AHH. Welcome back. Atleast, that is what you might be saying to us. Yes, the holiday season was generally one long extended Shityeahturday under whose crushing weight of fun, revelry and crushes we were not well positioned to escape. Apologies to everyone that missed us while we were gone. And double plus so to all the bands that wrote us with all the things they had going on that we missed. Top of that list? The Sour Notes.

Just this last weekend they had their CD release show over at Rudz, with a bill of bills that included Listen Listen and Spain Colored Orange (more on them doing things later in the week). Though we had to take the night in, we heard report that the show was packed and that many of you have a much better insider track than we do on the goings on. Pics plz.

BUT - we are fortunate enough to tell you that, in addition to the new EP (which, is fantastic, btw, and will be coming soon to a ramble near you) our fav quartet of exiled Veronans have been up to quite a few other things. Cause you know, it ain’t enough to just put out good records for some folks.

To start with, recording a set of originals wasn’t enough, so they had to go ahead a record a much beloved Jawbreaker standard, “Accident Prone.” Yup. Grab the MP3 Here.

Oh, and what enterprising band wouldn’t take the time to make a video of one of their new tracks while they’re at it. Well, most of them it turns out, but not The Sour Notes - check this aces visualization of Is it Happening from Received in Bitterness.

‘Is It Happening?’ from The Sour Notes on Vimeo

Not enough for you? Well, you’ll have to wait a while to complain to them in person, as they’re currently in the midst of a tour taking them through the South, over to the East Coast (including a Baltimore appearance with Jana Hunter) and back again. So, if you were looking for a reason to head up to Austin on the 24th, you would be well to do so considering they’ll be up there playing (again) with Spain Colored Orange, Dizzy Pilot and We Landed on the Moon. Sadly, they have no Houston shows listed on their schedule at the moment, making it even more double plus un good that we missed their set the other night. Next time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We’ve been on the most resplendent vacation from all things requiring sitting in front of a computer (unless you count watching Ken Burns documentaries on NetFlix. Yuss Mac support). We’re rather sure you’ve been enjoying yourself and yours too, but we thought, before we launched back into it on Monday, we would put out a few random parting thoughts on 2008. Sort of like the Sammies, but instead of you voting, we exercise our most extreme party dictatorial discretion and lay it all out there. We gotta hurry up and do this, because the Sour Notes, Spain Colored Orange and Listen Listen show tonight at Rudz is gonna kinda rule and we don’t want to miss it. Unless, of course, we crack this book sitting next to us, which promises from the premise to engulf every remaining moment of our vacation.

Albums you simply must own: Just because a record does not get the big ramble treatment by us doesn’t mean that it’s not an excellent selection. Here are our picks of the Wax and Silicon of ‘08 you should decidedly be jamming.
Buxton - A Family Light
Papermoons - New Tales
Indian Jewelry - Free Gold
The Sour Notes - The Meat of the Fruit
Woozyhelmet - Get Down
Hearts of Animals - 7″
Born Liars - Don’t Tell Me, I Know 7″
Powerhouse - Yeah!
Flowers to Hide - Down the Stairs

Best things ever:
The Skyline Wiki: A wiki is the sandbox model of the internet at its best: build something for others to play in. And be it seriously detailed entries on bands and releases from the recent past, straight up informational pages, or categories and one-liners dripping with collective (though admittedly insider) hilarity, few things have given us as much joy (or occupied as much of our lunch hours) as browsing through random pages and checking out whatever’s been added since the last time we looked.

Record labels: There are quite a number of labels in this town, some doing a small number of releases for a small roster of bands, while others have some rather hefty momentum behind them and don’t seem construed to too particular a membership. And, they’re doing vinyl batches. That sell out. As in you need to buy them immediately upon release. Specifically, we’re thinking about Ditchwater, AG82 and most of all Dull Knife. We hope they keep it up, because we’ve sure enjoyed their output.

How the city handled IKE: Real talk. Houston is the nation’s fourth largest city. If NYC or LA or Chicago went without power for weeks and weeks, there would have been massive chaos, looting, rioting, and general uncoolness. We all kinda took in in stride. Good work us.

Best new joint: Big Star Bar. Because every night looks like this:

photo by settle down brown

Bands that should keep up the good work: Buxton, Something Fierce, Indian Jewelry - Writing good songs, putting on good shows, building a fan base, releasing records and touring. It doesn’t sound like rocket science, but it doesn’t seem like too many other folks are aiming for a moonshot.

Bands that need to release a record: Spain Colored Orange, Satin Hooks, Elaine Greer, Cop Warmth - Sure, SCO has an EP out, and we’ve heard that it’s more label issues than anything that delaying the release of their 2006-completed Sneaky Like a Villain, but everyone else - what gives? Satin Hooks - put out a 7″. Elaine Greer - Get in the studio. Cop Warmth, your shows are annoying beyond our crotchety ability to attend them anymore, so you must put out records in order that we may enjoy you.

