09, 2005
Back out on the town.
I'm getting pretty consistant at getting out to shows. I've been to several this year starting with Guy Schwartz's birthday party where I got to see Chango Jackson for the first time. Guy has a house in near Meyerland that backs up to one of those lovely concrete bottomed bayous that snake through our sprawling city. It's not like being on the lake but it made for a nice setting. Especially when Marlo and her friends hung some tapestries, painted the backyard blue(including the grass) and set up a little stage where several artists and friends swapped songs into the evening. I got there just in time to hear the end of Mike Naus' Vertigo Blue but evidentally did not miss much since the backyard and sound system weren't really set up for electronic music. Then The New Jack Hippies took the stage for their annual marathon and played backup band for Jimmy Deen, Carrie Ann Buchanan, P.J. Flowers, E.P. Vallejo, Norman Pennington and Opie Hendrix. Chango Jackson used to be called Moscas and before that I heard them as Flies In Paradise on 89.7 KACC years ago doing a song called Bottle Of Wine. They play really tight funky rock and rock en espanol. Lot's o Fun. When all that was over I gave Guy an early copy of my band Certified Hobo's soon to be released disc Boxcar Demos for him to listen to and hit the road.
I only made the Saturday show at Guy and Marlo's South By Due East and late at that. I caught Blendt. Muzak John, who made noise rock wearing a black cowboy hat and bandit mask. Slapshifter, with Jeff Balke, who I met at the Houston Music Roundtable at Volcano. The New Jack Hippies with Jimmy Deen, always good. And then we got to see Chango Jackson do a bad ass funk song written especially for the event. Dan and his brother from Irene were there and they introduced us to Friends Of The Enemy, this neat hip hop group with live instruments including saxophone and flute. They say Rusted Shut (who I'd never seen but have legendary scene cred) played but all I saw was the bass player break his shit down and leave and then some guy doing 45 seconds snippets of death blues, talking all drunkedly "this is a song by (insert name of obscure bluesman here)" BRANG BRANG, SCRUNCH CHUNK... BRANG... "and this is a song by (insert name of some other obscure bluesman here)" BRANG BRANG, SCRUNCH CHUNK... BRANG... for about 15 minutes. I guess that was his schtick though, because as I was leaving, Guy, Roger and some others got up and started playing with him. Hey I can apprectiate even Jandek but I'm still not sure he isn't just putting us all on. And it was 2am anyway.
Stay tuned for continuing adventure into the Houston music scene including trips to Rudz, Ifest, and the Rhythm Room.
peace
Mark
Posted by mlandrum at 12:13 | Comments (0)
17, 2005
Entry Numero Uno - Blogs, Rudz, & other New Stuff
Welcome to the blog! Everyone has one. Ian has one, my sister has one, Kevin Smith has one with a little too much information but I can't stop reading them so maybe I'll give it a try. We'll see...we'll see...
I worked all weekend installing this cool new php photo gallery database. I'm getting real good, I think I only had to re-install it three times.
http://houstonbands.net/cpg132/
I wasted a lot of time trying to get the look to match my site and I think it turned out all right. I may tweak it once more. Really it only took me one day. But then I had to finish up the pics to put in it on Sunday.
It is currently loaded with pics from Rudz featuring The Buddhacrush & Vibe Committee. Great show. I got to meet Mary Lee too! She's The Buddhacrush's manager. She was fun, as were the bands.
The photo database is also currently accepting new members so if you have a few pics to post check it out. It also takes audio and video but I'm not ready to let that cat out of the bag yet.
Lemme know what you think about the pics, there's a big smudge on my lens if you look close on a few. So these are not the best I've done but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve for my already obsolete digital camera for next time. And yes, there will be a next time. I did two weekends in a row with South By Due East and The Rudz show. Too bad I couldn't make the Tsunami benefit but I had to deal with a faulty hard drive. Always fun, that is.
Look for more site announcements soon. Thanks to my helpful brother we've got just about everything squared away for another ramping up of features on HoustonBands.Net. Like the new Search by Band box on the search page. http://houstonbands.net/search.html
Maybe I'll post something to the Certified Hobo category soon...
peace
Mark
Posted by mlandrum at 05:28 | Comments (1)