Ah the Rites of July. The longest time most of us ever spend trudging up and down Main Street with a piece of torn newsprint in our hands and pockets. Cameras over shoulders and bands on wrists, we spend an afternoon in the shadow of our own bitching about its shortcomings, but nevertheless emerge tanned by another year’s Houston Press Music Awards Showcase. Arriving just past four, we bumped into one of our favorites and a candidate at the Nine Oclock Spot, Sharks and Sailors. Killing time while we waited for our conspiracy wristband to arrive, we headed down to Bar Bollywood and sneaked in to catch a few seconds of Dizzy Pilot’s set.
Dizzy Pilot, it is now confirmed, is not a snapshot band. This is a good thing – you should need more than a few moments to get any level of satisfaction out of something – even a Crunch Bar, which we were hoping there would be plenty of in the heralded Rice Loft Balcony VIP bacchanalia and meat and greet.
Alas, there was not, but there was Vitamin Energy Drinks. Indeed, at first, should you want a mixed drink, it was necessary to have it served to you with either purple, red or yellow colored nutritionally balanced hyper juice. Disgusting. We do not beg, we do not choose, we drink beer instead.
While the secret source of our wristbands (who we cannot thank enough, but won’t name names so they do not get in trouble) headed over to the Hard Rock to catch the Jonx, we kept it close to tha Rail and caught the second half of the blushingly-named Whoehound’s set at the extremely well lit Live.
Whorehound is Texas Roadhouse Metal. Diesel, one legged dogs, pickup trucks with nails in the bed and FM roads you don’t much want to change your tire on after sundown. The dirt on their boots is from a storm where it rained mud; they don’t have swagger – they have rust. Their set Sunday was the best we’d ever seen them put on. If you’re looking for something heavier that nails the metal fundamentals filtered through a punk aesthetic – be sure to check them out next time they play. If you enjoy the way Golden Axe playfully appropriates the phrasings of metal into hyperdistilled small chunks, you might equally find satisfaction in the way Whorehound parses it out with a bit more heavy and a bit more evil.
Headed back to the Rice to catch up with some more folks and get the skinny on The Jonx’s set. Apparently the stage at the Hard Rock is just feet from tables where folks were enjoying an authentic Rock and Roll meal. Suddenly, we were told, these particular patrons were treated to the mathy marinade of our Best Punk nominated Heroes. It further relayed to us (dammit, why didn’t we write any of this down) that during their set finale, a looping ten minute epic whose name escapes us, a Green Day video played on the monitor behind them. Punk indeed. (The above photo of the Jonx is from
Elissa Brown’s consistently BA camera – view her
flickr collection of the afternoon here.)
At seven we headed across main to Slainte, the Irish pub which had earlier in the day been treated to the relatively more mellow sounds of Lee Alexander and Jack Saunders. Not in this time slot. Setting aside what would be a ‘normal’ performance, our grindcore heroes opted for a noise set. One that did not meet with the satisfaction of the venue’s stage manager and was shut down about seven minutes after it began. Rather than try to describe it, we urge you to simply watch
Ramon Medina’s (
Linus Pauling Quartet) video of it above (Ramon also
took pictures during the day and did a
write up for Houstoned Rocks).
Thanks to the early shut down, we were able to hit up The Wiggins for the end of his last song. Life Lounge was a reasonable enough venue, but apparently his wig was not their wag, as the audience kept their distance through his final moments (which included a unabashed discussion of his thoughts of the press, which we will summarize as ‘negative.).
Over to the Grasshopper then, the full comedic value of whose second-floor-overlook-as-stage
