What we have here is the sedate majesty of pop-soul king Brook Benton, teamed up with a bevy of apparently benzedrine-addled go-go girls, that long-bearded guy from Monty Python who used to croak "It's" at the beginning of the show, several farm animals (stuffed), and one big-ass world on a string. Or two. Enough o' my yakking and happy Friday. View the goodness after the jump, and remember, if Mother Nature don't getcha, Father Time will.
7 p.m. Friday, May 9, at Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717.
Very, very, strong stuff and worthy of a 94.7 grade.
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08/16: Louisville, KY @ The Great Lawn at Louisville Waterfront Park
08/18: Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theatre
08/19: Council Bluffs, IA @ Stir Cove
08/21: Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheater*
08/23: Dallas, TX @ Palladium Ballroom
08/24: Austin, TX @ Stubbs
08/27: Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre-Atlanta
08/29: Miami, FL @ The Fillmore Miami Beach@ the Jackie Gleason Theater
08/30: Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues- Orlando
08/31: Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues- Myrtle Beach
09/02: Charlottesville, VA @ Charlottesville Pavilion
09/03: Washington, DC @ Constitution Hall
09/05: Philadelphia, PA @ Festival Pier @ Penn’s Landing
09/06: Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion
09/19: Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
09/21: Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
09/23: Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee
09/24: Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint
09/25: San Diego, CA @ SDSU Open Air Theater
09/27: Portland, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield
09/28: Seattle WA @ McCaw Hall
10/02: Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre
10/03: Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
10/04: Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
10/09: Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
10/10: Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
-- JNL
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Petty scholars well remember Torpedoes as the album that proved to MCA Records he was a worthwhile investment. Everyone else remembers it for "Here Comes My Girl," "Even the Losers," "Don't Do Me Like That" and a not-so-minor flash of genius he decided to call "Refugee."
]]> Longtime Houstonians, meanwhile, will recall the Music Hall, which once stood at 810 Bagby (current site of the Hobby Center), as the venue that hosted shows by Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie - who were reportedly busted backstage gambling, along with the show's promoter - King Crimson, Vanilla Fudge, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, the Cure, Liberace, Boston, Styx and a few others. When the Music Hall wasn't occupied by out-of-towners, it was home to the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet and Theater Under the Stars. There's lots more information about the Music Hall and its companion, the one and only Sam Houston Coliseum (Beatles, Beastie Boys, Houston Wrestling, etc.), here.And, as always, Petty's Buried Treasure show is airing all day today on XM Radio channel 2. This week's he's got T. Rex, Muddy Waters, Elvis, Gram Parsons, Nazz (look 'em up), Dave Clark Five, the Ventures, Fats Domino, Manfred Mann (singing the blues), Rod Stewart ("back before Rod turned into something else"), Carl Perkins, Bobby "Blue" Bland, the Quik, Alan Price (original organist for the Animals, "I Put a Spell on You"), Arthur Conley, Badfinger, Beach Boys, Elmore James and the Kinks. I'm pretty sure some of these people played the Music Hall or Coliseum too. Help me out, people.
All right. No more Tom Petty for at least a week. Pinky swear. - Chris Gray
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“Go Back One Day” roars from start to finish with the same cymbal-crashing moxie as Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, building and thrashing on top of a late-night bar shuffle that makes very clear that we’re not dealing with the same band who released Exit Smiling two long years ago. That record was a fine debut, no doubt, but Born Liars have grown into a much nastier force since then. Exit Smiling had flashes of power-pop creeping through its pores and, while well-executed, misrepresented a band that has cultivated a downright filthy sound, one that currently stands as the stiffest middle finger in Houston rock.
“Meet Me Downstairs” is kicked-off with a swirling riff that soon finds itself lodged in Shane Lauder’s Detroit percussion thunder. Were Jimmy Sanchez to affect any more of a sneer, his vocals would simply become unintelligible. As is, he just sounds like the snottiest rock singer to burst from any local clouds in a good long while, lending an emotional credibility that would’ve gone AWOL under care of another vocalist, while cymbal crashes and Bill Greer’s bass punch the whole thing in the ass.
]]> The B-side, “Back Where I Belong,” is a pure, beer-drenched scream-along with a guitar solo that claws at your eyes before spitting you back into a reprise of the first verse, and a fine selection for finishing out a little piece of vinyl that showcases one of the biggest sounds in Houston.
