What you will be doing tonight!

OK my schedule is such that I'm likely going to miss this but you should totally go. Tonight Mike Watt - one of my musical heroes - is playing Rudyard's. The guy puts on an amazing show and is a sweetheart to boot. It's been decades since The Minutemen but Watt has always kept his cred and never disappoints.

Bonus is I went to Rudz the other day and it actually smelled great! YES the smell, that foul smell that has made your nose shrivel, is gone. Turns out it has been gone for at least a month.

So go, drink, rock, and have a Rudzburger!

It's My Party.

So, I missed this "oh-so-legendary" Jandek show at Rudyard's thanks to the chain on my husband's bike just not cooperating with us. Well, I HATE funk (not fun), so I don't think I missed much except seeing my friends dance like jackasses (which is always fun). Oh well. Don't miss thing, it makes you sad. Anyhow, a week's worth of stuff not to miss...

WEDNESDAY APRIL 8, 2024
Where I not glued to LOST tonight (and saving up my party points for my birthday tomorrow), the show I'd pick would be at The Mink. You've got Battle Rifle with this week's CD release, the fucking awesome The Takes, B L A C K I E (generally I H A T E rap music, but I L O V E B L A C K I E) and the always scandalous Chocolate Crucifix. Apparently people still like Ratatat, since they're still around and playing at The Meridian with Tussle and Despot. And I know a lot of people care that Bruce Springsteen is at Toyota Center. How big of an asshole am I that I'm all whatevs about The Boss? Pretty big one, so I'm told. Well, I'm even more whatever about New Found Glory at Warehouse. There sure is a lot of "people still care" events tonight. Oh and they're playing with Bayside (never cared) and Set Your Goals and Verse (still not caring). Oooooooh but you know what I do care about? 10th Grade Cutie at Super Happy Fun Land. I really want to see these guys one of these days. They're like the future of music and shit. They're playing with Imari Tones, Bows & Arrows, and Archaic 3. Finally, if none of these appeal to you, you can go to Notsuoh for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (say it in big epic voice).

THURSDAY APRIL 9, 2024
Hey! Thursday is my birthday and I'm going to be making it happen first at Cactus at 5:30 to get my St. Arnold's fix with T-Bird & The Breaks (it's like Sharon Jones but instead of a sassy black ex-female jailer, it's a white dude from Austin) and then at Walter's to check out Vivian Girls (finally, after missing them due to my asSXasSW ordeal) the added bonus to that of course is Future Blondes. Between you and me, I could take or leave Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. T-Bird is gonna be over at Warehouse later with Greyhounds. The only other thing that I can in good faith recommend is doing the whole butt rock thing over at Boondocks for Camaro, their, well, butt rock DJ night. I mean, you've got Lollipop Factory at Notsuoh which is kind of like if you put Bolt in short-shorts and striped socks oh and top hats and made them play at Scout Bar. I'm trying to place where it was that I saw them before, but I remember being aghast. And I'm just going to shake my head at Plain White T's at Numbers and Forever the Sickest Kids at House of Blues. So, yeah, looks like you'll have to come out to Walter's and say happy birthday to me.

FRIDAY APRIL 10, 2024
I highly advise going out to the Grand Opening of Mango's with Sideshow Tramps, Robert Ellis (favorite!), i am mesmer, and Two Star Symphony. I think having this place back in circulation is gonna be big fun (Omar, please clean the bathroom). Does the venue formallly known as The Oven give you the heebie-jeebies? Might I suggest you go to Warehouse and grab a CD by Spain Colored Orange. They're playing with The Sour Notes, Dizzy Pilot, Paris Falls (another favorite!), and You(genious) (another rapper that is a-ok with me!). Ceeplus and DJ Melodic play musics there, too. The Gary and The Jonx play at The Rudyard's. And I dunno what exactly the Psychedlic Sock Hop is, but it sounds like a good idea. I haven't heard of anyone playing except A Thousand Cranes but anyhow it's at The Tree House (5105 Crawford). Perseph One (yet another Houston rapper that I am not adverse to) brings it to Super Happy Fun Land. And how much hot water do I get in mentioning a show that my band mate's brother is playing? Anyone? Anyhow, Tambersauro is playing at Walter's with The Life and Times and Good Times Crisis Band. If you've got no time for time maybe you'll like the bizarro line-up at The Continental. Ok, Honky and Dixie Witch on the same bill I get, but do Molly and the Ringwalds' crowd cross over with that crowd? Weird.

