By Jack Daniel Betz After moving to a new place with my own mailbox I decided to finally solicit the mysterious Corwood Industries for my first fix of actual Jandek CDs. I’ve been back into Houston’s man in black ever since his explosive April 1st electronic gig at Houston’s Big Star Bar. He filled the room with stabs of sinister feedback, occasionally talking out mystical, lyrics about love and hate. I have high quality recordings of the first two songs. I promise I’ll eventually post these for your listening pleasure. A little background for those of you who have no ... Read More »

Seeing Damsels in Distress is like meeting up with an old friend. That is if you can remember when Whit Stillman made his, ah, three films in the 90s. For people who’ve actually seen Stillman’s films – Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco – there’s the tendency to lump his films in the category of Manhattan up and comers, or would-be socialites, or educated Americans abroad in the travails of their life but with a literary arc to the narrative. When you see Damsels in Distress, Stillman’s first film since 1998’s Last Days of Disco, you realize the sharpness ... Read More »

This Week’s Featured Show Friday, April 27 Grandfather Child The Weird Weeds The Energy @ Big Star Bar (free!) If you charged a cover and had this bill at a larger venue like Fitz, I bet you serious bucks the place would be packed but it’s in the more intimate Big Star Bar and it’s free to boot.  You know how packed this is going to get?  Still, if you aren’t claustrophobic, this is an epic bill. Hell, any of these bands could headline a bill so it’s hard to consider the heavy duty powerhouse of The Energy as just an opening act. ... Read More »

By Jack Daniel Betz In many ways, IDM (intelligent dance music for the google-impaired) is the anti-dubstep. Like dubstep, it’s loud and heavy but unlike dubstep there’s almost no way to predict what the hell is going to happen next. In dubstep you know that one whomp will be followed by a similar whomp. Now that dubstep has caught on, caught on like devastating a forest fire ripping through millions of acres of pristine, unsoiled wilderness to be precise, the repetition works against the genre rather than for it. It’s factors like this that make me really miss Aphex Twin’s ... Read More »

Together we take an in-depth look at Montrose coffee culture and pick apart our favorite local spots. We also discuss why some people should just move to Kingwood. Subscribe to FPH’s weekly podcast via iTunes or directly through any RSS reader, or download now. Read More »

By Jack Daniel Betz Experimental Brooklyn band Bear in Heaven have not been exactly the most accessible. Their debut “Red Bloom of the Boom” is a sometimes sinister, coldly electronic, release that shirks many pop music conventions that even most “experimental” acts use to guide themselves in writing. Progressive rock is even a bit generous for the depth of the navel-gazing on here. The closing track “For Beauty” sounds like the evil, interstellar space noise of Tangerine Dream’s 1972 album “Zeit”. “Bag of bags” and “Slow Gold” work well as extended experimental electro-rock for people patient enough to soak it ... Read More »

Heading home last night, I had to pull over and see why the Chick-Fil-A parking lot was full of tents. Was this the new location for Occupy Houston? Were people protesting Chick-Fil-A’s support of right-wing social issues like the fight against gay marriage? No, as it turns out–100 people were camped out in the Chick-Fil-A parking for 24 full hours in anticipation of the grand opening of their new location! So I got out of the car to take some photos and talk to folks. It was about 1 am, so a lot of people could be heard giggling in ... Read More »

Bob Marley continues to be a major influence worldwide to musicians and music fans a generation after his death. Kevin McDonald’s biopic Marley presents a comprehensive look at the life of the reggae superstar, covering events in his life with a heavy emphasis on his performing years. From the early-60s until his death from cancer in 1981 Marley recorded songs that literally changed the course of music and this doc gives the viewer a front row seat to the various arcs of his career. Interviews with key participants are mixed with concert footage and historical clips. If you’re familiar with ... Read More »

The Moth Diaries charm is slight but effective. Genre fans should flock to this girl’s boarding school vampire flick like moths to a flame. A gloomy yet safely spooky atmosphere pervades the film from director Mary Harron, with a script by Rachel Klein based on her novel. Lily Cole stars as Ernessa, a vampiric name if you ever heard one. Ernessa’s dominance over certain students forms most of the plot. The title comes from the way Ernessa can dissipate her spirit into thousands of fluttering moths. Scott Speedman and Sarah Bolger co-star. The goth element remains subtle, often highlighted by ... Read More »

This Week’s Featured Show Friday April, 20 Marcel Khalife & Al-Mayadine Ensemble @ Jones Hall There is a hell of a lot of music coming in from all parts of the world this week with the International Festival and even a Flamenco Festival yet I gotta give this week to singer, composer, and oud player Marcel Khalife.  First off the Oud is a cool-ass instrument.  Second, the dude has had to put up with foolish opposition to his art from facing criminal prosecution from religious extremists to being banned in Tunisia for his support of political activists. But none of that would matter if the dude couldn’t ... Read More »