The Heys make no effort to conceal their love of the music that influenced them. Their debut Youngbored&broke will inevitably see some comparisons to Arctic Monkeys, which isn’t too far off base: The Heys have the same melodic sense, much of the same muscle and something of the same energy. The difference is that the Heys sound grown-up, if not a little bit grizzled
So far as influences, one of the most evident is Damon Albarn’s on frontman Tom Flynn (see the anthemic “Brightenupmyday.”) Aside from this and Pete Townshend’s stamp on almost all guitar lines, The Jam may have the most tangible influence here. However, The Heys have too much interest in their guitars to ever be pure missionaries of blue-eyed soul, so the Paul Weller lineage has to do with the huge power-pop hooks and the veneer of cynicism that causes this record to shine. “Elbowculture,” a sharp-edged lament of a selfish society, is the lynchpin of this interpretation, while “Pressure” is an attack aimed at wasteful, empty nights and the ways we choose to try to dodge internalized turmoil. It’s not Rimbaud, but it’s honest, and its “ch-ch-changes” inspired yarn over heavy bass and OkGo-on-steroids guitars is irresistible.
In fact, what soon becomes apparent is that The Heys have studied and assimilated the whole of infectious Britpop: the wide open chord-riffing that opens the title track recalls Pulp, as do many of the lyrical themes (though it should be noted that Flynn, cognizant of the perils of trying to be Jarvis Cocker, avoids melodrama). When the band gets light-hearted, they can lay out sunny vocal harmonies and bouncy, hand-clapping bridges right alongside Supergrass (“Don’t,” “Getiton,” “Scene”). They avoid the moody ways of Oasis (though they come close on “Fridaynight”) and embrace the bittersweet sneer of London Suede (“Arms&legs,”“Hey”) while managing to inject the album with their own ripped power-pop (“Itain’tWotusay,” the shimmering ballad “Breakdown”).
The lyrics can edge toward heavy-handedness, but the heart is most definitely in the right place. If The Heys are just borrowing ideas to bide the time, they’ll be gone by next year. But if what we’re dealing with here is an upwardly mobile band, all hell could break loose the next time these guys enter the studio. – Chris Henderson
Waits’s last Texas performance came at Austin’s Paramount Theater during SXSW 1999. Music biz insiders wangled many of the tickets, too many for one overly-ardent fan who heckled him as a sell-out, and an even gloomier note would toll the next night, when Waits’s friend and occasional promoter Don Hyde was fuckstomped by La Zona Rosa bouncers in a stupid melee following an Alejandro Escovedo concert.
Waits vowed then never to play Texas – his father’s native state – again. He kept his word for nine long years, but then again, why should a whole state have to pay for the actions of a few Austin lunkheads? Waits’s idea seems to be sensible – play Dallas and Houston and even El Paso and just leave Austin and its deranged fans and ‘roid raging bouncers off the itinerary.
At any rate, Waits plays Jones Hall, a few blocks away from that crooked old “Fannin Street”, on June 22. Tickets are significantly more than five or six bucks, and are not available at Warehouse Records.
In the unlikely event you haven’t already seen the press conference wherein Waits explains his eccentric tour routing, it’s here:
– John Nova Lomax
Better Than: The Social Distortion episode of MTV Unplugged that never happened, thank God.
Download: Jimmie Rodgers's "In the Jailhouse Now," one of the few prison-related songs Ness didn't sing
Photo by Chris Henderson
Mike Ness
Performers, especially those who mine their material from the proverbial other side of the tracks, walk a precarious line between the deeds they recount in their songs and the situations they sometimes stumble into offstage. Mike Ness is hardly a stranger to life's unfortunate twists and turns; both with Social Distortion and solo, his songs are replete with addicts and ex-cons trying, and often failing, to walk the straight and narrow.
But Ness' hard-luck characters took an unplanned back seat Tuesday to-the-all too real predicament of opener Jesse Dayton. En route from Dallas, Dayton's tour bus was pulled over in Magnolia County for the stereotypical broken taillight; the subsequent search turned up a certain illegal substance in the singer's backpack that, he said later, had been there "since I don't know when." The bus was impounded, and Dayton rewarded with a side trip to the county lockup, but due to some nifty maneuvering by his lawyer - who had him out of jail and on the road in four hours - he made the gig in time to provide some extra oomph to a set-closing medley of "Folsom Prison Blues," "Rebel Rouser" and "White Freight Liner Blues."