Bands that should be wary of Houston’s tendency to hype you to death and then get bored with you: News on the March, Wild Moccasins, Young Mammals, BLACKIE, Cop Warmth - We’re not saying that you’ve drank the kool-ade or are even in danger of doing so. Just don’t.

Things that we wish there were more of: Blogs or websites or publications of some sort that talk about more of the music that’s out there besides the scene we cover. Sure, it’s whips that so many folks are similarly stoked on the same slice of music that we are in this town, and we are by no means the first to have written about it, but where are the sites that we can go to to learn about noise, grind, metal, underground hip-hop, Navy rock, etc? There are bands that fill up Fitzgerald’s every night and yet there’s no place we can find to go get the news and reviews of whats going on in that scene. Big Ups to Houston’s Most Hated for starting to bring more of the dance-y side of things into the light.

Biggest Disappointment: Rudyard’s. We can remember great cheap nights at this place, watching some of the biggest up and comer bands and having an absolutely whips time. Not so much lately, in spite of their still having one of the most solid crews of bartenders in the city. On New Year’s Eve, just two nights ago, the opening act was literally a Christian Folk Duo. Now, there is nothing wrong with sacred music or folk music or any kind of music, but if there was more of a downer way to end off the year than two people solemnly harmonizing about the River Jordan, we can’t think of one. Horrible.

HOWDY! How was your Christmas/Haunakah? Sorry if you aren’t a celebrator of either of these fine holidays. Allow us to offer you a cup of joe from the fine new Skyline Network Office Coffee Maker as a consolation prize. Oh man, this thing rules. It works like a soda dispenser: No Carafe. The Future Is Now. But as the slow warm glow of opening and enjoying gifts wears off, there are other presents to unwrap, those of a musical nature. Lets pick em up and shake:

FRIDAY
Golden Axe, No Talk, Bald Eagle Burger and Burn The Boats @ Walter’s on Washington
As we previously mentioned, this is the first of two No Talk shows this week/end that will feature master of shredermonies Warren Hatfield (Golden Axe, Valiant Thor) on guest guitar. Bald Eagle Burger, if the tracks they have posted online is any indication, is a sort of weirdo political funk act. For some reason it makes us think of Sprawl. We can’t quite put our finger on the connection. That reminds us, did you know that a retrospective Sprawl live record came out this year? We kinda dropped the ball on that one. Nautically themed metal with a good wind in their sails Burn the Boats opens. Why is there no Sea Shantie Metal?

Finnegan, Jim and the Toms, The Plague, Sara Van Buskirk, City of Compton, Brandon Elam, Dave Rask @ Avant Garden
Like we said before, we can’t speak for anyone else on the bill, not being familiar with them yet, we’ve heard some great tracks from Finnegan, a sort of ‘when folks are in town’ project that features, among others, Noted DESTROY ALL SNARES drummer Matt Tantillo (Paris Falls, Defend the Ghetto). This sounds, NOTHING like anything Matt’s been kickin it for before, and has a pastoral almost folky (though not folksy) vibe to it. Looking forward to checking it out in person.

SATURDAY
Benefit for Airon Paul Dugas @ Walters on Washington
Airon Paul Dugas is a local musician who’s stock was most assuredly rising fast in our portfolio. On December 14th, he was struck by a motorist while riding his scooter, and sustained a rather nasty list of injuries (ATTN CAGERS: PLEASE BE MORE CAREFUL AND KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR US). To help with the inevitable stack-up in bills (to say nothing of lost work time), some of his friends (also some of our favorites) are throwing a show to kick into the kitty as much as they can. $10 gets you in the door and gets you the warm fuzzies as you enjoy the non-catastrophic sounds of Paris Falls, Dannzig (a Danzig cover act featuring members of The Jonbenet, Monocles and others), Guitars, Teenage Kicks, Wild Moccasins, Friendship and others (we are told). They’ll be free Amy’s Ice Cream on hand, as well as a free Keg (hopefully not both at the same time though, gross), as well as a distro setting up shop with proceeds benefited to Airon. Oh, and raffles for cool stuff like free time with a tattoo artist, etc. Universally, Airon is said to be a good dude. Help a brother out.

ALSO
Saturday Secret Show @ The Shady Tavern
Born Liars, No Talk, The Wrong Ones @ Rudyard’s
Fat Tony, B L A C K I E, Female Demand, Caddywhompus, The Tontons @ Commerce Street Warehouse (2220 Commerce)
Toadies, House of Moist, Boom Boom Box @ Warehouse Live
Asylum Street Spankers @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
This Year’s Tiger, BetterLuck @ F.B.I. Rock Club

SUNDAY
Winter Wonderglam featuring Dead Roses, Backalley Sluts, ST-37, A Thousand Cranes, Future Blondes, Skullcaster, //TENSE//, Snow Cone, DJ Black Slacks @ River Oaks Theater
OK, now, aside from this being kind of a cluster of a bill (especially considering it doesn’t start until 11), it should be stated that shows at River Oaks have universally been hailed as a good time. A good bag of boundary pushers in the noise bin ensures that you’ll have an evening that is anything but predictable, and decidedly in the earplug category. $5.

