The Prole; Real Halloween; Best. Concert. Ever.; Bowling for Shawn

In real time, it's the end of another weekend. The new Arcade Fire album leaked and I was ecstatic. I've listened to it probably close to 10 times already. I put this entry off for a while just because I wanted to do justice to the Ben Folds show...

Maybe I should start doing these introductions like a syndicated TV show. I could be like Leonard Nemoy on "In Search Of" or the Cryptkeeper on "Tales From The Crypt"...

10/30

Another Monday night at the Prole...

10/31

Cindy had decided that she would go as Yoko Ono for her Halloween costume, and I thought that it'd be nifty if I went as John Lennon. So I had about an hour to spare before Dan and Kristin's Halloween party and I decided to go looking, knowing that I had a couple of backup costumes that could work.

But fuck if I could find Lennon glasses. I found a great hat; I could get Cindy to straighten my hair, it would have totally worked. Except for the glasses. Giving that up and moving back to the Royal Tenenbaums idea, I picked up a few things I had previously borrowed, but in the end there wasn't enough time to perform the requisite hair alterations, and I ended up recycling my two-year-old "The Dude" costume, which was quick, easy, and comfortable (but what that involves wearing a bath robe isn't comfortable, I ask you?).

So Cindy showed up as a very respectable Yoko, and we went on to Dan and Kristin's party, where there was plenty of food, beer, and good company. Later in the evening we rounded up the remaining party-goers and headed up to Rudz to see...

Danny & the Nightmare, featuring Daniel Johnston. It was funny to have that opportunity so soon after watching the movie. Seeing him in person, I honestly was left no more certain of the man's mental state and artistic merit than after seeing the movie, but it was still quite an interesting experience. He didn't really play any of the songs I wanted to hear, though. He did, however, put on a good show (which is more than he sometimes does, according to Cindy), and seemed to enjoy himself.

We didn't stick around too long afterwards, it being a school night and all.

11/1

Those of you who know me probably know my passion for the music of Ben Folds. Those of you who know me well probably know that Ben Folds Five is, primarily, responsible for my love of modern indie rock, and second only to the Beatles in shaping my love of music in general. I love that man and his smart ass, sentimental, acutely perceptive music.

It was with detached curiousity that I observed, a while back, that he played some shows with orchestras, particularly in Australia. He even released a DVD of one, which I had pathetically managed to not pick up in the almost year that it had been out (though not for complete lack of tryihjng). In the back of my head, though, I knew that Ben Folds+Orchestra=Awesomeness. But knowing I had no chance of being in Australia to witness such a thing first hand, I maintained that detached curiousity.

But then in August, I happened to notice that Ben had booked a date in Houston. In Jones Hall. Where the Houston Symphony performs. And that the Houston Symphony was selling the tickets.

Holy shit. Ben Folds was coming to play with the Houston Symphony.

Before I even got my shit together, Cindy had already gotten us (well, me, technically, but of course I was going to take her) a pair of tickets for my birthday.

So after waiting for three months, the day had arrived. We got all gussied up and headed downtown, parked underground, and joined an odd crowd of hipsters, high schoolers, and confused-looking middle-aged patrons of the arts that were streaming into Jones Hall. We took our seats and waited for the awesomeness. I'll just go through the set list (recorded thanks to Ben_Folds_Fan on the benfolds.org forums; also for interesting reading, check out this old fogey's snobbish thoughts).

