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Vol. 40 - No.10 • JULY 2022 • www.houstonmusicnews.net • FREE

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Ted Nugent Also In This Issue Lividity The Aristocrats REO Speedwagon, Styx, Loverboy Banda MS Jesse Uribe Paola Jara and more!

Also Featuring Tab Benoit

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JULY Live Music Schedule Friday, July 1 - Zach Of Safer Alternative, Ever The Wolf, Crushing Planes Saturday, July 2 - Paperanvil, The Dev, Apex Fallen Friday, July 8 - Doug Westcott Saturday, July 9 - Them Guys, Sonic Voodoo, Inner-Directed Type Friday, July 15 - Chasing Amen Saturday, July 16 - Stompin’ White Pony Friday, July 22 - Scrollkeeper, Bones, Saviorskin Saturday, July 23 - Ground Crew 4, Pet Raven Friday, July 29 - Pillip Nance Acoustic, Undivided, Brandon Smit Band Saturday, July 30 - Tenfour, Loose Change Saturday, August 6 - Bands That Got F@#ked Fest

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Music News • July 2022

JULY 2022 Hi Folks, Hello Music News readers. I hope everybody had a great June. As you can probably tell, Concert Season is in full Swing Now. Perhaps some of you made it out to the Chicago / Brian Wilson concert at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion this past month. Concerts are starting to come now in full force. Rod Stewart will be performing at The Cynthia Woods Pavilion. Santana and Train will also be there this month. And don’t miss the tour of the year with REO Speedwagon, STYX, and Loverboy. They will be there too. At any rate, this year looks like all the big acts will be out in force and we plan on being there at as many of them as we can make it to. We hope to see you there also Now, on to the new issue. In this issue, as usual, we have some great stories and information to pass on to you.

Check out stories in this month’s issue on Ted Nugent, Tab Benoit, Kent Burnside, Lividity at The Acadia Bar, Josh Turner, The Aristocrats and Third Eye Blind. We also have stories on REO Speedwagon, Styx, Loverboy and another installment of the original story, THE BIKER along with a lot more! Also in this issue are a ton of great pictures of bands performing around the Houston area. I’m sure you’re going to be familiar with a lot of these bands. If you have pictures of local bands performing, please email them to us. I would really appreciate it and I know the bands do as well. Keep it up... We would like to see more pictures from you.

We’d also like to invite you to check out our Spanish music section. Not only does it support the Spanish music community, it does so in Spanish. It would appear that Music News has now become the only bilingual music publication in Houston. Check out great stories in it this month on Banda MS, Jessi Uribe, and Paola Jara. We hope you like it I sincerely hope that everybody reading this new publication finds something here that they like and I would like to encourage you to let your friends and colleagues know about us. Just look for us every month at http://www.houstonmusicnews.net. I would also like to encourage you to email us for a free subscription to Rock And Blues International as well. Just email us at musicnew@airmail.net and in the subject line simply put “Sign Me Up” and we’ll email you a copy each month when it is published. For your convenience, Music News is also now downloadable. You can download the issue into your computer or storage device and save it and read it at your convenience without having to get logged on to the internet every time. Try it now and save every issue. It will make things a lot easier for you.

Kevin Wildman Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher

Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher Web Address http://www.houstonmusicnews.net Mailing Address Box 1162, League City, TX 77573 Phone 281-650-1953

For Advertising email us at musicnew@airmail.net or call 281-650-1953 For A Free Subscription email us at musicnew@airmail.net and in the subject line put “Sign Me Up Now” July 2022 • Music News

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Contents

VOL. 40 NO. 10

JULY 2022

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ISSUE NO. 513

TED NUGENT Ted Nugent Brings His Detroit Muscle Tour To Warehouse Live on July 30

12 TAB BENOIT

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Tab Benoit Performs This Month On July 10 At Dosey Doe

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LIVIDITY Pitstomper Productions Presents The Metal Concert of The Year with Lividityat The Acadia BarJuly 16 along with special guests Architectural Genocide, Decrypting Humanity, Putrid Womb, and Yig

20 THE ARISTOCRATS

The Aristocrats Perform At The Scout Bar July 16

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34 34

HOWARD JONES Howard Jones Performs At The House Of Blues On July 26

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Contents

VOL. 40 NO.10

JULY 2022

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ISSUE NO. 513

BOWLING FOR SOUP Bowling For Soup Bring Their “Back For The Attack Tour” To The House Of Blues July 27

26 36 THE BIKER

The Continuing Saga Of A Lone Biker On The Road To Explore The Freedoms Of America And His Love of Music and The Blues

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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 18 Kent Burnside 24 Josh Turner 28 Third Eye Blind 36 Bowling For Soup 46 REO Speedwagon, STYX, Loverboy 38 Brit Floyd 48 Banda MS 50 Jessi Uribe & Paola Jara 60 and on RANDOM SHOTS

En Español 54 56

Banda MS Jessi Uribe & Paola Jara July 2022 • Music News

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world. As Ted puts it, “The mighty Motor City is forever globally known as the epicenter of the ultimate high energy soulmusic firestorm, and everybody desperately needs a suckerpunch of Detroit Muscle now more than ever. Relax, it’s good for you.”

Songs on the album include the title song, “Detroit Muscle”, which as we mentioned before, starts off with the grinding sounds of his Hellcat Redeye. Also on the album is an homage to Detroit as his birthplace, “Born in the Motor City.” There are a couple of political statements as well included in the songs “Come And Get It” and “Alaska.” Ted covers a variety of subjects on his latest masterpiece as mentioned in his love for the outdoors in “American Campfire” and “WinterSpring SummerFall.” There is even a nod to his brother John who passed away not too long ago, with the song “Leave The Lights On.” If you really want something that will chew you up and spit you out, then try out “Feedback GrindFire.” That song is really something else. Finishing out the album is a salute to United States of America, the country that Ted grew up in, with the “Starspangled Banner.” Put your hand over your heart and say a prayer for your country when you listen to that one. It can get pretty emotional.

We had a chance to sit down with the Motor City Madman himself, Ted Nugent, to discuss his new album, past songs, and a little hint of politics. It made for a great afternoon of fun and conversation, so let’s not waste any more time, here’s Ted Nugent.

Music News: It’s great to see that you have a new album out.

Ted Nugent: Yeah, God knows the world needs a new soundtrack for animal breeding and all the important things in life.

What a great record! Have you been listening to it?

Ted Nugent Performs At Warehouse Live On July 30

By Kevin Wildman Our favorite Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, is back and primed for action. Ted has just released his newest solo album, the lightning charged Detroit Muscle, and this album is heading down the road at 90 miles an hour with extreme Mopar performance.

Ted’s last album was the ever-popular The Music Made Me Do It. It came out in 2018, just before Covid came into our lives and was the first album to feature his newest drummer, Jason Hartless. Jason delivers some great two-fisted action on this new release and has been with Ted since 2016. Also performing on the album with Ted is longtime bassist and backup singer, Greg Smith. Greg has been in the Ted Nugent camp since 2007.

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Without a doubt, this is one of the tightest units that Ted has had together in a long time and it really shows on Detroit Muscle.

Detroit Muscle features 11 super-charged songs that are delivered in a way that only the Motor City Madman can deliver.

From the opening sounds of Ted’s Hellcat Redeye on the title song, “Detroit Muscle” to the closing notes on the albums last song, the patriotic “Starspangled Banner”, Ted performs some of the tastiest licks he’s ever laid down, not to mention a few pearls of wisdom.

All in all, the album is a salute to the town that Ted was born and raised in, Detroit.

It salutes everything from the Motor City that it became to the music it delivered to the

Music News: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it for a couple of days now and it’s simply fantastic!

Ted Nugent: How about Greg Smith on bass and Jason Hartless on drums. Am I the luckiest guitar player in the world… or what!!!

Music News: It’s really not that surprising, you’ve always had great musicians performing live and on records with you. Without a doubt, you are blessed when it comes to having a great crew.

Ted Nugent: You know, I get on bended knee every day and thank God because you’re right, going all the way back to The Lourdes. We won “The Battle Of The Bands” in Detroit in 1960 and the musicians I had back then were just like “samurai” teenagers of music, just monstrously gifted, soulful, work-ethic musicians, right to the Damn Yankees, The Amboy Dukes, and The Ted Nugent Band, all these unbelievable continued on next page

Ted Nugent continued from previous page musicians. I’m the just the luckiest guitar player in the world.

Music News: Absolutely! Did you ever imagine that 60 years later you’d still be doing this? Did you ever think back then that this was going to become your career for life?

Ted Nugent: You know, I was born in 1948, so there was no precedent. There was Do Wop. There were artists, but I don’t think people spoke in terms of tours. There was no such thing as Gold and Platinum albums. It was just a different world. It was the ‘Lewis and Clark’ music era. Really, it was all adventurous and all new and I remained, even at 73.4 years, because I’ve been clean and sober my whole life. Everything still works pretty good, so my instincts and my spirit is, dare I say, ‘pure.’ And so when I first started, that youthful instinct was pure from the youth itself and the world around me. So my inspiration came from Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and certainly everything Motown, and James Brown, Wilson Picket, and all these black musical forces that inspired everybody. Every musician was just driven wild by this soulfulness and the music of the day and here it is 73 years later and so, no, I never thought in terms of career or success or longevity.

I’m so lucky that it’s all spontaneous. I picked up my guitar this morning and I was playing shit that God hasn’t authorized yet.

I’m makin’ patterns and notes and rhythms and noises and grooves and chord manipulation and bastardization notes, playing dissident stuff. You know what I mean…

Even at my old age, it’s still that kid from the garage with his first loud amplifier looking for new territory, so I never really thought in terms of career, or dreams, or goals, or longevity, or future. I just pick up the guitar and it’s right there, right then, right now, and I think if you put your heart and soul into anything totally, that you’re going to progress, you’re going to develop dreams. Of course, when I started I was too young to even know what a dream was or what a future might be, so I think it was just super-luck and just an indefatigable animal work ethic and the pursuit of music. I never wanted to be a rock star, I wanted to make music, I wanted to find out what was on this guitar neck.

What could I find on this little tiny space that makes the girls dance, and make me smile, and makes the veins on my forehead pop, and here it is 2022 and nothing has changed.

How beautiful is that!

that… I don’t record it. I just pick up the guitar and I have different amps, different Byrdland’s, different Les Paul’s, different PRS’s and whatever my gut fancy might drive me, I grab that guitar and plug into that amp. I’m so driven by the world around me, the pulses of nature, the pulses of my musical heroes, the grooves, the James Brown tightness, the Motown Funk brothers pulsation’s, and that they’re all manifested and optimized because of Greg and Jason.

And again, by all these musicians I’ve been performing with. You look at my rhythm sections for the last 60 years… Holy God, have I been surrounded by the best drummers and bass players who have walked the earth or what!!!

Music News: Not to mention vocalists as well…

Ted Nugent: Yeah, Derek St. Holmes and Charlie Huhn… Are you kidding me!

Absolutely!!

Music News: Even Meat Loaf. How about that vocal on “, “I Love You So I Told You A Lie”.

Music News: Yeah, it’s amazing what you can get out of a two foot piece of a wooden neck with 24 frets. It’s amazing how many sounds and feelings you can conjure up with that piece of wood.

Ted Nugent: Yeah, Meat Loaf! 1976 Free For All!! “Hammerdown” and “Street Rats”, “I Love You So I Told You A Lie”, and “Together”. Yes, absolutely!

Ted Nugent: Yeah, it is unlimited, and then again, I was playing stuff this morning

Music News: And now you’ve got this new album that sounds like it’s a total salute to Detroit and the industries that were formed

there, Detroit Muscle, music and automotive.

The album kicks off with the sounds of supercharged automobiles.

Ted Nugent: Yes that’s what it starts off with. I’m a horsepower freak. I love driving performance vehicles. I raced professionally off road for about 12 years back in the 70s and the 80s with Parnelli Jones, Bill Straub, Mickey Thompson, Ivan Stewart, and just the greatest off road racing monsters. Yeah, I’ve always been a performance vehicle nut. I’ve got these Bronco’s with 600 horsepower. I’ve got this new Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye with 840 horses. Are you kidding me! What the F*#k!