Robert Earl Keen, Eric Church @ House of Blues
JP of the Big Star Bar has promised that one day, he will get Robert Earl Keen to go have a beer there. KGBeasley has stated that he would like to fight him. Sounds like this could be the evening when a honkey tonk throw down heaven could take place.

ALSO
The Old 97’s, The Drams, Jeff Boortz Band @ Warehouse Live

You know, we were just thinking about Christmas and all that, and we thought “this seems like a job for Not Being Productive at Work Today!”, and so we wanted to share with you some further jams that you might consider adding to your Holiday Playlist.

Christmas Day 1923 - Future Clouds and Radar
You know, we’ve been meaning to tell you about these guys for a while now. They don’t really have an H-town connection, but they are doing some good stuff especially for folks who might be into messy smart pop and/or the latter part of the ELO catalog. Their recent full length, Peoria, seems destined for sleeper hit status, and has been getting good press from sources as varried as The New Yorker, No Depression, USA Today and Q.  We’re not sure that they’ve made it onto too many Best Of lists, but this track has made it onto our own Christmas Charts.

MP3: Christmas Day 1923.

Mlee Marie - Christmas Songs
Sufjan Stevens isn’t the only person out there that makes Christmas recordings as gifts for friends, turns out our own Mlee Marie (Hearts of Animals) has been doing the same thing going back to atleast 2001. She’s got a good portion of the recordings online. Treats. Various tracks on MySpace.

Hey, you know those people that are like “guuuh, I hate hearing Christmas music all the time, when will this be over guuuh.” Well you know what, we respectfully disagree. For serious, we’d rather listen to Bing Crosby and Hall and Oates and Brenda Lee and Elvis and the Beach Boys and Louie Armstrong kick out the holiday parade of hits ANY DAY rather than hear Staind or whatever new jam Cher is trying to convince you is next level. But you know, not all the music during this season of mistletoe (ah snap, we gotta go get some of that) and murr is of the Christmassy kind. There’s still the season of shows alongside the season of giving, and because we don’t expect to do much writing over the next few, we though we’d give you a bit of a heads up (but real talk, check in again soon for a look at the weekend and next week. and oh snap new years!).

TONIGHT
Nothing says HELLO HOLIDAYS like an old guy (who is presumably famous, just not in the famous book of world records we keep in our back pocket) all bloody on a flyer.  This is the 7″ release for Gay Marriage, and a rare reunion performance at that. As previously noted, the 7″ is being put out by Ditchwater and expect it to sell out quicker than Danica Patrick. Also on the bill and rare like steak is Black Congress and the recently popping up act, the Assholes, who we have no idea about. Rumors abound that the latest Nerd Argument side project, Beer & Sebastian, might be a secret opener.

TOMORROW
CHRISTMAS EVE, DUMMIES.  STAY IN FOR SANTA.

CHRISTMAS
30footFALL, Middlefinger, Avitia, Alshire @ Fitzgerald’s
Admit it. You’re tempted. You’ve always wanted to goto a show dressed like Santa and a bag full of candy canes and slowly build up the Elves to just start flinging them at people out of love and joy and spirit of the season.

B L A C K I E, Nosaprise, Dunny Osmond @ Notsuoh
Our scrappy and burgeoning hip hop underground takes over the scrappy and future bourgeois stage on Main downtown. We always loved the camp of Christmas in Harlem. Can we get a jam of our own called Christmas in the Third Ward? Free show, all ages.

God Bless James Brown, featuring DJ Melodic, DJ Sun, & Brett Koshkin @ Boondocks
SOOOOOUL MUSIC! Brett is responsible for Dirty Honey, one of our favorite record nights in town, nothing but classic soul the first Saturday of every month at Boondocks. DJ Sun and DJ Melodic need no introduction for those that have made Soular Grooves part of their regularly scheduled programming. Good to see Melodic back at it.

FRIDAY
Golden Axe, No Talk, Bald Eagle Burger and Burn The Boats @ Walter’s on Washington
This is the first of two No Talk shows this week/end that will feature master of shredermonies Warren Hatfield (Golden Axe, Valiant Thor) on guest guitar. Slay Bells.

Finnegan, Jim and the Toms, The Plague, Sara Van Buskirk, City of Compton, Brandon Elam, Dave Rask @ Avant Garden
We can’t speak for anyone else on the bill, not being familiar with them yet, we’ve heard some great tracks from Finnegan, a sort of ‘when folks are in town’ project that features, among others, Noted DESTROY ALL SNARES drummer Matt Tantillo (Paris Falls, Defend the Ghetto). This sounds, NOTHING like anything Matt’s been kickin it for before, and has a pastoral almost folky (though not folksy) vibe to it. Looking forward to checking it out in person. Klatu.

THAT IT! Be sure to check back Friday for our skinny on the rest of the weekend, which is going to be whips, allow us to assure you, with more No Talk, Pot Luck Benefits, Hooten, Hollerin, and Jibby Jibby.

