technical baby daddy of rock 'n roll succumbed to complications from pneumonia.

The list of innovations credited and patented by Les Paul stand as a monument to the man that helped shape the sound of rock 'n roll. He pioneered the art of multi-tracking, various delays, phasing, and overdubs. All this on top of helping create with Ted McCarty one the world's most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul.

Photos by Rachelle Mendez and Matthew Juarez

​Saturday night, one of the most polarizing bands of the past 20 years rolls into town. Since its 1994 mainstream breakthrough, Dookie, Green Day has been dividing fans and critics alike. Some damned the trio for leaving their punk-rock roots behind at 924 Gilman for the glamour of MTV videos and catered backstages. Others championed them for bringing a youthful sense of humor to the dour grunge-saturated rock scene of mid-'90s.

The success of Dookie of in turning kids everywhere onto punk should not be underestimated. The band's 1994 release brought a new sense of snottiness that was missing in music at the time. Sure, the grunge bands were sarcastic and too cool for school, but even kids as young as eight could get behind the album's nihilistic and reckless noise. It was a fun record that tapped into a youthful energy missing in Alice In Chains and Nirvana; potheads are always going to have more fun than the dudes tying off a vein in the corner. It's also hella cheaper.

​

With his distinctive blonde mohawk, Jean Beauvoir struck not just a memorable visual presence in the '80s, as his hard-charging singing and playing shone first as a member of notorious punks the Plasmatics, then Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul and finally a solo effort, 1986's Drums Along the Mohawk. His "Feel the Heat" ended up as the theme song from the Sylvester Stallone cop flick Cobra.

And then, Jean Beauvoir just disappeared - or so it would seem to U.S. audiences. But over in Europe, he kept busy releasing solo records, efforts with his groups Voodoo X and Crown of Thorns, and also writing and producing for other acts.

Beauvoir has since hooked back up with Little Steven, whose Renegade Nation multi-media empire includes a record label (Wicked Cool), two satellite radio stations, a syndicated show - Little Steven's Underground Garage, heard in Houston Sunday nights on 93.7 the Arrow - film division, and even a talent agency.

What it do, Rancid? What's crackin', formerly crusty-punk rude boys? Been a long time since we last hang, bros. When Dan Zeller lent me Let's Go during senior year of high school, I knew y'all were onto something special: three-billy-goats-gruff sung scrabbling punk anthems and routs with just a hint of ska. ...And Out Come The Wolves was what really sold me, though, as you found a slightly more commercial sound that brought MTV rotation (for "Time Bomb"), plus a platinum plaque.

Our interest began to wane after you flew to Jamaica to record Life Won't Wait. I bought 2000's Rancid out of loyalty, but nothing on it resonated with me; it's probably rotting in a Baltimore-area record store's used bin as I type this. As for 2003's Indestructible, I can't front: haven't heard a note of it.

It wasn't you, guys, it was us; our interests changed. Separated from higher education and the friends who indoctrinated us to the Epitaph/Fat Wreck Chords/Punk Uprisings/etc nu-punk axis, I suddenly had less of a desire to listen to dudes yelling about smashing the state and so on. I wanted more indie, more rap, maybe some Flaming Lips. I didn't even notice that y'all were on a 6-year hiatus, though your side projects were duly noted (if never explored).

For the past 15 years, the Vans Warped Tour has been barreling through city after city across the globe creating punk rockers out of boy scouts and riot grrls out of band geeks.

The traveling punk, hardcore and emo road show has been coming to Houston since 1995. The first taste local punks got of founder Kevin Lyman's tour was at the AstroArena, starring such future luminaries as No Doubt, Sublime and the Deftones, along with members of the old guard like Sick Of It All and L7.

Everyone who is a veteran Warped attendee, even of they only went once, has a story to tell. Most involve baking on the concrete of the Astrodome complex and getting awful sunburns, but generally having your musical universe expanded. For kids who weren't yet old enough to inhabit clubs like Fitzgerald's, the Abyss or Instant Karma, the Warped Tour was an easy all-in-one way to meet folks like you and discover new bands along the way.

Dead Roses

"Sleep Dep."/ "Liar"

Ditchwater Records

Ralf Armin, Houston punk/glam pioneer and sometime Balaclavas sax-man could be the city's most underrated musicians. Between his works with Truth Decay, the late lamented Swarm Of Angels, and his seminal work with The Pain Teens and Really Red, Armin has paved a lofty path in the history of Houston noise.

Dead Roses' newest 7", "Sleep Dep."/ "Liar," alternately fuses elements of Armin's own musical past, while also digging deep into the aural roots. Side A's title track starts out innocently poppy enough, but soon turns into a reverb-drenched kiss-off. It's toe-tapping stuff you could break up with someone to.