I get such a kick out of that control factor where you know you have more power than you can really use. You’re always on the cusp of danger of letting the power overcome your control capabilities, but I think we can both agree, the greatest philosopher of all time was Dirty Harry when he said a good man needs to know his limitations. So when you’re off road racing in the Parker 400 or the Mint 400 Desert Races, you wanna just floor it the whole time, but you’ll end up killing yourself, so you have to push that envelope of speed and control at the edge of danger. I’ve got to tell ya, I’ve never said those words before in a music interview, but I think that edge of power and control/danger is where a lot of my music licks come from.

So when “Detroit Muscle” starts with that Redeye Hellcat 840 horses of Mopar Detroit continued on next page July 2022 • Music News

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appreciate someone like you, and I think a lot of real music lovers will reference the adventurous nature of my musical career.

There’s some real adventure going on, especially during the Damn Yankees period.

There’s some really beautiful ultra melodic songs because of Jack (Blades) and Tommy (Shaw) that I plunged myself in to. I’m real, real proud of the different adventures on Detroit Muscle. It’s really because of Jason and Greg with what they put into every song.

Music News: Where some people might say, ‘Oh, he plays the same thing over and over,’ I find just the opposite. Every album sounds completely different from the one before that… Chord structures, melodies, vocal inflections, and topics. To me each one is completely different. What would be your take on that?

Ted Nugent continued from previous page Muscle, I think that the next guitar lick is up to speed, shall we say, with the sound of that engine.

Music News: Well, you’re going 90 miles an hour with the licks on this album.

You’re pushing some high-velocity guitar licks throughout this entire album.

Ted Nugent: Yeah, you know, all those solos and most of the songs were take one, Kevin. We’re in a barn in a swamp in Michigan and it’s so easy going. There’s an intensity because we all kept waiting to unleash these songs, but there’s also an ‘atease’, like you hear in “American Campfire.”

It’s an intense lick, but there’s an easiness to it… Don’t you think?

Music News: Without a doubt. You definitely have that going for you there.

You’ve even included a couple of rockin’ instrumentals on here, like “WinterSpring SummerFall” and a helluva inspiring version of “Starspangled Banner” on here.

Ted Nugent: Well, thank you… I love “WinterSpring SummerFall.” Jason just sent me a Go-Pro video of our performing the basic track, take 1 of “WinterSpring SummerFall” and how I opened it with that melody (sings melody). I started off with that and then when they came in, I went right to the rhythm guitar track, and you can see on that video that we’re so unified, and you mentioned that there’s some high-velocity guitar licks on the album. Michael Lutz, who co-produced it with me, as he has with the last half dozen albums… He’s the author of “Smokin’ In The Boys Room”, Brownsville Station… just a musical pulse. He’s a walkin’, talkin’, breathin’, shittin’ music kind of guy. So are Andy and Tim, my engineers and co-producers. Everybody in that barn loves music and we all come from those black heroes. We all come from Motown and the Chuck Berry originals and we can all name every great killer song by every great

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Music News • July June 2022

killer artist. There’s an intensity to perform these songs, but there’s also an easygoing shit-kicker vibe. We just relax, we got a coffee machine, we got water and we’re just bull shittin’ and telling jokes and testing amps and placing mics. There’s an easy goingness, but there’s not a lot of moments on the record where it’s guitar frenzy. You know, the soul in “Detroit Muscle” could qualify as some guitar frenzy, but in “WinterSpring SummerFall” there’s a couple of moments of frenzy, but mostly, dare I state it, it’s understated. On “Driving Blind,” I just picked up a Les Paul instead of the Byrdland when I overdubbed the solo work and it’s really restrained, don’t you think? It’s easy going. It’s almost Billy Gibbons meets B.B. King like.

Music News: It’s a bit different than a lot of your other stuff on here. It’s shows another side of you.

Ted Nugent: Yeah, I think so. If you go back to the first Ted Nugent solo album, there’s a song on it called “You Make Me Feel Right At Home.” Cliff Davies, God rest his soul, played vibes on it and the drum tracks was played with brushes, a jazz approach, and on the Gibson Byrdland, I backed down the distortion, an almost Wes Montgomery like octave. Yeah, I’ve always been a diverse musician. A lot of people may not want to admit that, there’s moments where… like on the last album, The Music Made Me Do It, there’s an acoustic version of “Fred Bear” and I love playing acoustic guitars around campfires, so yeah, nothing is sacred, and nothing is sacrosanct. I follow my guts. I follow my instinct, but I think “WinterSpring SummerFall,” as an instrumental, shows that. The bastardized Am7 chord that goes to Am6 and then augmented.

You know, I didn’t even know those were the chords I was playing at the time (laughs). I grabbed the neck and put my fingers where I thought it would sound cool and it turned out to be some real different chords. So yeah, I

Ted Nugent: I’m glad you mentioned that, cause yeah, isn’t it a shame that people will presume instead of examine, and if you examine my songs and my albums, I go off on tangents. There’s no where I’m not willing to go. There’s no musical approach I’m not willing to try and I think on this record if you listen to the song I wrote after my brother John died, “Leave The Lights On”… It’s a beautiful song and it’s different.

It’s different from anything I’ve done. You referenced Meat Loaf and the song, “I Love You So I Told You A Lie” or the song that Cliff Davies and I wrote together on the Free For All!! album. Those are beautiful, beautiful ballads.

Music News: Absolutely! Let’s talk about a few more songs on Detroit Muscle and the inspiration behind them. We’ve touched a little on “Detroit Muscle,” but what was the inspiration behind that song?

Ted Nugent: Well, my guitar licks happened. I don’t write songs, I ejaculate them. I go down into my mancave cuckoos nest, sonic bombast every day and I pick up a guitar and plug it in and licks happen. When my hand hits the guitar, licks happen every time. I mean, I can literally write 50 songs a day because I come up with these rhythmical patterns that have a lyricism to them. And then when that happens, what a great lick, and immediately when the syllables came out and maybe I was driving one of my firebreathing Broncos or my Hellcat that day, but “strap yourself in, I’ve got a fire-breathing Mopar. Downtown Detroit’s like a rock and roll dream. Kick out the jams if you really want to go far. The motorcity’s soul is gonna make you scream.” It’s a celebration of the juxtaposition of Detroit musical horsepower muscle and Detroit horsepower muscle. I mean, I love both of them. Being raised in Detroit, it really… it imprints on you the musical soulfulness of Detroit and the incredible history of Detroit horsepower, so what a great combination, if I do say so myself.

Music News: The album comes across as a complete tribute to the motor city, continued on next page

Ted Nugent continued from previous page especially with songs like “Detroit Muscle” and “Born In The Motor City.”

Ted Nugent: It’s a biographical celebration. I was born in the motor city back in 1948 and my dad said, ‘you’d better get your gun son and never be late.’ Literally, he taught me how to shoot and never be late (laughs). Again, I didn’t have a pad of paper or a pencil. I didn’t write the song. I literally played the lick and started singing and then I went back and wrote down what I sang. I didn’t write lyrics, then sing them. I sang and then went back and wrote what I sang. It’s like a good jam session. The best jam session is out-of-body, isn’t it… where you don’t plan anything. You don’t look up and say, ‘Gee, I wonder what note should I play… A. Maybe there’s a scale I should use… f*#k that! You know, in the movie Last Samurai, when the Samurai master was watching Tom Cruise and he couldn’t work the sword properly, the master walked up to him and looked him right in the eye and said, ‘too many minds.’ The best things in life are purely instinctive, spontaneous, raw, and without the baggage of pre-thought. Send me a copy of that last sentence. That was a great sentence. And you know it’s true. The best jams in the world are in a smoky pub or a speakeasy and the band is just unleashing.

That’s what we accomplished every time Jason and Greg and I get together and again as you mentioned, going all the way back to all these incredible bands I’ve been so honored to be part of. Everything you hear on this record is primal, instinctive, autobiographical, and natural. So, I think people who love music will love the ingredients I just mentioned. I think all of our favorite artists are raw, spontaneous, guttural, defiant, fun, and whether your talking Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Motown, James Brown, or Wilson Picket, or AC/DC, or Aerosmith, ZZ Top, or Cheap Trick, it doesn’t matter. Their best music is guttural and raw. Those are our favorite songs.

Music News: I wasn’t surprised to hear “American Campfire.” I’ve seen a lot of your podcasts, and you seem to spend a lot of your time around a campfire at one time or another. It looks a bit like your home away from home.

Ted Nugent: It is the greatest enviornment available historically and most importantly now because the world is very treacherous and there’s a lot of negativity and evil perpetrated by a corrupt government, dishonest media, manipulative anti-America big tech, academia brainwashing, Hollywood stupidity. We need sanctuary Kevin. There’s nothing more calming, more battery recharging, and more soul cleansing than a campfire when your family and friends are maybe poking at the coals or dropping in a log. My family and friends like to drink beer out of a glass or wine. Maybe we’ve got some slabs of venison on the coals, or maybe a marsh-

mallow on the end of a green stick. You know what I mean...

Music News: Exactly.

Ted Nugent: It’s the most calming, happy zone in the world. How old are you Kevin?

Music News: I’m 69.

Ted Nugent: Okay, then you can relate to everything I’m saying.

Music News: How about the song “Driving Blind.” Where are we going with that one?

Ted Nugent: What a cool, jazzy, blues song that is. I played that really different.

That’s where I played the basic tracks with the Byrdland through a Fender Twin and then when it came time for the overdub lead, I just happened to grab a Les Paul and played that through the Fender Twin. It’s a great groove.

It’s Rock And Roll meets Jazz and Blues I think. I couldn’t be more proud of those songs. Everyone really loves that song.

Music News: So, did I detect a little hint of politics in the song “Alaska”?

Ted Nugent: Yes, now there’s a song that I actually composed way back around 1980 when… I forget the year the Exxon Valdez spilled it’s crude because the Captain was drunk, which is another example why I despise substance abuse, because it’s not just the abuser that gets f*#ked, it’s everyone else around him that gets f*#ked. I’ve always gone to Alaska to Rock and Roll, and hunt.

It’s one of the last frontiers. It’s literally a wilderness, wildlife paradise and I would see the ravages of a culture gone stupid with the substance abuse, the Exxon Valdez, the environmental damage, and the native Americans abusing themselves, and the government bureaucrats mismanaging wildlife resources, and so it was a lament. It was a statement that good should overcome evil, and honesty should overcome corruption, so that’s where that song came from, and I played it one day when I was tuning my guitar. We were preparing the new Detroit Muscle recording and the guys went, ‘what song is that?’ I told them it was an old one, but it is cool. Let’s record this one.

Music News: Is seems that you have always been a great advocate for the native Americans, the Indians, which I admire quite a bit.

Ted Nugent: I always have been. My song, the “Great White Buffalo” has been

embraced by all the tribes as their spiritual theme song. Again, I didn’t write that song, I just sang it one day. I didn’t even know the legend of the White Buffalo, but I instinctively sang the information that I had picked up over the years talking with Native Americans. I always admired them obviously, but then on the Love Grenade album, there was “Geronimo and Me”. “Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo and Me, blood brothers fighting to be free.” Yeah, “Tooth, Fang, & Claw” from Spirit Of The Wild. I’ve always paid musical tribute to the Native Lifestyle and the Native People.

Music News: Let’s talk about a song that I know is dear to you. You wrote “Leave The Lights On” after your brother John had passed. I’m sure that made quite an impact on you.

Ted Nugent: My brother John was just a wonderful man and he worked his ass raw.

