interrobang (‽)

I’m not the biggest Muse fan (only owning Absolution), but I’ve heard they do a good live show, so when they came through Houston last summer I was going to go and give them the benefit. However, I then found out that they were supporting U2 and I’d rather have my ears piped with fresh dogturd than sit through a U2 gig, so I didn’t go. I guess I could have just left after Muse, but TicketMaster wouldn’t agree to my stipulation that none of my ticket price would go to U2 if I didn’t stay for their set, so […]

Given that I had to back out of the last two gigs in Houston that I had tickets for (Gomez, and Green Day) because I was sent to Chicago on gig-day, I was super-bummed to learn that my current loves, The Decemberists, were playing Houston when I was, yet again, in Chicago. But as I was scheduled to be up here for five weeks, I decided I may as well see if there was anyone interesting playing in Chi-Town (correctly pronounced shit-town, Colin Meloy was pleased to inform us) whilst I was here.  And joy of joys, I discovered that The Decemberists’ tour […]

I used to be a pretty big fan of The Cure back in the day, but I kind of gave up on them when they went all cheerful, and I haven’t bought an album of theirs since 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.  So when I heard they were coming to Houston, I was in two minds about going.  I’d more-or-less decided not to, when I bumped into a buddy, who I hadn’t seen in two years (last seen at Pukkelpop) and didn’t even know was in the country, who said he was thinking of going. So for the […]

Built To Spill are another band I can’t believe are playing venues the size of the Warehouse in Houston (albeit in the ‘Ballroom’ which is reasonably larger than the room I saw The Black Angels in).  They should be huge, and playing to an audience of thousands, not the four- or five-hundred college students who barely filled the Ballroom.
Support band was the Meat Puppets, who I knew nothing about save some notion of a tenuous link between them and Nirvana (which is itself not necessarily a good thing - Nirvana are horribly overrated).  Like Nirvana, there’s three of them (guitar/vocals, […]

Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels, I thought they’d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the chance when they came through Houston.  This was again at the Warehouse, but in a different/smaller room than the one I saw The Black Keys in - either that or they have remodeled and significantly downsized.  This time the ’stage’ (a wooden platform that stood at most a foot off the ground) was squashed in a corner of the room, and there were sofas in the ‘audience area’, which I didn’t take as a good sign.
The evening started […]

I’ve been back in Houston for four months now, and decided that it was about time I got back into the live music scene.  There was no-one I desparately wanted to see, playing, but I fancied a night out, so I took my chances with The Black Keys, at the Warehouse. 
I hadn’t heard anything by The Black Keys, but I’d heard some positive things about them, so I thought I’d give it a go.   Finding out that Dinosaur Jr. were also on the bill was the decider - although I couldn’t believe that J. Mascis & co. were relegated to […]

I’m a huge Smiths fan.  A British music journalist once said: “I feel sorry for any new band, because no matter how good they are, they’ll never be The Smiths”, and I think he was right.  Unfortunately but the time I discovered The Smiths they had split.  (During their heyday they were the sole preserve of the ‘cool kids’ at my school - of which I certainly wasn’t one…)  Morrissey is the next best thing (Johnny Marr wasting his talent in Electronic - although his contribution to The The’s Mind Bomb was a highlight), and although he went through a weak […]

Last weekend I went to the PukkelPop music festival here in Belgium.  In part this was because a good buddy of mine (Peter) was going and insisted I’d have a great time, and in part because I wanted to convince myself - having recently passed the 40 mark - that I am not too old to go to festivals (or even gigs in general, despite the wife’s insistence that I’m past it and will just be an object of ridicule to the rest of the much younger audience who probably think I’m only there to chaperone my kids).
That said, I did kind […]

Last Sunday I realised another one of my ambitions and went to see Mogwai in concert.  They were playing as part of the Domino festival in Brussels, at the Ancienne Belgique (a great venue!). Although I only cared about seeing Mogwai, I figured that while I’d forked out EUR22.00 I may as well catch some of the other bands on the bill.
I got there in time to catch Wolf Eyes, whom I’d never heard, but had read some good press on. Sadly, they turned out to be just unlistenable noise - the kind of shouty faux-deep vocals you get on […]