​It started as a simple question: What albums would you leave your unborn children, if you knew you were on borrowed time and may not be around to show them the way. At first I asked for albums for sons, but then it grew broader, not out of needing to pacify the PC-thug in me, but to make sure everyone, regardless of gender, had a sort of Rosetta Stone of musical history in their hands.

You could leave them pristine vinyl versions of these, a collection of cassettes, or maybe just a diamond-covered flash drive, if are so inclined. As for me, I will also leave my unborn child my Rdio account. That's not a paid endorsement, that's just me being expedient.

To get some obvious picks out of the way, the entire Beatles catalog will come standard with being my child, like seat-belts in cars. As will George Strait's Strait Out Of The Box, and ZZ Top's catalog.

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Photo by Chris Gray

Mike Stinson and Friends at Under the Volcano

​Houston's own Mike Stinson is no stranger to media coverage. Hell, it was big news when the "King of the L.A. Honky-tonkers" relocated to the Bayou City two-and-a-half years ago. When it comes to press, though, it doesn't get much bigger than the New York Times. The Old Gray Lady gave the local hero a tip of its Yankees cap earlier this week.

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We all hate the trope "Houston, we have a problem," but we do have a problem in Houston with talkative, inattentive crowds at live shows. Scanning back over reviews from the past two years, at least 20 percent of them mention crowd noise.

So what do the musicians think and, more importantly, what do they do? The last time we saw Steve Earle he pulled out Doc Watson's famous one-liner to silence a request screamer: "I remember my first beer, too, buddy." We've also seen Earle quiet two talkative ladies with the sarcastic, "Am I botherin' y'all?"

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​When Chris Gray rolled back into town after 10+ years in Austin to work at Houston Press, my colleague, frequent co-conspirator, and editor John Nova Lomax called and asked if I'd take Gray out and show him the local ropes. It was Gray's first night in town, July 7, 2007.

So I saddled up, drove down to the Press offices and picked up my young charge/soon-to-be boss. I've got to admit, the skinny punk with the mohawk doesn't always make the best first impression and he did not look like any vision of a newspaper executive I'd ever come across. The main thing I noticed as we headed toward West Alabama Ice House is that this guy smokes. A lot.

My faith was braced when I realized he drank Lone Star. And he wasn't doing it for hipster cred, he was doing it because he likes Lone Star. If you didn't like Lone Star or think it was cool to be drinking it, you could kiss his ass. He didn't have to say it, I could just tell. An admirable trait in a guy, in my book. I felt better about the transition.

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Photo by Jason Wolter

Jason Isbell (left) and Amanda Shires (right) are both more deserving than Chorney.

​The small world of Americana music is all a-twitter over New Jersey woman Linda Chorney's nomination for a Grammy in the Americana category. In case you haven't been following the story, Chorney discovered a way to game the system and managed to convince quite a number of Grammy voters (who obviously are a little under-educated and under-exposed to the Americana genre) to vote for her tepid album, Emotional Jukebox, to get it on the final ballot in spite of it not having sold a single unit so far according to Sound Scan, the official industry tabulator of album sales.

According to interviews she's given, Chorney seems to have very little working knowledge of Americana or the artists in it. The Americana Music Association, which normally issues a boilerplate congratulatory statement to all the nominees, has not done so this year and speculation is that the association is not happy about Chorney's nomination since she is not a member of the organization and has never attended any of the annual events.

Frankly, we don't care if she's a member of the AMA or not; what bugs us about Chorney's gameswomanship is that she has knocked a number of exemplary albums out of a chance to win. And we'll bet she hasn't heard a damned one of them. So here's a list for you, Linda, of people you are basically screwing over. Like we said, do the right thing and withdraw your nomination.

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​Fred Ealesmith's latest release 6 Volts is rapidly becoming our most played disk since we scored a copy at his recent show at Mucky Duck. Recorded live as a band with ONE MICROPHONE(!) as one track mono to a reel-to-reel deck (oh, you want lo-fi!), the album has drawn frequent comparisons to the last Neil Young album, Le Noise.

As usual with Eaglesmith, the album is packed with memorable lines and hard-bitten characters. We recently spent a sleepless night lying in bed with "I'm dangerous, I'm dangerous / I'm dangerous to myself" running on repeat deep in the cranium.