]]> "I Guess Things Happen That Way" might have been a more appropriate Johnny Cash selection, but in their defense, the band was pressed for time. (Their tour manager, busted with a switchblade, wasn't quite so lucky and will have to rejoin Dayton and company down the road a piece.)Luckily possession is still a relatively minor charge, even in Texas, and Ness good-naturedly mentioned the day's events several times during his set, at one point dedicating the lumbering "Dope Fiend Blues" to his unfortunate tourmates. Later in the set, Ness slipped a lyric about Judgement Day into the swaggering blues-rocker "Crime Don't Pay." Subtle. Ness and his four-piece, mostly acoustic band delivered a solid if unspectacular hour, dominated by gritty honky-tonk - steel guitarist Chris Lawrence really shone on Carl Perkins' "Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing," a standout from Ness' 2000 covers album Under the Influences - and characters running afoul of the law every other song or so. An incandescent cross that looked a little like the cigarette displays they (used to) sell in bars illuminated the fatalistic nature of selections such as "Misery Loves Company," delivered as a plodding ZZ Top blues with a palpable bite. You could almost call it chopped and screwed, if people still did that sort of thing. (Do they?)
Even after Ness' first encore, a countrified version of Social D's "Ball and Chain," prompted the nearly packed room into a lusty singalong, the song that resonated most was his valedictory version of "I Fought the Law," for a much different reason than because both Ness and the Clash inhabit '50s rock standby like they wrote it (or could have, anyway, if El Paso's Bobby Fuller didn't get there first). Every time I hear that song, no matter who does it, I can't help but think about the time on Cheers where Rebecca has her own run-in with the law. Once she returns to the bar, Sam breaks out a boom box with "I Fought the Law" conveniently cued up every time she walks by. Considering what happened to Dayton Tuesday, it was hard not to think of that episode. Obviously Mike Ness isn't above borrowing a page from the Mayday Malone playbook.
Personal Bias: Considerable. I've lost count of the times I've seen both performers over the years. To their credit, it never feels like enough.
Random Detail (tie): The truck pulling into the parking lot in front of me with a "Klash" custom license plate in a Social D frame, and the empty half-pint bottle of whiskey perched on a toilet bowl after the show.
By the Way: I've never seen a barbecue stand before that charges the same for ribs, brisket and burgers - five bucks across the board. - Chris Gray
]]>Ironically, the management at this most oontz-oontzy, dance-friendly of supermarkets was not amused.
Check out the video after the jump.
Man, this country is getting more like Russia all the time. – John Nova Lomax
UPDATE: Flyer after the jump...
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The pun is difficult to resist: The Slip is the second Nine Inch Nails album to arrive with free download availability, and the slip is what Trent Reznor has given to corporate parties who stand to profit from his music or the legal regulation of it.
“This one’s on me,” writes Reznor on the NIN Web site under the download link. The record’s release was cryptically alluded to in a post to the band’s Web site on April 21 and in the metadata of two mp3 singles, “Discipline” and “Echoplex,” released on April 22 and May 2, respectively.
Unlike the recent Ghosts I-IV, The Slip features lyrics on seven of its ten tracks. Veteran NIN members Josh Freese, Robin Finck and Alessandro Cortini return the band to a harder electro-industrial sound akin to Year Zero (2007) and With Teeth (2005).
]]> The lyrics find Reznor waxing introspectively moreso than on the political Zero; in “Discipline,” he sings, “feels like I’m losing touch, nothing matters to me…see you left a mark up and down my skin…I don’t know where I end and where you begin.” Such nihilistic fodder is food for the angst-ridden teenage soul, and young devotees (as well as those who simply won’t grow up) will likely devour the melancholy content.As a middle-aged chronicler of emotional affliction, Reznor succeeds in expressing with pointed sparseness any poetry that he can bleed from negative feelings. It’s a path he’s trodden so many times that the gimmick almost wears thin; then again, listeners seeking more experimental territory have only to consult Ghosts I-IV. Or they can remix the songs to their hearts’ content using the multi-track files, which are also available for downloading via the NIN website.
Nineteen years after Pretty Hate Machine, the actual music produced by NIN is less groundbreaking than the means by which it’s distributed. Reznor’s debatable genius lies in the symbiotic artist-fanbase relationship he uses to promote his music and to challenge the restrictions of an industry with which he is constantly at odds: in effect, the ultimate rebellion. – Linda Leseman
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Better than: Getting an extra nickel in your dimebag
Download: Dark Side of the…wait, surely you already have this, right???
As only one of four U.S. dates and the last stop on the tour (perhaps to make up for the rained-out Rice Stadium gig years ago?), the Houston classic rock audience responded by rewarding the former Pink Floyd singer/bassist with a sold out show. I’d never seen the lawn so packed before, proving that sometimes a band’s catalogue of material is so strong that it can overcome any hesitancies about who is actually playing it.
For the show’s first half, Waters and his extensive, polished-to-a-sheen ensemble (including late-model Thin Lizzy guitarist Snowy White) offered up a heaping helping of Floyd warhorses (“Have a Cigar,” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” “Mother,” “Wish You Were Here”), rarities (“The Fletcher Memorial Home”) and solo material (“Perfect Sense-Pt. 1” from Amused to Death).
But the best moments came at unexpected times. The heavily trippy early Floyd track “Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun” was a mindbending blowout, complete with projected footage of the then-young band frolicking on a beach (ah, Syd, so young and vibrant…).
]]> And while many made an automatic sprint for the restrooms after Waters announced “and here’s a newish song,” those who were pissing during “Leaving Beirut” missed a gem. Based on a personal, positive experience he had with a family in Lebanon as a young man, and infused with Waters’s pointed political commentary, it was his most impassioned performance of the night. A projected comic book on the back screen guided the audience through the story line, and the anti-Bush line “Oh George/That Texas education/Must have fucked you up/When you were small,” coupled with the refrain “Don’t let the might/of the Christian right/Fuck it up for you/And the rest of the world” seemed to draw about equal boos as cheers.And yes, the pig did fly during first set closer “Sheep” (with “Impeach Bush” written on its pink ass). The inflatable was cut away to seemingly float off into the night, and one can only wonder who is waking up this morning with a large deflated porker in their front yard.
The second half (and selling point) of the show was a stoner’s delight with Waters and band playing through Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety, complete with light show and special effects. As the songs are so iconic – “Time” “Money,” “Us and Them,” “Brain Damage,” the show ceased to be a regular concert and instead became a collective experience for the crowd as each well-memorized number flowed into the next.
For his part Waters – turning over the David Gilmour-sung parts to his ably acquitting guitarist and keyboard players – sort of gladly became a backdrop for his own show. But while his voice has lost some of that trademark top screaming, maniacal edge, he was clearly enthralled with the extremely receptive audience.
Waters encored with a powerful triple attack of the now very-relevant “Vera/Bring the Boys Back Home” along with “Another Brick in the Wall-Pt. 2” and the monster “Comfortably Numb,” sending the audience into a blissful frenzy as thousands proclaimed their disdain of the educational system and air guitared one of classic rock’s most famous solos.
All in all, Roger Waters put on a powerful show full of plenty of meat (with a side of pudding). Alas! If only Mssrs. Waters, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright would put aside their differences for one last jaunt! That seems more and more unlikely to ever happen, but this show was the very next best thing.
Personal bias: I know who Pink Anderson and Floyd Council are.
Random detail: Overheard at the urinal from an angry, but to-the-nines stereotypically dressed frat boy, complete with a backwards white baseball cap: “Dude, I didn’t think he was going to get so fucking political! That’s not cool!”
By the way: You never know when the past will catch up with you. Sitting right behind me was someone I had not seen in many years - Chrystal Heath, aka Shirley Shiver, formerly of local new wave band the Shivers, who we wrote about in 1999 as the band was moving to Austin. She's moved back to Galveston and beginning to step back into music, but don't look for any reunion for the group. "There was a lot of Fleetwood Mac style things going on," she said about the band's interpersonal relationships. And she's probably not talking about the questionable use of lace shawls. – Bob Ruggiero
Doyle Bramhall
May 3, 2008
McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Better Than: Every tired-ass blues jam or interminable harmonica throwdown on the planet.
Download: This scorching version of “Big” with C.C. Adcock and Nick Curran on guitars.
