​Houston's own Buxton gets their moment in the sun in the next few weeks as their debut album for New West Records, Nothing Here Seems Strange, gets wide release. But the band's home store, Cactus Music, will be releasing it tonight five days early during the band's in-store, set for 7 p.m.

In addition to the in-store and the special release date, Cactus will also be giving away 75 tickets to the band's proper record release gig, set for next Saturday at Fitzgerald's with Marmalakes and Featherface, and also a very expensive turntable, the Denon DP-300F, to presumably christen with your new copy of Strange.

The album and the band have already been getting more than a few glowing notices around the country after dates on the East and West coasts back in late 2011, and Strange was made available for streaming on influential indie site Paste just this week, getting heavy social media love. Esquire's Andy Langer recently named Buxton an "Artist to Watch" alongside other soon-to-be darlings Howler and ZZ Ward.

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​Nutty Jerry's in Winnie has been doing a great job bringing in legacy acts like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Guess Who, Mickey Gilley, Ronnie Dunn, and Blood, Sweat and Tears. But the club really got our blood pumping when they booked the Cajun wildman, Jo-El Sonnier, who plays the club Saturday night.

Sonnier, who had been playing and recording since he was 13 years old, burst upon the national scene in the early 1980s with "No More One More Time" and the rocking cover of Richard Thompson's "Tear Stained Letter." Both singles reached the Top Ten on the country music chart.

Born to French-speaking sharecroppers in Rayne, Louisiana, today Sonnier, who last released an album in 2008, lives in Lake Charles. We spoke to him at his home Thursday afternoon and found him as perky and full of fire as ever.

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​So The Twilight Saga has exactly two things that keep the films from being absolute torture. The first is Ashley Greene in all her pixie-hotness, and the second is that there really are some excellent bands that end up on the soundtracks.

Case in point, the Features were featured recently in Breaking Dawn in the form of their song "From Now On." The cut, like most of what we've heard from the Tennessee natives, is bleakly optimistic, like a couple trying to achieve simultaneous orgasm on a plane with both engines dead.

The speed of the track's drum hurls Matt Pelham's falsetto from the twang of indie guitars to total musical elegance. You might want to catch the Features while they're still playing venues the size of Fitz, since it's not going to be long before they graduate to less intimate engagements, thanks to that sparkle-vamp push.

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​It's hard to find a band that reps Miles Davis in the same breath as much as they do Led Zeppelin, but Lionize are that band. Recording in Jamaica with Steel Pulse's Sidney Mills, supporting beardos like Kylesa, Clutch, and cKy? Yes, that's Lionize for you. Opening for Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster, a band that sounds like Gregg Allman and Black Sabbath's Vol. 4 hooked up, tonight at Fitzgerald's? That is also Lionize.

I asked Lionize about some of the bands that coalesced in their respective heads to make the sound of Lionize, which to us is a highly enjoyable strain of reggae rock. This is isn't girly feet-in-the-sand jazz, these guys have actual chops, the kind you get by touring and jamming for hours on end.

Check out Lionize tonight supporting Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster, with Grace In Folly also on the bill.

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Delicate Cutters

​We received the new Delicate Cutters 2011 album Some Creatures on the same day that we received the new Dead Fingers album from one of our favorite labels, Big Legal Mess, the offshoot successor to Fat Possum. Too bad for Dead Fingers.

The oeuvre of both bands is a mix of folksy indie rock from much the same musical realm as local favorites Literary Greats. But where Dead Fingers sounds contrived, over-thought and lyrically trite (and their vocals made us want to buy stock in companies that manufacture ear plugs), Some Creatures is quite listenable and interesting.

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​After several weeks of semi-classical, jazz, and folk music, Leon's Lounge takes a major swerve tonight with spiky haired Hans Frank. The front man of cow-thrash punkers Glambilly, Frank looks like he just stepped out of a bad Roxy Music video, and it's just possible that Bryan Ferry may be a major influence on the Appalachian born wild man.

One doesn't have to dig too deeply into Frank's musical career to see the connection with some of the original glambillys, the Hickoids and San Antonio musical mover-and-shaker Jeff Smith. When we asked Smith what's the deal with Hans Frank, he let fly with his usual lack of reserve.

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Photo By Robyn Friday

​Jimbo Mathus's latest work, Confederate Buddha, was easily one of the most overlooked roots albums of 2011. Don't worry, we sort of slept through it too, but that just means you can make up for that with us by checking him out Saturday night at the Continental Club, with opening act Shinyribs.

You more than likely know Mathus's name from his work with the now-defunct Squirrel Nut Zippers in the '90s and Buddy Guy in the early '00s. The Zippers' album Hot was one of the weirdest things to come out of the '90s, and it's single "Hell" and it's accompanying video was an injection pure oddity that hadn't been seen on the channel since at least Oingo Boingo.

Along with his band, the Tri-State Coalition, Mathus recorded the Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Band-ish mash that is Buddha with an eye on the spirituality of his native Mississippi, framed by the region's blues sound and mythology. "Too Much Water" could be about a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, or a romantic match gone wrong. Either way, there will be scars.

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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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Photos by Allison Wagoner

Balaclavas last July at the Mink

​There are tiny bone chips in my right elbow because of a curb in Austin, my inability to maneuver a children's bicycle down a steep hill, and inherent humanity. Back at SXSW '09 on the way to see Balaclavas play their showcase, I smashed my bike into a curb swerving to miss a car that was about to hit me, breaking my elbow as I hit the ground. I still showed up at their show a few minutes later with misty eyes, a useless arm, and a smile on my face. I cried like a baby when I got to my hotel room though.

Tonight is Balaclavas' tour kick-off show at the new Walter's on Naylor - still getting used to that phrase - with frequent bill mates Black Congress. Last fall the band released their follow-up to 2010's Roman Holiday, the superbly scary-good Snake People, and made it into our - well, my own - best of Houston top ten list.

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Ayman Harper in (theLID, a performance featuring live music by Matmos.

​Matmos, the Matador Records-signed electronic music duo that has done work for Björk, has never performed in Houston. The person responsible for making the group's debut show in town happen? An expat living in Germany.

A few years ago, dancer Ayman Harper -- a graduate of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts who relocated to Berlin, Germany to pursue a full-time freelancing career in dance and performance theater -- cycled by Berlin's Babylon Theater and noticed the band's name on the marquee. A fan of the Baltimore-based group for years, Harper tried to catch the end of the performance but was too late.

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