No, it's not quite as genius as the guy who choreographed Star Wars figures to this tune, but it's okay. Who knew Bert could be so sinister? -- John Nova Lomax
Next Monday, Chris Gray will be occupying the assistant music editor’s chair previously occupied by Scott Faingold and Olivia Flores Alvarez. Gray comes to us from the Austin Chronicle, where he was a contributor for over ten years and that paper’s lead music columnist since January of 2003. (Read his farewell to the Capital City here.)
Before going to Austin, though, Gray came up in the mean streets of the southside of H-Town. Well, southeast Houston. Actually, Friendswood, where the streets are not that mean at all, but where if Amazon’s user profiles are to be believed, people do have a serious Trans-Siberian Orchestra jones. You try growing up in a place where T-S O’s blasting out of every cul-de-sac.
But Gray is an exception to the ‘wood’s appalling taste, as the following Q&A reveals:
Here are a couple of shots from the Jonathon Dewveall Band performing last night at happy hour at Dean's Credit Clothing. (There's no need to adjust your monitor: Last night, the Jonathon Dewveall Band did indeed consist of one dude and his onlooking girlfriend, although he assured us his bandmates would be there in the future.) You can catch them every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Olivia Flores Alvarez
The Format is going to be busy this summer: They have a 50-city headlining tour and their latest CD Dog Problems is going online for free! For free, the entire album, for two weeks starting today.
Here's the note we got:
The band is doing this because NOBODY has the answer to where music is headed, but trying something like this will help find the soloution (sic) faster. Why give it away for free? WHY NOT? If the band can grab 20,000 new sets of ears, they feel it's worth the loss in sales.
You can download Dog Problems for free at www.theformat.com. The Format are performing at the Meridian on Wednesday, July 18, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717. - Olivia Flores Alvarez
Yep, that's right. The Nevermind baby is now 17 years old.
And you're one old bastard. – Keith Plocek
It should be common knowledge by now that a Rub party means nothing less than genre-bending and blending DJ sets that demand tremendous amounts of sustained ass-shaking. I danced my arse off when The Rub brought a little bit of Brooklyn to SXSW 2007. And I waved my rear end vigorously from side-to-side at The Rub’s 2006 Houston debut at Route 66 (3704 Fannin). Naturally, when I got word that DJ Eleven – one-third of The Rub – would be gracing the decks in our fair city, it didn’t take much in the way of convincing. I was so thurrr.
Those who kept the Gay Pride going through Sunday and headed down to True Colors Tour were no doubt happy the storms didn’t, well, rain on the parade. Actually, the clouds did provide a nice cover from the sun and a few sporadic breezes made for wonderful outdoor concert weather. The Dresden Dolls started things off with their cabaret-punk stylings and were big hit with the crowd. Up next was Deborah Harry, Blondie’s former front lady, who proved that someone should have left her booking agent hanging on the telephone. Harry’s vocal ability has faded and her band sounds like they should be playing on the Warped Tour. This isn’t to discount Harry’s history in the punk scene, but some things are better left reminisced and not relived.
If you were able to pull yourself away from the Pride Parade on Saturday and make your way downstream to Numbers, you were greeted with a few instrumental surprises. Admittedly, it wasn’t easy to leave the festivities along Westheimer, which is why we missed hometown heroes Sharks & Sailors and caught the end of Baltimore’s Ponytail. The group kept the crowd’s attention mostly because it was hard to take your eyes off frontwoman Molly Siegel, who flailed about tossing her short black hair all over her face as she did everything but sing. Siegel seemed to be impersonating a banshee with her high-pitched yells, shrieks and shrills that almost upstaged Ponytail’s Mike Patton/Sonic Youth inspired instrumental punk rock.
Speaking of Mike Patton, the night finished off with Battles, featuring Tomahawk and former Helmet drummer John Stanier. The band lived up to every rumor that follows them, putting on a live show that was as impressive as their musicianship. Along with Stanier, the group also features avant-garde keyboardists/vocalist/guitarist Tyondai Braxton and Don Caballero guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams. Their sound blends the complicated instrumentation you’d expect from artists of their caliber with a rock vibe that makes it accessible to both non-aficionados and well-versed music students. – Dusti Rhodes
Raise your flag at 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 24, at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.
Subject(s): iTunes, online music sales, MP3s More important for you than silly-ass love songs from Paul McCartney, this means that at iTunes (and soon at Amazon), you can now download N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton in a high-res, restriction-free format, for $11.99. You can burn it as often as you like; you can print a color copy of the booklet; you can pass an infinite number of high-def recordings of "Fuck Tha Police" to your buddies without having to worry about the Man chasing you down and dropping your ass in the clink. (Unless one of your so-called friends uses his copy to kill a cop, in which case — just like an Uzi — that weapon is easily traced back to you.) Ah, sweet freedom.
I remember seeing B.B. King a few months after the Hofheinz Pavillion opened on the UH campus (1970?). It was King’s birthday. Blues phenom Johnny Winter opened the show and then King and his band, which included half a dozen Houstonians, roared through a huge set that culminated in his mega-hit “The Thrill Is Gone.” As the show ended, King told the crowd to follow him down Scott Street to the Continental Ballroom, a showcase black club in those days. Well, my buddies and I made our way there. King and Winter jammed with King’s band, and it was way beyond insane, way beyond anything that I can imagine happening today. Eventually, a huge multi-tiered birthday cake was wheeled in and King called out that everyone should come down and get a piece of cake. We were three out-of-place young hippies standing at the rear of the room, but the smallest guy in our group said, “I don’t know about you pussies, but I’m going down there and get me some of B.B. King’s birthday cake.” He came back in five minutes empty-handed, and we asked why he didn’t get any cake. He told us he’d made it to the cake but “my knife wasn’t long enough to cut a piece.” It was one of the most thrilling evenings of my musical life. -- William Michael Smith
B.B. King performs on Thursday, June 21, at the Grand 1894 Opera House, 2020 Post Office, Galveston, 800-821-1894.
See our show preview here.
Hey you, the one with all the opinions! Yeah, you.
HouStoned Rocks wants you to contribute. Drop us a line and introduce yourself. – Keith Plocek
This past weekend, he won, besting 4,000 fellow contestants. Guitar Center’s PR people pick up the story:
“In an epic show on Saturday, June 16th at the historic Music Box @ Fonda Theater in Hollywood, CA, Aaron Loesch from Houston, Texas, performed alongside Grammy® Award-winning producer Pete Anderson, and battled it out with three other contestants from around the country in front of a sold out crowd of more than 1,400. The evening's judges, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Hubert Sumlin, Pete Anderson, Brad Tolinsky, Randy Chortoff and last year's winner, Matt O'Ree, based their decision on overall performance, originality, technique, style and stage presence. With those variables in mind, Aaron Loesch was awarded the title of Guitar Center's "The King of The Blues." In addition, he will receive a prize package valued at more than $50,000 and the opportunity to perform on the same stage as BB King, Willie Nelson and John Mayer at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival this summer in Chicago, IL.”
Loesch will also receive the following:
