Rise Up, Ye Music Mortals

Last season on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale planned quite a world-ending, vampire-empowering, slayer-destroying "Ascension," but even if Buffy and her pals hadn't foiled his plan in the season finale, that "Ascension" couldn't hold a candle to the event of the same name that takes over the Swank Lounge's hip rumpus room every Wednesday night.

Steve Lowry

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More About

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Dominick Hawkins
• Andre Sam-Sin
• Pete Wentz
• Townsend

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Yet another project from the mind of DJ/promoter/music channeler Andre Sam-Sin, better known in Houston club circles as the all-knowing, all-glowing DJ Sun, Ascension is a combination of live music and Sun's spun stuff. "I'm trying to create a collective of artists that are coming together," Sun says. "Very impromptu -- maybe there's one rehearsal -- but you get the real impact, the real artists working together on the spot. That's the scene, that's the element that I wanna create."

Guitarist/vocalist Wasi Townsend was "all game" for helping DJ Sun with the idea. He joined forces with drummer Dominick Hawkins and bassist Leslie Katsvin Abir Tamusa George (friends just call him "Kats") and formed the eclectic band HUE*MAN. Many other musicians, DJs, singers, rappers and general slaves to creativity have taken turns jamming on the Ascension stage with HUE*MAN and DJ Sun. "It's a mix of organic energy," Townsend says. "Poets, percussionists, violins, flutists, over on top of DJ mix, over on top of original sound."

The audience -- businessmen, working-class joes, rave kids, extremely flamboyant gay men -- feels the energy, too. They come, George says, "to hear someone create something in front of them and create their own scene and, naturally, create their own reality." But they come away with even more. "We want them to leave," says Hawkins, "with understanding and love in their heart. That's what we want them to leave with, that sense of joy."

Ascension, with DJ Sun, HUE'MAN and guests, occurs every Wednesday at 9 p.m., at the Swank Lounge, 910 Prairie, (713)227-0459. Admission is free, but donations are requested.DJ Sun