Letters to the Editor

Into the Abyss: Ah, Houston bands in the '90s. I worked my ass off having five practices a week and shows every month for 57 Farm Dogs. There's nothing like playing the Abyss in August with no air conditioning. We never wanted to be rock stars either; we just wanted to make enough money to quit our crappy jobs and play music for a living. Oh, well. I did have the as-yet-unsurpassed experience of getting to play on the Lemonheads' drums once, at the request of an inebriated Evan Dando. Good times, good times.

Kathy Lynch
Houston

Dead-on correct: "Band Suicide" is the best Houston Press piece I've read, on any subject, in many years. The three sentences that make up the second paragraph are a near-perfect metaphor for your subject, The Plus and Minus Show's unexplainable journey. The first Press announcement, which compelled me to order the disc online sight unseen, was an immature reaction to the record. You compared it to a lot of great bands without hyperbole, and as much as you gushed it seemed you weren't ready to make your definitive statement on the record. Fifteen months later this record has you invoking Dostoyevsky and the New Testament, still without hyperbole.

Tom Bunch is probably the only person who could speak with this kind of authority in this article. And while I've heard a lot of very knowledgeable people grumble semi-publicly about members of Haaga's band holding back the supposedly inevitable success of the record, Bunch explained it in the harsh terms it deserves.

Medina and Varley are both dead-on correct, even if they don't agree with each other. I've seen both of them play breathtaking sets in rooms full of people who didn't seem to notice. But that is why I think the Houston music scene itself got off easy in your piece. I've seen Haaga's shows get ruined (if that's possible) because he was only given 20 minutes to play or because the club's sound was so bad, but mostly it's been rooms FULL of people steaming the place up for mediocre bands who leave en masse just as +/- takes the stage. That kind of crap is what people are really talking about when they say the Houston music scene sucks.

Creg Lovett
Houston

Correction

The photo of the crowd at the MFAH's Starbucks Music Series in "Art Girls Are Easy" [Nightfly, by Ray Hafner, February 23] was not credited correctly. The person who took the photo was Houston Chronicle photographer Bill Olive.

The Houston Press regrets the error.

Correction

The Night & Day article "Tons of Tonk" [by William Michael Smith, February 23], about the February 25 Honky Tonk & Hot Rod Music Festival, stated that the Road Kings had disbanded. While it is true that the band disbanded for a time, it has gotten together for several gigs in the past couple of years and recently completed a new album. As a result of an editorial error, "Tons of Tonk" omitted this information and the fact that the band was on the bill for the festival. In addition, the piece incorrectly stated the festival's price of admission. The correct price was $20.

The Houston Press regrets the errors.