Photos by Marco Torres

Bob Schneider
McGonigel's Mucky Duck
May 23, 2013

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.

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Photos by Jim Bricker

Earlwolf

Jambalaya Festival
Bayou Music Center
May 23, 2013

Ingredients:

• Houston, Texas
• A roomful of screaming, dancing teens
• G-Eazy, RL Grime, Big Boi, Zeds Dead, Earlwolf

Instructions:

1. Open the doors of Bayou Music Center at approximately 4 p.m. Allow scores of teenage hip-hop enthusiasts to swarm the floor, courtesy of Scoremore, the young company responsible for bringing today's best underground and indie artists to Southern states.

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Photo by Nathan Smith

Converge

I don't know about most people, but my favorite thing about seeing a band live is the energy. I just can't get enough of the frenetic intensity that pervades shows and runs back and forth between the manic audience and the performer, even if the actual playing is off because of it.

When a performer is bored or listless, even if they get all the notes right, it kills me. I guess that's why I like seeing punk rock bands more than folk artists.

Sometimes it can be hard to find that ultimate bit of pure magic, though. There's plenty of bands that bring the right vibe to the table, but it's a lot harder to find the kind of band I like the most: a group that are like cracked out acrobats playing heavy, fast music. I have, fortunately, found a few that I follow devotedly every time they play in Texas, and here are five who do that best.

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Photos by Jason Wolter

Robert Earl Keen (left) and Lyle Lovett

Texas Concert For Conservation
Featuring Dwight Yoakam, Robert Earl Keen, Hayes Carll & Ray Wylie Hubbard
Sam Houston Race Park
May 18, 2013

If I wanted to make a dopey analogy, which I'm going to do anyway, I'd say Texas' coastal waters and our wry but soulful singer-songwriters are two of this state's most precious natural resources. Lucky for us, both seem to be renewable too -- up to a point.

Dwight Yoakam, Robert Earl Keen, Hayes Carll and Ray Wylie Hubbard are all busy guys who hardly ever stop touring. They certainly didn't have to waive whatever fee each one commands to help out the Coastal Conservation Association's fight to preserve Texas' coastal ecosystem, particularly on a Saturday night, but there they were at Saturday's second annual Texas Concert for Conservation, none of them visibly phoning it in as performers at such charitable hootenannys are often wont to do.

It was a beyond-pleasant evening even before Lyle Lovett -- who can't live more than 20 miles from Sam Houston Race Park, as the crow flies -- showed up to sing "hey hey" a few times on his old Texas A&M buddy Robert Earl Keen's "That Buckin Song."

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Photos by Sonya Harvey

Scott H. Biram
Continental Club
May 17, 2013

Fans of Scott H. Biram's brand of rusty yelpin' need not worry, because the Dirty Old One Man Band still sheltering us in a hefty dose of antiquated down-home blues.

With slightly less audacity than past shows and sipping Guinness tallboys all night, a tamer Biram cranked up the phaser rich pedal board and reached into his arsenal of Gibsons, pulling out his trusty scratched-up hollowbody, to instigate a night of blues covers with Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin' Wolf and, by our count, at least three Mance Lipscomb songs in tow.

Leading off with Lead Belly's "Midnight Special," Biram commenced to double-timing tense harmonica riffs and slightly bent choruses to a cozy crowd of about 70, who answered back with fist-pumping rebel yells.

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Photos by Francisco Montes

Dave Matthews Band
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
May 17, 2013

"It's the humidity that makes the funk more glorious," mused a certain Mr. Dave Matthews in his amused, half-mumbled manner as he opened Friday night's show in The Woodlands, the first stop on the band's annual summer tour.

Oh, and what glorious funk it was. That statement set the tone for the night's sweltering concert, during which the Dave Matthews Band spent two hours improvising and extended each song into a jam-band version of its former self.

That's pretty much Dave Matthews Band concert protocol, though. Dave Matthews concerts generally aren't built for the casual fan, and rarely will you hear more than a smattering of radio hits played during their sets. With 20 years of material to draw from, and a penchant for jam-banding the shit out of each song, it takes a devout member of the church of DMB to recognize most of the songs on their ever-evolving set list.

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Photos by Alyssa Dupree

Tera Melos, with "The Hot Dog Man" (center)

UPDATE: Rocks Off incorrectly identified the former By the End of Tonight member now performng as LIMB as Jeff Wilson, not James Templeton. Our apologies to LIMB.

Tera Melos, TTNG, LIMB
Fitzgerald's
May 16, 2013

It's unusual to walk into a show where majority of the crowd is under legal drinking age, and Thursday's Tera Melos show happened to be one of those times. But despite the fact that most of the people at Fitzgerald's weren't drinking, the crowd was as fun and rambunctious as any.

Fitz's downstairs room was packed, with an attendance that hovered just over 75 percent of their capacity on Houston's first humid evening of the year.

The show kicked off around 9 p.m. with Houston's own LIMB, the solo project of Jeff Wilson James Templeton. Templeton and Jeff Wilson were once part of By the End of Tonight, a Houston-area experimental post-rock group who released a split EP with Tera Melos in 2007.

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Photos by Abrahan Garza

Smashing Pumpkins
Bayou Music Center
May 15, 2013

This is not a Smashing Pumpkins review.

Sure, the title of this post hints otherwise, but I assure you -- the Smashing Pumpkins broke up in Chicago, on December 2, 2000. I was there.

Props to front man Billy Corgan for trying like hell to keep his dream alive, but after a while, we have to come clean and call this band what it really is: Billy Corgan and some hired guns mostly playing songs they mostly didn't write.

Harsh it may sound, but that's coming from an admitted (mostly) former Pumpkins fanatic. I need to utilize all my fingers and most of my toes to count the number of times I've seen The Pumpkins live since 1994 (at the age of 11). I have just about every Pumpkins T-shirt ever designed -- I've worn each one into the ground, and I've even got the awkward school pictures to prove it.

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Photos by Julian Bajsel

One More Time: A Tribute to Daft Punk
Stereo Live
May 11, 2013

It's safe to say that Daft Punk fever is at an all time high. Fifteen-second clips of new music were enough to nearly break the internet and no major gathering of musicians can happen without rumors of a Daft Punk appearance spreading.

Enter One More Time to try and help the masses with their Daft Punk mania. The more cynical among you may see it as an opportunistic money-grab, but this isn't the case at all. They've been doing the Daft Punk tribute thing for years, even winning the award for "Best Electronica Tribute Act" (under their old name Daft Punk'd) from our friends at the Phoenix New Times back in 2011.

That said, like many of you, we here at Rocks Off had questions about whether or not an electronica tribute act could work. What, we wondered, would the show be like?

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Photos by Jim Bricker

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus, The So So Glos, The Caldwell
Walters
May 10, 2013

Friday night featured a four-band showcase at the new Walters (not on Washington) headlined by New Jersey indie-punk group Titus Andronicus, bringing their Brooklyn friends The So So Glos along on what they are calling the "Bring Back the Dudes" tour. Locals Chemistry and The Caldwell rounded out the evening.

First band up The Caldwell featured a slew of familiar faces of the Houston music scene playing their first gig ever. Fronted by vocalist/guitarist James Essary, who can also be seen supporting recent scene-stealer Adam Bricks, the band gave forth a solid effort with a set of originals that couldn't help but remind me a whole bunch of the Walkmen.

I guess if you're going to emulate a band, that's surely a good one to choose. The rest of the evening's entertainers were a tad on the louder and heavier side, but The Caldwell brought the perfect amount of noise to ease everyone into the night.

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