AT LONG LAST! The ballots have been counted! The Winners have been determined (some by just a few votes! Serious Squeakers)! And in some cases (aka, those folks that we saw on Saturday), the Certificates of Achievement have been distributed (if you won an award and didn’t get it, please drop us a line at the contact us link above)! And now, all that’s left to do is announce the results! But, as a special getting towards the end of the year treat, we’ve called upon some of the best minds around the world to offer some very special Special Comment on the winners! So, with a limited amount of further ado, here they are!

Favorite Live Band: Wild Moccasins
Special Comment by Keith Olbermann: If you are looking for consistency in energy and acumen at a live performance; when you want to be able to go to a show and know what you’re getting yourself into, the Wild Moccasins do have few peers, that’s what makes them the least worst people in the world. However, consider the perspective that perhaps performance with a greater deal of uncertainty at the front end can ultimately result in a different (and some might argue fuller) sense of satisfaction at what you see and hear mister President. Bands that consider their recordings as starting points, rather than scriptures, can just as easily soar as they can utterly disappoint, but on the whole we appreciate those that dare with the boundaries of their writing, their performing and even their own membership. For that reason, though we cannot disagree with a perspective on this category that put the Wild Moccasins on top, thats why in our special comment the leastest worstest is for Indian Jewelry.

Favorite Band in the Studio: Buxton
Special Comment by serious cat: Though cost can be a limiting factor (though real talk: it’s cheaper than you think at several places in town. Good places), one thing that the studio grants the performer is the ability to add depth and nuance to songs they have honed in the practice space and on the stage. Even if, as a band, you’re looking for a stripped down sound that provides no additional instrumentation or layering, the studio affords opportunity. When we listen through local records, one band in particular strikes us as having used the studio to extend their songs into new sonic spaces beyond where they exist live. Their recordings have consistently added complimenting guitars and pet sounds their solid straight-up performances. So while A Family Light is a fantastic recording in production, composition and execution, we cast our vote for the Papermoons.

Band that Blew up the 713: B L A C K I E
Special Comment by those two guys that own Suit Mart: At Suit Mart, we Dare to Compare. Men’s pleated khakis, Mervyn’s price is $23.99, at Suit Mart just fifteen bucks! If you had told us a year ago that a rapper from La Porte would be the band that would have garnered the most votes from The Skyline Network’s readers , we would have been all “Hooded Leather Jackets: Burlington Coat Factory Price $119.99, Suit Mart Price, $229.99!” Cause that’s like crazy! We’re the home of the 2-fer for crying out loud in a loafer. Suit Mart. Awesome!

Most Unfortunate Breakup: The Fatal Flying Guilloteens
Special Comment by Bert Shipley: the “un” in front of this must be a typo because, to be honest this shit’s been 11 years in the making. I mean, hey at least they finally accomplished something, breaking up. Great job guys.
p.s. you owe me $30 for an oil change on my old van.

[Editor's Special Comment: a member of the FFG swears to us that they have not, in fact, broken up and that shows will happen again soon.  In light of this, and in light of learning that Powerhouse actually has kicked the can, we reserve the right to change the results of this election and declare POWERHOUSE the winners.]

Favorite Punks: Something Fierce
Special Comment by Joe Walsh: Sometimes I can’t help the feeling that I’m living a life of illusion. And oh, why can’t we let it be and see through the hole in this wall of confusion. I just can’t help the feeling, i’m living a life of illusion. Pow! Right between the eyes, Oh, how nature loves her little surprises. Wow! It all seems so logical now. It’s just one of her better disguises and it comes with no warning. Nature loves her little surprises, continual crisis. Hey, don’t you know it’s a waste of your day, caught up in endless solutions that have no meaning, just another hunch based upon jumping conclusions. Caught up in endless solutions, backed up against a wall of confusion living a life of illusion.  Oh yeah, and because I know you are curious, yes, I am a tattoo on someone’s bicep.

Favorite Popsters: Wild Moccasins
Special Comment by The Lollypop Guild: Weeeeeee represent, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, and in the name of the Lollypop Guiiiiiiiiiiild, we wish to welcome you to Munchkin Land.

Favorite Rockers: American Sharks
Special Comment by the judges panel of American Idols and the Fonz:

Favorite WTFers: The Wiggins
Special Comment by Black Leather Jesus: WTF?

Loudest: The Jonbenet
Special Comment by Nancy Grace: Now, I’m not pretending to be anything but a crime victim who went to law school and tried a lot of cases. You know, part of what the problem is is that you and people like you are blinded by celebrity, when the truth of the matter is if everyone just carried a little Jonbenet locket around their necks and opened it when they needed to make a racket and scare off the bad people, all of this, including my own show, could be avoided. Actually, scrub that, nobody carry around the Jonbenet.

Quietest : Elaine Greer
Special Comment by Roger Taylor’s Roto Toms: Hi, it’s me, Roger Taylor’s Roto Toms. He’s the drummer from Queen and I’m those hella 80’s sounding high pitched tom drums that generally do not have a place on a respectable individual’s drum set. I mean, you literally have to be the drummer for Queen and responsible for something like the epic drum break ¾ way through ‘Fat Bottom Girls’ to get away with having me on your kit. So yeah, like Elaine, most of the time I’m pretty quiet. There isn’t really much occasion to use me at most moments, and so you don’t get to hear my forceful, distinct and yet muted percussiveness very often. But when you do, man, do I rule.

