New - Live Music Reviews on our Music Blog: This Week The Dirtbombs.
posted by Ramon Medina - LP4 @ 5:24 AM
Labels: "Dead Roses", "It Lives", "Kelley Stoltz", Houston, Review, Rudyards, The Dirtbombs, TX

Labels: "Dead Roses", "It Lives", "Kelley Stoltz", Houston, Review, Rudyards, The Dirtbombs, TX
RECAP
The Future of the Ghost/Program @ Boondocks
Salt Lake City's FOTG plays that poppy punk thing. It's very cute fun stuff. Local cats Program approach their pop from a more textured keyboard indie pop angle but also can make for a nice show worth catching.
Fu Manchu/Burning Brides/Max Cady @ The Meridian
Charlie Naked of Defenestration Unit will kick my ass if I don't mention Fu Manchu's show. That dude loves Fu Manchu.
The Umbrella Man @ The Big Top
Jazzy Bluesey Rootsy Country well, they have an upright bass a violin and an accordion... you do the math. A friend of mine told me they put on a great show.
File under this just in from Hand Up Houston
"Warehouse Party
American Sharks /Limb / Young Mammals (with Mlee Suprean) (cover Pixies songs) / Celebrity DJ Jacob Mutha ####in' Calle / DJ Psychedelic Sex Panther
and more.....
DIRECTIONS:
2220 Commerce (right across the street from Bootleg)
Turn right on Commerce
Go over railroad tracks
BAM! ON YOUR RIGHT!
ERIN'S BIRTHDAY WAREHOUSE PARTY! BRING HER GIFTS! BUY HER BEERS! BUY HER CONDOMS! 10PM-??? FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE PLEASE BUY ME ONE CAN OF SPARKS. THIS IS A 90's THEME PARTY! YOU KNOW THE DRILL! DRESS 90's IF YOU GUYS CONTRIBUTE THIS I WILL GET AWESOME! PLEASE REPOST AND SPREAD THE WORD. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS. "
SATURDAY, MARCH 29
Anal Blast/Uncleansed/Engaged in Mutilating/Cerebral Rot/Diminished/Infernal Butchery
@ Walter's on WashingtonAnal Blast are likely one of the premier metal feminist bands with such socially conscious songs as "High On Cunt Blood", Uncleansed are a Houston Christian Metal Band...and...what? You're not buying any of this? OK, yeah, it's knuckle scraping metal. Ya got me.
Dengue Fever
@ The Orange Show
I had a bit of trouble describing LA's Dengue Fever but they say it's "A Cambodian Pop Rock Psychedelic dance party!" OK sounds good to me.
(This Just In)
Poor Dumb Bastards / The Hickoids / Scorpio Rising
@ NOTSUOH
You know the score Byron will likely get naked or damn close and all insanity will ensue. And the Hickoids are Texas Cow Punk royalty.Bret Michaels
@ The Meridian
NO! I will hate you forever if you go see this!
Something Fierce/Born Liars
@ Dean's Credit ClothingTwoOne of Houston's premier rock bands. Something Fierce covers the pop punk thing like nobody elseand Born Liars play garage like motherfuckers. I know it's Sunday and you will be killed by Rudyards on Friday and Saturday but it should prove to be a sweet show and a great bookend to the weekend!
Pink Razors/Erin Tobey/Teenage Kicks/The Holly Hall
@ The Mink
Pink Razors rip some sweet blazing high energy indie pop with guitars that sound like Superchunk on speed. Nice stuff. Teenage Kicks ride that line where garage and pop meet. The Holly Hall is the local supergroup that includes recently featured singer songwriter Elaine Greer. No offense to the KTRU folks who do a great job but the tracks on the Holly Hall's myspace doesn't compare to how good they band sounds live.
Nick Jaina/The Wild Moccasins
@ Notsuoh
The Whim of the Ruling Class is a lovely example of Nick Jania's simple and lovely pop song styling. It should be nice. The Wild Moccasins make lovely pop and features members who also play in the Holly Hall....wait a second! Aren't the Holly Hall also playing at the Mink? OK that should prove to be interesting.
