Houston Blog

Perhaps inspired by Miss Pop Rocks’s ill-fated trips through Wikipedia’s labyrinths of information, I set out this morning to round up a few of the worst tribute bands on YouTube and wound up sidetracked with this little video treatise on the boogie.

So, y’all ready to boogie? I don’t mean disco-boogie, I mean primal one-chord boogie like you’re crab-walking through ninety degree heat in a Mississippi cotton field with a full Mason jar full of corn liquor coursing through your veins and the devil in your soul.

I’m gonna skip over ZZ Top and John Lee Hooker and jump off with some lesser-known lights.

All right, then, let’s go. Hey, it’s Friday, people.

Editor's note: This muxtape no longer exists in its current form.

Have you ever heard of www.muxtape.com? Apparently, it’s this new site where you can share whatever songs you want legally. Or something. Apparently.

At any rate, I made my very first one today. Since the upcoming Houston International Festival honors Africa and the African diaspora, my muxtape does the same.

It’s here.

Here are the track notes:

For whatever reason, I seemed to forget that MySpace offers the opportunity for actual downloads, in addition to streaming music.

This revelation was thrilling, despite its embarrassing belatedness, and I’ve decided to make the MySpace Mixtape a regular practice on Reverberations. The rules are simple: Selections must be downloadable, posted on an official band page (I’ve taken care to avoid “fan pages,” or any instance where consent is not implied by the actual band, management or label) and not patently obvious. The bands were found through compilations, linking from other bands’ pages, random friend requests, or simple trolling. In the future, it may be interesting to explore themes (region-specific compilations spring to mind), but for now, we’ll just rock at random. Happy listening:

The Nomads “Been Burnt” - Start things off with this shot of screaming guitar and caveman percussion from this Swedish band who’s been at it for 25 years.

The Hot Pockets “There Goes the Night” - Punk rock from the Netherlands that sounds like a cross between Something Fierce and The Born Liars.

The Satelliters “Go Away” - More than a passing resemblance to Brian Jonestown Massacre; loose, laid-back beat with a harmonica lynchpin.

The official version of “Think Twice” barely dented the pop charts in 1966, though it was something more of an R&B hit.

This NSFW version, recorded just for fun at the end of a recording session, was never even released. And given that the two of them sing about cocaine, reefer, cunnilingus and sing just about every swear word in the English language, right up to the C-word, it’s easy to see why.

I’ve been feeling pretty down about a bunch of crap lately – the march of condos all over town and the douche-ification of Washington Avenue, among other things -- but the Sideshow Tramps' Craig Kinsey has gone and cheered me up with this here jazzy little ragtime-feeling “Montrose Boulevard Blues,” a Houstoned Rocks World Exclusive.

That is some handmade music, people. It makes me homesick for the neighborhood I called home for so much of my life. (Now if only someone will pen a song even half as good about Stella Link.)

Clicking through MySpace, one comes across tons of dreck, but every once in a while a diamond gleams in the pile of trash, some virtually anonymous flash of brilliance blinds the brain with humor, underdog sass or gumption. If I were one to make mixtapes (or CDs), here’s a handful of songs that would make the cut.

The Launderettes, “What Would Joan Jett Do?”: Oslo’s all-girl Launderettes announce themselves on MySpace as “Fuzz, Fjords, Farfisa & Frenzy.” If you’ve got Sirius radio, you may have heard “WWJJD” off the band’s Wicked Cool album Fluff ‘n Fold. If this one strikes your rock fancy, check out “I Wanna Jump Your Bones.”

Vidar Vang, “Under Six Strings”: Neil Young meets Springsteen in this alt-country churner from the 2002 EMI album Rodeo. Oslo’s Vang is just one of a number of Scandinavian bands who manage to keep alt-country fresh and evolving. You can’t go wrong with Vang’s “In the Shadow of Elvis” either.

It never fails that when WWILFing (What Was I Looking For?) MySpace I always end up being blown away by some European band I’ve never heard. A few cool things from this week’s WWILFing:

The Mouflettes (Lille, France): Even if you don’t speak French, it doesn’t take much listening or imagination to get what “mouflettes” means. These electronica hell-kittens set a high standard for Eurotrash as they crash through tongue-in-cheek techno sleazers like “Bicky Burger” and “Minou” (the double entendre of the cat sounds is unmistakable as the smell of a catbox). Marlene Dietrich would be proud.

Akyla Khem (Bologna, Italy): Blondie meets the Black Keys at the psych ward. This Italian graphic artist/minimalist blues-rocker sings like an animal that would gnaw your arm off if you tried to pet her, and plays her guitar like it’s something that needs punishment. As beautiful as her paintings, photographs and chalks are, it’s her garage ethic that separates her from 99 percent of Italian MySpace music acts. The live tracks rip your ears off.

Click the buttons below for "Honey Fleaux" (feat. Rochelle Terrell) and "Intoxicating Fleaux," two tracks from Austin rapper Bavu Blakes.

Bavu plans on releasing a new flow each week, for what he's calling the '08 So Great series. Stay tuned for more. -- Keith Plocek

I resisted MySpace like I resisted the World Wide Web, seat belts, unleaded gas, Barry Goldwater… but I digress. Since familiarizing myself with MySpace’s vast musical wilderness, I’ve become addicted to the surprises it reveals. Sometimes you discover a new outhouse, sometimes it’s like discovering new continents in wooden ships. The winnowing process never stops, but you can discern certain patterns. Lately, bands with really weird names but interesting music have been popping onto radar.

Tokyo Pudding (Tokyo): Remember Bill Murray’s appearance on the inane, utterly stupid Tokyo talk show in Lost in Translation? That was my first thought when I saw the Devo-ish photo of the two guys behind Tokyo Pudding. “Tokyo 007,” from their album Tokyo Soundscapes, did nothing but reinforce that impression. TP takes a joyous flirtation with absurdity into the stratosphere with the cynical MySpace description blurb: “all you need to know about Japan.” They describe their music as “Japanese office worker's grief and expectation with Eurobeat,” with a tragic kernel of cultural decay at the heart of every tune as they parody a variety of pop styles. (song: "Tokyo 007")

Texas Sluts (Bordeaux, France): Lord knows what the Bush administration could make out of the band name alone. I smell international incident. They look like a punk band, but Robert Cray comes to mind as they blast through originals like “Rainin’ in Bordeaux” and “I Believe to My Soul.” Honest rock is easier to find in Europe than honest blues, but these bar vets are trying to do it right. (song: “Doggone Man”)

There’s something magical about the Geto Boys' “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta.” The same could be said about A Christmas Story. Here’s what happens when you put that chocolate in that peanut butter. – John Nova Lomax