Jason Wolter

Texas Connection: Joe Ely, Lucinda Williams and Townes Van Zandt (not pictured)

See lots more iFest pictures from Saturday and Sunday (and some food) in our slideshows.

Yes, it was hot at iFest this weekend. Houston hot. Sunday afternoon, partway through Lucinda Williams' surprisingly nostalgic set, both the temperature and humidity were in the low 90s and Rocks Off felt like we were losing weight by the gallon.

But the thing that stood out to us most about the Houston International Festival's second and final weekend of 2011 was how easy it can be to drop that "International" out of the equation. And how satisfying - even international - a "Houston Festival" can be.

Unlike last weekend, Rocks Off did not (accidentally or on purpose) stumble across anything as alien to our Southwestern ears as Kora Connection or the Homayun Sakhi Trio. We sat and watched Bollywood Blast's surreal and fairy tale-ish performance for a few minutes, and walked through the castle-like Great Wall of China replica, where the gong about two-thirds through was especially popular with the kiddos, if not so much any adults within earshot.

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Lauren Dukoff

Cambodian pop-rock seems like an odd choice musical genre to try to earn a living, but Los Angeles-area sextet Dengue Fever is closing in on ten years.

All signs are that the band is set for a much longer run: They've just released Cannibal Courtship, their fourth album and successor to the wildly successful Venus on Earth, which made iTunes' list of best world-music albums of 2008.

The band toured Cambodia in 2009 and documented the experience with the film Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, which included concert footage as well recording sessions with Cambodian master musicians.

Rocks Off caught up with Dengue Fever founder and keyboardist Ethan Holtzman as the band was preparing to depart for the three-day Texas tour that brings them to Fitzgerald's Saturday.

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Groovehouse

Jimmie Vaughan (left) and his band gave the large iFest crowd some saxual healing Saturday.

Lots more iFest in our slideshows: The bands, the performers, the crowds and even the food.

For something that was still going on 24 hours ago, the first weekend of the Houston International Festival sure seems like a long way away now. That's what happens when one of the most monumental events of your lifetime happens when all you're trying to do is wind down from a long weekend of outdoor music in a muggy Bayou City spring.

Now, in hindsight, iFest's choice of "The Silk Road: Journey Across Asia" as its theme this year seems especially poignant. If you need to brush up on your world geography, the Silk Road is a network of overland trade routes that has been in use since ancient times. Effectively, it forms a belt between the Mediterranean and China - making Afghanistan and Pakistan the buckle.

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The Free Radicals remain an institution of incredible sound here in H-town, having amassed 13 Houston Press Music Awards in the realms of jazz and funk since their inception in 1996, as well as making a name for themselves as one of the city's most prolific protest bands. So when founder Nick Cooper emailed us to tell us he had something new and different, we were all ears.

They'll be playing a show tonight at Fitzgerald's - free for the drinking age crowd, $4 for the children - but what's new about that? Free Radicals regularly annihilates all over the city, after all. Well, tonight the music forms only part of the entertainment, as Cooper and company will mesh together their own brand of jazzy funk with the excitement of break-dancing and capoeira.

If you need break dancing explained to you, we will give you a minute to go rent Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo while we sit here and weep for the failure of your parental units. Capoiera may not be as familiar to the non-Tekken-playing crowd, though, so we'll explain.

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Rocks Off combs through Craigslist's postings hoping to find the genesis of some great musical endeavor. So when we saw a posting looking for Arabic singers, we were intrigued.

After all, this is a time of mosque burnings and our upstairs neighbors passing anti-Sharia laws. It must take a hefty bag to start an Arabic music project. We sat down with keyboardist Alshed Al-Badri to learn some more about it.

Rocks Off: Are you looking for an Arabic speaker, or just someone of Arabic descent?

Alshed Al-Badri: Doesn't matter.

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Photos by Marco Torres

A.R. Rahman
"Jai Ho: The Journey Home"
Toyota Center
September 17, 2010

The Indian film-score composer A.R. Rahman, now widely known as the winner of two 2009 Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire, is the master of the movie-musical genre known as Bollywood. He is also one of the top-selling recording artists of all time, with 150 million records sold, and engineered the aural and visual feast on display Friday evening at Toyota Center.

