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Houston's newest supergroup, Night Cobra

Night Cobra Strikes Fast with In Praise of the Shadow

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Oct 29, 2020

Supergroup. It’s a hot potato music term because it’s tossed around loosely and it shifts a band’s focus from making incredible music to juggling high expectations. Christian Larson knows some people might consider his latest project, Night Cobra, a supergroup. But, he said, the reasons the band formed have kept...

Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever yielded two of his best-loved songs, which we honor today.

Choose One: Carol's Vinyl Picks a Tom Petty Favorite

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Oct 20, 2020

Tom Petty fans everywhere will be noting and celebrating what would have been the late rock icon’s 70th birthday today. Listeners across the globe will dial up their favorites from more than a dozen studio albums the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/songwriter shared before his untimely passing in...

New Ways of Seeing the Music We Can't Stand Hearing

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Oct 5, 2020

Maria Ferrero loves music and she loves it ear-splittingly, bone-rattlingly, face-meltingly loud. She’s so hellbent on going to 11 she’s devoted her career to it as president and CEO of Adrenaline PR. Her New Jersey-based public relations firm specializes in promoting heavy metal acts like Lamb of God and Motorhead,...

Springsteen's Born to Run is No. 21 on Rolling Stone's greatest albums list, represented here by Articulated Music

Articulate This! An Instagram Success Takes on Rolling Stone's Greatest Albums List

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Sep 28, 2020

This is the sort of year where practically everything invites spirited discourse, to put it mildly. Rolling Stone’s revised list of the 500 greatest albums ever is no exception. An update of two previous rankings of your favorite music of all time, the 2020 model was unveiled a few days...

Happy Birthday, Emily Remler, Jazz Guitarist

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Sep 18, 2020

Compile a list of jazz giants and it’s sure to be overwhelmingly male in nature. The genre is so gender lopsided it’s literally populated with Dukes and Counts. And, if you relegate your list to instrumentalists only, omitting the world’s great female jazz vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday,...

Flogging Molly's Swagger gets the anniversary treatment this fall

Get Your Live Punk Show Fix, Courtesy of Flogging Molly and NOFX

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Sep 17, 2020

Live punk shows aren’t really back yet, but a pair of events this weekend starring some of the genre’s giants might help show-starved fans amble from the pit of housebound despair to a (virtual) punk rock mosh pit. The fun kicks off this afternoon with Flogging Molly’s Halfway to St...

Cindy Blackman Santana drums, sings, writes and produces on her solo record.

Cindy Blackman Santana Gets Some — Of Her Own!

By Bob Ruggiero

Sep 10, 2020

Like most musicians, Cindy Blackman Santana expected to spend the summer of 2020 on the road. Either playing drums in the band named for her Rock and Roll Hall of Famer husband in a seat she’s occupied for over a decade, or with gigs of her own in support of...

Gibran Nassif Lands a Pair of Haymakers On COVID's Music Slowdown

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Sep 7, 2020

COVID-19 sucker punched the music industry this year and the blow has been painful, but it hasn’t been a decisive knockout. The battle has actually proven inspirational at times, with true fighters rising from the canvas to survive into the next round. Cue the Rocky theme music for Houston music...

MTV's famous NASA moon footage was used in promos because it was in the public domain and was free to use. The channel debuted on August 1, 1981.

New Doc Celebrates — and Dissects — the History and Impact of MTV

By Bob Ruggiero

Sep 1, 2020

It was an idea that very few people thought would work – including many of those hired to make it happen. A 24-hour cable channel showing nothing but music videos? What the hell was that? Music was meant to be heard via the radio or a stereo. And how could...

A Facebook Page Pays Tribute to Rockefeller's and a Lifelong Friendship

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Aug 27, 2020

In the 1980s, music magic occurred at Rockefeller’s. The resilient Heights nightclub still hosts live music, but four decades ago it thrived with near-nightly bookings of local, regional and iconic artists like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Bonnie Raitt, all presented in an intimate setting. Sometimes the feats were so...