The real action is on Side B, with the Roky Erickson-channeling "She's Not Calling Back," a nearly six-minute tantrum of frustration and emotional chaos. This is where the Roses really bloom, with Armin wailing against a wall of sound over a churning bath of guitar and a ringing phone.

Some albums, indeed some artists, can only be truly appreciated when listened to at near injury-inducing volume. Pontiak, with its earthy blend of bluesy psychedelia, proto-metal and sub-harmonic doom drone, is one such band.

When you crank it all the way up, Maker hits like a mild concussion with the fuzzy, descending riff of "Laywayed." The buzzing stops just as quickly as it started, leaving you with ringing ears just 30 seconds in. Just when your head starts to clear, the band drops back in on top of you, adding a heady layer of vocals to the already saturated sound, along with drums so wet you can practically feel the spray with each echo-laden pound. From there, "Blood Pride" vaults in next, riding a driving bass-line into a charging blues scale riff built on shimmering guitar and alternating single- and double-note syncopation, dutifully delivering the slight swagger its title implies. Next up, "Wax Worship" reveals a different side of Pontiak, its swirling noise providing the perfect foil to the more anchored sound of the first two cuts. Never content to leave well enough alone, the Carney brothers' blues drone soon rises out of the clattering drums and squalling feedback, like an occult version of Jack White's reductive 12-bar pastiche.

Just in case the drop shift in the middle of "Wax Worship" left you jonesing for noise, the band cannily obliges with 74 seconds of all out pandemonium on "Headless Conference," with cymbals crashing alongside frantically paced drums and similarly rambunctious guitar and bass. This is not about technique, or about melody. This is the exhilarating dip in a frozen lake following a languid sauna - from slightly claustrophobic and vaguely eyelid drooping, to shockingly awake, not quite sure what's going on as you get your bearings. This heaving and jerking occurs repeatedly throughout the album, creating a feel that, while it doesn't exactly flow, never allows complacency. You can't just hear this album -- it makes you listen to it.

Between the haphazard hooks, ramshackle rhythm section, mumbled vocals and lo-fi lust for vintage psych, Black Lips comparisons are unavoidable for Austin four-piece the Strange Boys.

That doesn't mean there's not room for a few bands who plunder the 13th Floor Elevators with the kindergarten abandon of early Clean records. Following 2007's little-heard Nothing EP, last year In The Red issued the Dallas transplants' tinny two-minute single "Woe Is You and Me," setting the table for this past March's woolly full-length, The Strange Boys...And Girls Club.

After almost two years of programming and tinkering, the developers of the Beatles edition of the "Rock Band" videogame have released a trailer for the game in advance of its release in the fall.

The visuals in the trailer are faithful to the boys from Liverpool, down to every detail. We were astonished at how close the designers got the avatars to look like the actual Fab Four. The game chronicles the band as it crawls out of obscurity in the Cavern Club, changes the world on the Ed Sullivan Show, gets trippy in the late '60s, and finally closes out with the band on top of the Apple building in 1969. Throughout you will hear snippets rarely heard from in-studio recording sessions, adding to the game's already heavy nerd cachet.

Pi Studios, a Houston-run videogame production shop, is actually developing the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2 components for "The Beatles: Rock Band", set to hit stores on September 9. The production house has helped produce many of the "Call of Duty" games, but it seems its main job is to produce expansion packs for the extremely popular "Rock Band" series, such as November's AC/DC edition.

Photos by Daniel Kramer

Aftermath is not going to purport to know what the New York Dolls were like live, in their Thundered and Killer-ed heyday of kitsch and campy kiss-offs. We weren't even in Pre-K when Buster Poindexter was singing "Hot Hot Hot" on Saturday Night Live. But for chrissakes, they couldn't have been this awkward and stunted. (Thanks, YouTube.)

It can't be age, because folks like Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop are of an age when "one should know better" and they still look like feral cats onstage, stalking their audience, their wounded and alluring prey.

So then, what's wrong with what's left of the original Dolls, David Johansen and Syl Sylvain? They both seem to have their hearts in doing those classic Dolls songs, some of which are nearing 40 years of age. Hell, the guys even write and release new material with a group of guys that can't be but half their respective ages. Rock and roll seems to still be in their veins, if only for the benefit of nostalgia-fueled boomers looking to waste some dough on proto-punk legends.

Aftermath stepped out to see the legendary New York Dolls hit the House Of Blues last night off Caroline. Our photographer Dan Kramer took some amazing pics as always. Here's a taste of his work while we get our review together...

