SXSW Manifesto

A local indie rocker hatches a scheme to get Houston its due at next year's confab

Comments (0) By John Nova Lomax Thursday, Apr 5 2007

The entire international music industry is 150 miles from Houston for one week a year. Only fools would sit here and pout. Get in the van and get to Austin next year, invite or not.

Tuesday's Gone With The Wind

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Just before my interview with Kahlich, I ripped through the Proletariat, where I got my paparazzo on. Just after my arrival, David Arquette stepped out of his stretch limo and in the door. I had planned to give Mr. Arquette a piece of my mind -- his portrayal of Gus McCrae in Dead Man's Walk was wack, to say the least. But then I found out he had come out to see Black Math Experiment perform their tribute to him, and then he had this jacket on with a billion rhinestones on it. I was blinded by the coolness of it all, so all I could do was snap a pic and leave.

I headed over to Leon's Lounge, where Lil' Joe Washington's Tuesday-night jam session has picked up steam. Dude is like the mockingbird of the Third Ward blues -- he plays a few bars of "Okie Dokie Stomp" before shifting over into "The Things That I Used to Do," and then drops the Fender and slides behind the piano for a medley of B.B. King and Bobby Bland numbers and a few of his own compositions.

Nick Gaitan, Beans Wheeler and Hilary Sloan were all in attendance, as was Aaron Loesch, who sat in with Washington's band -- which includes the ever-steady Kevin Blessington on drums -- on a few numbers.

Cops -- perhaps my favorite travel show of all time -- was playing on the bar's TVs, and there were plenty of old drunks in the hizzouse. Two of the finest blues or blues-based musicians the city has ever produced were leading a pretty damned good band. This is what real-deal lounging is supposed to be all about.