With producer/guitarist C.C. Adcock on emergency leave due to the suicide of his former producer Tarka Cordell, Austin blues veteran Doyle Bramhall scrambled personnel for Saturday’s show at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck and came up with another winning lineup. Working his way through the tracks on his latest Grammy-nominated Yep Roc album Is It News as well as fresh versions of several songs written with Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bramhall opted for a minimalist three piece lineup that included regular guitarist Nick Curran augmented with Austin legend Casper Rawls (Leroi Brothers, Toni Price). Rawls, who it seems has played on or produced half the records made in the Western Hemisphere the past 25 years, anchored the rhythm end while Curran was given most of the nasty licks assignments. Both men proved up to the task.
]]> Bramhall warmed up on the classics “Good Mornin’ Little School Girl” and “Bad Boy” before setting fire to the stage with “Lost in the Congo,” co-written by Adcock. The boogie beat was pure Bo Diddley homage and gave Curran plenty of space to shower the room in hot licks. Rawls busied himself changing a string while Curran took the lead on Little Richard’s “Keep A Knockin’.” Even in live music, when it rains it pours; while Rawls twisted his tuning key frantically to get back in the fray, Curran’s guitar strap came loose, but he propped his guitar on his knee and just kept tearin’ it up. I love to watch professionals work.These minor disasters overcome, Bramhall raced through “Looking Out the Window” and “Cryin’,” an homage to Fats Domino also co-written with Adcock. Reaching into his bag of old tricks, Bramhall pleased longtime fans with his stellar version of Albert King’s “The Hunter” before working his way through the title track of his latest album with its cynical look at the 24 hour news channels: “is it news when you say you’ve got something to say, but I’ve heard it already today”?
Back in tear-it-up mode, the guitarists took flight on the rockin’ “Doin’ Pretty Good for the Shape I’m In” and the other rocker from the new album, “Big.” It felt like Chuck Berry. But it was an acoustic version of Bramhall’s Stevie Ray Vaughn hit “Life By the Drop” that perhaps showed the ultimate mastery of these three road dogs and left the crowd howling for more. And more was what Bramhall gave, racing through another Vaughn classic, “If the House Is Rockin’ Don’t Bother Knockin’” before packing his kit and moving on.
Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: I wish some of our local guitarists who feel the need to have six guitars onstage for a 10-song set could’ve seen Rawls changing his broken string mid-song. It seemed way more professional than a show-off rack of wood and steel.
Random Detail: With his bleached spike, gazillion tattoos, and upturned collar, Curran looked like The Blonde Fonz.
By the way: Too bad they didn’t play Bramhall’s killer versions of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” or the old Elvis chestnut “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame” that Bramhall absolutely owns. – William Michael Smith
One "Robert of the Radish" defines "weirdness" as "behavior that the majority of the population finds foreign, unnatural or strange." You don't say! He continues:
]]> In some cases weirdness can be a bad thing -- For example, if I ran around a shopping mall slapping old ladies across the face while screaming profanities, you could not only classify my behavior as weird, you could also classify it as a crime. On the other hand, if I spent my days collecting cigarette butts from the ground and gluing them together into sculptures that bring attention to the dangers of smoking, I may be considered weird, but in this case, the end result is positive. Finally, weirdness can also be neutral, or "art for ark's sake" [sic]. If I chose to dress up like Liberace, stand on one leg and recite the Iliad I could certainly be considered "weird."
Something tells me he's just described a typical Friday night at the Radish homestead. By Robert's calculations, purported Houstonian Jandek ("His music is completely inaccessible due to it's [sic] atonal nature") is the eighth weirdest musician ever, while Daniel Johnston ("[His] music, although childlike and unpolished, is filled with compelling pop hooks and intricate creativity") and Roky Erickson ("Another musician whose 'weirdness' can be attributed to schizophrenia") barely slide in under the weird wire at Nos. 22 and 23. I know, I know, Johnston and Erickson are more commonly identified with Austin, but before they inflicted their idiosyncracies on the state capital, they had to come by them somewhere. Namely, here.
Too bad Mr. Radish never got wind of the Red Krayola. Or Rusted Shut. Or Linus Pauling Quartet. Or anything Dave Dove's Nameless Sound freaks www.namelesssound.org get their twisted mitts on. Any one of those, not to mention a host of others (comments?) would be enough for him to abandon his beloved cigarette-butt sculptures and settle down in a secluded corner of his Liberace museum/living room for a nice long weep. - Chris Gray
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