Columns

Live & Local: When Good Friends Become Strangers at Limelight

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 1/6/2010

Types: Music

When Good Friends Become Strangers closes with a belated cover of U2’s “New Year’s Day,” but let’s start there, because it gets the inevitable comparison to Bono and friends out of the way early. Keyboardist-vocalist Frank Garcia’s voice thrives in the higher-pitched, most dramatic octaves, and guit...[MORE]

Live & Local: Tongue Tied Lighting at Sam's Burger Joint

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 12/30/2009

Types: Music

Tongue Tied Lightning’s self-titled debut (see “Aural Pleasure,” August 19, 2009 for our review) is musically dense, stacked with three-pronged guitar arrangements, pianos, fiddles, mouth harps, etc. Tonight, they’ve got two guitarists and a marimba player onstage. To be more specific, Aaron Pa...[MORE]

Live & Local: Egshan at Pedicab Bar & Grill

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 12/22/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

Like everybody about my age, I miss MTV. Specifically I miss MTV the way it was in the early to mid ’90s, when the channel’s schedule consisted mostly of hours-long music-video blocks, not segregated by genre — the Toadies followed by Tupac followed by Metallica. I bring that up as an introduction t...[MORE]

Live & Local: We Leave at Midnight

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 12/16/2009

Types: Music

My biggest problem with We Leave at Midnight is that guitarist and lead vocalist John Dailey comes from some podunk about 90 miles north of here. I don’t recall the name, just something about “live music capital” of the something or other. Whatever. The rest of the band’s bona-fide SA, from keyboard...[MORE]

Live & Local: Confusion Only

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 12/9/2009

Types: Music

No snow falls, but the weather outside is what the late Nat King Cole might’ve termed “choke-on-your-own-testicles cold,” so it’s not surprising that Confusion Only are performing to a thinned-out crowd. The trio takes the stage to headline the Texas Music Coalition’s Christmas party, held in Augie’...[MORE]

Live & Local: Dog Men Poets at The Mix

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 12/2/2009

Types: Music

“What’s your favorite Stevie Wonder song?” Michael Brouillet, frontman for multiple 2008 Rammy Award winners Dog Men Poets asks the crowd. “Superstition,” someone answers immediately, as many of us would, but the band’s not about to perform a cover song, at least not technically. “You might like thi...[MORE]

Live & Local: Mexicans With Guns

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 11/25/2009

Types: Music

Mexicans With Guns, aka err … a local DJ to be named later, originally planned to perform a guerilla show at the Alamo earlier Friday in honor of the Mexican Revolution. He didn’t (God was making it rain for one thing), and, as cool as that would have been, we think he probably made the right choice...[MORE]

Live & Local: Cinderleaf (first set)

By Steven Gilmore

Published: 11/11/2009

Types: Music

[Note: Our reviewer tapped out at intermission, but please post your own comments on the show’s second half at sacurrent.com.] Twenty-five songs are just too many for one night. Most bands don’t even have 25 decent songs to play live, forget about trying to run through them all in a row. Cinder...[MORE]

Live & Local: Necurat @ White Rabbit, Thu, Oct 29

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 11/4/2009

Types: Music

Maybe, maybe, 10 people stand in front of the White Rabbit stage when Necurat have finished tuning up, but that’s all right. It’s 8 p.m. on a Thursday. It’s not even completely dark outside, and this concert’s being billed as “A Night of Horror,” with four other equally evil-sounding groups (in addi...[MORE]

Live & Local: The Colt of Us

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 10/28/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

A last-minute venue change takes the Colt of Us from the laid-back, open-air Farm to the claustrophobic, dimly lit Tequila Island, but the swap is probably for the best. Not that this bizarrely named band — it took a few visits to their MySpace page to finally accept that the flyers were right and i...[MORE]

Live and Local

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 10/7/2009

Types: Music

San Antonio MC the One (myspace.com/the01) is checking the mic at Saluté International, and he looks a little nervous. “Don’t be scared,” hollers one encouraging lady in the audience, but it’s really a false start. The One’s CD won’t read, and now it’s stuck in the player. “I’m going to wait m...[MORE]

Live & Local: Local Music

By Steven Gilmore

Published: 9/23/2009

Types: Cover Story, Second Story

If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s a good circle pit. They’re hard to come by in San Antonio, but Prevail Within, who’ve been playing hard and fast in this town for several years, are looking to revive this nearly forgotten token of fan appreciation. Hoping for the opportunity to indulg...[MORE]

Live & Local: When Words Attack

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 9/16/2009

Types: Music

The Mix doesn’t really have one, so vocalist Cindy Osbourne brings her own stage. No kidding — she spends the whole set standing on a small wooden platform, elevated about three inches above the common folk on the floor. She’s not very tall, so the effect isn’t all that pronounced, even in her thick...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Steven Gilmore