He got up everyday at 4am and went to Chicago to work. He was a funny guy, smart guy, super marksman, just positive, positive, positive. He was a great father, great husband, great American, and he finally retired at 65. He had developed lung cancer because he smoked, and I did everything but punch him, but I finally got him to quit smoking I think. They got the cancer. They got that out of there, and then they performed surgery on his arm and he developed a blood clot and he died. It was just earth shattering for all of us. Then, that song happened. It’s about my brother John. “Keep The Lights On”, because just like Tony Dukes, and our loved ones, our fellow man… If you keep their spirit in you, they will always be with you. That’s what that song is about.

Music News: And here’s one with a very interesting title, “Feedback GrindFire.”

Ted Nugent: God help us all Kevin, what the f*#k kind of song is that? continued on next page July 2022 • Music News

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Ted Nugent continued from previous page Music News: It’s wild!

Ted Nugent: But listen to the lyrics.

It’s literally a song to my wife Shemane, and again I walked in… What a story! You should interview Michael Lutz, my coproducer, or Jason or Greg. I walked in, did my chores, let the dogs out and trained the dogs a bit, shot my bow and arrow one morning. I do every morning. And I walked into the barn with my coffee and I said, ‘cue up “Feedback GrindFire.” We just recorded it the night before, and I think Michael or Andy said we don’t have the lyrics for that. I said, ‘just put it up, is this mic good? Have you tested the mic? Play the f*#kin’ song, I’m gonna sing it. I literally had my coffee cup in my hand, I hadn’t written lyrics for it and the song started and the energy was just overwhelmingly beautiful! And I sang “Tell me what you want, tell me what you need, tell me all your wildest dreams. Give me some Feedback GrindFire! Tell me what all of this means. Did it feel good, did it feel right, did I set your soul on fire, did you find love, did you live your dreams. Give me some Feedback GrindFire!” Kevin, if that’s not spontaneity, raw and instinctive, I don’t know what is… and that take one vocal is you hear on that record. And the energy level… God bless the grunge guys, the punk bands, and these other guys, but I dare you to find another song with that much piss and vinegar. It’s just so much fun!

Music News: It seems that when you write a song, it’s definitely not like your typical songwriter where you go, ‘we’ll write the music down and then write the lyrics,’ and we’ll put the music to it later. It sounds like it’s all organic and seems to pop out at the same time with little to no planning.

Ted Nugent: 100 percent organic, spontaneous… organic and raw, primal…

Yeah! “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stranglehold,” “Dog Eat Dog,” “Living In The Woods” by The Amboy Dukes. Everything I ever created happened like that. I’ve never sat down in my life with a pad of paper and a pencil and said, ‘jeez, I think I’ll write a song today.

Golly, what key should it be in? What kind of f*#k is that? You don’t analyze primal music, you unleash it, and that’s what you hear on Detroit Muscle. And if I do say so myself, I’ve got a lot of killer f*#kin’ songs that I’ve written, but I don’t think any song I’ve ever created is as outrageous as “Feedback GrindFire!” What a great piece of music!

Music News: No kidding! It’s one of my favorites off the album… I was a bit surprised to hear the “Star Spangled Banner” on the album, but after thinking about it a bit, and knowing how patriotic you are, I’m equally surprised that you haven’t recorded that one before this album.

10 Music News • July 2022

Ted Nugent: I’m called upon all the time at youth events, charity events, political events, conservation events, gatherings, motorcycle rallies, to play the “Starspangled Banner.” I guess that over the years I’ve developed a delivery of that National Anthem with adequate fire and when we were in this barn recording Detroit Muscle, I’m tuning my guitar, sometimes I just whip into the song. I whip into that and I don’t know if it was Jason or Greg that said, ‘You should record that motherf*#ker and put it on the album.’

And I said, ‘you’re right, let’s record that motherf*#ker. Put it on the f*#kin’ album.

So, there it is. I don’t think it’s the best version I’ve done, but it certainly is appropriate, sincere, and adequately firey, If I say so myself.

Music News: I really enjoy this new album. In fact, I’ve always enjoyed your albums. I probably have all your albums.

Ted Nugent: I love all my albums.

There’s some great music there. You know, someday when the liberals get their heads out of their asses and Ted Nugent is properly in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame instead of Grandmaster Flash (laughs). How f*#kin’ stupid is that!!! They’re going to finally admit, they’re going to say, ‘that f*#kin’ Nugent… Boy did he write some killer f*#kin’ songs. I mean, just “Dog Eat Dog” and “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang”, “Geronimo And Me”, the instrumental “Hibernation”. Real music lovers know that I unleashed some of the greatest fuckin’ music in the history of the world. I don’t need any organization to authenticate that or admit it because I know it, you know it, real music lovers know it and I couldn’t be more proud.

Music News: You know Ted, if you keep cranking out the hits like you’ve been doing for the last 60 years, it’s going to be hard for you to do anything less than a 4-hour set. In fact, you should be jamming for 4 hours now. You’ve got way too many songs that people want to hear you perform live.

Ted Nugent: Kevin, when we sit down and try to figure out what songs we’re going to play in two hours, it drives me nuts, cause you’re right. I’ve got about 6 hours worth of material I would love to play every night.

Music News: You’re getting ready to go out on tour soon. How many of these new songs might we be hearing in your show?

You’ve just upped the anti with this new album. It’s going to be hard to not include some of them now given the subject matter, not to mention the shear veracity of the new songs.

Ted Nugent: Well, Jason, Greg and I have already agreed that we have to play “American Campfire”. We have to play “Come And Take It.” We have to play “WinterSpring SummerFall.” We have to play “Feedback Grindfire”, if I can sing that song every night. Good Lord! We want to play “Drivin’ Blind.” We want to play “Born In The Motor City.” I’m not doin’ this just

for the fans, but I have to play “Cat Scratch Fever.” I have to play “Stranglehold” and “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang.” I’ve got to play “Dog Eat Dog” and “Paralyzed.” I’ve got to play “Free For All.” I’ve got to play “Great White Buffalo.” It’s going to be a bitch.

Music News: Are you still doing the bow and arrow on stage?

Ted Nugent: Every once in a while you just might see a flaming arrow at a Ted Nugent concert. Yeah! We should probably do that. People don’t know whether to shit or go blind when we light that arrow and I send it across the stage. How cool is that!!

Music News: When you do that, the applause is deafening!

Ted Nugent: Well, no one’s seen that till I did it on a Rock And Roll stage. The Rolling Stones had a 40-foot penis. Alice Cooper chops his head off and has nurses inject him. The result is fun and vaudeville.

But nobody shoots a fiery arrow and rides a buffalo on stage.

Music News: Well Ted, I want to thank you for talking with me about your new album. It’s definitely a tour-de-force filled with a lot of great songs and incendiary licks.

I just can’t wait to see you back on the road soon.

Ted Nugent: Thank you for pursuing the discussion of the celebration of my new record on behalf of Jason and Greg and Michael Lutz, Tim and Andy, and the whole team. We are so f*#kin’ proud of this, and yes I make political statements. “Come And Take It” is a huge middle finger right in the face of Beto O’Rourke and the entire Democrat Party. You’re damn right I’m political cause I’m a free man and I experiment in self-government and so many times my music reflects that.

Let me tell you, an afternoon with Ted Nugent is a wonderful thing. If you ever get the chance, take it. It could be life-changing.

Ted is definitely a man of man accomplishments. He has definitely cemented his place in Rock And Roll history with a legacy that the average musician would be envious of and sell his soul for. He has sold over 40 million albums, performed more than 6,750 concerts around the world, and written some of the most memorable songs in Rock And Roll. Who can not think of Ted Nugent without remembering classics like “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Great White Buffalo,” “Free For All,” “Fred Bear,” and the ultimate rocker, “Stranglehold.” Now Ted has added another notch to his musical belt with songs off of Detroit Muscle like “Detroit Muscle,” “American Campfire,” “Born In The Motor City,” “Drivin’ Blind,” and the coolest of the cool, “Feedback GrindFire.” When you get a chance, get out there and buy this album.

You’ll be glad you did. It’s one of his best!!

Thank you Ted for one of the best conversations I’ve ever had!!!

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Thursday Night Heights Blues Series

July 7 - Nathan Quick July 14 - ˇThe Hightailers July 21 - Sonny Boy Terry July 28 - Rick Lee

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Louisiana Folklife Center Hall of Master Folk Artists in 2020.

We had a chance to sit down with Tab and discuss quite a bit about his career and his involvement with different aspects in the music business and we’d like to share it with you.

If you didn’t know much about Tab before this story, you’re going to gain a lot of insight into this amazing musician and what makes him tick.

We hope you enjoy it.

Music News: Hi Tab, it seems that you’ve lived most of your life on the road.

You’ve been at it for quite a long time.

Tab Benoit: Kinda, more than 30, probably about 32 or 33 years. I’ve been hittin’ it hard. Who’s countin’, right?

Music News: Well, people still want to see you perform and hear your music. It’s when they don’t want to, it’s time to worry.

Tab Benoit: Yeah man…

Music News: You’re getting’ a short break now. Don’t you start back up in a couple of weeks?

Tab Benoit: No, in about a week. Right now I’m out at my fishing’ camp and people are working’ around on stuff around here because we had Hurricane Ida last August, so everybody is still in rebuilding mode.

Music News: How bad did that affect your fishing camp?

Tab Benoit: I just picked this one up from somebody after the storm. All my stuff was destroyed. You pick up and move on and find something else, you know. When we have a storm like that, people start moving and selling’ things. If you decide to fish, you just use stuff that’s available, that kind of thing. You try to find one with the minimal amount of damage and then continue on.

Tab Benoit Performs At Dosey Doe July 10

By Kevin Wildman One of Louisiana’s top showman is back on the road again. Actually, he always seems to be on the road. Tab Benoit is really a man for all seasons. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, if there’s a catastrophe, or anything, he’s going to be out there touring and playing. Tab has been in the business all of his life. He started out as a drummer just like his father and then branched out to guitar… Blues guitar. Ever the consummate showman, Tab always seems to know what it takes to please his crowd in every city. Right now he’s out on his 2022 Spring-Summer Tour and he’s hitting the ground running.

One thing about Tab’s performances is Music News•• November •December July 2022 2020 612 Music Music News News

that you’ll always see him on stage smiling from ear to ear. That man just loves what he’s doing. He really can’t get enough of it.

Another thing about Tab is that he’s a very active and passionate environmental activist. He supports these events whenever he can. He performed two night at his hometown of Houma, Louisiana at the 16th Annual Voice of the Wetlands Festival. He has also appeared in a couple of movies such as Hurricane On The Bayou, a documentary of the effects of Hurricane Katrina. He most recently is being featured in the Sony Picture Classics 2022 movie, JassFest: A New Orleans Story. This is Frank Marshall & Ryan Suffern’s documentary about the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Most recently Tab was inducted into the

Music News: What did you do with your old camp?

Tab Benoit: My camp was actually on lease property. I lost my camp in Hurricane Barry, which was a couple of years ago and I had a houseboat and that go damaged in Ida, but I found some guys that wanted to buy that and redo it, so you swap one thing for another.

As long as we got a place on the bayou, we do good.

Music News: Do you take a lot of solace and pleasure from fishing?

Tab Benoit: Yeah, just being out on the water. We fish. It’s kinda the easy thing livin’ down here. I can fish in my front yard. I don’t even have to have a fishin’ camp, but havin’ a place to get away and have some jam sessions with my friends on the bayou and be able to take the boat out at any time. Do some midnight cruises… stuff like that, that’s a great time and a relaxin’ thing to do out here on the bayou. continued on page 14

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Tab Benoit continued from previous page Music News: Tell me a little about the tour that you’re getting ready to head out on, or is it just like any other tour?