1. "Zak & Sara": Ben enters to a dramatic orchestral swell, which fades into his rapid arpeggios that begin "Zak & Sara".
2. "Smoke": Beautiful with lots of sweet strings.
3. "All U Can Eat": Ben introduces this one by pulling a mock political speech out of his pockets and reads it. The presence of the orchestra isn't really notable here...
4. "Jesusland": Just like the album, but it's already got a great arrangement, so why fuck with success? Lonely, forlorn, and beautiful.
5. "Lullabye": Great arrangement. The original was jazzy and had strings anyway (I think); this one adds a nice soft saxophone solo.
6. "Landed": The single mix of this one had strings, and I always thought it went well with this big, sappy, optimistic song. Nothing that new here, but great live.
7. "Philosophy": Sounded great and included the traditional solo with "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Miserlou", followed by a plug for the symphony, claiming that he made easy music look hard while they made hard music look easy.
8. "Stephen's Last Night in Town": The drums did a nice job of doing the swing beat; the clarinet pulled off the solo well.
9. "Cigarette": Ben introduces this as being a single run-on sentence he took from a newspaper article, and, after his solo performance, sings the finale: "Period."
10. "Fred Jones Pt. 2": Nice, but maybe by the numbers? Except that John McCrea's harmony part was covered solo by... an instrument. Of some sort. I forget, but it was nice.
11. "Not the Same": Ben directed the audience in the harmonies, as usual. The conductor lent him a baton. The orchestra seemed amused. It was purty with the strings.
12. "The Ascent of Stan": Never really liked this song. Again, the orchestra was nice, but didn't revolutionize the song the way it did for some songs.
13. "Gracie": Tells the story about how he wrote one song about each of his kid, and how they wre born on different days and have different astrological signs.
14. "Brick": He may have given the standard introduction to this one... can't remember. This arrangement, however, was excellent. Lots of chords that aren't what you expect. Really fun.
15. "One Angry Dwarf": Reimagined as a disco album. Great arrangement.
16. "Narcolepsy": This is a song that was meant to be heard with orchestar. Big, huge, sweeping, exciting strings. And he brought out an operatic baritone to sing the backing vocals. Kick ass.
17. "The Luckiest": The encore. Nice live performance. Nothing groundbreaking, but a nice note to end on.

I'm pretty sure Jones Hall had never heard the fuck word so many times. Ben was absolutely glowing. Grinning from ear to ear. He was a kid on Christmas morning with a brand new toy. He was charming and funny and had the crowd, and some of the less stuck up members of the orchestra, eating out of his hand. This was one night when the man had to know that he had arrived.

The crowd was generally pretty good; we were pretty much all grinning from ear to ear. One douchebag called out for "Rock This Bitch". Seriously, dude? You don't yell requests at an orchestra. And "Rock This Bitch" at a Ben Folds concert is pretty much like yelling "Freebird" at any other concert. You're not funny. You're not cool. Go do something useful with your time.

Another girl, after the show was over complained that Ben didn't play "Tiny Dancer". Here's some news: it's not his song. Plus, you just had a once in a lifetime experience. Try being a little grateful, you whiny bitch.

Oh, and when I pay (or theoretically pay) a whole lot of money for concert tickets, I don't want to see some jackass usher crawl across the entire damned front row to stop someone from taking pictures. I understand that flash photography was prohibited. I understand it's distracting. But it's not half as distracting as seeing some snob on a power trip trip over people's feet five feet away from the man I paid all that money to see. If I had those front row seats, I would have been fucking furious. I would have punched that man in the balls. Hitler? No. That man? Yes. He fucking had it coming.

Those instances aside, it was wonderful seeing a show where the music could be taken seriously, where people were quiet and respectful and appreciated the music.

And the sound. Oh sweet Jesus, the sound. It took about a minute for the sound guy to get the balance right between Ben's vocals (amplified), piano (amplified), and orchestra (au naturale). Once he got it, though, wow. I've listened to some many shows over crappy PAs, which is almost always bad. The best you can hope for is inoffensive. But to hear the orchestra backing Ben in an acoustically excellent space, unamplified. The bass was perfect. The bass is never perfect at a normal concert. It's boomy, it's one-note, it's muddy. It caught me off guard.

As I said when I was admonishing the ungrateful chick, this was an incredible opportunity. I can't remember any concert I've enjoyed more, and I don't think anything will ever top this. Wow.

11/2

Sabrina arranged a get-together in celebration of Shawn's birthday, and while Cindy and my working schedules precluded making it to the dinner at Chuy's, we caught up with the group at the bowling alley to bowl a few frames and drink a few beers. We closed the place down before calliing it a night.

Also, Cindy lent a friend of a friend of Sabrina's a stethoscope for some kind of residency interview. Aren't those things like #2 pencils? Don't they have a big box of them, freshly sharpened, sitting by the door?

Bryan and Halloween Weekend

Well, here in real-time land, it's MLK day, and I've been a little under the weather. Jury's still out on whether I'm really sick or just have a confluence of various crappy feelings, but I'm feeling better. On to the blogging...

10/23-25

I'm sure stuff happened on these days, but I really can't remember. It was right before my credit card rolled over to the next month, so I could have been conserving funds...

10/26

Will IMs me and asks if I want to go on a comic store run, which of course I do. Afterwards we try out Prince's, a diner-style burger joint. Certainly they nailed the diner part, and Will's malt was impressive, but their burgers didn't knock me over.

