Not many jukes can take the pressure of having their own theme night, but Tom McLendon's Big Easy box can. Every Monday, he turns off the coin slot and customers have free rein to play all the Lightnin' Hopkins, Ray Charles, Neville Brothers and George (both Porter and Jones) they want. There's free pool, too, so if you want to go in and bone up on your billiards and your Gulf Coast classics some Blue Monday, the Big Easy's your best bet.

Tack an extra digit onto your SAT scores. Valhalla is a grad student-run bar tucked into a corner of the old chemistry building on Rice's abundantly treed campus (look for the red arched door). Even without the verdant surroundings, Valhalla's ridiculously cheap 75-cent beer is a sufficient lure for anyone interested in the effects of ethanol on the human body. The bartenders are volunteer Rice staff, faculty, students and alumni. Out on the lawn, perpetual doctoral students and their families lounge on the grass while their four-year-olds debate the existence of the Higgs boson particle and deconstruct Finnegans Wake. As DEET-coated children play Frisbee to observe laminar flow, adults take turns making beer runs into the dim, quasi-subterranean bar.

Tack an extra digit onto your SAT scores. Valhalla is a grad student-run bar tucked into a corner of the old chemistry building on Rice's abundantly treed campus (look for the red arched door). Even without the verdant surroundings, Valhalla's ridiculously cheap 75-cent beer is a sufficient lure for anyone interested in the effects of ethanol on the human body. The bartenders are volunteer Rice staff, faculty, students and alumni. Out on the lawn, perpetual doctoral students and their families lounge on the grass while their four-year-olds debate the existence of the Higgs boson particle and deconstruct Finnegans Wake. As DEET-coated children play Frisbee to observe laminar flow, adults take turns making beer runs into the dim, quasi-subterranean bar.

Chris Wolfe has been at the original Berryhill Hot Tamales for the last four and a half years. New patrons hear his singsong "Hi, I'm Chris, what can I get you?" then are amazed as the sandy-haired, all-American boy rattles off instructions in Spanish to the kitchen staff while filling a drink order a regular hasn't even asked for yet. He makes juggling the tiny bar and Mexican eatery look easy, even on a clear night when 50 or 60 folks fill the outdoor tables and line up for takeout. If you've been in more than twice, Chris knows your name and what you drink. If you're a regular, he knows where you live and who you live with. Heck, he probably even knows your shoe size. This one you can trust to order for you and tell you whether the queso's any good today. Tip heavily. Now that he's got his college degree, he may get a day job.

Chris Wolfe has been at the original Berryhill Hot Tamales for the last four and a half years. New patrons hear his singsong "Hi, I'm Chris, what can I get you?" then are amazed as the sandy-haired, all-American boy rattles off instructions in Spanish to the kitchen staff while filling a drink order a regular hasn't even asked for yet. He makes juggling the tiny bar and Mexican eatery look easy, even on a clear night when 50 or 60 folks fill the outdoor tables and line up for takeout. If you've been in more than twice, Chris knows your name and what you drink. If you're a regular, he knows where you live and who you live with. Heck, he probably even knows your shoe size. This one you can trust to order for you and tell you whether the queso's any good today. Tip heavily. Now that he's got his college degree, he may get a day job.

Like the city it came from, Jug o' Lightnin' is zoning-free. You can't peg its blues-rock-bluegrass-country sound with a few pithy words -- it has shades of all but is none of the above. What it is is moss-draped, gutbucket, raw and in-the-pocket. When Aaron Loesch, Chris King and "Mopar" Mike Sinclair are rolling through one of their bayou-style trash-can symphonies, they create a vacuumlike suction that draws you inexorably to the heart of the groove. Roots bands with unique aesthetics are about as hard to find as it is to catch lightning in a bottle, and as their name states, Jug o' Lightnin' has pulled it off. Thank God for this rare instance of 100 percent unmitigated truth in advertising.

Like the city it came from, Jug o' Lightnin' is zoning-free. You can't peg its blues-rock-bluegrass-country sound with a few pithy words -- it has shades of all but is none of the above. What it is is moss-draped, gutbucket, raw and in-the-pocket. When Aaron Loesch, Chris King and "Mopar" Mike Sinclair are rolling through one of their bayou-style trash-can symphonies, they create a vacuumlike suction that draws you inexorably to the heart of the groove. Roots bands with unique aesthetics are about as hard to find as it is to catch lightning in a bottle, and as their name states, Jug o' Lightnin' has pulled it off. Thank God for this rare instance of 100 percent unmitigated truth in advertising.

Ambient modern popster Arthur Yoria has a special gift: a Buckleyish high tenor coupled with the ability to craft smart arrangements and melodies that are impossible to banish. What's more, he wraps that gift in some exceptionally pretty paper -- his band is one of the best in town. Matt Rhodes's pedal steel and the crack rhythm section of bass-man Dwayne Casey and drummer Ilya Kolozs are far more than mere window dressing. So far, Yoria and company have released a total of nine tunes on two EPs, and there's not a lump of coal among them. It's just a shame that Santa Claus -- in the form of a major label -- hasn't spread Yoria's gifts around a little farther.

Ambient modern popster Arthur Yoria has a special gift: a Buckleyish high tenor coupled with the ability to craft smart arrangements and melodies that are impossible to banish. What's more, he wraps that gift in some exceptionally pretty paper -- his band is one of the best in town. Matt Rhodes's pedal steel and the crack rhythm section of bass-man Dwayne Casey and drummer Ilya Kolozs are far more than mere window dressing. So far, Yoria and company have released a total of nine tunes on two EPs, and there's not a lump of coal among them. It's just a shame that Santa Claus -- in the form of a major label -- hasn't spread Yoria's gifts around a little farther.

Great band names are significantly less common than bad ones. Many are pretentious. Still more are just plain stupid. Or goofy. Or snide. For example, an Austin band in the '90s conjured up a wonderful moment in TV history where racists clashed with a pretentious talk show host. That band, Geraldo's Broken Nose, is history now as well. The best band names are short, to the point, memorable, and conjure up in some intangible way the music they advertise, the times they live in, and possibly even the city the band comes from. For now, Katy's youthful punks, the Diseased Pigeons, take the cake. Only a punk band could have such a lurid, unforgettable name. And with the West Nile virus ravaging our avian population, no name could be more geographically appropriate. Check their bizarre Web site (www. diseasedpigeons.cjb.net) for some of their useful statements of intent, such as this one, from "The Cat Song:" "I want to be a cat / I'll eat myself a rat / You won't see me in the fog / I'll be taunting your dog." Well, try to find it, if you can, amid all the levitating clip-art monkeys, lions, and gingerbread men and the weather forecasts for Djibouti and Colombo. These kids aren't there yet, but they look like they might be going places.