Tab Benoit: Every tour I do is usually two to four weeks long. We take off, run the country, and then come back and then spend about a week to two weeks at home and get back out and do it again. The next tour is about three-and-half weeks long. Yeah, people still come to see me and have a good feelin’ in their lives. It’s something that we do that helps them get through that. Everybody need something and in these times and day and age, these things become important… and havin’ some kind of a way to get through things, it’s almost like therapy. I think it’s kind of like therapy for them, me, and the band… to be able to get together. I mean, everything I do is natural and honest. I don’t have a set show or a set way of doin’ anything. There’s no set list. There’s no rehearsed out show. It’s, ‘hey man, we got this building, we got this PA system, let’s play,’ and we play with the audience. I don’t feel like I play to them, I feel like I’m playin’ with them, ‘cause they get their two-cents in too. They request songs, they crack jokes with me and joke right back and we have fun with that. I like to think of it as building a friend base, instead of a fan base. Some of these people have been comin’ to see me for 30-years now. Every time I come into town, they come every time, because they know it’s going to be different. We’re going to visit and I’ll talk to people after the show. At the end of it, I’m out there to go visit with them in their hometown. That’s what it’s all about.

Music News: When you go to certain towns, are there people there that you always expect to see?

Tab Benoit: Oh yeah! Yeah, most of them. Most of the towns that I go to has people that I’ve been knowin’ a lot of years. Some of them for over 20 years. That’s like what I said, 14 Music News • July 2022

it’s kind of like friends. It’s not like fans.

Music News: Is it a lot more pleasurable for you to be able for you to walk into a venue and see old familiar faces a little bit more often than new faces.

Tab Benoit: Yeah, but I like seeing new people too, cause that means somehow they’ve found me and like what I’ve been doin’. There’s really no hype behind me. It’s not like I’m putting a record out every six months and there’s an ad. There’s really no hype. People know me for what I do and who I am and I kinda like it that way.

Music News: When was the last time you released a new album?

Tab Benoit: It was like 2011.

Music News: It’s been awhile.

in the studio part of it and how we were putting this stuff together, and how organic it was. It’s kind of hard when you’re sitting in an office somewhere to understand what we were really trying to accomplish. I didn’t want to destroy the original integrity of the idea of me and the band getting together and just writing it, recording it and playing that stuff at once where it becomes organic and authentic. I just try to keep that as much as possible. I’ve been buying equipment here and there. I’ve got a great room at my house where... I bought that house because that room was a great sounding room to record in. It’s all pinewood with a vaulted ceiling. When I walked in I’m like… this is perfect for a studio setup. I’d been acquiring gear here and there and buying all the stuff that professional studios were using. When I’d go into a studio I’d always look at what they were using. I’d pick up pieces here and there and I got stuff for mastering so I could do all the mastering in-house. It took me probably ten to fifteen years to figure out to use that stuff to make a commercially acceptable product out of it. I’m at the point now where I can actually use the skills I’ve been learning the last fifteen years in recording and producing, mixing and mastering. It’s a satisfying thing to be able to do that. You know, the record business. I don’t really know what that is anymore as far as a business goes. It keeps changing so fast and now it’s based on streaming instead of actual physical sales. We keep getting told by major labels that they’re not going to be printing CDs anymore. For us Blues bands and in this genre on the road, we rely on that. It’s part of our income. We always have.

Music News: Well, you’ve got to have product to sell to make extra money, to support yourself while you’re out on the road.

Tab Benoit: Yeah, major labels and people like that are not concerned with that.

They’re more concerned with the streaming services, how many streams they can get. That’s kind of where their bread and butter are coming from now.

Music News: What I don’t like about the streaming services, is that the artist doesn’t seem to be making much money off of all the streaming.

Tab Benoit: Yeah.

Music News: And now you’ve started your own record label.

Tab Benoit: Yeah.

Music News: Tell me a little bit about the record label. What made you decide to start your own record label?

Tab Benoit: Probably because of the other musicians out here who I’m friends with.

They kept wanting to find out how I did things and why my records sounded so open and honest, and natural. I’d get questions about ‘how do you do this,’ ‘how do you do that.’ I’d say, ‘let’s record together and you’ll see. I’ll produce your record and we’ll go from there.’ You know, I produced a few records for other bands for other labels. I didn’t like having to deal with the middle men who weren’t there and didn’t have an idea about what we were doing

Tab Benoit: Oh no, it’s something goofy, like .003 cents per stream. We can’t even look at that like that becoming income one-day. It doesn’t even compute. Somewhere down the line here, in our genre and our world we have to maintain the product ourselves and make the product ourselves. We got to put it out and print it up ourselves. That’s kind of where it came from. Let’s start a label and do it ourselves.

That’s kind of where that came from. It’s more about having the artist out there being able to have product to take and sell and help make more income on the road. You can’t make all your money just on the door. Let’s look at fuel prices and everything like that. All our traveling expenses are going through the roof. It becomes even more vital that we some kind of other way to make some income on the road besides just what we take in at the door. Our cost of what they’re going to get at the door continued on next page

Tab Benoit continued from previous page and what they’re going to pay us for playing ain’t gonna go up every time the price of gas goes up. They’re going to be some gaps in there where we’re going to be struggling, and look, we’ve been doing that for years. This is nothing new in the Blues world. We ain’t that far from the $100 dollar a man thing in the band.

If they could get away with paying us a hundred dollars a man, I’m sure they would. It’s not far from it. We kind of have to put up with them and take care of a lot of it ourselves.

Music News: Exactly… Thirty years a go we were doing about a hundred a man and it hasn’t gone up that much for some of the musicians out there now.

Tab Benoit: That’s what I’m saying… It ain’t that far off. It depends on where you are.

When you’re first getting out here on the road with your band and you’re unknown and you have to pay for all your expenses on the road, believe me it’s not far from a hundred a man still. By the time everybody gets paid, depending on how many people you have in your band.

For a new act that’s relatively unknown, that’s not that far away from that. When you look at it that way, it’s how are we going to even attempt this. If you try to tell an artist that, you discourage them. We don’t want to do that. We want to keep some real music going. The Blues world is the real music. It’s the honest music out here. To me, that has to be maintained, to just maintain the integrity of music in general.

The Blues world and Blues Clubs, Blues festivals, have always been the backbone of all live music from the beginning. This is the roots of all American music and touring musicians.

We’re still living that.

Music News: Well, I consider Blues music to be traditional American music. It started in the fields of America.

Tab Benoit: And then it changed everything worldwide. There wouldn’t have been any Beatles without the Blues. No Led Zeppelin, No Ozzy Osbourne, I can keep going down the list. They all learned from the people here.

Most of that came right from here, right from the Mississippi River area. New Orleans was a huge influence on The Beatles. We’re still coming from the same place, so we’re still bringing music to people from the same roots that it was coming from when they invented the genre. It’s the hard working man barely making it.

Music News: How many artists are on your label now?

Tab Benoit: I don’t know, probably around 8 or 10. Something like that, and there’s new ones coming. I get more and more attention from other artists that like the way we’re doing things and want to do it this way.

Music News: Well, you were on the road with one of your artists not too long ago. It

looks like you’re taking them under your wing and helping them to branch out.

Tab Benoit: Well, actually even just a few days ago, Lightnin’ Malcolm, who just signed with us. In fact, I’m just finishing up his album right now. He’s been out with us. And that’s another thing, the tour support that we give as a label is second to none, because the artist comes out and opens for me. With a lot of them, I play drums on their record. I play drums on their set, so I’ll do the opening set as the drummer and then come out after that and play my set. It’s a way for them to get in front of an audience. If the headliner’s the drummer, then the audience pays more attention.

Music News: So, did you start out as a drummer in the business or a guitarist?

Tab Benoit: I was a drummer first. My dad was a drummer. I was always a drummer that played guitar. I like playing drums too. I like to be able to play from the back and hold that part of the music down. I enjoy that part of it too.

Music News: How do your hands hold up switching from drums to guitar through the night?

Tab Benoit: That’s fine, it just warms me up. It warms me up for the guitar. It’s different muscles. I get warmed up on drums and then when I get on guitar my hands are already in motion.

Music News: Well that’s cool, it kind of breaks the cycle of getting up there and just playing guitar every night.

Tab Benoit: Yeah. Like when we have jam sessions and such at my camp or my house or anything like that, every time we’re having a jam session, I’m on the drums most of the time. It’s kind of normal for me to be playing drums and then jump on the guitar. I do that here and at home anyway. It’s just that people out there on the road are just getting hip to that in the last few years. That’s not unusual for me and my friends and family down here. They

all know me as the guy who wants to play drums all night long.

Music News: Well, I’ve seen you several times over the years and the show is always a lot of fun. It’s never the same show over and over. It always feels new and fresh. I think the last time I saw you was at a club in Houston called Fitzgerald’s.

Tab Benoit: Was that the last time? I played there the last night it was open.

Music News: That was it. It was a fantastic show. It really looked like you were having a great time.

Tab Benoit: Yeah, and I hung around with the lady that owned it, Sara Fitzgerald. We hung around together because it was her last night. Me and her sat at the bar and she went through all the stories she could go through. I didn’t want to leave. My band was outside blowing their horn at me. I was like, ‘man, just hold on.’ She was telling me about James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and all the people that played for her over the years. I didn’t want to miss out on any of those stories.

Music News: That club was something else. Too bad it’s a parking lot now.

Tab Benoit: A parking lot… for real.

Music News: Yeah, a parking lot. She sold the club and the land and they tore everything down and turned it into a parking lot. She wound up moving to somewhere around New Braunfels, I believe, and opened another place around there.

Tab Benoit: Oh, well I’m going to playing down in that area soon. I’m going to be playing Gruene Hall. I’ve played there a couple of times. It’s a great place.

Music News: Are there any halls that are your favorite places to perform at, you just can’t wait to get there? continued on next page July 2022 • Music News 13

Tab Benoit continued from previous page Tab Benoit: All of them, really. I like to play. I get to play in a different room every night, different setup, different size. It could be a festival, it could be a theater, a club… I mean, I like it all. I like to take whatever cards I’m dealt with at night and then play the hell out of it. It’s kind of how I operate. Gimme some electricity and an audience and my band and we’re going to figure something out here.

It’s gonna click, you know. That’s kind of the fun of it and it keeps it interesting because it’s never really the same. Even if there are places where it’s a great place to play or a nice setup, it’s still going to be different the next time I show up… different audience, different night, everybody’s going to feel a little different if you play it for what it is. I never really bank on things being the same, you know what I’m saying. I don’t walk into a place and go ‘this place sounded great last time, it should be great this time.’ It’s never really like that for me. It’s a new thing every night. Every day I wake up and go do my thing, it’s going to be a new thing.

I keep growing and learning, keep learning how to play and how to grasp a new audience every night. And my band… we don’t have a set way of playing things. We never rehearse ever. It’s a new thing every night that I get to try to figure out with the band and the audience at the same time. We’re all figuring it out together.

When we pull it off at the end it’s a big accomplishment.

Music News: With a repertoire as big as yours, do you ever try to put together a set of any sort to try to please everybody?

Tab Benoit: That’s why I don’t do that.

I let the audience pick. I just start it off and play a couple… get it kick started and then it’s open for suggestions. The audience picks the songs. That way I don’t have to figure out what they want to hear. It makes all the difference.

Music News: What seems to be a couple of the songs that they always request?

Tab Benoit: “Medicine” is definitely one.

“Medicine” and “Night Train.” “Dirty Dishes”.

There’s a few that I get the most requests for.

If I start getting a few requests for something I haven’t played in years, I’ll go relearn that and we’ll play that. We don’t rehearse. I have to go relearn, mostly just to remember the lyrics, that I wrote. The ones that I forget first are the ones that I wrote. That’s how funny that is.

Music News: As often as you play, it would probably be hard to even throw in a practice.

Tab Benoit: It’s just not something that we ever do. I think if I did that it, it would throw us off. There’s only three of us. The less members you have in your group, the easier it is to lead them around. All I have to do is leave one person with notes, and that’s Cory 16 Music News • July 2022

my bass player. And then there’s the drummer, and I’m leading him around with rhythm. It’s a lot easier to do that and a lot freer. If I can lead them around and we can go wherever the moment wants to go to, it frees things up where it keeps it exciting for everybody, including myself. The band doesn’t know what we’re getting ready to do, and I don’t know what we’re getting ready to do, and the audience doesn’t know what we’re getting ready to do. But hey, it’s a surprise for everybody.

vious that with the damn shutdown, it’s been delayed. So was “Hurricane On The Bayou”.