For a Master Class in Band Survival During the Live Music Slowdown, Go to Grade 2

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Aug 20, 2020

A lifetime ago in March of this year, the Houston Press spoke by phone with Sid Ryan, bassist for the surging street punk band Grade 2. Ryan was in Canada with his band mates, guitarist Jack Chatfield and drummer Jacob Hull. The band had played the first show of a...

This "New" Prince Track Lets You Party Like It's 1979

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Jul 17, 2020

Rejoice fellow Prince fans because tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1979. Newly released, previously unheard music from the late artist’s storied music vault debuted Thursday and the track is a blueprint of sorts, a window into Prince’s evolution from the decade he emerged in to the next decade, which...

Erin Rodgers (L) and Cidette Rice in the video for National Pleasure's "Endgame."

Erin Rodgers Begins Something New with "Endgame"

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Jun 26, 2020

Erin Rodgers is arguably one of Houston music’s busiest people. Whether she’s performing in one of many bands, working on behalf of artists as an entertainment lawyer or teaching copyright and business courses at area colleges, it’s normal for her to be engaged with this city’s music community. So, how...

New Doc Finally Gives Suzi Quatro Her Due

By Bob Ruggiero

Jun 25, 2020

In the mid 1970s, she was a pioneering female rocker at a time when that term was nearly nonexistent, a hugely popular record and concert attraction, and a style icon. That is…in much of the non-U.S. world. Here in her own home country, the singer/bassist born and bred in tough...

Ian Shultis as Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle in Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash.

A Survivor's Story: Lynyrd Skynyrd's Plane Crash Gets the Movie Treatment

By Bob Ruggiero

Jun 9, 2020

Sometimes, the sound of impending doom is quiet. And sometimes it is loud. Less often, it is both. That’s how Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle recalls what he and 25 other band members, crew, associates, and pilots heard inside their Convair CV-240 plane over the swamps near Gillsburg, Mississippi on...

Living Colour's 1990 masterpiece has a lot to say about America in 2020

Time’s Up: The 30 Year-Old Album That Foretold America’s Last 30 Days

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

Jun 5, 2020

“Moment by moment, day by day, the world is just slipping away.” That line from the Living Colour song “Time’s Up” seems relevant as ever. American life came to a grinding halt because of a global pandemic and, day by day, we’ve tried to decipher our roles in a virus-stricken...

Rocker Joe Grushecky's Iron City Serenade at 40

By Bob Ruggiero

May 29, 2020

It hard to fathom in a time when the push of a button can send the music of an album to the entire country at the same time. But from the ‘60s through the early ‘80s, local rock scenes thrived around the country. Midwest and East Coast towns like Boston,...

Daniel Johnston's query isn't just an iconic work of art, it's also a simple mental health check and a question we can ask one another during these difficult times.

Texas Music Focuses on Mental Health Awareness Month

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

May 25, 2020

Mental health experts are predicting a second pandemic of sorts, an epidemic born from coronavirus worries and lockdowns. “Some experts are calling this the world’s greatest psychological experiment, for which we will surely pay a significant price. All indications are the coming of a second pandemic, a significant increase in...

April Hartman (seated) and Apes of the State

Coronavirus Sobriety Check-In: April Hartman, Apes of the State

By Jesse Sendejas Jr.

May 18, 2020

In a few weeks, April Hartman will mark six years of sobriety. Hartman is a busy musician who splits her time between three Pennsylvania-based bands. Her music and the people it reaches have shaped her successful recovery. Many of her followers and fans contact her directly for support staying clean...

Dennis DeYoung Goes Back to the Basement Where It All Began

By Bob Ruggiero

May 15, 2020

Like all musicians of varying ages, genres, and stages in their career during the Age of Coronavirus, Dennis DeYoung is stuck at home. He’s got a new solo record coming out, but has put a planned tour on ice. So he finds himself at walking the floors with his wife...

Listen Up!

Doc Hails the Return Of the True King (Sorry, Elvis!)

Bird Flies Again...But Hopes to Land in Some New Nests

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