SATURDAY APRIL 11, 2024
Hey! It's the KTRU Outdoor Show! They've got Ted Leo headlining, but of course, he's always sounded like bagpipes to me. For cereal. I think I might have a filter on my eardrums that turns his music into bagpipes. Boring bagpipes. But that's ok. A few of my local favorites including Buxton and B L A C K I E will be there, too. There's a bunch of folks that have me drawing a blank as well and then a band called The Boat Show, which reminds me of the Showgirls commentary ("Don't go to the boat show Nomi, it's a rape-a-torium!"). But every year the KTRU folks do an excellent job and it's always always always a blast. So support your local college station, they support you. It starts at noon. Oh but Two Star Symphony are doing the in-store thing at Cactus at 1pm and then it's The Stone Coyotes at 4pm! Oh no! Ride your bike so you can go back and forth at will. So, that takes care of the day time, but what will you do that night? I know exactly where I'll be, but where will you be? If you're smart you'll be back at Watler's for mother fucking Leslie & the Ly's. Leslie's opening up for Stereo Total. Ooooooh but Muhammid Ali (HEARTZZZZ) is playing at Mango's! Maybe I can time it right. Also at Mango's you've got Young Mammals and THEART. Man, and there's another good show a few block over at Sedition Books. It's The Caprolites (heartzzzzz, too), Leslie's Dead Friend (Leslie Hall's?) and Rapeworm (haven't heard anything about them in a loooooong time!). Show starts at 8pm. Seriously, everything going on tonight is going to be fun, so here's some more options...That "quite lovely" band that I first heard at the Block Party, Searching For Signal are playing Super Happy Fun Land with The Handshake, Summerside Project, Caddywhompus, and Gamma Ringo. The Born Liars (who are being slowly infiltrated by undercover Homopolice) tear your face of at Notsuoh with Gin Slingers and Flash Boys. And if you're in the mood for boys but not flash, The Strange Boys bring their big time rock and roll to 3910 Driscoll and make it good with The Wols and The Wiggins, who will have a shiny new cassette for you. BYOB, BTW. Oh and some british vegan guy is playing at Jones Hall (hint: It's Morrissey). He's got the very excellent Courteeners in tow, so I hope you bought your tickets.

SUNDAY APRIL 12, 2024
I can't really advise you in good conscience. Find your own way my friends.

MONDAY APRIL 13, 2024
All I have to say about Monday is Blowfly at The Continental. You have no excuse to do anything else.

TUESDAY APRIL 14, 2024
Well, on your way home from work, do the Cactus thing at 5:30pm with The Magpies. And then you've got BoomSnake at Helios. So, Boomsnake is a dude from Say Anything, and I learned from the past weekend's Bat Mitzvah experience, Say Anything is the only thing outside of severely profane and sexually explicit rap music that thirteen-year-olds like. If you're looking for the complete opposite of that head to the Toto Moto Warehouse (2305 Lyons) and see some brutal things like Sacred Shock, Deskonocidos, No Talk (more faves) and Fan Death. Oh and it would be Tuesday without Campfire Stories at Alvin Bowling Center?

See you next time.

tomfoolery down houston way

Photo by Major Miller

Text by Amye McCarther

[note this isn't a formal review - just an e-mail Amye sent out to her friends overseas. I asked her if I could reprint it here and she gave me her blessing.]

christ, i'm wrekt. jandek played his first ever houston show yesterday at rudyards.

in it's heyday ruds was the scroungy neighborhood dive with cheap pints and regular rock shows. in his heyday jandek was an inscrutable musical recluse with a penchant for releasing records that sound like emanations from my autistic great-uncle's haunted attic. he is renowned amongst the world's music dorks as a sublimely atonal messiah. nuf said.

now rudyards charges $4 for a lone star (think £4 for a bottle of tennents) and decent rock shows are occasional and nostalgic. jandek has shed his hermit's mystique and has now played all over the world with other curious musicians. however, until yesterday he had avoided playing in his hometown, houston, where the whole foods employees stalk him while he buys groceries and his co-workers remain in the dark about his weird musical exploits. (many a well dressed old guy at the show was wondering aloud at the popularity of their friend whilst the young'uns shook their asses up front.)