That was supposed to come out a year before it did, and Katrina messed that release date up. I don’t know if that movie’s out yet. Originally it was supposed to be just for theatres, a fullfledged movie. I haven’t seen anything about it yet.

Music News: Who are the members of your band and how long have they been with you?

Tab Benoit: I don’t know. I think it’s just mainly talking. They were at Jazzfest filming for the 50th Anniversary of Jazzfest. They were filming everything. I don’t know if my part ever got used. I never saw it.

Tab Benoit: Cory Duplechin is the bass player, and Terence Higgins is the drummer.

Cory’s been with me off and on for over 30 years. He was with me from the very beginning and then he left and played with another band and then came back. Terence and me…

I’ve known my drummer since the 80s too. He was with Dirty Dozen Brass Band for awhile.

He was one of those guys that I was trying to get in for years and then I finally did. It’s hard to tell how long we’ve been together now.

Music News: Well, you’ve obviously been together long enough that you know where you’re going on every song, how and when to improvise when it’s needed, as well as what to do and what to play.

Tab Benoit: We know each other’s language. Music is a language. They have an idea of where I’m gonna go by what I’m playin’.

What I’m playin’ now is gonna let them know where I’m trying to go, so they already kind of have an idea by what I’m playin’ now about what I’m going to be playin’ next. We’ve played together long enough that they know the language, and it is a language.

Music News: You’ve also been featured in a couple of movies. “Hurricane On The Bayou” is one. You’re also in “Jazzfest: A New Orleans Story.” Is that out yet?

Tab Benoit: I don’t know. I haven’t been home enough lately to check that out. It’s ob-

Music News: Do you perform in the movie, or are you just talking?

Music News: Well, you really don’t let anything like disasters or Covid keep you off the road. Even during Covid you were out performing.

Tab Benoit: Yeah! I felt like somebody had to continue on, keep this running, man.

There was something strange about not having live music.

Music News: I’ll say, I went a little stir crazy myself.

Tab Benoit: People down here have been through more disasters than most people. We just went through another one in August. In the middle of the pandemic thing, we had the worst hurricane we’ve ever seen in my hometown. There’s definitely resilience and an attitude towards things like that. When the stuff hit the fan, people down here, they just know what to do. You pick up and brush everything off and that’s still worth saving and you move on. We ain’t gonna sit there and dwell on it and let it get us down. That’s one thing that’s keeping me here. Yeah, I’m from here, been here my whole life, but every time we have a hurricane, it’s on my mind about leaving, because there’s a lot of stress involved. There’s a lot of loss. The hardest part is about leaving the people here. There’s no people like this continued on next page

Tab Benoit continued from previous page anywhere else. They’re the most generous caring people that I know and that I’ve ever met.

It’s the kind of people that don’t lock their doors, and they feel like ‘if you need it more than me brother, have at it.’

Music News: You seem to be a real ‘man of the people.’ You get out after a show and mingle with the audience. I have the feeling that you’re always available for a good story or a conversation.

Tab Benoit: I’m always there for the people. They come and talk to me, tell me their stories, and I tell them some of mine. It’s part of the beauty of that. It’s getting to share each other’s stories and having a good listener.

That’s always good. Even on the other side of it for an audience member. You give them a little bit of your time and listen to their story and some of their stories are what really help us going, and knowing that what we’re doing is helping them through some tough times.

They’re doing the same for us, so it becomes a mutual thing. I don’t feel like I’m just the one whose gonna dictate the moment. I feel like the moments kind of running and we’re all doing our part in helping each other get through whatever these moments are. It’s part of being open like that and leaving it open and being honest with the artist.

Music News: There’s also an honesty to your playing. Your not know as an artist that uses a lot of effects. Your fingers and your heart and soul are the effects.

Tab Benoit: I don’t use any fancy tricks or effects pedals on my guitar. There’s nothing they’re gonna hear that I didn’t play and they hear it’s coming from me and my fingers and my heart. When I’m playin’, it’s comin’ from them. It’s coming from what I’m feelin’ out there. If feel from the audiences what they’re sending me and I play that. When they give back, they get it. They understand it. It’s ‘hey man, this guy’s feeling us.’ That’s really important to me and important in my style of handling this and in my way of performing. It’s kind of hard to call it performing for me. I’m not putting on a show, I’m playing us… as one, as one solid unit. We’re all in this together and I’m playing us… let’s go.

Music News: So, after over 30 years on the road, what is the hardest part of touring for you?

Tab Benoit: The hardest part is obviously being away from home. I’m not out here to go sightseeing. I don’t go to Europe. I don’t fly to shows. We stay in the 48 states that we can drive through. We hit all of them. And part of that is because I like having a home, a home base. My bus is my home for half the year. I like having that. I think that keeps me grounded and keeps me from feeling I need to get out of this. It’s not easy being on the road obviously.

It’s a tough life, but if I can have as much of that feeling at being home as I can, then I feel I can be freer and happier and still be in it, not being concerned about being away, not being home, not having my comfort zone. Pretty much, when I’m on the road I’m still in my comfort zone. It’s just the way that I’m touring. It’s just a choice in the way that I handle things, and the way that I’ve handled this career in music. I’m a live artist. I don’t consider myself a recording artist. I’ve always felt I was more of a live artist. I really think that’s where you get it when you see and you feel the band live. That’s when you really get it. It’s always harder to capture that on record. You got to capture it live, have the audience capture it, ‘cause they get to be a part of it.

Music News: Well, on your recordings, you seem to have that freshness to them as well, that honesty, the raw yet refined sound to the song you’re recording too.

Tab Benoit: When you’re in the studio without the audience, that’s the hardest part of recording. I try to make that as easy as possible for artists that come and record for me.

I’ve done it long enough to where I’m comfortable with it. Even when we record, there is no rehearsal. Most of the songs on my records is the first time that the band ever played the song. It’s what you’re hearing on the record.

We don’t go back and fix anything. We don’t go back and fix vocals. I don’t go back and do guitar solos. All of that is live and most of it is the first time we played the song, so it’s got that feeling of being on the edge. The audience does understand that. I think part of the way it maintains that live feeling, like there was an audience there is because of that method of doing that. If we’re playin’ it like it’s live, like we do on live shows, you don’t stop in the

middle and say, ‘hey, we messed that part up, let’s do it again.’ You don’t do that live. For me, I’m not going to do that in the studio either, ‘cause for me, that red light, when it comes on in that recording machine, is the audience.

The whole audience is packed into that little red light, when that little red button goes on.

So, hey… it is live! We are playin’ live. Let’s play it for them right now, just like they were sitting in the room right with us.

Well folks, we tried to fit as much of our interview with Tab into this story, but we barely scratched the surface here. Our interview went on for quite a long time and we touched on a lot of subjects that were very interesting. In fact, our interview with Tab went on for quite a long time. We could actually do an entire issue of Tab, but for the sake of all the other musicians that would like to get their information in to this magazine, well stop it right here. Maybe someday we can revisit this interview and add everything else we talked about at a later date, but I’ll give you a few hint at what you’re missing… Did you know that Tab used to be a StandUp comedian? Well he did. That’s another story all together, but we will say that it helped in his ability to banter back and forth with his friends and fans that come to his show. Also, did you know that the legendary Evil Kneivel is one of Tab’s idols. That’s another story in itself.

At any rate, as we started out, Tab Benoit is definitely a man for all seasons, a very extraordinary man. We would like to encourage each and every one of you to check him out the next time he hits your town. Even if he doesn’t, try to track down some of his recordings. Tab is a very prolific performer and songwriter and he’s got some great songs that you really need to hear.

July 2022 • Music News

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Kent Burnside Performs At Green Oaks Tavern July 22

Kent Burnside was born into the blues. Kent Burnside was born in 1971 in Memphis Tennessee, and spent his early years in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He is the oldest Grandson and one of the closest pupils of the legendary R.L. Burnside Kent first heard the blues while watching his grandfather R.L. perform on the family farm to the locals. Kent used to sell sandwiches to audience members for a dollar a piece during these performances. The first lesson RL taught Kent was that to be a bluesman you have to find your own rhythm on the guitar. You can’t play someone else’s rhythm – as rhythm comes from your heart. It started with Buddy Guy. Kent got his real start in the music business playing with Jimbo Mathus (Fat Possum Records) and going on tour with Buddy Guy in the early 2000’s. That was when he started developing his signature style of blues: dark, hypnotic, inviting and very danceable. Kent performed for Samuel L. Jackson to help Jackson prepare for his role in Black Snake Moan (2007). He has also worked on The Blues Brothers’ stage shows with Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd is a huge fan and supporter of Kent’s work. Bruce Willis once played harmonica at a jam with Kent Burnside. Kent has spent decades performing at festivals and has toured all over the world. Most recently in 2019 he performed at the Blues Rules Festival in Switzerland, and played a two week tour of Australia with The New Savages. Kent Burnside regularly performs at Festivals around the US with The Flood Brothers.

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Music News • July 2022

Green Oaks Tavern

211 E. Main St. • Humble, TX • 281.570.4344 • www.greenoakstavern.com Friday, July 1 Murali Coryell with Ernie Saturday, July 2 Durawa Johnny Riley

Friday, July 8 Paul Ramirez Band

Sunday, July 10 Aaron LaCombe Saturday,July 9 Mark May Band

Friday, July 15 Holland K. Smith

Saturday, July 16 Ruben V

Sunday, July 22 Saturday, July 23 Sunday, July 24 Kent Sonny Boy Terry Kevin & Derek Burnside Swanson Matthew Brodnax

Friday, July 29 John Clifton Band

Saturday, July 30 Longhorn Cadillacs

JULY 2022

RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED (call, email or FB message us) • Happy Hour Tues-Sat @ 4-7pm July 2022 • Music News

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This month, Pitstomper Productions presents the heaviest metal concert that The Acadia Bar & Grill has seen in ages. On stage will be headliners Lividity, performing along with special guests Arhcitectural Genocide, Decrypting Humanity, Putrid Womb, and Yig. For you metalheads out there, this is one show you won’t want to miss.

Pitstomper Productions Presents The Metal Concert of The Year with Lividity at The Acadia Bar July 16 along with special guests Architectural Genocide, Decrypting Humanity, Putrid Womb, and Yig

Lividity US porn grinders hailing from Illinois, Lividity and their releases speak volumes of heretic, hatred and whores!! Founded by Dave Kibler in 1993 as an enthusiastic one-man project, the extremely brutal sound of the early days fused massive influences from Hypocrisy, Bloodfeast, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary into an acidic and breath taking musical mixture. The goal was “the faster the music, the tighter the execution” & “the slower the music, the heavier the tone”… After the first spreading of his music with it’s inhumane lyrical articulations, Dave was joined by some like-minded comrades. Years went by and brought several more Lividity releases. Lividity’s debut was a simple and crushing 4 song tape EP titled “Rejoice In Morbidity” 1996 (only released in Europe through Poland’s Immortal Records) which was heavily tape traded and circulated, then the debut CD through Ablated Records (Usa), “Fetish For The Sick” 1997, featured such anthems as Rectal Wench, Lacerations Of An Unclean Twat, and Pussy Lover. This one jammed a stiff rod in the ass of the underground!! There is simply no mistaking what to expect from these guys. Other releases to follow, that have helped perpetuate cult like status in the death metal underground revolution are “Show Us Your Tits (Live)” 1999, “The Age Of Clitoral Decay” 2000, Lividity/Profanity (Ger) split 7” 2000, “…Til Only The Sick Remain” 2002… amongst other split vinyl, bootlegs, rehearsal demos and mass promotion!!

Time for a new era in brutal bliss!! The acquiring of Von Young on vocals / guitar and Jordan Varela on drums in 2005. Then all Hell broke loose!!

