10 Houston Artists Who Should Be Playing ACL This Year

Jim Bricker

ZZ Top: How-how-how-how have they not played ACL by now?

​Rocks Off has been putting it off as long as we can, but we have finally started seriously thinking about this weekend's Austin City Limits Music Festival. And the more we thought about it, the more it slowly dawned on us that, to the best of our knowledge, no Houston-based band or performer has ever played the festival. Ev-er.

Sure, there have been plenty of former Houstonians - Hayes Carll, Carolyn Wonderland, Robert Earl Keen, Blue October, Jack Ingram - who have played. But unless we missed someone (and we don't think we did because we keep a pretty close eye on such things), when it comes to current Houstonians ACL has laid a big ol' goose egg for a solid decade now. Considering how many people from Houston attend ACL every year, this just seems wrong.

On the other hand, Rocks Off can kind of understand why. Many of Houston's best and brightest are just too strange, too noisy, too obnoxious or too threatening to be palatable at a festival like ACL. (Could you imagine Rusted Shut at Zilker? As awesome as that would be, we can't.) Then there's the fact that many locals are just too far off anyone's radar, even as close as Austin, to be viable.

But not all of them. In fact, Houston is currently teeming with artists Rocks Off thinks would go over great at ACL. So just in case C3 happens to be surfing the Web and needs a few last-second replacements, allow us to list our choices.

Doughbeezy

​10. Doughbeezy, Jack Freeman and/or Nosaprise

Considering ACL styles itself as a family-friendly festival, and that it already took a fair amount of heat for booking so many "urban" headliners (read: two) this year, its reluctance to book the likes of the "gimme that pussy"-chanting Bun B or the downright scary-ass Z-Ro and Trae Tha Truth is understandable. But if it keeps booking artists like Brooklyn's Theophilus London, there's no excuse not to take a serious look at these three standouts from Houston's flourishing underground hip-hop/R&B scene - and probably half a dozen more like them besides.

9. Sideshow Tramps

Rocks Off believes we covered this at the end of our review of the Tramps' bacchanal of a CD release show last Friday at Fitz.

8. Texas Johnny Brown

ACL has brought old-school R&B stars like Walter "Wolfman" Washington over from New Orleans for years. It's time to look a little bit closer east.

7. Los Skarnales

Houston's favorite punk pachucos are well-traveled, and have been playing Austin for years. It doesn't really matter, though - put Skarnales on any festival stage, anywhere, and they will rock the joint if not burn it down, which we realize is a bad metaphor this year.

6. Robert Ellis & the Boys

Probably a result of unfortunate timing more than anything else. ACL has been very friendly towards New West artists from its earliest days, but no doubt the ink was already dry on this year's contracts by the time Ellis' Photographs came out in July. Even money for next year.

5. Delicious Milk

If you don't know by now, Rocks Off just can't help you. Sorry.