when i heard about the show i expected anticlimax. finally the houston dorks would get a begrudged peek at their hero now that he'd played all the worthier cities. my friend coach vowed to learn him not to come out of hiding with an asskicking. coach's unruliness has often landed him in jail, so i trusted that there was a measure of truth in this threat, though i suspected it would amount to little more than slurred stageside taunting with annoyed glares from the artsy folks.

anyhow, none of that happened. jandek showed up with a funk drummer and a slap-bassist in a shoulder padded suit. the ensuing hour of funkadelic improv took us so by surprise that we had no choice but to drink up and shake it up front. katie and pookie and i threw confetti eggs and got down with the pasty kids we expected to be heckling. it was hilarious. the bassist later said he thought he was on candid camera or punk'd. he'd never heard of jandek before and never met him until they showed up to play.

pichers: On Hands Up Houston the guy laid out on the stage in the last two shots is coach. jandek is the white guy with the black hat.
coincidentally, the jandek show was at 4pm and i played a show at 8. i was still so dizzy by then that will had to carry me over his shoulder to the car and load all of our gear by himself. he was so blissed out from the afternoon that he didn't mind at all. i had a reverb halo over my head.
so, naturally, i'm still in bed recuperating and sending weird transmissions to my friends who are far away.

later, a

No Foolin'.

So yeah, it's April Fool's Day. I hate April Fool's Day. Being named April, people think that it's extraordinarily clever to riff on that fact every April 1st of my life. I think it's pretty boring and it makes me pretty grumpy. I've already told someone to go kill themself this morning. So yeah, no jokes, just facts today. Brutally honest facts. That's my AFD contribution.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 1, 2024
Ok, to start off my brutality, I've gotta say that "Poopy Lungstuffing" is a really gross name, I feel kind of sick every time I see. BUT you go over to her myspace page and what you find is actually quite wonderful. It's like what if Joanna Newsome was a character made up by Miranda July and played the ukulele instead of the harp? It would be the kind of thing that you would stay up all night listening to with your secret pot buddy. She's making a racket over at Super Happy Fun Land with Spazzathon (not sure what they sound like), Sievert (Megaman was always my favorite video game soundtrack, but for realies, this is some good 8-Bit noise!), Flakey (SHFL owner playing the Kazoo, perhaps?), The Nonsense Music Band (sorry, too much goofenthal for my tastes...pirates=boring) and Muzak John (yeah, I think he's a wizard and his music is just the sound of him casting, just don't request "Avada Kedavra" and you should be fine). So, that's my recommendation for tonight. It seems like it will be pretty fun. Other goings-ons (was that right?) include Whiskey Boat and Buckshot at The Continental Club. I guess that meets it's like roots-country-americana night or something. Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of the bands at The Continental Club are actually the same band using different names and playing different genres depending on the night/crowd? Oh and then there's Chick Corea at Verison. If you were going to this, you'd probably already have you tickets but just in case. Go jazz yourself. Um, okay, so that leaves Java Jazz. I usually have no idea who the band who play there are and this is no different. The Word Alive have a dude named "Zack Hansen" (who is at Walmart right now according to his twitter-esque thing on the myspace) and are more than likely a Christian Band. Confide all have the same hairdo and might be Christian, too. But they're from LA, so they might not have souls. I dunno. And completing the line-up are November. They're from Montgomery. They're releasing and EP. I hope people buy it from them.

THURSDAY APRIL 2, 2024
So, if I were to actually go out on Thursday night I would probably go to Jet Lounge. Adam Bricks is doing that super sweet little singer-songwriter thing, makin' all the ladies want it. He's joined by Phillip Foshee (also making the ladies want it) and Quiet Life (ladies are still wanting it). Oh and I think Eat Grapes will be there (ladies?). And then there's the show at Notsuoh. Jerkagram sounds pretty good from the one song on their Myspace. Kind of like Besnard Lakes...a little too close if you ask me. Tour mates, Talibam! have got some kind of future space jazz thing going on, you know if you like that. Locals Anquish in Exile (less jazz, more metal) and Stove Blow (sound pretty good for all that nuevo-clatter stuff Hella caused) round out the show. Black Queen Speaks are playing at Rudyard's. They're soul patch rock. There are a few other things like the Reciprocity event over at Avant Garden benefitting the MD Anderson Cancer Center. There will be smooth grooves there. I'm borded. Moving on.