Favorite Solo Performer: Elaine Greer
Special Comment by Dick Valentine (Electric Six): SOLO!

Favorite 7” Record: The Monocles/News on the March Halloween Party Split
Special Comment by a delicious Dairy Queen Banana Split: Sup. Banana Split here. You know, all the time people are like “Damn Banana Split, why you such a contradiction? How you got fruit in there and it’s not even chopped up? How come you get to be the only sundae that has a topping that you might also slice up and put on your breakfast cereal.” And I’m like “Say, why so serious? Don’t you know that contrast is all the rage? Things that shouldn’t work together almost always do. It’s like Pigs and Frogs man, Pigs and Frogs”

Favorite Full Length Record: Buxton – A Family Light
Special Comment by the official Skyline Network iPod: We enjoy you so much, that it took too much of the wonder, beauty and fun out of you to ever do a proper review. We simply loose ourselves in the pure aural attainment. Them’s the breaks, and here’s to hoping your upcoming 7” is totally in the same vein. Unless you want a review.

Favorite EP: Wild Moccasins – Diamonds for Constellations
Special Comment by Chrystler and GM: HEY! This was a Grey Ghost release right? So you ended up only selling 13 of them. Well, we know a thing or two about only being able to sell a few of a product, and let me tell you, you can still make a living at it. Granted, yours was a quality product and is something that people actually want to own, but trust us when we say there’s no need for you to do a second pressing. That’s right, congressional bailout. Just take our advice and don’t fly your corporate jet down there when you go begging for gear funds. Phew, those senators are a helluva tough room. Gotta jet, gonna go camping in our Pontiac Aztek. Check ya later!

Favorite Artwork: B L A C K I E - Wilderness in North America
Special Comment by The Big Star Bar Fire Pit: Dearest BLACKIE. I am sorry that, during the climax of my own flickering and flaming, members of the band Black Congress felt compelled to feed your Sammy Awards to me. I am a primitive animal, nay even more instinct, and I cannot help but ingest what is placed in my roaring belly. It is my understanding that the aforementioned often go into fits of rage and engage in feats of strength upon learning that any other act has appropriated the colorful adjective in their nomer, which is why they are banned from all Black Crowes concert for eternity. May we suggest this be settled the only way gentlemen should settle things in these turbulent times: A Battle of the Bands in the parking lot of the Heights Sporting Club.

Favorite H-Town Label: Mia Kat and Dull Knife (tie)
Special Comment by Bono: You know, I really wanted to start my own label one day called These City Walls Will Crumble Beneath the Debt Forgiving Weight of these Glasses. However, it turns out that it’s not really a cake walk to whittle down which bands you want to put out and then the whole production process, to say nothing of sales and marketing and a big TRYING TO THROW MY ARMS AROUND THE WORLD to these labels cause like that’s a lot of work and I think it will be easier to get Zanzibar out from under their IMF loan.PS - Can I look like Lou Reed soon?

Favorite Happy Hour Bar: Poison Girl
Special Comment by John McLaughlin: On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 represents no mathematical possibility of it occurring and 10 being complete metaphysical certainty of coming to be, we would have to state that this answer is… 10! CORRECT!

Favorite Nite Time Bar: Rudyard’s
Special Comment by Jim Lehrer: Welcome to News Hour I’m Jim Lehrer. Our top stories tonight: readers of The Skyline Network vote Rudyard’s Pub their Favorite Nite Time Bar. In Pakistan, the government of Yousaf Raza Gilani faced new questions about its ability to rule effectively when it was revealed that he has an extremely similar last name to former NY mayor and recent Republican presidential contender Rudolph P. Giuliani. And in Houston, Rudyard’s British Pub took the opportunity of a mild freezing rain to raise the price of Lone Star to six dollars a bottle.

Favorite Venue: Walter’s on Washington
Special Comment by Coach Lohan Springer: Wow. I never thought I would live to see the day when this was actually the correct answer.

Favorite Local Festival: Westheimer Block Party
Special Comment by Perry Ferrell: Shit. Man. Yeah, this was kind of what I was going for. My bad to everyone who has paid $8 for a bottle of water at Lollapalooza or missed Lush while they were waiting in line in shit up their ankles to take a piss.

HOLLA! Real quick, if it’s before noon today and you haven’t yet voted in the Sammies, you best go do it now! ASAP! With the quickness! Fast like bunny! Arm like hammer! Remember that we’ll have the complete list of winners at the 2008 Sammies Party, Saturday night at Big Star Bar. Oooh we feel the excitement! But never fear, in the meantime, you’ve got some shows to pick from. but DRAMA on that too! Both Friday and Saturday are up to their whiskers in solid choices. Dammit. Where’s that banner we use when something like this happens?

Ahh. Much better.