Afterwards, home for a while before it's time to pick up Bryan from the airport. He was coming into town just in time to catch Voxtrot over at Walter's, but... he didn't. There are weather delays, and, tragically, we miss the band. Instead, I took Bryan to Tapatia for some dinner (and a michelada for me), where Cindy met us post-show before we head on to the Prole to hang out for a while.

10/27

It's a good Friday afternoon for skipping out of school a little early, so Bryan picks me up and, after a quick Wendy's run for his lunch, we meet up with Phil at the Ginger Man in the village and knock back a few, including trying some of the pumpkin brews they have on hand. Next we proceed to Hans', where we have some more and enjoy sitting outside despite the (as the Arcade Fire would put it) cold wind blowin'.

Cindy meets us at Hans' before we head to Star to meet Brina and Shawn for dinner. In addition to the now traditional salsa verde pizza, Cindy talks us into the Joe's (spinach and garlic), half with bacon (and half without to maek sure Sabrina doesn't get trychonosis). The bacon adds a nice smokiness to the spinach and garlic, pleasing many of us. Pitchers of Shiner are also consumed.

After that, Phil, Bryan, Cindy and I continue on to the Warehouse to catch Broken Social Scene. Do Make Say Think opens and sound... very Broken Social Scene-ish. As for the main act, well... they're never going to top that kick ass show that we saw at the Proletariat, with a ton of audience members crammed into the tiny room, and a ton of band members crammed onto a tiny stage, and Stars opening. The show was OK, but chalk another mediocre set up to the Warehouse's deplorable sound.

Phil's got to be up early to catch some soccer the next morning, so we call it a night after that.

10/28

After an aborted attempt at going to Reggae Hut (closed on weekends, tragically), we are joined by some of Sabrina's law school crew and fall back on the old standby of Niko Niko's, where I try their meatballs wih feta (excellent!).

Next we retire to my place to watch the Royal Tenenbaums and get into character for our Halloween costumes. We gather up a few items from my place, make stop-offs at Target and Walmart, and then go to Sabrina's house.

Part of the plan involved Sabrina flattening my hair, which she did, and I looked like a fucking rock star. We go to meet Lisa and friend at Teala's for a good but pricey Mexican dinner (I should note that we had previously eaten there before the last Broken Social Scene show). I have something that involves a chicken breast, a whole lot of melted cheese, and some peppers, which is certainly tasty.

We returned to Sabrina's, finish readying ourselves, and embark for Viraj's final (?) halloween party. I begin to work on getting thoroughly trashed. The party was good, with plenty of good costumes (my favorite was the girl that came as spinach infested with E. Coli). We ultimately lose best group costume to the unimaginative and poorly executed Fanta girls, and baby Jesus cries. Oliver's date is dressed in a suspiciously similar fashion to his date the previous year, making us wonder just who is coming up with the costumes. Much beer is consumed. I flit around like the social butterfly I am.

Once things start to wind down we head north, past downtown in search of a difficult-to-find wearhouse that has been rented out by the U of H student bar association, where more things are drunk, lots of people get our costumes (which is awesome), and a generally good time is had by all.

10/29

I do laundry either at the apartment or at Susan and Jerry's; Cindy comes over; we watch TV.

Rocking & Headache; Afghani and BtS; Grey's & Beer; Downing & Sweater; Devil & Daniel Johnston; Okkervil & Jenny

10/17

More band practice, followed by a bad neck ache thingy.

10/18

Way back in '04 when I visited Thom in Boston, he and Ali took me out for "terrorist food" at an Afghani restaurant. The food was spectacular, and when I returned to Houston I immediately asked Citysearch where I might find such food in Houston, only to be greated with its cold, digital reply that there was none to be found.

Two years later, I happen to be reading the Houston Press and see a writeup on a new Afghani place that had opened up out West. I made a mental note, and suggested it to Cindy for this particular occasion.

Afghan Tandoori King was unassuming, in a small strip center. The interior was spacious, sparse, and the restaurant wasn't particularly busy. We were quickly seated by an enthusiastic waitress. I ordered a squash and yogurt appetizer that was in theory the same as the pumpkin-based dish we had ordered in Boston, but not as tasty. I ordered a chicken dish served with rice, carrots, and golden raisins; it wasn't particularly impressive. Cindy did much better, ordering something akin to wontons or pot stickers, filled with a very mediterranean array of meet, veggies, and sauce. That dish was much closer to the cuisine we had in Boston.

Our enthusiastic waitress pushed dessert quite heavily, so we accepted. It was good, if different. Sort of a pudding, but beraing a fairly unique selection of spices (though I think I've had something simpler in Indian cuisine).