The release of the highly acclaimed masterpiece, “Used, Abused And Left For Dead” was unleashed in the Spring of 2006. A vicious powerhouse of debauchery. Leaving every victim, a pile of carnage, on the ground where they stood. Lividity has acquired Garrett Scanlan on drums and the live performance has polished up as well with sheer energy and bone breaking speeds, yet still capturing the old school essence that has been demonstrated through the years. With the signing to War Anthem Records (Germany) in cooperation with Epitomite Productions (Usa), Lividity is on a world domination campaign, that has brought them to various festivals and tours including 9 Europe invasions which includes— tours ’99 (Fleshless/Sanatorium), ’03 (Master/Damnable/ Mastic Scum). ’07 (Master/Imperious Rex), ‘09 (Requiem/Warpath/Nordor) and festivals ’05 Fuck The Commerce (Ger), ’08 Party.San Open Air (Ger), ’09 Obscene Extreme (Cz) & Kaltenbach (A), ’10 Party.San Open Air (Ger) & Mountains Of Death (Swiss) & Barther Open Air (Ger). [Other notable tours and fests— ’04 single show in Lyss, Switzerland, ’06 USA tour w/ locals, ’09 Canada tour (Blastomycosis/ Mortify), ’09 Bogota Death Grind Fest (Col.) as well as earlier years of Central IL. Metal Fests, Milwaukee Metal Fests, Ohio Death Fests,

continued on page 22

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Music News • July 2022

http://www.acadiabarandgrill.com 3939 Cypress Creek Parkway Houston, TX 77068 281-893-2860

COME CHECK OUT OUR NEWLY REMODELED PATIO!

Daily Specials Monday $4 Jager, Pool League (free), Free Poker Tuesday Happy Hour All Day $3 Wells & $3 Domestics Karaoke from 9pm to 1am Wednesday $2 Off All Pitchers, $4 Jim Beam Fire, Free Pool, Open Jam Thursday $3 All 360 Vodkas Friday & Saturday 12 - 7pm $4 Fireball $4 Jim Beam Fire Sunday 2 - 7pm $3 Jager & $3 360 Vodkas (All Day For 360 vodkas) Build Your Own Bloody Mary All Day

OPEN MIC EVERY WEDNESDAY HOSTED BY HEAVY HONEYS Friday, July 1 - RHODES TO OZ, Spiritus - A Tribute to Ghost, Count•R•feit - A Tribute to Limp Bizkit Saturday, July 2 - Primrose Hollow, WARRIOR ALIVE, Chasing Amea Sunday, July 3 - Jesus Carlos, The Smashed Potatoes, Übermoon Thursday, July 7 - Jonathan Foster, Check The Floor Friday, July 8 - Loose Change, Bar Rats, Dead Rabbits and Bullethead Saturday, July 9 - Under The Scythe Summer Tour Sunday, July 10 - Cujo & the Wild, Then Rinas, Alien Ghost Magic, Heavy Honeys Thursday, July 14 - Will Travis and The County, Hunter Walkup Band, Scotti Fraser Friday, July 15 - Night Revival, Black Kennedy, The Cool Arrows Saturday, July 16 - LIVIDITY in Houston 1st time EVER Sunday, July 17 - Evren/, Vigilandia Thursday, July 21 - Mad Rant, Colournoise, Planet Moon Friday, July 22 - Stonewall Static, Brotality, 307Departure, Blackmoore Saturday, July 23 - Nameless Anonymous, Bountytx, Sonic Voodoo Sunday, July 24 - Freaks a Tribute to the band Live, Renegades (Styx) Thursday, July 28 - Wildstreet, Christian Shields, A Nightmare From Texas Friday, July 29 - Ralph Mendez Birthday Bash!

Saturday, July 30 - Peeling Flesh, State of Filth, Godhand, Alpha Virus, Biletx Sunday, July 31 - Lord Neek, M.S.E., Third Coast Kirk, Trippy Gøblin, Poster Child July 2022 • Music News

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Pitstomper Productions continued from page 20 Texas Death Fest, Mayhem Peoria Fests… and more]

groove, and speed metal. They are busy finishing up a demo that should be available in the coming months.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Decrypting-Humanity222422734971529/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/decryptinghumanity

With the latest release titled “To Desecrate & Defile”2009, expect nothing less than energy and power of “Used, Abused…” coupled with the old school death / grind that has helped shape what Lividity has become!!

2014 marks 20 year existence of the band and the longevity is due to hard work dedication and persistence. We feel we have helped influence the growth of vulgar, sexually explicit, porn death grind bands in the scene worldwide.

Lividity is Dave Kibler (guitar / backing vocals since 1994), Von Young (vocals / guitar since 2005), Garrett Scanlan (drums since 2006), and Jake Lahniers (bass / backing vocals since 2008).

Putrid Womb

Architectural Genocide From the infamous, incendiary killing fields of Texas, a state that seethes with some of the most brutal death metal on the planet, come Architectural Genocide. In 2018, the band released a demo, featuring the sickening duo ‘Force Fed Fecal Matter’ and ‘Void of Atrocity’ - a vicious one-two of brute force and evil intent. It was more than enough to persuade Comatose Music to invest in the band. Shortly after the demo crawled from the Texas sewers, the band tapped into previously unimagined reserves of pulverizing violence and developed a simply shocking relentlessness and intensity of focus. With this, they’ve brought to life an immense being of concentrated chaos in the form of a full length release, Cordyceptic Anthropomorph. With ruthless determination and ambition, Architectural Genocide plans to lather the world with their devastatingly grotesque expression. Prepare for the abolishment of human existence; Architectural Genocide draws near!

Decrypting Humanity Decrypting Humanity was formed somewhere around 2017 just outside of Jackson, Mississippi by exSevered Offering guitarist Perry Cooper and ex Storage 24 drummer Adam Williams and bass player Peyton McDaniel. After going through a few members they are now a solid lineup.

Members of Decrypting Humanity are Ex-Severed Offering guitarist- Jeffrey Dickerson (Bass, and drum programming), Ex-Severed Offering guitarist Perry Cooper (guitar), Christian McDaniel (guitar), and Ex-Severed Offering/Pulse of a Million Dead/Beneath vocalist Jason Marascalco (live vocals).

Decrypting Humanity is a wicked combination of death, tech,

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Music News • July 2022

Putrid Womb hais from Houston, TX. They are on the Brutal Mind Record Label and they were formed in 2015 : Putrid Womb made their humble beginning in 2015 when four friends in the same small town just north of Houston decided to join forces. In 2016 Putrid Womb recorded two demo tracks and released them digitally, giving listeners a taste of their groove laden brand of brutal death metal. During that time they began playing shows in and around the Houston area, building themselves a following of loyal fans close to home.

In 2017 they released their well received debut album “Propensity For Violence” with London based label Rotten Music. By then they were playing shows all over Texas, and in 2018 they made their first appearance outside of their home state at Las Vegas Death Fest. In 2019 they set out on their first ever tour where they demolished European stages alongside Colpocleisis and 7 H. Target. Shorty after their return from the successful tour they released their first EP “Slam Induced Priapism” again with Rotten Music, which showcased their current lineup and gave listeners a taste of the carnage to come. In 2021 they took part in their first split CD “Dissolution of the Wicked” on Vile Tapes Records alongside Disfigurement of Flesh, Decomposition of Entrails, and Fatuous Rump. That same year they inked a deal with Brutal Mind and Fat Tub of Lard Records to release their upcoming sophomore full length.

Members of the band are Conrad Heinemeyer (Vocals), Jack Bobbitt (Guitar), T.J. Mundy (Drums), and Garrett Rocchi (Bass).

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/putridwomb

Yig Hailing from North Houston Yig brings you aggressive riffs with punchy grooves.

Guiding the tracks with gut wrenching lows and ear piercing highs.

Pulling their influence from old school roots and modern metal fuses into something refreshing that you need to see live.

Yig are Trey Tinner (vocals), Adrian Gaitan (guitar), Kenneth Matt Hinton (guitar), Daniel Martinez (bass), and Jacob Contreras (drums).

recognizable on country radio. His unwavering dedication to the tenets of the country genre inspired a generation of country singers and bolstered an underserved segment of the fanbase.

For just as long, Turner has been upfront about his dedication to his Christian faith. He released his gospel album “I Serve a Savior” in 2018, after waiting for what felt like the right time between mainstream projects. He was just as intentional with the release of his first full-length Christmas album, which fans have asked for since the beginning of his career. To prepare, he wrote Christmas songs for one year leading up to recording. If planning “King Size Manger” was intimidating because of the volume of Christmas albums available and the number of times many holiday favorites have been recorded, then trying to come up with fresh ideas for an original Christmas song was downright scary.

“You’ve got Santa Claus, and you got Jesus, and most of those songs have been written,” he laughed. “You’re kind of up the creek on creative ideas, so I really had to dig down deep and try to find little turns of phrases and clever twists.”

Josh Turner Performs At The Arena Theatre July 22 Josh Turner’s most treasured childhood holiday memories are of listening to Randy Travis’ “An Old Time Christmas,” as it was the soundtrack to the holiday season in his Hannah, SC home. When Turner set out to record his first Christmas album “King Size Manger,” Travis’ country Christmas collection was his guidepost.

Turner didn’t want a Frank Sinatra horn section or a 100-piece orchestra. He planned to create a timeless country Christmas album he could imagine his family’s neighbors listening to in South Carolina.

“I just had it ingrained in my mind that you got all this other Christmas music out there in the world, but when it comes to growing up in the country and the lifestyle that comes with a country upbringing ‘Randy’s record, that’s it, you know?’” Turner admitted. “I had just kind of tricked myself into thinking that I need to make volume two.”

Turner’s “King Size Manger” is his dream realized – and then some.

“King Size Manger” is a collection of traditional country versions of classic Christmas songs with some original tunes as well as some Hawaiian, bluegrass and swing sprinkled into the mix. Turner wrote three of the four original songs and arranged five tracks on the 11-song album.

His rich, distinct baritone wraps around each song like a cozy blanket on a snowy morning. Holiday classics including “The First Nowell” (featuring the song’s traditional spelling) and “Silent Night, Holy Night” become even more nostalgic and the originals “King Size Manger,” “What He’s Given Me,” “Soldier’s Gift” and “Mele Kalikimaka My ‘Ohana” adopt the feel of time-honored Christmas traditions.

“I allowed my heart to come out,” Turner said. “Every single one of them, I had a hand in reshaping and recreating because a lot of these songs had been done so many times. Making a Christmas record can be a mighty daunting task for an artist. There are so many songs to choose from and there’ve been so many versions of those songs throughout history. It can be intimidating to know whether you’ll be able to measure up to what’s already been done and when I get to that point, I step back and remind myself that I have to do what I hear in my heart. You may be surprised to hear my arrangement on some of these songs that you know so well. We had a lot of fun throwing out all the preconceived notions of what a Christmas record should sound like. In my opinion, it’s about the words and the heart and soul of how a song sounds. You don’t need jingle bells on a song to make it a Christmas song.”

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For two decades, Turner’s deep, velvet voice has been the most Music News • July 2022

When the idea for the song “King Size Manger” popped in his head, Turner said that was intimidating, too. He knew the concept was strong and didn’t want to mess it up. Turner took the plot to longtime friend and co-writer Mark Narmore. The men have written hundreds of songs together, yet when Turner shared the idea – Narmore was speechless.

“He was like, ‘What a title!’” Turner recalled. “He and I have such a rapport and are comfortable enough with each other to allow the heart and soul to come out of a song that we’re trying to write. We sat down and knew we needed to just tell the story of what is a king size manger and why is it a king size manger. So, that’s what we did.”

“King Size Manger,” the album’s title track, tells the prophecy and story of Jesus’ birth powerfully delivered through simple words and amplified by Turner’s ardent and honest delivery.

“I was so proud of it when we finished the song,” Turner said. “I was kind of surprised and shocked that we could pull that off.”