FRIDAY
Toys For Tots Benefit with pretty much every band that was nominated for a Sammy @ The Mink
So yeah, originally our awards party was going to be Friday night, but we ended up having to change it because an obscene percentage of the good folks up for an award were already slated to play this gig (they thought of the children, we thought of the party - our bad). The show is $10, or you can bring a toy. Don’t be a cheapskate a pick something up at the dollar store. Go get one of those little awesome action figure things at Sig’s Lagoon - kids love that stuff and they you also get to goto Sig’s. If you’re having trouble reading the flyer, the acts playing are The Riff Tiffs, BLACKIE, American Sharks, Elaine Greer, Paleo, Giant Princess, Buxton, Death by Texas, Brett Taylor, News on the March, Wicked Poseur and Wild Moccasins. We’re told this is going to be done upstairs/downstairs style (a la Hootenanny) so there won’t be too many luls in the performance. Doors at 8pm, 21+

Something Fierce CD Release show w/Teenage Kicks @ Walter’s
Both of these bands are up for a Sammy as well (in the Favorite Punks category. Ooooh, Fight! Fight!) We’ve heard a few snippets of SF’s new full length and it goes without saying that it’s going to be a great record. You’ll definitely want to go to this show so you can pick up a vinyl copy of their previously online-only Modern Girl ep. Teenage Kicks never disappoint either.

ALSO:

• Ume, Linus Pauling Quartet and Red Leaves @ Rudyards (free)
• Battle Rifle, Chocolate Crucifix, Assholes and DJ Bill Fool @ Leon’s Lounge (free)

SATURDAY
SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES SAMMIES

ALSO

• Free Press Christmas Party featuring Satin Hooks, The Eastern Sea, Piano Vines, Nick Greer, Ozeal & The Eulypians, Chase Hamblin and Female Demand @ Avant Garden
• Reprogram Multimedia Christmas Party featuring Spain Colored Orange, The Factory Party, BLACKIE, plus DJs Richard Henry, Yppah, Jeffery Mac, Paramour, Damon Allen, J. Calero, Dan Castillo and Ceeplus Bad Knives @ Bootleg Studios (2301 Commerce)
• Come See My Dead Person, Two Star Symphony and Whorehound @ Rudyards
• The Caprolites, The Trian Woodburns, & Novox @ PJs Sports Bar

SUNDAY
Trills the Season Toy Drive ‘08, featuring Nosaprise, Lower Life Form, Spain Colored Orange, The Mathletes plus DJs Dayta and License to Trill @ Boondocks

Our look at the 50 songs that were Houston music to us in 2008 wraps up today, as does voting in for the Sammies (at noon).  Be sure to swing by our party Saturday night at Big Star to get the inside scoop on all our winners, and to sit and sip to the souds of all the songs on our list.  Thanks for reading.

Underwater Staggie - The Mathletes
We’re the Mathletes and We’re From Houston so How About That Vol. 1 (All Star Power Up Records)
From their disc of covers of H-Town compatriots, this re-imagining of the Hearts of Animals original mines the furthest reaches of HOA’s occasional delicate shoegaze tendencies. Beginning in a reverberating warm lake of fuzzy guitar delay and harmonics, it suddenly quick shifts into a slide-acoustic and tippity top drumming that hews more closely to the spirit, if not the sound, of the original. Again, for all the goof in their collected recordings, it’s sometimes easy to wonder if the Matletes intend to be taken seriously or if it’s another Guilloteenesque example of one original sin joke playing itself out over a rather extended period. But to hear Joe Mathlete cry out “you stop singing, shush shush shuhs, I’ll stop stop singing” we know that his heart is as invested in those words as if he was the animal that wrote them and that’s a beautiful thing.

Weak at Heart - The Sour Notes
The Meat of the Fruit (self released)
This song makes us think of summer of senior year, with a class ring still on your finger and a stupid jacket on your back, uniwttingly falling in love late at night in chain diners and fast food resturants under flourescent lights too bright and diffuse to catch the glimmer in an overlooked beau’s eyes until it’s much to late. Before your lungs were blackened and your liver curdled and heart greyed with bad decisions, you were in a place where the world sounded like this, where aquas and pastel pinks were sincere and most of your major decisions involved deciding which t-shirt to wear. Only art can take us back to places like this. Thank God for it.

Westward - Buxton
A Family Light (Mia Kat)
This whole romp sounds like the entirety of Buxton is riding on the back of a bucking bronco that’s fleeing the ghosts of Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins, who are both giving chase because they think these city kids have figured out how to bottle lightning and the new sound of the Old West in a sarsaparilla flavored elixir. Never has a song about ditching friends and family been so much fun, and then suddenly they round a corner and Charlie Daniels is there shouting THEY’VE STOLEN THE SECRET TO WHIPS USE OF THE FIDDLE! GET EM BOYS!