All in all, not as good as the place in Boston, but I think I owe them a second visit.

Afterwards we took off to go see Built to Spill at the (blech) Warehouse. We got there about 10 or so, not expecting the show to start until 10:30 or 11:00, only to find the band already in their second song as we entered.

We got reasonably up front, emulating the strategy that worked so well at the Gnarls Barkley show. But Buil to Spill are a band very much dependent on sonics, and in an environment as harsh as the Warehouse, they just weren't as good as when I had seen them in better venues.

It was worth going, though, to hear them play their almost-forgotten "Nowhere Nothing Fuckup", adapted from the Velvet Underground's "Oh, Sweet Nothin'". Also, I felt vidincated when Doug thanked us for coming to hear what it would be like if they "played in a giant shower".

10/19

Cindy comes over to watch Grey's Anatomy and drink beer. No one is shocked.

10/20

Cindy and I decided to check out Good Co. Hamburgers & Taqueria, as part of our continued search for the best burgers in Houston. The interior was definitely very taqueria, and there was a nice patio in the back dominated by a huge fountain. The burger setup was very Fudruckers, with all the fixins in a salad bar setup. The burgers themselves were tasty, probably on par with Beck's Prime, with some nice mesquite (?) smoked flavor. The atmosphere at Goode Co. probably pushed it ahead. Both places are maybe a little pricey for fast food-ish burgers, but a whole step ahead of most fast food chains, and maybe a half step ahead of Whataburger.

Afterwards, another night at Downing St. with Angela, the Marshes, the Bakers, and Char... except, they turned me away at the door for wearing a t-shirt. Guy inside is wearing fucking scrubs and I can't get in in a t-shirt and jeans? Fuck you, Downing Street, and in particular, fuck you, asshole door guy who probably singled me out because I was white. Yes, I went there.

Char saw us walk away, and arranged to bring me... a woman's sweater. Yep. Thankfully, it was big. Black. Plain. A little tight, maybe, but not particularly affeminate. So I put it on and the asshole door guy let me in.

But beer and cigars (surprisingly reasonably priced at the in-store humidor) made that all better...

10/21

Cindy and I decided on a movie night, and, after some debate, settled on watching the documentary The Devil & Daniel Johnston. I had heard of the man, as Guster (and a whole bunch of other notable bands) had performed covers of his songs on a tribute disc, and Dan and Kristin had gone to see a play about him, and I knew him to be a somewhat crazy songwriter.

By then end, I felt like I knew him intimately. An eccentric kid who made outsider art and wrote simple songs, he somehow ended up in Austin after briefly working for a travelling carnival, and then followed the local scene before frying his brain a bit with LSD. After that a bipolar disorder dominated his life and led to frequent delusions that the devil was all around him, haunting him and the people he loved. But enough people (musicians in particular) liked his music that he developed a following, which exploded when Kurt Cobain wore one of his t-shirts on MTV.

In the end, I couldn't really tell whether he was an eccentric outsider artist who developed this persona, or an idiot man-child whose condition was exploited to the success of his art, and a question I still can't answer even after seeing him live.

10/22

Look, I have nothing personal against Jenny Lewis. I'm sure she's talented and her fans have legitimate reasons for liking her solo work and her work with her band, Rilo Kiley.

But she doesn't hold a candle to Okkervil River. And when I miss a chance to see Okkervil river headline because their headlining show was cancelled and they were moved to an opening slot for Jenny Lewis's show, I get fucking pissed off.

I'm sure it was a financially beneficial arrangement for all parties involved. I'm sure it made complete logical sense to the bands and the promoters.

But fuck you, Jenny Lewis and Super Unison, for depriving me of an Okkervil River headlining set. Fuck you for promoting a steaming pile of mediocrity over one of the most interesting and talented bands to emerge this decade. And fuck you, fans of steamping piles of mediocrity, for making it all possible.

But we went anyway. I mean, hell, it's Okkervil river, right?

And it was a beautiful night. First cold night of the year, which is an occasion for me to be happy. Cold weather energizes me and makes me giddily happy to be alive. It makes me wonder if I would be genuinely a more well person if I lived somewhere that wasn't Texas. It was a beautiful night to be out, and catch a short set by a great band, and then hang out on the patio drinking beer and bloody marys while the fools inside listed to Jenny Lewis.

Cindy picked up a sweet collection of prints by Will Sheff. His art is a little violent and psychotic for me, but it's good, and I think it will be a neat thing for Cindy to use to decorate her apartment. I had to prod a little, but the collection was $30 for 10 or so prints, and though that's a lot of money, it was a good deal, and I reminded Cindy that she was paying less than 1% per print of what I had payed for my art.

