Archive - Jul 2009

It's been a little over a month since Phish played the final notes of their first summer tour in five years at the beautiful Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin. We had a blast at the six shows we attended during June, and are gearing up for a little more. I'm leaving in about 3 hours to see if I can catch the earliest flight out to Denver to meet up with some old friends, and eventually Bacon later in the day.

Starting this Thursday, Phish will play four consecutive shows at Morrison, Colorado's famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and I'm the lucky recipient of a ticket to the first of the four. Thursday night will be a mind-bending experience for all Phish fans involved, new and old. And then there's three more shows...

Holy. Freaking. Shit.

The Rhombus is in Houston.  Yup, THAT rhombus... you heard it here first.  Well, maybe you heard it from Ellis Godard back in 2003? Me, Eggs, and our buddy Lance Williams took a trip to the mecca of phish-dom this past Friday to pay homage and snap a few pics.  This one is for our fellow Texas phans who are bummed, like us, that Phish choose Indio over the perfection of a festival site in the Hill Country.

Read more after the jump

A few months ago, I spent a Sunday afternoon sipping pints with half of local band Buxton during what turned out to be one of the most surreal musical experiences of my life. During conversation, Sergio (lead singer and guitarist of Buxton) had nothing but good to say about an up-and-coming band from Baytown called Ghost Mountain. He even so kindly gave me a copy of their debut LP, Siamese Sailboats, just to see what my opinion was of the budding groups sound. It took a few listens to truly appreciate what this duo had created, but the Animal Collective-like beats topped by sporadic youthful rapping was definitely a sound that was very new to my ears. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I had to miss their opening slot during Buxton's 7" release party, but hopefully they'll be hitting one of Houston's local venues again real soon. Recently, Ghost Mountain brought a few of their toys to Joe Mathlete's place for the first set of non-acoustic material from the semi-regular living room sessions that our friends over at 29-95 have been featuring on their site as of late. Video of the session follows.

I'm looking forward to seeing this "twee-hop" group sometime in the near future. They are advertising an opening slot for Joe Mathlete's group, The Mathletes, during their CD release party on August 15th that also features Young Mammals in support. See you there?

Everybody knew it was coming, so after weeks of graffic changing on Phish's official website, they finally landed on California. Set for the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, CA, home of both the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals, Phish will perform eight sets of music over Halloween weekend during what is being called Phish Festival 8. Donning a musical costume, most likely on Saturday, October 31st, Phish will cover a full album as one of their eight sets. Many people are speculating which album Phish will choose to cover over the three-day festival, but many signs are pointing towards the obvious choice, Michael Jackson's Thriller. I doubt they'll play the MJ classic, but it would be excellent to see their take on "PYT (Pretty Young Thing)" or "Beat It." Many different musical options are now taking shape for Halloween weekend throughout the States, but sorry Phish, I still think my money will go towards the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans. After ten Phish shows this summer, I think I'll be alright to skip one (or three). This still should be pretty damn fun...

The Tontons' CD Release show at the Caroline Collective should serve as a nice precursor to Houston Press's annual musical melee better know as the Houston Press Music Awards Showcase. The Tontons are up for several awards, so go check them out Saturday and Sunday, and if you like them, send your votes their way before the ballots close on the 26th.

Sunday saw the final acts grace the stages of the 2009 ROTHBURY Festival. I was able to successfully make it to a bunch of different sets over the course of the day, finally taking a break from photography duties before the days headliner, Bob Dylan. Featured in the following photographs are shots of The Hard Lessons, Toots & the Maytals, Guster, Yonder Mountain String Band, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, The Hold Steady, Matisyahu, Willie Nelson and Ani DiFranco. Warning, there's one photo that's not too safe for work...

Check out the final batch of photos from Sunday, July 5th at the ROTHBURY Festival after the jump.

The fourth and final day of the 2009 ROTHBURY Festival featured a slew of acts that I'd never caught live before, as well as a few favorites scattered in throughout the day. Top billing for the day belonged to legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, who closed The Odeum with a set full of hits. Other notable acts I caught on Sunday, July 5th include Willie Nelson, Yonder Mountain String Band, Toots & the Maytals, Ani DiFranco, The Hold Steady, Umphrey's McGee and a bunch more throughout the day.

Read all about Sunday's events after the jump

I love free music. Most importantly, I love free music from good bands. Monsters Of Folk are a pretty damn good band – well, on paper at least. I, or anyone for that matter, haven't heard any material from this folk-rock supergroup, but knowing that the project was in the works was enough to excite at least a couple music fans. The power-folk trio of Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) and M. Ward, along with multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), have an album ready for a September 22nd release, but they've gone and given us a nice little taste of what's to come by allowing the world to download their first single, "Say Please," for the always-nice price of free. It's a very strong song with strummy guitars and a rather happy subject matter (for Oberst, at least...), that sounds more like a new My Morning Jacket track than anything else. James offers strong guitar work and some random back-up vocals, while Oberst and Ward switch off the lead vocal throughout. This is a nice precursor of what's to come from the fifteen track album, and is a nice way to tide us over while we wait patiently for late September to come.

You can download "Say Please" here – all it takes is a simple "please."

We can only hope for a tour, but seriously – how nice would a show be that featured full sets by M. Ward, Bright Eyes and My Morning Jacket, followed by a closing performance from Monsters Of Folk? I'm thinking it'd probably be pretty damn good. We can only hope...

Between giggling like a school girl at the hilarious go-to 'gangsta' button, and dancing my ass off to the ridiculous beats, this might have been the most entertaining moment of ROTHBURY 2009. Chromeo performs "You're So Gangsta" for the masses at the Sherwood Court.

A booty-shakin' good time!

I'm relatively new to Houston's own folk-pop princess Elaine Greer, only ever hearing a few random tracks from her MySpace page. I wasn't expecting much of a voice from the pint-sized ukulele-sporting chanteuse, but after catching this video from our friends over at 29-95, I was immediately sold. The vid finds Greer playing through a snippet of Journey's "Small Town Girl" before being joined by News On The March's Austin Sepulvado on auxiliary percussion and back-up vocals for a run-through of a newly penned track. All going down in local musician-turned-blogger Joe Mathlete's very lucky living room, this three minutes is pure pop bliss in it's finest form.

I'm going to try and make more of an effort of covering the local scene, so if you know of something that I might like from in and around Houston, feel free to send it my way. I receive a ton of e-mail every day, so even if you don't hear back from me, that doesn't mean I'm not reading it. My focus is on all types of different music and sizes of bands, but hopefully I can do a better job in helping Houston command the respect that it deserves.