Photos by Jim Bricker

The Wild Moccasins at Cactus Music, Record Store Day, April 2011

​After a preview last fall featuring Girl In a Coma, it gives Rocks Off great pleasure to announce that effective immediately, we will be sponsoring selected in-stores at Cactus Music, no fewer than two a month.

Our first in-store is 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, with Texas mods the Freddy Steady Krc's release party for their 7" and CD 1,000 Miles on Krc's own Steady Boy Records. Then, at 3 p.m. Sunday, February 26, we will be hosting the "Big Squeeze" auditions for Texas Folklife Resources' Texas Accordion Kings (and Queens) festival, inviting any local squeezeboxer 21 years of age and under to compete for a spot at the event that packs Miller Outdoor Theatre every year, like last June. Houston family band Promesa Mortal, featuring 2007 Big Squeeze runner-up Robert Vega and his sister Tina on bajo sexto, will perform.

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The 2012 FPSF lineup is, in the words of 2011 alum Junior Brown, stuck in a holding pattern.

​Rocks Off was setting our house in order after our long absence, when at some point we realized that while we were away, we had barely heard anything about this year's Free Press Summer Fest at all. We vaguely remembered the festival leaking electro DJ duo Major Lazer a while back, but that's about it.

Shockingly, that's because there hasn't been much to say. But if last year holds true, we can start expecting Summer Fest to reveal its lineup any day now. Last year, the announcement came via a pre-prepared video broadcast from the stage at a packed Fitzgerald's.

Summer Fest head Omar Afra wouldn't cop to a date this year - and we tried - only saying the festival hoped to release the roster, which will be spread across several stages June 2 and 3 at Eleanor Tinsley Park, in the next couple of weeks.

"Holding out out for something BIG so can't give a specific date for release but soon," Afra said.

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Correction: Per the commenters, Late Nite Pie originally opened in the early 2000s, not the late '90s.

Photos by Chris Gray

The flames at Late Nite Pie had been extinguished by 6:45 a.m.

​Midtown pizza restaurant Late Nite Pie burned some time after closing in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. ABC13.com reported that the popular post-show destination suffered "major damage" and that Houston Fire Department arson investigators were on the scene.

The fire was estimated to have started about 3:45 a.m., about 45 minutes after Late Night Pie's closing time. The restaurant had scheduled the "My Funny Valentine" standup comedy showcase for next Tuesday.

Late Nite Pie started in the late '90s early '00s at the corner of Elgin and Bagby, site of the current St. Dane's Tavern, and moved a few blocks north to 302 Tuam in 2008. It occasionally hosted shows, and its musician-friendly hours - it once stayed open until 4 a.m. - and cheap beer made it one of the relatively few places around downtown to go eat after last call.

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​DJ Brett Koshkin spins old soul and R&B '45s the first Saturday of every month at Boondocks. We're not talking loud, bass-heavy, glowstick-friendly LOL drunk gurl stuff. His monthly "Dirty Honey" sets at Boons, featuring beautiful vinyl slabs by artists like ZZ Hill, Rufus Wood, and Clifton White, are the things of crate-digging magic. DH began when the bar opened way back in 2007, and has held strong ever since.

This past Saturday night, Koshkin and an employee of the bar were given citations due to complaints about the noise from Boons' neighbors. This same thing occurred just a few weekends ago to DJs Sober and Dayta, on January 28 at the bar. Our Marco Torres was on the scene for that debacle, which ended with the boys playing N.W.A's "Fuck Tha Police" in joking protest. Let it be said the cops were doing their jobs, as confusing and angering as the law they are enforcing is.

The new noise ordinance has been a hot topic among local musicians and club owners since October, when it was first uncovered that the city was to start issuing heady fines for excessive noise. Last week Hair Balls reported on the Greater Houston Entertainment Coalition PAC that says it wants to work with the city to improve recent changes to the ordinance, changes which many have said hamper clubs and bars from doing business. Dire consequences for Houston music could be in the offing.

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Jandek + (maybe) techno + April 1 = For serious

​Brad Moore, owner of Big Star Bar and Grand Prize, was driving through Roswell, New Mexico when his cell phone blew up.

"It was Jandek, I shit you not," says Moore about the experimental musician who's traditionally an enigma around here, but has been in the public eye more of late.

Moore explains that he crossed paths with Jandek two years ago at Petrol Station but he hadn't heard from him since. "He's a beer snob so we talked about beer for half an hour," he says. "I gave him my number and told him to call if he ever wanted to play at Big Star."

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Photo courtesy of Nameless Sound

Alvin Fielder

​Alvin Fielder helped found the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago, worked for the Nixon Administration and spent much of his life running the family drug store.

However, hearing him talk about all of his accomplishments by phone from his Mississippi home, winning Nameless Sound's "Resounding Vision Award" could very well be his favorite achievement.

In 2009, Fielder was playing a trio gig in New Orleans when he started feeling completely awful. Fielder, a pharmacist for 56 years in Starkville and Jackson, Mississippi, didn't know what was up so he visited the doctor.

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Photo by Lynne Hawrelko

Gurf Morlix

​Part of a storied singer-songwriter scene, former Houstonians Gurf Morlix and Blaze Foley were living in Montrose during the Urban Cowboy craze but were not impressed. In fact, according to Morlix, they worked so much they "hardly ever had a night off, and if we did we certainly weren't going to drive out to Pasadena to some fake cowboy joint." Somewhat ironically, we had just interviewed Mickey Gilley moments before calling Morlix to discuss his gig and the showing of the documentary Blaze Foley: The Duct Tape Messiah at Anderson Fair Friday night. Morlix, who released an entire album of Foley covers last year, Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream, spent all of 2011 traveling with the film, usually performing a set of Foley songs after each showing. We caught up with the Grammy winner at his studio in Austin.

Rocks Off: Is the Blaze Foley phase winding down for you or does it have more legs?

Gurf Morlix: I think I'm about done with it. I devoted all of 2011 to Blaze and the film and my album, but I've got other stuff to do this year.

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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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​With the Chris Gray benefit just a few days away, news is flying fast and furious. We told you yesterday about the addition of Hayes Carll to the artist line up and gave you a rundown of every artist on the bill. Today, we have news from Live Nation.

Live Nation has donated two box seats including club passes and gold lot parking for the Black Keys/Arctic Monkeys show April 24 at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion to go in the silent auction!

Many thanks to the folks at Live Nation for the generous support.

But there's more...

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​Today is a big day for Houston six-piece Otenki, who are releasing their new music video for "Ghosts" off their sophomore album Kinetic via YouTube. Rocks Off got the chance to chat with guitarist/band manager Enoma Asowata over the weekend to get the scoop on the new video, the support from 94.5 The Buzz and what the band has planned next.

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