The 160-minute set was supported by perhaps one of the largest world-music productions ever brought to town - Vegas-type circus acts, captivating dancers, a powerful vocalist and an arsenal of top-notch musicians. Paired with the dynamic staging and cinematic video work, the eclectic and fiery music created a journey to India with all the attendant Bollywood glitz and glamour.

Toyota Center was an array of bright clothing and shimmering saris as thousands of people flowed into the arena. As the air simmered with colorful chatter and anticipation, the lights lowered and fire-engine-red streaks of light covered the stage. Whistles, cheers and shouts filled the air as traditional Indian music rushed into the strains of the tour's main theme, "Journey Home."

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Tonight, prolific Indian film composer/choreographer A.R. Rahman comes to Toyota Center to make up a July date he had to cancel after his tour was plagued with set malfunctions. In the wake of a near-disaster in Detroit back in June, Rahman and his company postponed dates in order to get their rigs and set-up back in safe, working order.

From what we have heard and read, Rahman's "Jai Ho Concert: The Journey Home" is a spectacle on par with the biggest Western pop concerts anyone could imagine. (Even Lady Gaga.) With Houston's large Indian population, the show is sure to be a packed affair.

Rahman is one of Bollywood's biggest names, so much so that he has been dubbed "The Mozart Of Madras" in some circles. Bollywood isn't a completely insular enterprise, though, taking numerous cues from Western musical trends while keeping their own heritage at the forefront. Over the years they have bitten off plenty from Western pop culture, including the British Invasion, hairy boogie-rock, and most perplexingly, Michael Jackson.

We found five instances of Bollywood dipping into the cultural stream with toe-tappingly interesting, if sort of creepy, results.

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Photos by Jason Wolter

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For more photos from the show, see our slideshow here.

Almost 50 years on from his earliest historic recordings, Toots Hibbert and the Maytals have the reggae thing down to a massively fun science. And in spite of his age (about 67, although Hibbert doesn't tell), the first man to use the term reggae in a song still brings it live like a man half his age.

In fact, Hibbert and his band seemed to have just as much fun as the House of Blues crowd. There wasn't a person in the audience or onstage who didn't offer beaming smiles throughout most of the show. Yes, reggae is the ultimate feel-good music.

Hibbert wasted no time going to the hits, belting out "Pressure Drop" and "Time Tough" before the crowd had time to settle in. But by the time Hibbert accelerated the final verses of "Time Tough" into a double-time crescendo, the crowd was completely into it.

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Ed. Note: Rocks Off is giving away a pair of tickets to Toots & the Maytals at high noon on our Facebook page. Please add us here.

​If Toots Hibbert didn't actually give birth to reggae, he certainly dated the midwife. Hibbert's legacy traces itself to the earliest reggae recordings as ska slowly evolved into something new and different and entirely Jamaican.

Rocks Off didn't get to interview reggae legend Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals as planned last week. Telephone difficulties in Jamaica kept Hibbert's publicist from being able to patch together the call.

But boning up for the interview, we emailed quite a few people asking their thoughts, what would they want to know if given the opportunity to talk to this Kingston icon who is credited with the earliest use of the term reggae in a song.

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That's Plastic Bertrand, but you probably know that song better from the traveling sequence in National Lampoon's European Vacation or better yet, the basis for the Elton Motello track "Jet Boy Jet Girl."

​Quality French rock and roll has sometimes been hard to come by, but when it hits, it slays. As far as modern French jams go, they really know how to do electro right, but in the '70s they made some of the best sleazy punk rock. Keep in mind these guys were probably already living the scummy Parisian lifestyle long before the late Malcolm McLaren co-opted it for the Sex Pistols.

Serge Gainsbourg is worthy of his own blog post apart from this one, but we don't have the time to even delve into him singing songs about banging underage chicks or smoking Gitanes naked on a rooftop. Google Gainsbourg if you are feeling frisky (and not at work).

French rock band Phoenix blew up last summer and turned in one of the most talked-about performances at last year's Austin City Limits Music Festival. With singles like "Lisztomania" and "1901," the band has even been snagging airplay on modern-rock stations like The Buzz; it's kinda fun hearing Nickelback, Phoenix and some old-ass Pearl Jam in the span of a ten minutes. Who knows, maybe the station is changing?

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