I wanted to pick up their Australian tour EP, which has the great "Love to a Monster" and "The President's Dead" on it, but I guess it's called Australian for a reason. I've since remedied that situation through other venues, but it was a bit disappointing at the time.

Still, a great night out. Even with fucking Jenny Lewis fucking headlining.

(Nothing personal, Jenny, I swear, although the award for hottest indie rock redhead still goes to Neko Case. But seriously. Nothing personal. You were just the beneficiary of bad circumstances, and an easy target for my wrath.)

The Hold Steady; The Thermals; The Bound Stems; iPod; Conference, Two Gallants and Police Brutality; The Departed; Cooking (Wings)

It was the super hardcore week of concerts, the last the most shockingly hard of them all...

10/9

I had first listened to the world's greatest bar band's (the Hold Steady) newest album on the way to the retreat the previous Friday and liked it immediately. Songs about drinking and drugs and hooking up and romance and the revelations that come about as a result of the above are featured prominently, and the entire thing wrapped up in easy to listen to mainstream rock hooks that wouldn't be out of place on a Counting Crows album.

So obviously the ideal way to see the band is at a place like Walter's—a dingy, low-lit dive with cheap, crappy beer. As luck would have it, that's exactly where they played. The cheap beer gave me the perfect buzz with which to appreciate the music, and, well, the concert was pretty much exactly what I expected—great rock, a great band, a great show.

10/10

Honestly, I barely remember this one. I'm not that familiar with the band, and I recall enjoying the show, at least. I do know it was at the Proletariat, and as it was a Tuesday, I probably had a Sparks to wake me up a bit.

10/11

Dan really loved these guys after catching them at SxSW, and while their EP didn't hook me, their album did. So I was excited at the chance to see them, which I also have to thank Dan for as he apparently suggested that the Prole book them.

The music is... difficult to describe. The bound stems are all about moments. Good moments. Moments that you could build a whole song around. Instead, they stuff a whole bunch of them in one song. Some work, some don't, but all you have to do is hold out a little because a good one is bound to be around the corner. There are elements of normal indie rock, some electronic manipulation, and maybe a little math rock.

Despite a relatively positive review on Pitchfork (maybe they're not the tastemakers they used to be, especially as evidenced by their bizarre best of 2006 list), the crowd was sparse. But god bless 'em, the band was very appreciative of the crowd they drew. Dan got a shoutout for his mad skillz behind the mixer, which, if it wasn't enough that the band was playing, completely made his night. The show itself was great, replicating their album well with the added energy of a live show, but removing some of the ponderous spoken samples that weighed their album down a bit.

At the end of the show, their female vocalist announced that we could support the band in one of two ways: buy their album, or give them a place to sleep. I attempted both, and succeeded in buying their album, but they got a better sleeping offer. I just can't top a guest room, but that was ok; everyone involved was better off. But at least I offered, right?

Anywyay, everyone should check them out. Great music, great, super nice people. What more can you ask for?

10/12

It was the night off from shows. Apple had, not too long before, announced the new generation of iPod nanos, which managed to increase storage space, and offered improved durability in a scratch-resistant aluminum shell. Despite my slight guilt over my past tendency to run out and grab any new iPod which was available (although in my defense, I skipped generation 2, the color version of generation 4, generation 5, the iPod mini, and the new iPod shuffle), once I found a buyer for my old nano in Angela, I braved the rain and went to Best Buy to buy the new nano with some gift certificates and the cash from the sale of my old one in hand. In addition, they had an insanely cheap price on the new Decemberists album, and the new Beck albumw as available as well, so I picked both of them up to add to my Best Buy tab.

10/13

The Agency That Funds Me (TATFM) had their annual retreat actually in the med center this year, which minimized driving, and even had free parking for us, which allowed driving in the first place, and God bless 'em for both those things. I showed up a bit late, because I could, put up my poster, hung around a while, and then Graham, Tiffany, Char, Jeff and I took off, first for a coffee shop (as I had some things I had wanted to work on and once again was at a conference without wireless), though the internet wasn't exactly working in the traditional sense, and then went to another coffee shop to work (which, it turns out, didn't have internet at all). Lunch at Brasil was good. Tiffany and I split a pizza, though it may have been a bit granola for her.