Basses Loaded
@ Boondocks
Thank goodness Basses Loaded didn't just stop at just the gimmick of having all basses but instead went ahead and wrote great songs and combined that with a great live show. Always recommended.
Saul Williams/Dragons of Zynth
@ Warehouse Live
Saul Williams' and Dragons of Zynth are a good pairing as both suffer from a similar flood of ideas and a nervous energy. It may not always work but it's at least interesting.
Eisley/The Myriad/The Envy Corps/Vedera
@ The Meridian
OK so sue me. So I think The Winter Song from three years ago is a brilliant little nugget of pop with gorgeous harmonies. Sorry, I also have to admit that I kinda like that damn New Soul song you hear on the Apple Air commercial. I suck, I know.
By Tyler Barber
By Tyler Barber
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is a decent FPS. Take that statement, travel back in time to 1995, and it may hold true. But to today's standard, its concept and execution are simply the worst I've ever seen. The atrocities start with the most obvious, the graphics. Many now-gen games get the "Xbox-visuals" slap, but TP looks worse than bad shooters of the first Xbox era. TP is better suited for its acronym's homonym: toilet paper. But, I imagine the disc isn't very absorbent, which is to also say, it fails in every possible way imaginable.
TP also has the worst case of periscope-fire I've ever seen: enemies face and point their guns away from you, but their bullets magically turn 90 degrees, and fly right toward you. The cheapness doesn't end there. Turning Point struggles with making the game artificially difficult by hiding enemies in complete darkness, having shot-gun-toting enemies slam doors open just as you approach, or the worst, forcing you to climb down a ladder (because a ten-foot drop will kill you) while a barricade of Nazis fire at your back.
Love Jerry Bruckheimer's Independence Day? Then you'll love TP too, because it lets you blow-up the White House. Cool right? Wrong! Not only is the game atrocious -- PS2 level graphics, paper-airplane grenade physics, laughable animation -- but TP's concept assumes that a) the United States has no military, b) a random construction worker can save the country, and c) a Nazi invasion of the US is actually a get-out-of-jail-free card for the overly-abused WWII setting. Even worse is the thought that this title will have a sixty-dollar price tag. Spark, you're the real axis of evil. Simply the worst idea (and excuse) of a FPS. Ever.
Final Grade: F
Labels: "Best Friends Forever", "Christina Carter", "Deer Tick", "hearts of animals", "Matt and Kim", "Sean David McMillan", Jandek, SXSW
It's 1:30PM, I haven't showered yet, I have a raging hangover, and I feel like I've just run a marathon on booze. I think Liam Finn tapped the zeitgeist of the evening when he pointed out the only two things he needed to be aware of during his set "Here is my beer and here is my whiskey!" Indeed!
Labels: "Aux Raus", "Black Hollies", "David Israel", "Does it Offend You", "Eagle Seagull", "hearts of animals", "It Lives", "Liam Finn", "Woozy Helmet", AM, Mathletes, Sodopp, SXSW
“My Iguana is in heat. He’s biting so make sure to have your shoes on.” explains Lori. Great, I looking at crashing on Lori’s floor over the weekend, and I have visions of me crashed on my sleeping bag and the beast either dry humping me or eating my face off. Well, this is Lori Varga (aka Lori Surfer) – who has done films for the Butthole Surfers – I‘m kind of asking for it aren’t I? Despite the prospect of menacing large reptiles, Friday at SXSW was a pretty good day.
The morning consisted of the usual check-in insanity to which you can add trying to find a parking lot and being stuck in traffic before you even got to the convention center – tedious to be sure. The one amusing thing at check-in was some dude with a video crew following him; the cameraman and the boom mic dude are getting everything. This meant an amusing diversion for us. “Dude, don’t miss that shot! He’s STANDING IN LINE!!” Dude, get that shot. He’s asking for directions! Holy shit! Get that, he’s filling out a form!” The thing is, that’s exactly what they were doing – filming every second of this young dude checking-in. What the fuck?! Who the fuck is so vain as to think that they need to video themselves filling out a goddamn form? I lay blame squarely on YouTube!