Published: 9/9/2009

Types: Music

(Note: On Friday, September 4, the White Rabbit hosted the third annual Rick Sciaraffa birthday scholarship show. Sciaraffa, before his death in 2007, owned the club and played an instrumental role in establishing the local metal scene as we know it today. It is fitting that a collection of San Anto...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 9/2/2009

Types: Music

Nobody says much, and the bassist wears a tie. That’s about all the description you need of Yes, Inferno’s stage presence tonight. To be fair, the guys in YI play a sometimes-ambient brand of post-rock (i.e., “music without singin’ on it”), though, so not much more’s expected of them than occasi...[MORE]

"Front Page News" — Moai

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/26/2009

Types: Music

Universal City’s Moai begin this would-be call to arms with Kelsey McDaniel’s coffee-shop acoustic riff and drummer Dave Orschell’s military cadence. Adopting the somber-yet-uptempo drum-corps rhythm in an antiwar song is appropriate, if pretty on-the-nose, but we ...[MORE]

Live & Local

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/26/2009

Types: Music

I’m beginning to feel like that dickhead voice-over dude from the Head-On commercials. But instead of repeatedly instructing you take a roll-on deodorant stick and “APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!!!” I’m constantly telling you to “TURN YOUR FUCKING AMPLIFIERS DOWN.” My message h...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Steven Gilmore

Published: 8/19/2009

Types: Music

Sometimes it’s just hard to pin a band down. Our Sleeping Giant, for instance, whose songs fly all over the genre radar. Singer Danny Gibbons opens the night with four solo acoustic tracks in rapid succession, journeying through the Dashboard Confessional-esque “Lost Art of the Mid-Range Jump-Shot,”...[MORE]

"Out the Door" - IND

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/19/2009

Types: Music

The clip of Vincent Price accusing screen wife Carol Ohmart of serving him “arsenic on the rocks” in The House on Haunted Hill sets the tone for this song about “the fighting, the fucking, the hugging, the loving” of marital betrayal. The narrator drops verses accusing his ex and himself of backstab...[MORE]

“What We’re Not” — Peoplefood

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/12/2009

Types: Music

In their own words, things Austin’s Peoplefood are not: relevant, esoteric, mainstream, optimistic, just painted on. You can picture the music video (does anyone still watch those?) for this song -- the band goofing around in Central Park, holding up markered poster boards naming each of these thing...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/12/2009

Types: Music, Rock/Pop

The Cove is packed when the Offbeats take the stage, but the people in the audience are mostly watching their plates of food. The band, reduced recently to the three Fosters, is set up for an acoustic show: Bryan and Sean on guitar, Colin behind an abbreviated drum kit, just bass and hi-hat. Still, ...[MORE]

Live & Local

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/5/2009

Types: Music, Folk/Traditional

Richard Morgan, dressed in slacks and a button-down, sound-checks his banjo with a few bars of The Beverly Hillbillies theme song. Jeannette Muniz, sitting cross-legged in a church dress and heels, tunes her acoustic guitar and invites the audience to move closer to the stage with “Come on up and be...[MORE]

"Run" - Zita B. Sanders

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 8/5/2009

Types: Music, Rock/Pop

Sanders starts running to catch the bus, but doesn’t make it before it pulls away. Then the rain starts, but Sanders shrugs “Life just isn’t fair that way.” Backed by a tune that’s got more than a little in common with “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Sanders seems to sugge...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Steven Gilmore

Published: 7/29/2009

Types: Music, Rock/Pop

The Gatsby is a strange spot for a rock show. Paintings of jazz trumpeters and the high-class clientele cast a top-hat-and-monocle-shaped shadow over the jean-clad rockers set to perform. Access to the show is limited to adults 21 and older, which makes July’s presence in the room somewhat awkward, ...[MORE]

"Tonight We Dine in Hell" - Madex Thirteen

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 7/29/2009

Types: Music

The orchestral strains of the 300 soundtrack briefly confuse things, but the requisite Leonidas sound bite leads immediately into the muddled guitar skronk that doubles, apparently, as Satan’s dinner bell. And forget vegetarian options, the only item on the menu is a “death grip holding you tight.” ...[MORE]

LIVE & LOCAL

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 7/22/2009

Types: Music

The door man stamps my hand with an inappropriate question: "WWJD?" it asks, "What would Jesus do?" The question's inappropriate not just because Monkeysoop shares the bill with the likes of Mobile Deathcamp (fronted by former Gwar bassist Todd Evans) and SA's own AnalPlague, but...[MORE]

"Can't You See" - Devin's Inferno

By Jeremy Martin

Published: 7/22/2009

Types: Music

"Can't You See" is a perfect case study in how not to tell off an ex. Thirty seconds of late-'90s pop-punk power chords isn't enough time to prepare a well-thought-out speech, so verse one is mostly stammered babble. "I can't seem to get you off my mind," begins one half-coherent...[MORE]