After that back to the conference for a bit, then I grabbed my car and went home for a while (it was so nice to have that option) to "get some work done" before returning in time for the happy hour with the free beer, and dinner, catered by Treebeard's. I wasn't overly impressed, but, hey, free meal. Dinner over, I snuck out during the keynote, went home, and grabbed a nap.

Char made arrangements for a whole mess o' people at a wine bar (the Tasting Room, maybe?). I think Graham and Angela had actually made the choice, as it was within walking distance for them. In addition to them, Cindy, and myself, other Angela was there, some first and second years, Kim, Oliver and Oliver's New Girl, and Char were there. We filled up a big table, and started putting away the bottles.

But Cindy and I tooke off to go see Two Gallants. Having been super impressed with them the first time I saw them and liking their recorded output subsequent to that, but not being overly impressed with their next show in Houston, I figured they'd at least be worth catching.

I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

Cindy and I got there. Dan and Kristin and a whole mess o' other people were there. The show was going great. It was great music and exciting and the duo was executing flawlessly.

Then I looked out the door of Walter's and saw a police car pulling up.

This was odd, of course, so I kind of kept an eye on the door. A young, large, latino officer with a shaved head came through the door, exchanged a few words with the door guy, and then started making his way to the front of the room, shining his flash light. I thought maybe he was lookin for underage kids there or something? At the time, that was the best guess I had.

But then he got up to the front of the room. And climbed on stage. He exchanged a few words with the Gallants' guitarist, who continued playing the instrumental bridge of the song they had been playing when he arrrived. The cop then grabbed the guitar, and the guitarist pulled back on it.

In the blink of an eye, the guitarist was on the ground, taken down by the cop. I backed up, because God knows what was going on there. A woman's voice authoritatively told us to toss our drinks and get out, and for some reason I thought maybe there was some weird liquor license thing going on, so I exited immediately.

In my absence, apparently crowd members tryed to pull the cop off the band, which was dumb but maybe justifiable, as it probably looked like he was going to kill them. It was then that the cop broke out the tazer. A guy that was taking pictures (and would later be arrested for something vague like "interfering with an officer's duties" got shoved by the cop into a century-old upright bass belonging to the opening band. Various members of the audience were harrased. a 14-year-old boy, there with his parents, got tazered. At some point the cop started chasing the guitarist with a tazer. The guitarist went behind the bar, hopped it, and then took off running out the front door.

Meanwhile, I was outside; Cindy, Dan and Kristin were still inside. More cars had showed up (four or five at that point). I saw the guitarist take off running out of the front door and off down the street. It was probably around this time that some audience members got arrested, some of whom were just asking what was going on, though undoubtedely not in the most respectful of tones. I was hanging out off to the side, about to go in looking for Cindy when she came out. We hung around for a while when we were told we could go inside and close tabs, and since I'm rather fond of my credit card I opted to do so, noting the broken bass on the floor.

We walked across the street to our cars, wondering aloud what the fuck had just happened, but taking off rather quickly rather than risk being singled out by any of the 20 or so cops that were swarming the place, opting to wind down at Rudz.

The story of what happened would come out over the next weeks and months. Apparently there were pretty much nightly noise complaints from some assholes who had moved in behind the bar and were shocked that they would be able to hear the music from the fucking rock venue adjacent to them. And apparently that particular cop had harrased Walter's patrons before. And there were all kind of other stories:

• Chronicle Handstamp blog entry with video


• Chron blog entry with e-mail criticizing the Chronicle's coverage of the story


• Chron blog entry referencing Chron story on Walter's and noise complaints


• Pitchfork interview with the band


• Interview with the band in Rolling Stone


• Two Gallants forum thread on the incident


• Heavily linked-to account on Dan's blog

It was, really, a fairly traumatic experience to see those tasked with keeping law and order escalate a situation into violence. I hope the band gets some justice in all of this. I hope this doesn't scare too many bands away from Texas, though certainly there's evidence it already has. Finally, I hope that, whatever happens, life is a little worse for that asshole of a cop and that he regrets abusing his power the way he did. Of course, a lot of this hasn't been taken seriously because the people who were there were a couple of hippy musicians from San Francisco, a bunch of kids who don't contribute much to Houston's coffers, and a whole bunch of cops, and everyone knows rock and roll is lawless, rebellious, troublesome music anyway.

Fuckin' a, man, fuckin' a.

10/14

Cindy and I met her brother up at the I-10 Edwards to see The Departed which was certainly well-acted, if a bit... opaque.