After the registration, it was off for a round of dutiful flyering. Let me save you some trouble if you play SXSW off
After the Ton Tons we headed off to the Mohawk. Parts and Labor, Citay, Jens Lekman, and
On the way out I ran into Joe Mathlete who told me Speedy Motorcycle was not extending its run as they’d hoped - bummer. But the good news is Joe’s coming back to
From there we headed to Fuck Buttons from
Labels: "Bon Iver", "El Guincho", "Fuck Buttons", "hearts of animals", "Indian Jewelry", "Joe Mathlete", "Young Mammals", SXSW, tontons
Andre Williams
@ The Continental
Oh bad ass! Things are gonna get nasty indeed.
Pat Todd and The Rank Outsiders / Lazy Horse / Alarma @ Rudyards (Link)
Pat Todd Played in a little band called The Lazy Cowgirls. Straight up garagey Rock and roll at it's best. Sloppy bad asses Lazy Horse and Alarma will keep it fun and sloppy like the good lord intended.
The Hates, Nectarine, The Delta Block, Rusted Shut, A Thousand Cranes
@ the Engine Room
Yeah I know his name is Christian but every time I see him go by on his scooter all I can think is "HATES DUDE! Go Hates Dude! Ride with that Mohawk in the wind like the punker you are!" I mean sure he didn't have a Mohawk back in the late 70's and early 80's when the Hates first started but Hates Dude has earned it - no hatin' here! I just think it's bad ass! Rusted Shut are also tenacious bastards. Much like a zombies in search of fresh brains they keep coming, are hard to kill, and have poor table manners. Go see them just don't stand too close.
The Black Hollies / Bipolaroid / The Gold Sounds @Rudyards (Link)
The Black Hollies are straight-up bad ass 60's pop paisley shit with fuzzed out guitars and harmonies that is best listened to with black lights, a lava lamp and a hella lot of LSD! New Orleans native Bipolaroid channels a Syd Barret Pink Floyd pop that , while less dense than The Black Hollies,. is no less effective and transcendent. I'm pretty stoked.
Mumpsey / Band Le Grand/ the Swimmers
@ NOTSUOH
The opening band, The Swimmers, hails from Philly and write some lovely bright and bouncy bad ass pop.
Municipal Waste, Iron Lung, PLF, El desmadre
@ The Meridian
Oh man this is gonna be some bad ass and sweaty hardcore bill!
Von Iva / Pash / Wicked Poseur / Lennie Briscoe
@ Rudyards (link)
Umm Disco Beats, bad ass Moogs everywhere, Dancing, and at least one dude in the audience with a bad coke habit.
Parts and Labor , Ecstatic Sunshine, Red Rocket, Giant Princess
@ the backroom at the Mink
Parts and Labor put on such a great noisy and fun show that to me the albums never quite hold up as well - that's a compliment to their bad ass live shows. Ecstatic Sunshine are a bit more abstract - If you've smoked dope to Pupul Vuh You may dig it too. Local cats Giant Princess have been making some waves around town and are worth catching.
thedeathset, Ponytail, Air Waves (fomer The Unicorns member) & These Powers Are
@ Boondocks
Ponytail are so bad ass I'm not even going to bother mentioning the other bands! No wait Brooklyn's These Powers are are pretty awesome too in a very similarly bad ass manner. Just Go OK? It'll be bad ass!
Labels: badass
Hi readers,
By Tyler Barber
Later this month year the Dave Clark Five will be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame only Mike Smith lead vocalist and keyboard player died last week. So close yet so far away. Does it matter that the DC5 challenged the beatles in their heyday, or that HAVING A WILD WEEKEND, released in the U.S. as Catch Me If You Can is the most underrated rock film of the 60s? During that time frame certainly John Boorman was the David Fincher of the 60s.