Photos by Marco Torres

SLIDESHOW: Summer Skate: The 2013 Zumiez Couch Tour Hits Houston

Music and skateboarding have always been interconnected. The influential 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys is remembered for both the skating featured in the film and the music included in the soundtrack. The widely popular Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series of video games introduced punk, grunge, and metal (and, to a small extent, hip-hop) to a new generation of fans.

Every video of a skate session uploaded to YouTube is incomplete without a jammin' and energetic song to complement it. Last Friday afternoon, that allure of skateboards mixed with music attracted hundreds of young people to the Baybrook Mall parking lot in the triple-digit heat for the Zumiez Couch Tour.

Photos by Marco Torres

One of this year's most anticipated FPSF sets by far on Saturday belonged to the Geto Boys, those 3rd Coast originators who put this city on the hip-hop map 25 years ago with their gonzo gangsta lyrics and attitude. A pre-fabricated group from the very start, no one has ever accused the Geto Boys of being inseparable, and performances by the trio of Scarface, Willie D and Bushwick Bill have become increasingly rare in the 21st Century.

No surprise, then, that homegrown hip-hop afficianados were waiting with bated breath Saturday to see if the Getos could still go.

That wait threatened to stretch on indefinitely on Saturday afternoon, as the Boys' start time of 3:40 p.m. came and went on the Saturn stage. Late arrivals are nothing new in the rap world, but this was a festival gig, not a headlining slot. Each minute that ticked by with no sign of the group was a minute that would likely be subtracted from their performance.

Photos by Marco Torres

"Baby will you call me... the moment... you get there. Don't forget about me baby!"

Judging from the crowd response at Fox Hollow last night, fans have not forgotten about the Detroit rap crew Slum Village in any way. The show carried an intimate vibe appropriate for their toned down sound and smooth lyrics. The opening DJs kept a steady stream of J-Dilla beats in rotation to set the mood, and the club provided a cool environment to complement the cool kids in attendance.

In the same vein as soul-funk/hip-hop groups such as A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and The Pharcyde, Slum relies on thoughtful, gimmick-free lyrics over impeccably fluid beats. There is no room for #hashtag rap here; this is real hip-hop.

Photo by Brittanie Shey

Oscillator Bug

As I walked up the stairs to Fitz last night I was greeted by a pleasant sound. I had arrived to the Black Moth Super Rainbow show early, and got a nice surprise in opening act Oscillator Bug.

When you are eagerly awaiting a band that you enjoy, it's not often that the opener satisfies your musical proclivities. But Oscillator Bug (a.k.a. Max Rockwell) actually did. Performing along with a sequencer and a mike slung around his neck, OB screamed into the microphone over psych-pop beats that reminded me of some of the less-radio friendly Flaming Lips tracks on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. That's not quite a fair comparison, though, because OB's music was far darker and less precious than the Lips'. Listening to him gave me the sensation of being underwater.

The whole time I kept wondering what the weird handmade metal backdrop behind him was. It didn't seem to serve any purpose, until second act The Hood Internet took the stage.

Guns N' Roses, Venomous Maximus
House of Blues
May 28, 2013

An aging has-been milking the nostalgia circuit for a few last, big paydays. A petty dictator running out a squad of mercenary ringers onstage every night and calling it Guns N' Roses. For the more cynical observers among us, that's kind of been the rap on Axl Rose for quite a few years now: The Guns N' Roses of 2013 isn't a band, it's a business, with W. Axl Rose as its unquestionable president and CEO.

But that's not the truth. Certainly not the whole truth, anyway. To Axl Rose, Guns N' Roses has never been about business. It's personal. Yesterday, I found out just how personal.

Photos by Jim Bricker

In one of the many throwback moments Saturday night at the Arena Theatre, a woman, who had clearly forgotten what year it was and what band she was watching, rushed the stage while Hall and Oates were transitioning between their final two songs, '80s hits "Kiss On My List" and "Private Eyes." Her target: a genuinely shocked John Oates. The mustachioed second half of the classic pop duo (yes, the 'stache is back) shrugged off the bear hug, but the band howled clearly getting a kick out of their bandleader's rock-star turn.

Unfortunately, that may have represented the most exciting point in an otherwise less than energetic performance from the classic pop duo during their 80-minute set. In one of the more unintentionally revealing exchanges onstage, Daryl Hall introduced "She's Gone" saying, "I never like to say an album is my favorite, but this one is way up there, like one of two, maybe one of one."

Oates, perplexed, responded, "We've done like 30 albums and we only had two good ones?"

Photos by Marco Torres

Bob Schneider is better than Paul McCartney.

Okay fine, perhaps the Austin-based singer/songwriter was exaggerating a tad when he favorably compared his ukulele skills to the ex-Beatle (whom he had seen perform the previous night in Austin). The guy may be the Hardest Working Man In Texas Music, but at least he keeps things in perspective.

Last night at the Duck, Schneider was -- by turns -- raunchy, self-deprecating, acerbic, and gloomy; often in the course of the same song. And he has a lot of songs: funky-ish treatments harking back to his Ugly Americans days, mournful odes to love lost, and sillier efforts co-written/inspired by his son.

It's this stubborn refusal to be pigeonholed and perception of aloofness that's contributed to both Schneider's widespread popularity and his tendency to rub people the wrong way.

Photos by Nicholas Zalud

When I spotted a poster advertising Saturday's King's X gig at Scout Bar a few weeks back, it was kind of a relief. The news coming out of the celebrated Houston band's camp hasn't been the greatest recently. Last year, drummer Jerry Gaskill suffered a major heart attack that stopped the group in its tracks. That led to the cancellation of their homecoming show at Warehouse Live last March.

Gaskill recovered, only to take another big punch to the gut when he lost his New Jersey home in Superstorm Sandy. Then just last month, it was announced that fans and friends were setting up a crowdfunding account to pay for front man dUg Pinnick's badly needed hernia surgery.

Longtime fans showed up at Scout Bar over the weekend to hear some beloved tunes, sure, but also to simply check in and see if the proto-grunge power trio was OK.

Photos by Nathan Smith

Kylesa

Ever notice how some weeks just never seem to end? There's nothing worse. On those occasions when each and every workday feels scientifically engineered to kick your ass, Thursdays can be the longest days of all: the weekend is just far enough away to sadistically taunt you to your face without fear that you'll reach out and strangle it to death.

On Thursdays like that, when all you want to do is fast-forward to Friday, some heavy music and a few brews beats an evening at home watching sitcom finales ten times out of ten. Maybe 11. Luckily, Kylesa -- one of Georgia's top purveyors of experimental sludge -- trudged into Walters last night to stomp some mud off their boots, and brought a stacked bill along with them that was willing and able to sacrifice another workweek to Satan a full day ahead of schedule.

Photos by Marco Torres

According to the World Black Belt Bureau, the term "Dim Mak", also called the "Touch of Death," is defined as "the ancient martial art of striking vital points of an opponent's body... engineered to cause a knockout, death, or delayed reaction in the opponent." It is rumored that Dim Mak was the real cause of death for a certain actor/martial artist by the name of Bruce Lee. Back in 1996, a skinny Japanese-American kid named Steve Aoki started his own record label, and named it Dim Mak as a tribute to Lee.

He's been killing the EDM game ever since.

Thursday night, the crowd at Stereo Live was electric, or as the great American poet Roscoe Dash would say, everyone was "all the way turnt up." Tickets for the show were sold out weeks in advance, and the procrastinators were vigorously attempting to purchase last-minute tickets on Facebook.