10/15

I decided to try my hand at making buffalo wings (of the boneless variety). Some breaded and fried chicken breast chunks, some melted butter, some Louisiana hot sauce, some celery sticks, and some bleu cheese dressing, and I was in business. Not bad for a first effor, though I could probably improve on both the breading and the sauce...

TV; Rocking, Cigars; Preparation; Retreat; The Morning After, Mom & Dad, Lizard; Lunch, Sabrina, Home

10/2

TV; Heroes, probably.

10/3

Band practice. Char had proposed a cigar night, so afterwards I met he, Cindy, and Angela at Downing Street for beer and burning things.

10/5

I had been busily working on some Real Work for school, so I hastily made some revisions to an old poster to have something ready for our program retreat.

10/6

Showed up a little late to the retreat. Disappointingly, Columbia Lake had not added wireless internet access in the two and a half years since we had las been there. What is this, 1999? So I contended myself with some reading and napping until the evening came.

Sadly, some fascist somewhere decided to cut the beer from the poster session, so things remained dry up to dinner. Once dinner time came, The beer was flowing, so we started imbibing the free Shiner, went back to our room to pregame, had some shots and more beer, and then went to join the Official Party.

It was a pretty good time, all things considered. Sadly, Char and Graham weren't present, but we had plenty of other partyers around. I got thoroughly drunk. Pool and mini-shuffleboard were played. I got more drunk. I think somebody bought a round of shots at the bar. I may have even danced a little.

And then the keg was floated. Somebody had announced over the PA that the afterparty was in our room. So we went back there. But then people didn't really show up, so Oliver and I went on a fact-finding mission, found the other party, and were going back to get everybody else when it turned out they had gotten impatient and found us. A good time was had, and this year it wasn't our room that was trashed, which is always good.

And then off to bed...

10/7

I woke up early with my neck bothering me, which meant that I didn't go back to sleep. I eventually gave up on sleeping and went to shower, both hungover and with the horrible pain in my neck. A quick vomit helped, but there was still the neck thing to deal with, and there was no way I could make it through more talks that morning.

Luckily, I'm a pro. I managed to show up just as a session was ending, snuck in the side door, went into the entry way to sign in, looking like I had been there all along, returned to the lecture hall, and snuck out through the side door to check out of my room and drive home.

I was just getting into my bed to take a nap when my parents called, and hey, they were at my apartment complex. A couple that they had known from many years back at church were in town for treatments at MD Anderson, and were actually staying in my complex, so I pulled myself together and went downstairs to join the four of them for lunch.

After lunch, they came up and checked out my apartment, which they hadn't seen in two and a half years or so. They liked the new TV and thankfully didn't realize how much of the stereo equipment was new and, well, expensive.

Dad went on back to my Aunt and Uncle's, and mom road with me. I did laundry and we all had dinner there.

Notes indicate we went to Lizard Lounge. Likely candidates for that are Cindy, and maybe Char, and Angela, as well. But honestly, I can't remember that well...

10/8

I went out to Susan and Jerry's to have lunch with them and the parents. On the way home I went by Sabrina's place to see her as she had been going through some tough things and I hadn't made it out to see her yet. After that, home to enjoy the rest of my Sunday.

The Prole; Rocking; Heroes; GSC Happy Hour and Magnolia Electric Co.; Get Your War On and Mai's; Serena Maneesh; Dinner

9/25

Another night at the Prole with Dan DJing...

9/26

And another night of band practice...

9/27

Heroes, from its rather pedestrian beginnings as a standard comic book story, has been coming into its own, now that it has developed its charactyers and introduced compelling mysteries, rather than just showing dramatic visuals and having plot points that seem significant, but God knows why. For this week's viewing, thanks to the magic of DVR I delayed it a few days until Cindy could join me for it.

9/28

The end of the first term of the school year brought, as usual, a graduate student council happy hour. Char arranged for us to return to the inviting environs of Hans' Bier Haus, complete with cheap Zigen Bock and several platters from Buffalo Wild Wings. There was plenty of beer, good, and socializing to be had.

In a bittersweet turn of events, though, Magnolia Electric Co. had a show scheduled at Rudz that night, which I had almost forgotten as it hadn't made my calendar. Thankfully I had remembered the day before, so we made an early exit from the happy hour and headed to Rudz.

As I've mentioned before, Rudz has a great little venue upstairs, and a perfect place to see MECo play. Some guy at the table next to Cindy and I bought us beers, for some reason. I offered a round to the band but they declined. By the time I went on I had a nice buzz on, and we moved up close to enjoy the show.