Who We Are! - Powerhouse
Yeah! (Self Released)
If there was never a time in your life when you knew which of your shoes were better for dancing than the others and part of your Saturday pre-party ritual included swapping out ties with your boys and strutting around the house you were all getting reading at as a gang listening to your favorite jams and feeling like the most insider outsiders in the whole world and then hitting the club and raising your outstretched hand to heaven at the climax of your favorite song and not giving a fuck and dancing with your boys instead of girls cause who needs them, then you should probably try listening to this song a lot and if it doesn’t give you that kind of a feeling then we wouldn’t worry about it because you’re likely already dead and so you should practice your harp.

503 - Flowers to Hide
Down the Stairs (Self Released)
After what seems like forever (and lord knows how many lineup changes, brief hiatuses, and aborted attempts in the studio) Flowers to Hide finally put out a record this year that captures the primal vision of who they are. No mater how good the live acoustics, they’ve never been able to get across the nuanced swirling of their guitar assault as effectively and beautifully as they do on this and all the other tracks on 503. On the stage, it often is just loud, here in beautiful headphoned comfort, available in your pocket whenever you need it, it comes across as intended - layer after delicious, devilish layer.

SPECIAL INELIGIBLE BONUS TRACKS
OK. So, we like to break the rules, and one of them we are breaking this year is including a few tracks that didn’t really meet our requirements to get on the countdown, either because they previously appeared on recordings covered in our countdown or never made the jump to a physical artifact. We’re also going to take this opportunity to stop writing because we’re just chock out of ways to be endlessly self referrential about our past and kinda need to go out and have some new stuff happen to us so we can have memories to mine for next year.

A Day in the Life of Walter Price - Piano Vines
Unreleased

Asteroid B-16 - Tod the Fox
Unreleased

Doctor Doctor - Young Mammals
Young Mammals (Self Released)

Underwater Staggie - Hearts of Animals
Hearts of Animals 7″ (Dull Knife)

All My Love - Kidd The Great
Unreleased
OK OK one more. One night we caught a cab from our place to Walter’s to check out a Golden Axe show and we got to talking with the cabbie about music and he revealed to us that he was an MC himself. So he popped a cd in the deck and we started seriously feeling this song, and we kinda recognized the sample but couldn’t really place it and weren’t terrible worried because after all the beats were sticky and his flow was good and then suddenly he (on the track, not behind the wheel), put the punctuation on a verse with the lyric “and thats all of my love” and then suddenly Robert Plant cried out “All of My Love” and we lost our freaking minds cause it was so good. So yeah, the only way to hear this track is to catch a ride in his cab (it’s not even on his MySpace) and ask to hear it and did we mention that his business card also outlines the fact that he offers voice lessons, studio time and that if you want to book him for a show he needs at least one hour notice. No joke.

OH CRAP BREAKING NEWS: Wild Moccasins, Tom Adams massacred by a lumbering zombie hoard led by Ryan Chavez. Status of the Young Mammals themselves unclear. Film at 11.

Another great video by Mark Armes.

Part four of our series!  Don’t forget, voting for the Sammies closes tomorrow at noon!

Runin Down - Fired For Walking
Fired For Walking (Self Released)
You know the whispers in the back of the room when people talk about this track are usually about Pearl Jam so screw that we’re just going to come on out and do it. Remember back before Eddie Vedder cut his locks and suddenly became a prime target for defrizzing hair product and he was all “THOUGHTS ARRIVE LIKE BUTTERFLIES?!” Yeah well at some point he became all save the surfers or something, and look at me I’m playing drums in Hovercraft how edgy an ooh laa laa, and we’ve got all these acoustic guitars and we clearly, from the photos in the center spread, hunkered down in some sort of log cabin to record this next one, so it has a lot of introspection, like we invented Bon Iver before he even existed. Yeah forget about that crap. We’re talking about Ten here. It’s not that “Runin Down” is some sort of grandma’s preserves copy of the songs on that record (though there certainly are welcome parallels in the guitar approach), it’s more the spirit, the fire, the attitude. Like we totally expect when they’re playing this that Joel is going to take this opportunity to swing like a crazy person from the rafters during the guitar solo instead of swinging some douchebag political banner off a bridge because someone indigenous canoe race is threatening the majestic wonders of Puget Sound. Ripping!

Saved by the Bell Was a Super Good Show - O Pioneers!!!
Neon Creeps (Asian Man Records)
Congratulations on winning best song title of the year. Praise the Skreech this track is good, because otherwise we would have had to figure out some way to get it in the countdown somehow and it would have just ended up making us look like a bunch of jerks who judge merit by Weird Al-dian criteria alone (but real talk: Weird Al has been killing it lately). With trademark jangly guitar and bro,-consider-taking-the-night-off vocals Bell (and the rest of the album) contradicts our previous claims that a bass would just get in the way in this band. Somehow, O Pioneers!!! have cubed the rubix of making something catchy and hard while still authentic and damaged; tough and yet sensitive. The AC Slater of songs.

