Every few years, Houston indie rock goes through a sort of renaissance, with new bands starting and new records popping up frantically, followed by a steep decline as labels crash and burn and band members move away, have kids or just give up. Sad Like Crazy belonged to a late-’90s wave centered in part around the now almost completely defunct Ojet records. Rather than the borderline avant-garde aesthetic that informs modern post-rock and the baroque, psychedelic Houston bands that dominated the early ’90s here, Ojet bands drew on the rootsy “slacker” style of Pavement and The Replacements. It made for excellent, offbeat bar-rock, and Sad Like Crazy spent five years as one of the most consistent and well-loved, if not exactly popular, bands in that scene until guitarists Trey Pool and Mari Chow had a baby and guitarist Thane Matcek moved to Austin. Now listing itself as Austin-based, Sad Like Crazy claims “we left Houston when we seen a dude get all knifed in an alley,” and reunites Saturday for one show at the Proletariat, which opened its doors just as the band broke up and, ironically enough, will be defunct itself in about a month. Long live rock and roll.
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2008.