Friday April 3, 2024
If I wasn't obliged to go to this Notsuoh show already, I'd go of my own volition. You've got Lisa's Sons kicking off their tour. You've got Fucking Theif, not getting things stolen, Muhammid Ali continuing to be the best band in town, B L A C K I E making and then keeping it real, Limb...I'm not sure what they do, Balls Deep rapping about hurricanes (likely) and dumb ol' Guitars, that is, if they can fit their big dumb heads through the front door. Oooooh but at The Artery sweet ol' Domokos and his Future Blondes are threatening to make it a last show. I optimistically call bullshit. The wonderful Balaclavas are joining them. Over at The Meridian there is this Indie Artists Music Festival. Feel free to go look up the listing, I'll wait here. Have you heard of any of those people? I think it might be some kind of R&B deal. It's confusing when people use the word "indie" sometimes. Each morning you can wake up not sure what it's going to mean. Sadistic Intent are being all thrashy and violating Photobucket terms of service over at Walter's. My oldest friend in the world will never come out to see my band, but I bet if we were playing with Woolgather, Fear of the Known, Skepticynic, 5 Fathoms, and Shattered Display at Jet Lounge she would (her favorite band is Disturbed, btw). Oh and there's two parties: Glow in the Dark Party at Boondocks and a "sun's still up, let's drunk now" type party at Cactus it's the Pocket Full of Soul Party. Oooooh but here's the biggest bummer...Salim Nourallah, one half of Dallas's Nourallah Brothers is playing at Rudz with Vanessa Peters & Ice Cream On Mondays and The Dragliners. Bummer for me because I'm a fan of the Nourallah Brothers.

SATURDAY APRIL 4, 2024
Tonight things are happening. I know a friend of mine is having a birthday party. I'll be there. But where will you be? Well, there's a MDA Crawfish Boil Benefit at Warehouse that would be a nice thing to go to. A few blocks over at Jet Lounge (boy they sure do have a lot of shows lately!) are The-Front, The Ginslingers and Burn the Boats. It's all that crunchy-dressed-all-in-black-covered-in-tattoos kind of stuff. You know what I mean. And if you are what I mean, you will like this show. Oh and there's Two Star Symphony with Chiara String Quartet at Avant Garden. That there is some music to drink wine to. But probably red, not white. And then at SHFL I call an embargo on all badly named things. It's the Lazy Squid Rekkids Showcase. I really hate when people spell "records" like that. A lot. Rudyard's has an Austin thing going on with Lick Lick, Inivisible Czars and Opposite Day. So if you like to keep it weird, that's the place for you. And all-in-all you could do a lot worse that the Strangefeather and Tod the Fox show at Notsuoh. Alot worse. In fact, maybe do that.

SUNDAY APRIL 5, 2024
There are only two things that I'm going to bother with for Sunday. Jandek at Rudyard's at 4pm. And then at 7pm at Avant Garden, Sandy Ewan of Weird Weeds (very excellent, and she tells good jokes as well as makes good music) headlines a great little "ladies can do it better" fest with Houston's own Wols and Dogebbi. And this is all brought to you by your friends at Signal to Noise and Sound Exchange.

MONDAY APRIL 6, 2024
Jet Lounge is really coming on strong with all these shows and Monday is no different. You've got Shayna and the Bulldog and The Small Sounds. One time this guy got really mad that Small Sounds don't receive as much attention as Wild Moccasins. It was kind of funny. Then at SHFL you can go see Realicide (not Alan Vega), Yatagarasu (not the Jewish rapper guy), Dog Shit Taco (not a good dinner), and We Both Know (that a dog shit in your taco). And then the weekly free show at Boondocks with Hueman and Espantapajaros (it means "Scarecrows" and they kind of have a Brian Jonestown vibe but in Spanish!).

TUESDAY APRIL 7, 2024
Chiara Sting Quartet are making the rounds, maybe you can catch their awesome Prince cover at The Menil. The opposite of chamber music is going on at Walter's. It's MDC (millions of dead chamber ensembles?), Embrace The Kill, Final Conflict, Blackmarket Syndicate and HRA. Wear your helmet and knee pad. It'll get ouchie. Oh and this week Campfire Stores are back at the Alvin Bowling Center with After Time Has Passed and The Fuct. I know a lot of time has passed, but do you remember that brand Fuct? Yeah, me neither.

Alright, I'm done here until next week. I've gotta go close my blinds. There's some creep staring in my window and I can't see where his hands are. YIKES.