Hysteria is a film that manages to have its cake and eat it too. Here’s a film that appeals to men in the lowest possible manner while appealing to women on the highest plane of pure love. Much of the first part deals with stogy men making women come by twiddling their clits in a laboratory setting. Meanwhile the latter part of the film shifts the perspective to the lead femme, a firebrand who stirs emotions by confronting the upper classes with the insolvency of the poor. Set in Victorian England (1880s), Hysteria posits that once women were diagnosed as ... Read More »

“We went into things being naïve,” Caitlin McFarland tells Free Press Houston in a phone interview. McFarland and Emily Gipson are the founders of the ATX Television Festival, a kind of media festival celebrating television that unwinds in its inaugural year this weekend in Austin. Starting Friday June 1 and running through the 3rd ATX “celebrates the past, current and future of television,” notes Caitlin. Adds Emily “This allows the experience to expand outside the living room to watching shows with strangers in a theater.” The events include over 15 shows like True Blood (ep. #412, And When I Die), ... Read More »

"What we had discovered was a heaviness borne of Rock yes, but this was a rock not from this world…not of this dimension but… From Beyond. " Read More »

Since this year’s FPSF has so many bands, I’m sure it’s going to be overwhelming for a lot of folks so I’m going to try to help you out a bit by giving you some recommendations over the three days leading up to the  big weekend for National, Regional, and Local acts. The idea isn’t to be all-inclusive but to just make a few suggestions and if you want to post your suggestions for each day’s category in the comments, please do. Yesterday, we highlighted a few national acts.  You can read that post here (link) if you missed it but  today we’ll zoom ... Read More »

This week’s featured (Non-FPSF) show Thursday, May 31 St. Vitus Dixie Witch Venomous Maximus From Beyond (EP release) Sanctus Bellum TeXXXas Pillcrusher Pushmen @ Fitzgerald’s Summerfest week is a rough week for bands playing venues around town so we want to try to give at least a little coverage to some shows happening this week that won’t be taking place along the Bayou.  One that stands out to me is this one.  For fans of Doom Metal this one is a treat.  First off the local cats playing are all pretty bad ass - Venomous Maximus are kind of THE go to band when you want something heavy ... Read More »

This week we babble incoherently. We are crazy busy with FPSF. Subscribe to FPH’s weekly podcast via iTunes or directly through any RSS reader, or download now. Read More »

Yes folks, it is finally time for our annual get together where we bring you a bunch of cool bands along the banks of the bayou.  You sweat, you dance, you drink a lot of water, put down some beers, eat a bunch of food, hang out with some awesome folks and Joe Ortiz will go around asking everyone if they want a free hug.  Who knows, Hippie Mike may return to dance for everyone’s pleasure.  The point is, it’s a lot of fun so you should be there unless you are in jail, dead, or your hatred of hipsters is ... Read More »

The Chernobyl Diaries should get a medal for truth in advertising. It’s exactly what you think it would be from the premise of a group of twentysomethings going on an extreme tourism excursion to the Russian city of Pripyat. TCD doesn’t waste a lot of time with elements like character when it can just get right down to atmosphere and spooky, scary imagery. It’s less Blair Witch and more Paranormal Radioactivity, although bits and pieces of several genre items that’ve come before pop up throughout. To its credit TCD offers bleak and sticks with that desolate landscape. Pripyat is the ... Read More »

A brief analysis of the band’s live performance, with footnotes. By Brian Foster Wallace Two live recordings exist of Houston, TX, math blues glue-sniffers Fatal Flying Guilloteens that encapsulate the raucous five-piece fuck up’s shows rather succinctly. One was captured in the early aughts at Bellingham, Washington’s storied 3B Tavern. “Apparently, if a Bellingham crowd likes the band, they throw beer on them,” singer/shit-stirrer Shawn Adolph says to the assembled crowd. “Please throw a lot of beer on us.” What you hear next is the band ripping into a song that sounds like Jesus Lizard being teabagged by Lightning Hopkins ... Read More »

We are not lacking in millionaire-donated hospital pavilions and art museums, but in those gestures that would help bring the city itself together as a work of art. - Phillip Lopate, “Pursuing the Unicorn: Public Space in Houston,” CITE magazine, Winter 1984 Read More »