Photo by Jim Krafka

Leslie Krafka nominated for her album White Cat Sessions

​If you think we were flabbergasted by songwriter Bob Cheevers touting his election as 2011 Songwriter of the Year in the Texas Music Awards sponsored by mytexasmusic.com and "sanctioned" (a hedge word that appears frequently in relation to the Texas Music Awards) by the Texas Academy of Music (high fallutin' term for we're just not sure what), you should have seen our mouths gape when we got this year's nominees.

Now we're not saying we know everything about or everyone in Texas music, but this ballot is downright frightening in its mediocrity. After a quick sampling of each artist via links on the ballot site, it seems 99 percent of the choices are from what we refer to as Texas country/Ballcap Nation stuff, and almost none of it makes any lasting impression whatsoever, much less deserves an award.

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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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UPDATE -- a note from the author: We spoke to Mr. Ames again this afternoon. He informed us that he thought the conversation would not be used in our article and that it was only for background information. He also stated that he does not recall some of the statements attributed to him. Neither Mr. Ames nor the author is implying that Ms. Chorney or her radio promoter engaged in any unethical practices regarding airplay. The comments regarding such practices were general statements only, not specific to Ms. Chorney. We regret any confusion. Mr. Ames informed us that he will be interviewing Ms. Chorney on his show on Monday, January 30, at 8:20 a.m. We recommend that concerned readers tune in to hear Ms. Chorney in her own words at this link.

Gordon "Big G" Ames

​The Linda Chorney Grammy thing just won't go away. It seems now Chorney is barraging radio stations with her latest album, hoping to gain a smidgen of credibility before going to the Grammys with zero album sales, which we presume is going to be an historic first.

Former Houstonian Gordon "Big G" Ames, the program director at KOOK-FM, "Real Deal Radio," received a copy of Chorney's CD earlier this week. He was not amused. In fact, he is so not amused his Thursday show is going to be themed "Making An Example."

"I've been around a long time and I know how things work," says Ames from his home outside Kerrville. "You and I both know that if you put a thousand dollars in a few hands you can get your album on someone's quote unquote chart. You know it, I know it. And that makes me mad. It's sad and pathetic what the Americana syndicate chooses to accept payment for."

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Denim never dies.

​It's no secret that chart success is no real guarantor of musical quality. Hell, "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" went number one way back in 1952, pissing kids off so badly that they had to invent rock 'n roll. Twenty-five years ago this week, however, Billboard reached a new low when mall-pop singer Tiffany's Tommy James & the Shondells cover "I Think We're Alone Now" went number one. The song stayed in the top spot for two weeks, a triumphant glory for possibly the '80s most cheerfully disposable bubblegum. After Tiffany, it seemed as though any old crap you could think of was capable of hitting number one on the charts.

Sadly, the past two-and-a-half decades have only confirmed and reconfirmed that notion. "I Think We're Alone Now," unfortunately, was only the first of dozens of intensely grating, cloying and irritating tunes to top the Billboard Hot 100. As proof, Rocks Off has assembled the 15 worst #1 hits from the past 25 years for your amusement, delight and disgust. Prepare yourselves.

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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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​The comments sections on several articles about Linda Chorney, the woman who gamed the system and social networked her way onto the final Grammy ballot in the Americana category, tend to be pretty negative, although Chorney's publicist, husband and a few friends are trying to staunch the flow of irate bile that has gushed like BP's Gulf well last year.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been following Americana music since long before we first went to work in country radio in the early Seventies, and we've never witnessed anything quite as shameful as Chorney's calculated internet march to the Grammy ballot. We were revolted by our first listen to Chorney's tepid folky Emotional Jukebox. We can think of a handful of women in Houston who could kick Chorney's musical ass with one arm behind their backs.

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The subtle front page of Chorney's website.

​As if the Grammys didn't have enough credibility issues, NARAS, the organization that controls the process, has left a loophole large enough for a complete unknown to manipulate her way onto the final ballot in the Americana category.

The news broke two days ago in Variety that virtual unknown Linda Chorney had employed the organization's interactive Grammy 365 site to connect with voting members and get her music heard. Somehow she got enough members to vote for her to get her album Emotional Jukebox on the final ballot with Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Ry Cooder, and Lucinda Williams, who have collected among themselves 23 Grammys.

On one hand, we have to applaud Chorney for her effort and determination and for her ability to work the system to her advantage. On the other hand, after hearing her music, we want to projectile vomit.

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Photo by Jeff Balke

​A couple years ago, I was sitting on the back porch at the Continental Club talking music with a fairly well known music writer who seemed to believe that anything with a big hook or the slightest inkling of musicianship beyond the garage band aesthetic was utter garbage. If he weren't such a nice guy, I would have taken his condescension personally, but I realized that it was just a quirk of his extremely focused view on music, one that is shared by a fair number of music critics.

Today, when I read the selections for this year's class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I wasn't surprised and, frankly, they are all deserving. But, as usual, there were many continued snubs of artists who should have long ago been enshrined. For baseball fans, it's the Jim Rice effect. These bands have to sit around and wait until the voters vote them in, sometimes years after they clearly deserve to be inducted.

In the case of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there is more to it. There is a very real bias towards certain kinds of music, particularly of the hard rock and progressive rock varieties, or what my writer friend and many of his contemporaries would call "shit."

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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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Norman See/last.fm

Nice threads, but... yeah. Don't go there.

​The other day, a friend of ours asked us for our opinion on some ideas for "couple costumes," as in Halloween, including Han Solo and Princess Leia. Ugh. Do you happy couples really start this early in September?

Rocks Off thinks we kind of understand the seriousness of the couple costume planning process, though. With all of the naughty nurses and scantily dressed school girls drinking vodka from Styrofoam cups, we'd want to make sure our man was unmistakably attached to us the whole night too.

If you choose to dress as a couple this Halloween, there are a few costumes you should do your best to avoid: No "ball and chain" getups or Sookie Stackhouse and that old vampire dude from True Blood. No more vampires, please.

And certainly no cliché musician couples. Below are nine ill-fated or way-too-obvious musical duos that we hope we don't see at any parties this year.

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