Photo By Daniel Kramer

Little Bigs, the slider joint at the corner of Westheimer and Montrose, is spinning some of Houston's best and brightest bands and it's all because of owner/chef Bryan Caswell's dream of having his own jukebox.

Life-long Houston resident Caswell opened up the slider hut just a few months back. He bought a jukebox from the owner of an icehouse off 290 that was closing down. The jukebox came with the requisite beerhall fodder: Seger, Skynyrd, Journey and the like. You know, the kind of stuff your Dad used to listen to in the garage as he fixed the lawnmower your stupid teenage ass broke.

Caswell's musical journey began as an adolescent sneaking into the Big Easy off of Kirby, which was just blocks from his house, to see the blues artists and generally soak up the vibe.

One hot morning in August of 1997, my little brother and I hopped on MARTA (Mom wouldn't let me use the car) and moseyed on down to the Lakewood Fairgrounds in Atlanta for the third-ever Warped Tour. Should the writer of a column about experimental music be ashamed of having gone to the Warped Tour as a kid? Yes, clearly he should have burst from the womb reading Henry Miller and listening to Mission of Burma (oh wait, that was my brother). But in my defense, sample the lineups from some of these early years of the festival:

1995- L7, Seaweed, Swingin' Utters, CIV, Quicksand (that's right- the first Warped Tour had both ex-Gorilla-Biscuits bands! Beat that, Coachella!)

1996- Beck, Dance Hall Crashers, Fishbone (!), Dick Dale (!!!), Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rocket From the Crypt

1997- Amazing Royal Crowns, Descendents, Murder City Devils, Social Distortion, the Bouncing Souls

OK, true, the 1997 Warped Tour also featured blink 182 (bleh), Sugar Ray (ick) and Limp Bizkit (barf). Wow, I totally do not remember seeing those last two bands, thank God. But luckily, I did see the Descendents, which is the point of this story. And pretty soon afterwards, I went out and bought the album they had just released: Everything Sucks.

Up until about three or four months ago, Black Congress had been rather reclusive. The veritable indie supergroup, made up of scene vets Roy Mata, Chris Ryan and Bret Shirley, with Dann Miller and singer Bryan Jackson from the Jonbenet, had only played a handful of shows since Black Congress's inception early last summer.

The group released a split-tape with Muhammad Ali early this year that blew Rocks Off's black socks off and made us have to drive back to Mom's house to dig out our old Walkman cassette player.

Photos by Mark C. Austin

Any returning mega-band thinking of mounting a huge reunion tour to drain poor folk of their cash (cough Blink-182 cough) need look no further than No Doubt's current tour and sold-out set last night at Cynthia Woods to see how it should be done.

For the bands that were fortunate enough to be opening for the SoCal power-poppers, it also stands as a lesson in how to age gracefully in an industry that increasingly seems to be honoring youth over experience. Hell, in five years a fetus may have its own Twitter and Disney Channel show. No Doubt can still rock as hard as it did with Clinton in the White House.

The Sounds, a devastatingly underrated Swedish New Wave crew, opened the festivities with yet another solid set of straight-ahead dancey thrash. We love the Sounds, from lead singer Maja Ivarsson's punkish wail to multi-instrumentalist Jesper Anderberg's constant sound manipulations. The tragedy of these Swedes is that they should be a million times bigger than they are. Most American audiences only see them at the beginning of a monolithic bill, buried by glittery headliners. One can gain a better perspective on what they do during an hour-long set, not the 20 minutes or so they occupied last night.

Did we mention how feminine this show was? The crowd had to have been three-fourths of the lady persuasion, with a smattering of fathers and erstwhile punk rockers dotting the crowd. For many, No Doubt was their "first" band, while some may have discovered them through lead singer Gwen Stefani's sugar-dipped solo flights. Funnily enough, most of the little girls in the audience were probably not even conceived yet when Tragic Kingdom hit stores in late 1995.

Wolf Eyes

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Friday Night Noise, a weekly Rocks Off column in which I'll take you by the hand and lead you through the often unpredictable, harsh, and (perhaps surprisingly) varied netherworlds of noise music. Noise-rock. Noise-pop. Noise-core. Droning noise. System-shutdown noise. Ultra-minimal noise. Experimental noise. Sample-heavy noise. I could go on and on in this vein -like Bubba babbling about ways to prepare shrimp in Forrest Gump-but I'd rather lay out the ground rules this feature will operate under.

Each week, we'll hone in on three tunes, each by a different noise act. One of them will be from Texas. The other two will be from somewhere else. We'll hook you up with (last.fm or MySpace) links, because we're totally down with sharing the discordant wealth. Remember: discogs.com is your friend in a lot of cases. (We encourage you to join and help keep that site current.)