Turner and Nashville-based singer/songwriter Pat McLaughlin were inspired by Ralph Stanley’s version of “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” when they wrote the banjo-fronted bluegrass midtempo “What He’s Given Me.” Turner is the lone writer on the Hawaiian-influenced “Mele Kalikimaka My ‘Ohana” (featuring Jake Shimabukuro and Ho’okena), inspired by an anniversary trip taken to the island with Turner’s wife, Jennifer. Affirmed by its unique harmonies, ukulele and strum patterns, its sound makes “Mele Kalikimaka My ‘Ohana” a standout on “King Size Manger.”

Songwriters Travis Hill and Tom Douglas penned “Soldier’s Gift,” the album’s lead single.

“I loved what the song says and musically, it’s laid back enough to where it grabs your attention, where you really focus on the words. At first, I thought “Where’s the song going?” But I just felt there are so many families and so many of our members of our military that could relate to this song. And it fit with all the other songs and added to the variety and subject matter on this record.”

Turner dressed up a couple of Christmas favorites with some special guests. Rhonda Vincent joined him on the swinging, twin fiddledriven “Joy to the World” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the first classic Turner knew had to be on the record because it was always his favorite song, features his wife and four sons.

“I’m sitting in my living room one night just kind of messing around with the song. And all of a sudden, I hear this background vocal part and I thought this is what Jennifer and the boys need to be singing on. So, I called a couple of the boys in and I asked them to sing the part and they did. We went through it and I thought ‘yeah, this is it,’ so I made a little recording of it on my phone. Then we went into the studio and they did such a great job on all of it,” he said of his family. “I’m pretty proud of that one.”

The singer wanted to keep his version of “Go Tell It On The Mountain” as primitive as possible and relied only on piano, Hammond B3 organ and a three-person choir for support.

continued on next page November 2021 • Music News

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The Aristocrats will make their longawaited return to the stages of North America this summer, for the ten-week, 50-show DEFROST tour. Audiences starved for some trademark Aristocratic musical mayhem will be treated to a debut of select new material not yet released on any album, as well as a carefully curated collection of fan favorites and deep cuts. They’ll also be promoting their first-ever orchestral collaboration. The Aristocrats With Primuz Chamber Orchestra, a lush and lavish musical reimagination and sonic reinvention of songs from throughout the band’s storied four-album catalog, will release in June, just before the tour begins.

The Aristocrats Perform at The Scout Bar July 16 The Aristocrats, (guitarist Guthrie Govan, bassist Bryan Beller and drummer Marco Minnemann) will make their longawaited return to the stages of North America this summer, for the DEFROST tour. The ten-week, 50-show run will mark their first live performances since the FREEZE! Live In Europe 2020 album was captured, more than two years ago. Audiences starved for some trademark Aristocratic musical mayhem will be treated to a debut of select new material not yet released on any album, as well as a carefully curated collection of fan favorites and deep cuts.

The ultra-power-trio issued a joint statement to mark the occasion: “We’re beyond thrilled to get back out there and do what we do best - playing together, live and loud, in the same room - for our amazing fans who’ve been so generous with their support of what we do as a band. Even though modern technology is great, we wanted to wait until we were physically together before playing any new material, because that’s just how we do it. That’s finally going to happen right before we head out on the road, so it will be really fresh and exciting. We can’t wait!”

In addition to The Aristocrats’ return to the live stage, the band will soon share news of a collaboration project one year in the making, which is slated for release in the spring. More details will follow on this project soon.

Over the past ten years The Aristocrats have released critically acclaimed albums, toured the world, and established themselves as one of the most musically original, refreshingly irreverent, and astoundingly entertaining instrumental rockfusion acts on the planet. Anyone who’s witnessed their live musical high-wire act 26 Music News • July 2022

employing random amounts of rock, jazz, pop, metal, and even traditional country – can attest that it is informed by the spirit of a true band, one whose improvisational soul allows for anything to happen onstage at any moment…including the occasional wink and nod at the audience.

Over the past decade, The Aristocrats – guitarist Guthrie Govan (Steven Wilson, Hans Zimmer, Asia/GPS), bassist Bryan Beller (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Dethklok), and drummer Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson, Joe Satriani, Steve Hackett) – have established themselves as one of the most musically original, refreshingly irreverent, and astoundingly entertaining instrumental rockfusion acts on the planet. Anyone who’s witnessed their live musical high-wire act – employing random amounts of rock, jazz, pop, metal, country, and anything in between – feels the spirit of a true band, one whose improvisational soul allows for anything to happen onstage at any moment…including the occasional Frank Zappa-influenced wink and nod at the audience.

The buzz from their supposedly oneoff debut gig at the Anaheim NAMM show in 2011 led to The Aristocrats self-titled debut album. Tracked in just eight days, The Aristocrats [2011] was hailed as an instant classic in leading music publications worldwide, appearing on many of that year’s top ten lists. Over the next decade, The Aristocrats proceeded to make three more critically acclaimed studio albums, two of which landed in the Billboard Top 10 Jazz Chart (jazz? ok, sure). Several world tours resulted in three live albums, the most recent of which – FREEZE! Live In Europe 2020 – was a poignant document of the band peaking on the You Know What…? tour, captured just two weeks before the COVID era began.

The ultra-power-trio issued a joint statement to mark the occasion: “We’re beyond thrilled to get back out there and do what we do best – playing together, live and loud, in the same room – for our amazing fans who’ve been so generous with their support of what we do as a band. Even though modern technology is great, we wanted to wait until we were physically together before playing any new material, because that’s just how we do it. That’s finally going to happen right before we head out on the road, so it will be really fresh and exciting. We can’t wait!”

Guthrie Govan is arguably the hottest guitarist on the international music scene today, and his 2006 solo album Erotic Cakes was widely recognized as an instant classic.

His top-level touring experience (Asia/GPS, Steven Wilson, Hans Zimmer) complements his busy schedule as one the most in-demand guitar clinician/educators in the world.

Guthrie was featured on the cover of Guitar Player Magazine in July of 2011 and Guitar World Magazine in April 2015.

Bryan Beller’s numerous credits include guitarists Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa), and the hugely popular metal “band” Dethklok, borne of the Adult Swim (U.S.) animated series Metalocalypse. His solo artist catalog includes three studio albums (including 2019’s rave-reviewed progressive double concept album Scenes From The Flood), two DVD’s, an instructional DVD for Alfred Publishing, and he was featured on the cover of Bass Player Magazine in October of 2012.

Marco Minnemann is widely seen by fans and peers as one of the most gifted, innovative, cutting-edge drummers in the world. He’s graced the covers of several drum magazines (including Modern Drummer) and enjoys an ultra-versatile sideman career (Adrian Belew, UKZ, Steven Wilson, Joe Satriani, Necrophagist, Steve Hackett).

Marco is also a multi-instrumentalist and compulsively productive composer with over twenty CD & DVD solo releases to date, including two albums with his most recent collaboration McStine & Minnemann.

May 2022 • Music News

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Counting Crows drummer Brad Hargreaves as well.

As Third Eye Blind worked on cementing their sound, Jenkins began earning major-label attention through his production of the Braids’ cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which became an international hit. He signed a publishing deal shortly afterward, reported to be the largest such deal ever presented to an unreleased artist.

Meanwhile, Third Eye Blind cultivated a dedicated fan base by playing the Bay Area frequently, and the group’s original 14song demo attracted attention from major labels. The buzz continued to build when the musicians finagled their way into a prized opening slot for Oasis’ April 1996 concert at the Civic Auditorium. The group were still unsigned at the time, but following their wellreceived performance (which included an encore — a rare accolade for an opening band), Third Eye Blind became the subject of a bidding war.

Third Eye Blind Bring Their Summer Gods Tour To White Oak Music Hall July 29

by Matt Collar California alt-rock outfit Third Eye Blind are known for their bright, melodic sound, bringing together a mix of post-grunge and classic pop/rock traditions. The group scored their first hit in 1997 when their debut single “Semi-Charmed Life” cracked the Top Ten, helping push the eponymously titled Third Eye Blind to number 25 on the Billboard 200. The band built upon that success, releasing albums like 1999’s Blue and 2003’s Out of the Vein, both which continued to earn Alternative chart attention and spawn singles like “Anything,” “Never Let You Go,” and “Blinded (When I See You).” After taking a break during the mid2000s, the group returned, hitting number three on the Billboard 200 with 2009’s Ursa Major and cracking the Top 20 with 2015’s Dopamine. Third Eye Blind have continued to expand their sound, working with Billy Corgan on 2019’s Screamer and pairing for a song with Best Coast’s Bethany Consentino on 2021’s Our Bande Apart.

Formed in 1993, Third Eye Blind hail from San Francisco, where singer Stephan Jenkins made his name as a solo musician after earning an English degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Jenkins soon decided to piece a band together. After several lineups failed to gel, former Fungo Mungo bassist Arion Salazar joined the group, which Jenkins had named Third Eye Blind (in reference to the metaphysical concept of a mind’s eye). At one of the band’s early shows, guitarist Kevin Cadogan — a former student of Joe Satriani who later became involved in the northern California ska and punk scenes — introduced himself to Jenkins. Cadogan subsequently joined Third Eye Blind in late 1995, bringing along former

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Music News • July 2022

The band eventually signed with Elektra/Asylum, a label that afforded them a considerable degree of artistic freedom.

Jenkins was tapped as their producer and received a production deal to help develop new groups, but his top priority remained Third Eye Blind. With Jenkins handling production duties, the band recorded their eponymous debut in San Francisco with the assistance of Eric Valentine, an engineer who had also worked on their early demos. The self-titled Third Eye Blind was released in the spring of 1997; by that summer, the introductory single “Semi-Charmed Life” had become a chart-topping modern rock hit. Spawning several more successful singles (including “How’s It Going to Be” and “Jumper”), the album broke into the Billboard Top 200 and remained there for over a year, establishing Third Eye Blind as one of the most popular bands of the late ’90s.

Blue followed in 1999 and sold 150,000 copies within a month of its release.

Although fans heralded it as the band’s strongest album, only one song — the sprightly “Never Let You Go” — matched the success of their past singles. Tours across the globe followed throughout 2000, but by the time 2001 rolled around, the group had lost a crucial member (guitarist Cadogan, who cowrote much of their material before exiting

the lineup) and opted for some time off. Tony Fredianelli soon climbed aboard as the band’s replacement guitarist, and Third Eye Blind turned their attention to several charity events. They played shows in support of the Tiger Woods Foundation and helped organize Breathe, a performance that promoted breast cancer awareness.

By 2003, Third Eye Blind resumed their schedule with the release of their third studio album, Out of the Vein. Featuring the single “Blinded,” the record initially debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Nonetheless, due in part to poor marketing, a side effect of Elektra’s merger with Atlantic, Out of the Vein ultimately failed to ignite the same commercial sparks as its predecessor.

Undeterred, the band quickly began work on a follow-up, but Jenkins’ lengthy battle with writer’s block slowed the production. In the interim, they released a 2006 best-of compilation and continued to tour. Finally, on the heels of the group’s tour of Japan in 2008, they released the digital EP Red Star, featuring the single “Non-Dairy Creamer.”

The following year, Third Eye Blind returned with their long-awaited fourth album, Ursa Major. Produced by Jenkins and released on the band’s own Mega Collider Records, the set hit number three on the Billboard 200, buoyed the singles “Don’t Believe a Word” and “Bonfire.” At the end of the group’s tour in 2010, they parted ways with Fredianelli, who was replaced by Irish guitarist Kryz Reid. Over the next several years, the band continued to tour and work on new material. A free digital single, “If There Ever Was a Time,” released in support of the Occupy Wallstreet Movement, appeared in 2011. In 2015, they released their fifth studio album, Dopamine. Once again produced by Jenkins, the record was the first with bassist Alex LeCavalier, who’d joined as a full-time member in 2013. It also returned them to the Billboard 200, where it cracked the Top 20.

In March 2016, Third Eye Blind garnered attention for remarks Jenkins made criticizing the Republican Party while playing a benefit show for the charity organization “Musicians on Call” at Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. While not technically a political event, the show was held in close proximity to the Republican National Convention, with Republicans in attendance.

