Archive Search Results
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Noise
Vision Quest
Uncle Charlie is the best concert-poster artist in Houston — and he's legally blind.
By Chris Gray
Published: November 5, 2009
Before Charlie Hardwick realized he was losing his vision, he had already almost died. Hardwick, 40, is a lifelong Houstonian, former punk rocker, husband to a middle-school...
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Noise
Tween Dreams
By Chris Gray
Published: October 29, 2009
Does Houston have the next Hannah Montana in its midst? It's too soon to tell, but Gabby Gillespie, 12, might have what it takes. A born charmer and seventh-grader at Kinkaid,...
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Noise
Season of the Witch
U2's awe-inspiring Reliant Stadium show prompts a search for the unknown — and unknowable — in music.
By Chris Gray
Published: October 22, 2009
The sky was midnight black, not blood red, above Reliant Stadium's open roof as U2 brought its epic 360º tour to Houston last Wednesday. And even without the four band...
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Noise
Twice-Told Tales
How Houston's Justice Records came to release a spooky, sexy Love & Rockets tribute album.
By Chris Gray
Published: October 15, 2009
Break out the black fingernail polish. Just in time for Halloween, Noise has been curling up with New Tales to Tell, a tribute album to goth-pop figureheads Love and Rockets...
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Noise
Million-Dollar Mud
The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival became a quagmire everywhere but onstage.
By Chris Gray
Published: October 8, 2009
Night fell on the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park this past Sunday under a full moon and over a sea of mud. (It wasn't strictly mud, but more on that in a...
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Noise
Fall In
By Chris Gray
Published: October 1, 2009
One night last week, an increasingly rare evening when Houston's musical cupboard was relatively bare, Noise and a friend were talking about fall. There was a chill in the air...
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Noise
Exterminated
Houston's grindcore provocateurs (and HPMA nemises) Insect Warfare reunite for a brief U.K. tour.
By Chris Gray
Published: September 24, 2009
This column is in no way a mea culpa from the Houston Press to Insect Warfare for what happened at the 2007 HPMA Showcase. But the story is so good it still bears...
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Noise
Listen Up
Gunplay aside, listenlisten have made one of 2009's most anachronistic, arresting new albums.
By Chris Gray
Published: September 17, 2009
Marshall Graves didn't know the gun was loaded. Isn't that what they all say? Some time ago, Graves and his fellow members of old-beyond-their-years Houston quartet...
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Noise
Ghosts of Washington Avenue
Noise goes whistling through the scenester artery's music venue graveyard.
By Chris Gray
Published: September 10, 2009
Don't weep for Washington Avenue. One of Houston's oldest thoroughfares, it was a primary stagecoach route before eventually being paved, and the city's principal Austin...
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Noise
The Forgotten Festival
The 1969 Texas International Pop Festival
By Chris Gray
Published: September 3, 2009
This entire summer, pop culture has been inundated with Woodstock nostalgia. Warner Home Video got the ball rolling back in June with a deluxe DVD edition of Woodstock,...
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Noise
The Living Bubba
By Chris Gray
Published: August 27, 2009
After many, many years, Noise is beginning to realize that it's possible to have a worthwhile musical experience nowhere near a stage. Ironically, the band responsible is...
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Noise
Hotel Time Again
Whiskey Boat looks up from two years of live rehersals and realizes it's a band.
By Chris Gray
Published: August 20, 2009
For a band that started by accident, Whiskey Boat is making a pretty good go at turning into the real thing. On August 19, the quartet that bills itself as "Southeast Texas...
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Noise
Coming of Age
Against long, long odds and punishing heat, Free Press Summer Fest is a hit.
By Chris Gray
Published: August 13, 2009
They said it couldn't be done, that no one in Houston would dream of spending two days in the punishing August heat at an outdoor music festival. Rightfully (somewhat), the...
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Noise
Summer Stock
By Chris Gray
Published: August 6, 2009
No rest for the wicked. On the heels of last week's Houston Press Music Awards showcase and ceremony comes this weekend's two-day Free Press Houston Summerfest, not to mention...
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Noise
Five Hour Energy
The 2009 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase in 300 minutes or less.
By Chris Gray
Published: July 30, 2009
Five hours is not a long time. It is if you're driving from Houston to Texarkana or Uvalde, maybe. But when hopscotching all over downtown trying to take in as much of the...
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Noise
Progress Report
Taking stock of the Houston music scene on the eve of the annual Houston Press Music Awards Showcase.
By Chris Gray
Published: July 23, 2009
Pardon us while we get all Bill Cosby for a second. Ya seeeee, the Houston Press Music Awards showcase is this Sundayyyy — 52 nominees (including four DJs) spread over...
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Noise
Tres Hombres
Discovering why ZZ Top is "critic-proof"
By Chris Gray
Published: July 16, 2009
ZZ Top. Typing those five letters into any search engine brings forth a Texas flood of results. Beards, babes, blues, boogie and booze. Cheap sunglasses and low-riding cars....
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Noise
Enjoy the Silence
Singer-songwriter Robert Ellis stands up for piping down.
By Chris Gray
Published: July 9, 2009
>The most annoying thing about going to concerts in Houston is not runaway service charges and ticket fees, or even finding a place to park. It's the audiences. For whatever...
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Noise
China Girls (and Boys)
By Chris Gray
Published: July 2, 2009
We all know Houston's reputation as a city disinterested in, if not downright disdainful of, its past. Local scribes with a modicum of interest in Bayou City history, yours...
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Noise
Burnin' for You
By Chris Gray
Published: June 25, 2009
Most of the milestones we use to measure our lives are pretty pedestrian. Friends come and go, relationships blossom and wilt, jobs appear and disappear. Children grow up,...
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