Noise releases - vinyl, CDs, lathe-cuts, 7-inches, cassettes, etc. - often fall out of the sky without any forewarning whatsoever, resulting in noise addicts discovering that new Dead Machines or Zaimph or Idlness Distribution shit is available weeks, months, or years after severely limited-edition conception. Thus, Friday Night Noise reserves the right to hip you to gnarled insanity issued 18 to 24 months earlier than a given publication date. Will this mean that you'll be a bit behind the curve in some cases? Probably, but if you're desperately into noise, chances are you won't care. Plus, sometimes it takes awhile for a Merzbow, John Wiese, Yellow Tears, or REACHING. composition to really zoom into focus such that one can explain it in words.

And finally, this ain't an MP3 column! What fun would this whole reader/columnist co-dependency thing be if I did all of the work for you?

With all that outta the way, let's get noisy!

Aggronautix.com

It's no secret to daily readers of Rocks Off how much we love and treasure the late GG Allin. The infamous scum-punker continues to mystify and disgust almost 16 years since his well, we guess, timely death.

A new Internet start-up called Aggronautix has created this limited-edition bobblehead of the infamous "Poo Poo Rocker." The figurine was personally approved by GG's brother Merle, who still tours regularly with Allin's backing band the Murder Junkies, who were actually in town for a gig at The White Swan a few weeks back or so. The band tours with a new lead singer, tantamount to the Stones touring with some dude they picked up at a karaoke bar.

The attention to detail is amazing, right down to the feces-stained jock and the shoddy jailhouse tattoos that Allin collected during his various stints in prison. The bloody gash on the forehead makes truly a sight to behold. Part of the fun is imagining how he got it.

Even though he's been gone for almost a decade now, we still love Joey Ramone. We defy anyone to find a more perfect way to spend 30 or so minutes than listening to the band's self-titled 1976 debut. It cures what ails ya.

The lead howler of the Ramones, born Jeffrey Hyman, would have been 58 Tuesday had he not succumbed to lymphoma in April 2001. Bandmates Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone followed Joey to the great CBGB's in the sky in 2002 and 2004, respectively.

As you can see in this cute video from the old Geraldo Rivera show, in what looks to be the late '80s, Joey's mom Charlotte Lesher was a huge fan of her tall lanky punk pioneer of a son. She passed away in 2007.

Green Day

21st Century Breakdown

www.greenday.com

In all actuality, there are two Green Days: The three punk snots who recorded everything from 39/Smooth to 1997's Nimrod and two thinly veiled side projects, the electro The Network and the reverberating Foxboro Hot Tubs. This represents Billie Joe and the boys at their most adventurously unhinged, spewing forth stream-of-consciousness punk rock you really only get from the ages of 14 to 19.

The second is the band that had kids, got married, got divorced and somehow found time to turn on Fox News just in time to see this country implode into a shitstorm of dissent and despair. This is the band that embraced Queen, The Who and the Boss, beginning with 2000's startlingly frank Warning! and in the process transcended an entire punk universe.

Two meaty man-slabs of Cramps-style psychobilly make up this new release from Beau Beasley's KGBeasley & the Leather Violence project.

Encased in a hilariously profane pink cover, with a beefy man literally banging out with his wang out, the seven-inch - no pun intended, seriously. Come on, we mean it. Really - is a crusty exercise in depraved psychobilly, taking Lux Interior's signature template to a dungeon and beating it senseless with a leather whip.

Side A's "Sonic Bondage" opens with Screamin' Jay Hawkins howl before Beasley bellows like he's eating gravel over a Trashmen drum beat, ending with a diseased saxophone vamp. Side B, meanwhile, is a veritable postcard from the seamy side of Montrose, intoning the pleasures of a night at the neighborhood's leather 'n' Levi's playhouse, Ripcord: Fairview Street stories of locked doors, black-leather love, hungry bears and menacing spikes.

Photo by Andreas Bonding

Every time us Yanks think we've got the market cornered on strangeness, along come those darn Europeans to show us how much we still have to learn. It's most entertaining when they do it by re-interpreting classic American concepts such as gangsters, country music and punk rock as interpreted by '80s Southern California bands like Bad Religion and Social Distortion.

That's what Denmark's Volbeat, a Copenhagen four-piece formed in 2001, does on third album Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood (Mascot Records), with the added kick of serious orchestral strings ("Light a Way") and blistering heavy metal ("Wild Rover of Hell") that makes Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" sound like the band dug Williams out of the ground and poured Lemmy's whiskey down his gullet until he started breathing fire. "Find That Soul" and "Hallelujah Goat" slam just about as hard.