Pleasure Club

Houstonian by birth, New Orleanian by choice, skull-faced and sharp-dressed James Hall is the founder of Pleasure Club, purveyors of what a bunch of critics are calling Southern goth-rock. And that's really not a bad description -- to listen to this band's songs is to turn day into night, regardless of what the clock may tell you and where the sun may hang in the sky. Hall signed to Geffen and was touted as a next big thing, only to find himself cast unjustly into AAA purgatory, as if that were a fittin' slot for a guy as glam as this. And once Geffen and Interscope merged, Hall was shown the door. Last year Hall went to Nashville with his band, met up with producer Jay Joyce and emerged from the studio with Here Comes the Trick, an excellent platter that conjures both the Stones and the Cure, the Cult and Bowie.