They played a longer show than the extremely short shows from the last tour, but once again it was a bit short on the older material and too heavy on the newer material. They were tight as always, but I think that the fact that their new album hadn't made a big impression on me detracted somewhat from the experience.

Still, a good show, all in all. By the time we got around to leaving, the happy hour was over, so we didn't get to drop back by, but it was a good evening all told.

9/29

Somewhere Cindy had heard about the stage adaptation of the comic strip Get Your War On by Austin troupe the Rude Mechanicals, playing at Houston art venue Diverse Works, so she arranged an outing for us, roommate Sara and boyfriend Bryan, and a friend of hers from school.

We met at Cindy's, carpooled to Diverse Works, which was just north of downtown in a converted warehouse (as so many cool things are), grabbed a beer, and then some seats.

The production was good. The adaptation basically took strips from specific dates (announced at each "scene change"), and, as they're pretty much dialogue-driven, had the actors recite the dialogue from the script, which worked quite well when delivered with the proper tone and emphasis on the word "fuck" which was frequently in the strip. Certainly it was more of a stand-up routine than story-driven theater, but it was also well-done and very funny. Good job, kids.

There was an accompanying art exhibit which we checked out afterwards (my favorite was the mushroom cloud treehouse). Then on to Mai's for some post-game dinner. A good evening, and something different.

9/30

Serena Maneesh had put out a good shoegazer album in '05, so I was glad for the chance to hear them play at the Proletariat. The show was good if maybe by-the-numbers. I was going to buy their album, but the greedy bastards had priced it at $15, or maybe higher. However much it was, at the time I deemed it way too expensive and decided to pass on it.

If anyone reading this is in a band, $15 is too much to charge for a CD at shows. $12 is acceptable. $10 is encouraged. $8 will guarantee lots of sales.

10/1

Cindy, good girlfriend that she is, made dinner. Maybe blackened catfish?

Best Buy; Kings of Leon; Architecture in Helsinki; Reggae Hut; Girl Talk

Back in Houston now, and taking an extra day off (shh!). I'll try to get a couple posts in.

9/18

Once again to Best Buy to get a little more money back on my TV before the 30-day price matching period was up.

I also checked out their new in-store Magnolia home theater store. It was a definite step up from the current audio experience at Best Buy, which has gotten steadily worse, and is particularly bad in my store where most of the speakers are sort of piled up in a sad little room at the back and not even hooked up.

The Magnolia store was small, though, focused much more on video than audio, and lacked a variety of audio brands. An improvement for Best Buy, but probably nothing that necessitated a sepparate store.

9/19

Cindy and I had been given tickets to a free Kings of Leon show. It was apparently some sort of service industry thing being held at the Meridian, but people who had tickets to give out were having trouble getting rid of them; hence we ended up with them. So we figured we'd check it out.

After eventually finding parking (no sense paying for parking for a free show).

It was fucking packed. Apparently they didn't have that much trouble getting rid of the tickets. And, honestly, the band kind of sucked. Well, maybe they didn't, but the combination of an annoying audience and a band with which I was not faimiliar didn't exactly make us want to stick around.

9/20

The next night was better, featuring Architecture in Helsinki's triumphant return to houston. K Record's The Blow opened up, in alternate solo form rather than as their normal duo. Alternating between charming naivete/indifference and an annoying lack of polish and over-artsiness, I ultimately wasn't impressed with their low-fi spoken word/rap but didn't hate them either.

Architecture in Helsinki came on next and put on a good show, though perhaps lacking some of the magic of their previous show at Walter's. It was enjoyable, though, and their new material had definite potential.

9/23

Our return to Reggae Hut came in the form of takeout, which Cindy picked up. We refined our order, settling on one order of jerk chicken with an extra side of their great veggies, and opting to try out their "empanadas" (they corrected Cindy when ordering, referring to them as "beef patties", which is a little too close to "cow patties" in my mind), which were nicely seasoned. Always a good meal...

9/24

For the Prole's birthday celebration, they had managed to snag indie mashup sensation Girl Talk. Cindy and I went; the usual suspects were there, and Jeff dragged Jim along. Jim looked thoroughly miserable the entire evening, though I'm not really sure why he didn't like the mix 'n match take on the past 20 years or so of pop and rock.

Girl Talk was incredible, but I'm not sure I can explain why as he just reproduced the album live. The thing with laptop music is that he could have just bee plaing it straight off the CD for all we know, but he looked like he was staying busy making the music happen.

I, for my part, got nice and trashed, and Cindy was treated to Dancing Ward, making a rare appearance. Great music + drunkeness = fun.