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​English lad and budding drummer Jerry Shirley was all of 16 years old in late 1968 when he received the phone call that would change his life forever.

On the other line was Steve Marriott, the singer/guitarist for mod group the Small Faces ("Itchycoo Park"). Shirley's musical hero and new acquaintance told him that another singer/guitarist, Peter Frampton, was leaving his band the Herd and putting together a new group. He'd recommended Shirley's skin thumping skills, and told the teen that maybe he'd want to check it out. And maybe Marriott would be involved as well.

In rather quick order -- after picking up ex-Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley -- the four formed Humble Pie. Until 1975 they would release a string of seminal records (including some with later Frampton replacement Dave "Clem" Clempson) like As Safe As Yesterday Is, Humble Pie, Rock On, Smokin' and one of the genre's greatest live records, Performance - Live at the Fillmore. The band's best known U.S. singles were a live version of "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "30 Days in the Hole."

After the Pie crumbled in 1975, Shirley went on to play in bands like Natural Gas, Magnet, and Fastway, and would also be part of various resurrected Humble Pie lineups. He also contributed to records by Syd Barrett, John Entwistle, George Harrison, and Sammy Hagar. But his time with the Marriott-led group's golden years proved his most fertile. Shirley recollects those hazy, crazy years in the memoir Best Seat in the House (Rebeats Books, 322 pp., $24.99).

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​Once again all the Grammy nomination razzamatazz has fired up, with local label ZenHill Records of course leading the charge with its recent press release, "ZenHill Artists on the Long List for a Grammy."

One of our editors took a couple of incoming email shots from a so-called "reporter" over at Free Press Houston for Rocks Off's alleged failure to cover and support our city's "wonderful Grammy nominees." Of course, if this Free Press reporter had done any homework on the subject -- homework, grammar, spell checking, fact checking not being particularly high editorial priorities at FPH -- he would've eventually stumbled upon this bit of less than pleasant Houston Grammy history and grabbed a clue.

So, local bands, labels, producers, music geeks, scenesters, time for the annual reality check.

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​Today Rocks Off continues our discussion with Concrete Blonde's bassist/lead vocalist Johnette Napolitano. Part One of our interview can be found here.

The band will perform at Fitzgerald's this Sunday, October 30, with Girl In a Coma.

RO: In talking about cultural differences between America and many other places I'm always struck by how immediate we are. You're talking about these Chinese people singing songs that have been passed down for generations, and I can only think how we're going to be be singing commercial jingles when we're old people because that's where we're headed.

JN: In fact we are, it'll never be the same again. When you look at all that stuff in China and you look at things like that and you hear the songs like that, the old people doing it: they didn't have TV, they didn't have shit like that. My power failed last night. I have this whole checklist of things to do and my power failed. I have an oil lamp, I have an acoustic piano, I have an acoustic guitar, you know? And half of me goes, all right! It's party time.

RO: But how can you watch Jersey Shore if the power's off?

JN: [Laughs] Well, exactly. But it's astounding how many people really don't have that. They're totally helpless and don't know what the fuck to do. I lived in Mexico quite a while, and very few people that I know in my life are capable of coming down and knowing how to live with a water tank, and knowing how to live without electricity. Very few people know how to do that, and that's how all the groovy stuff happens, basically.

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Photos by Amber Boggs

​Concrete Blonde emerged from the crucible of 1980s post-punk L.A., fueled by Jim Mankey's signature guitar riffs and the introspective lyrics and distinctive wail of singer/bassist Johnette Napolitano. Their early history is well known, down to the oft-repeated story of how Michael Stipe gave the band their name (it's not much of a story, actually, he just suggested the name "Concrete Blonde").

The group's biggest album was 1990's Bloodletting, a foreboding effort inspired by Anne Rice and the end of what Napolitano called a "particularly bad relationship." It spawned CB's only Top 20 hit ("Joey") and pegged the group as goth darlings, which was unfortunate. The band never enjoyed a repeat of that success, releasing two more albums before breaking up in 1993, reuniting (and breaking up) again, releasing two more albums (Group Therapy and Mojave) before finally, apparently, calling it quits for good in 2006.

Not to rely too heavily on the vampire metaphor, but Concrete Blonde are back from the dead again, playing a series of shows in the Lone Star State this week. Rocks Off talked to Napolitano about fatherhood, privacy, art, and what we can expect from Sunday's gig at Fitzgerald's.

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