Shake It - The Caprolites
Grey Ghost #55 (Grey Ghost)
There are pretty much four stages we went through with this song. Stage One: Ugh. Is that it? Just the same thing over and over? Stage Two: Heh, ok we’re being a grouch this is kind of fun. Stage Thee: (Hums riff quietly to self during long morning meeting). Stage Four: Song is officially added to most extreme party call me get pumped up for Saturday night pre-party playlist. It’s true, this hand clappin’ party pogo of a song is kind of irresistible, (if a little longer than most party anthems). Scrawnly like a baby bird, it’s kind of easy to picture the entire band as hatchlings rocking it out in a little nest in the forest. That is a seriously random metaphor.

She Said She’s Sorry (Touch Me) - Powerhouse
Yeah! (Self Released)
You know how in the bizzaro world things aren’t really the opposite, just kind of a weird version of ourselves. Like maybe pizza is made with cornmeal crusts and has the cheese under the sauce or Detroit made cars that people wanted to buy, but instead of being located in Michigan, motor city was built on a magical floating barge that cruises from pier to pier on Lake Huron. Or perhaps all cab rides included free milk and haircombs. Sometimes when we listen to this song and contemplate that it’s not a super megahit and available as a bonus level on guitar hero and there are no Powerhouse action figures we start to seriously asses whether we are, in fact, actually living in the bizzaro dimension on accident.

Shelter - Paris Falls
Volume II (Paper Weapons Records)
You know, probably our favorite thing to do is go to Big Star Bar, find a smoldering ember of a log left over from the night before, and then use it to build a fire from scratch. No matches. No lighter fluid. Just leaves, kindling and the concerted application of our own windbaggery towards the materials. When you have the right collection of leaves on the source heat, there is a moment where it just combusts into flame. Not a slow burn or a little itty bitty flicker, just BANG FIRE. Like fuel source and ambient temperature were like “oh say man lets do this thing” and then they just click. That’s kind of how we imagine this song came together, like the elements for it were there in Paris Falls’ repertoire and someone sat at the Rhodes and hit a few keys and then BANG SHELTER the whole band was playing it.

Soup John Dot Com - Jenny Westbury
Jenny French and the Pelican Wrench (All Star Power Up Records)
One thing that much of Pelican Wrench doesn’t do very well is convey how light hearted time spent with Jenny Westbury is. Especially when she’s on the stage, she’s got a knack for making things fun even when there’s a thin slice of gloom on top of her goofy meatball sandwich. What this track does is remind us of that, it even puts the album as a whole into a more proper context of “oh yeah, just because this is someone playing an acoustic guitar alone doesn’t mean that every moment is all serious serious and the serious seriousnesses.” Besides, its a song about making soup, and who doesn’t like to make soup. CROCK POT CITY! PS: Jenny come home for the holidays KTHNX.

Spanish In Jazz - Wild Moccasins
Diamonds for Constellations (Grey Ghost)
We remember the first time we heard about Wild Moccasins it was because Elaine Greer’s drummer was all “nuh i gotta go play in this other band” and then we heard Nick Cody did the same thing and we were all WHO ARE THESE ASSHOLES AND WHY ARE THEY LEAVING THE ELAINE GREER BAND BECAUSE ITS LIKE THE BEST THING GOING RIGHT NOW ALL CAPS SHOUT OUT OUT LOUD! So, to say that we didn’t like this band before we ever heard them is kinda putting it mildly. But you know what, we gotta say, even before they completely sold us on their live performances, we were taken aback by this song and that’s saying alot.

Swans - Indian Jewelry
Free Gold! (We Are Free Records)
See below.

Too Much Honkey Tonking - Indian Jewelry
Free Gold! (We Are Free Records)
We have this fantasy where the Mucky Duck books Indian Jewelry sound unheard just cause their name sounds like they would be a country band and they are mid set and absolutely sandblasting the place to the point where a rip develops in spacetime and out steps 1987 Bono midway through his Rattle and Hum Sunday, Bloody Sunday rant right when he shouts “FUCK THE REVOLUTION” and the whole place goes hog wild and all the tables and chairs are destroyed and carried out to the street for a massive bonfire and then Bono buys everyone there an Audi from the dealership across the street and a massive Ronin-esque car chase ensues and everyone ends up at Blanco’s when the sun starts to rise and are feeling the weight of the evening on them as they eat breakfast tacos and a sassy barmaid kind of stands there in disbelief and utters “Geez. Now that’s what I call too much honkeytonkin.”

Two Ways - The Gold Sounds
The Gold Sounds (Self Released)
No song has ever, ever made us look East. Actually, we can’t think of a song that anyone has ever BSed their way through a description of where their heart or mind turns East (except maybe to be destroyed by the sunrise rather than run from it). It should say something about the power the concepts of Manifest Destiny and Go West Young Man still have in the collective uncousness of us as Americans. There’s no one even alive anymore that knew anyone that rode in a wagon or gave a mountain its European name or etched out a quiet and satisfying living on a piece of land they owned only because no one else did. And yet, the west, as both a physical space and even more abstractly as just a direction, still connotates optimism, opportunity and a chance to start. Sometimes, everybody needs a little bit of a rebirth. When we do, we put this song on and watch the sun set, in the west and hold tight to its perfection. Of all the things we might change about ourselves, its comforting to contemplate them to the sound of something we wouldn’t change one bit.