The following October, the band released We Are Drugs, an EP featuring covers of songs that TEB find inspirational.

Third Eye Blind returned in October 2019 with Screamer, a stylized, modernized collection of original material that was recorded in part with Billy Corgan, who functioned as the album’s “musical consigliere.” The group’s seventh LP, Our Bande Apart, arrived in September 2021 and featured a guest appearance by Best Coast’s Bethany Consentino on the single “Again.”

https://www.thebigeasyblues.com

Thursday, July 28 Houston Blues Society Jam Hosted by H-Town Jukes

Thursday Nights

The Mighty Orq’s Tequila Tuesdays

20 30

Music News • Decemberr July 2022 2020

October 2021 • Music News

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Saturday, July 2, 8:00 pm - 12:00 am Backwoods Saloon 230 Lexington Ct, Conroe, TX 77385 Friday, July 8, 9:00 pm - 1:00 am Aspens Bar & Grill 817 Clear Lake Rd, Kemah, TX 77565 Sunday, July 10, 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm Papa’s On The Lake 14632 Hwy 105 W, Montgomery, TX 77356 Friday, July 15, 9:00 pm - 1:00 am Andy’s Bar & Grill 27200 Hwy 290, Cypress, TX 77433 Saturday, July 16, 8:00 pm - 1:00 pm 3 Doors Down Bar 102 20th St, Galveston, TX 77550 Sunday, July 17, 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm The Hawg Stop Bar & Grill 11335 Sheldon Rd, Houston, TX 77044

Saturday, August 13, 7:00 pm - 11:00 pm Papa’s On The Lake 14632 Hwy 105 W, Montgomery, TX 77356

Friday, July 22, 9:30 pm - 1:30 am Pennison’s Pub Sugar Land 2446 Settler’s Way, Sugar Land, TX 77479

Friday, August 19, 9:00 pm - 1:00 am Andy’s Bar & Grill 27200 Hwy 290, Cypress, TX 77433

Saturday, July 23, 8:00 pm - 12:00 am *Perry’s Birthday Party The Concert Pub BOAT 2462 Cypress Creek Prkwy, Houston, TX 77068

Saturday, August 27, 8:00 pm - 1:00 pm 3 Doors Down 102 20th St, Galveston, TX 77550

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Friday, September 16, 9:00 pm - 1:00 am Andy’s Bar & Grill 27200 Hwy 290, Cypress, TX 77433

Open 6 Days A Week Tuesday thru Sunday

Friday, July 1 - Dave Sher Saturday, July 2 - Zach Tate Band Sunday, July 3 - Katie’s Jam with guest host Paul Ramires (5-9pm) Thursday, July 7 - Static Blues Friday, July 8 - Sparky Parker Saturday, July 9 - Paul Ramirez Sunday, July 10 - Katie’s Jam with guest host Chris Castaneda (5-9pm) Thursday, July 14 - Jay Hooks Friday, July 15 - Lightning Rob Saturday, July 16 - Chris Castaneda Sunday, July 17 - Katie’s Jam with guest host Hugo Jamz (5-9pm) Thursday, July 21 - Spectrum Blues Friday, July 22 - Cip Oliphant Saturday, July 23 - Mark May Sunday, July 24 - Katie’s Jam with guest host Mark May (5-9pm) Thursday, July 28 - Eric Demmer Friday, July 29 - Pierce and the Blue Spoon Saturday, July 30 - Pee Wee Bowen (8-12pm) Sunday, July 31, Katie’s Jam with guest host James Wilhite (5-9pm)

July 2022 • Music News

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brand of synthpop…a balance of what is familiar and what is innovative, new magic from old spells” while Pop Matters declared the album to contain “dazzling synth sounds, catchy melodies and introspective and life-affirming lyrics - but with a contemporary feel”.

Howard Jones Performs At The House Of Blues On July 26 New wave icon/synth pioneer Howard Jones is hard at work on a new studio album; DIALOGUE is set for release this summer. DIALOGUE is the third album in a trilogy of electronic releases from Jones with multi-media project ENGAGE coming out in 2015 and studio album TRANSFORM out in 2019. More information about DIALOGUE is forthcoming.

DIALOGUE”.

Midge Ure added, “What a joy to be touring North America with my friend Howard Jones again. With the emphasis on technology, quality and performance I am looking forward to dusting off the synthesizers, cranking up the guitar and playing with the brilliant musicians who will be sharing the stage with me. We first collaborated live together back in 1989 on Howard’s ‘Cross the line Tour’ which holds nothing but great memories for me, so I am hoping to not only rekindle those but add new ones to the memory bank”. Please see below for tour dates, with more tour dates to be added.

In support of the new album, Howard Jones will hit the road this summer for a headlining tour with his full band/electronic set-up. Along with Howard, the four-piece band is Robin Boult (guitar), Nick Beggs (bass/ chapman stick), Robbie Bronnimann (keyboards/electronic wizardry) and Dan Electronic music pioneer Howard Burton (keyboards/drum pads). The Jones has been a constant presence on DIALOGUE tour features special guest the international touring scene for the alternative music legend Midge Ure. past three decades, playing live in a number of different configurations Of the upcoming tour, Jones including intimate solo shows and dates commented, “I am beyond excited to be with his full high-tech band set-up. His touring the US this summer with my most recent album is TRANSFORM. great friend Midge Ure. As we take safe Released in 2019 to critical acclaim, steps to put the pandemic behind us, the TRANSFORM features several collabotour will be a celebration of being rations with electronica luminary BT together, enjoying the power of live (half of All Hail The Silence). Of the music again. Expect plenty of hit songs album, Paste avowed, “TRANSFORM is as well as cuts from my new album remarkably consistent to Jones’ lush 34

Music News • July 2022

Howard Jones first burst upon the contemporary music scene in 1983, with his very English songwriting and pioneering synthesizers. His first two albums HUMAN’S LIB and DREAM INTO ACTION were worldwide hits.

HUMAN’S LIB reached #1 in 1984 in the UK and featured the hits “New Song,” and “What Is Love?” In 1985, Jones released the follow-up, DREAM INTO ACTION, which quickly became a Top Ten Platinum album in the United States and featured the smashes: “Things Can Only Get Better,” “Life In One Day,” “No One Is To Blame,” and “Like To Get To Know You Well.” Howard Jones has sold over 8 million albums worldwide and continues to make new music and tour the world. Jones recently performed on NBC’s top-rated morning and nighttime shows respectively, Today and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His ubiquitous hits can be heard in such high-profile television series and films such as “Stranger Things,” “Breaking Bad,” “Watchmen,” “The Carrie Diaries”, “Superstore” and “Bumblebee”.

Midge Ure has an impressive catalogue fronting the groundbreaking electrorock band Ultravox as well as being a member of such notable bands as Visage and Thin Lizzy. He helped form Band Aid where he produced and cowrote the smash charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” still one of the biggest singles in UK music history. He was also one of the principal creators of Live Aid and Live 8 along with Bob Geldof. Ure has spent most of his career touring the globe playing solo and with Ultravox who reformed in 2009. He served the notable role of MD for the Princes Trust at the Royal Albert Hall with a cast of the usual suspects including Queen, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Mark King. He has received Ivor Novello, Grammy, BASCAP awards along with a flotilla of gold and platinum records. Ure is now working on three albums including a follow-up to Fragile, an Orchestrated Pt. 2 and a totally instrumental album.

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With Kindness” and the newly released single “I Wanna Be Brad Pitt.”

“Pop Drunk Snot Bread,” was available everywhere on April 22nd through Brando / Que-So Records, “Pop Drunk Snot Bread” consists of 15 tracks of the best pop punk / punk rock of the year so far, delivered in the unmistakable Bowling For Soup style. The album was recorded in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, USA in September 2020.

Longtime Bowling For Soup collaborator Linus Of Hollywood is on production duties for the album alongside BFS frontman Jaret Reddick.

Bowling For Soup Bring Their “Back For The Attack Tour” To The House Of Blues July 27 Check out their new single from the album, “I Wanna Be Brad Pitt” @ https://youtu.be/lad5sS9_kqE Find Bowling For Soup online: Website - http://www.bowlingforsoup.com Twitter @BFSRocks Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bowlingforsoup YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/bowlingforsouptv Instagram - https://instagram.com/bfs_official US merch store - https://www.bowlingforsoup.com/us-store/ Texas pop-punk pioneers Bowling For Soup have announced they’re hitting the road this summer for the “Back For The Attack Tour” with co-headliners Less Than Jake. The tour kicked off June 22nd in Norfolk, VA and will hit Houston’s House Of Blues on July 27th.

“Finally! We started discussing this tour with Less Than Jake, right before the world shut down! Now this is sure to be the hap-hap-happiest summer tour EVER! Can not wait to get back out there!!’” - Jaret Reddick 36

Music News • July 2022

The fun-loving foursome will be touring in support of their eagerly awaited new album, “Pop Drunk Snot Bread,” which was released on April 22nd via Brando / Que-So Records.

Recorded in September 2021 in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, with longtime collaborator Linus Of Hollywood handling production duties alongside frontman Jaret Reddick, the band’s 11th record features the global hit “Alexa Bliss” (which recently passed 4.2 million views on YouTube alone), last years’ smash “Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It),” “Killin’ ‘Em

Among the 15 tracks fans will find the smash hit singles “Alexa Bliss” and “Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It)” and most recent single, the modern pop punk classic “I Wanna Be Brad Pitt”.

Aside from the singles, fans can look forward to the album opening statement of intent (“Greatest Of All Time”), an upbeat take on one of life’s biggest problems (“Hello Anxiety”) and a wonderful reflection on times gone by (“Wouldn’t Change A Thing”) to highlight just a few of “Pop Drunk Snot Bread’s” other songs. The full track listing and album artwork is available below: Bowling For Soup are: Jaret Reddick (Guitar and vocals), Chris Burney (Guitar), Rob Felicetti (Bass and backing vocals) and Gary Wiseman (Drums).

Bowling For Soup “Pop Drunk Snot Bread” 1) Greatest Of All Time 2) I Wanna Be Brad Pitt 3) Hello Anxiety 4) Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It) 5) Pee Break 6) The Best We Can 7) Alexa Bliss 8) Burn Out 9) June Carter Cash (Lost and Found) 10) Public Service Announcement 11) Killin’ ‘Em With Kindness 12) Wouldn’t Change A Thing 13) The Letter 3 (Sitcom Song) 14) After All These Beers 15) Greatest Of All Time (Reprise)

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April 2022 • Music News

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1006 McGowen

713-650-1006

Leon’s Lounge Is Now Available For Private Parties!

Make Your Reservations Now!!

This July at Leon’s Lounge Friday, July 1 - Shotgun Sally Saturday, July 2 - Saturday Night Jazz with Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble Sunday, July 3 - “Leon’s Laugh” Comedy Open Mic Night with Arlo Monday, July 4 - Industry Night Tuesday, July 5 - Vinyl Tuesday with Cory Wilson at 8:30 pm Wednesday, July 6 - Randy Soffar Singer/Songwriter Song Swap and Open Mic @ 8:00 pm Thursday, July 7 - Bombs Over Texas Comedy Night followed by Clayton Ferris Trio with Brennen Nase and Sasha Lukashien @ 9:30 Friday, July 8 - Mean Old Dogs Saturday, July 9 - Saturday Night Jazz with Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble Sunday, July 10 - “Leon’s Laugh” Comedy Open Mic Night with Arlo Monday, July 11 - Film Noire Movie Night Tuesday, July 12 -Clayton Ferris Jazz Trio Wednesday, July 13 - Randy Soffar Singer/Songwriter Song Swap and Open Mic @ 8:00 pm Thursday, July 14 - Bombs Over Texas Comedy Night followed by The Jazz Organ Trio featuring Ben Clifton, Kelly Doyle, Richard Cholakian Friday, July 15 - Jazz with Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble Saturday, July 16 - Kim Foushee and The Alliance Sunday, July 17 - “Leon’s Laugh” Comedy Open Mic Night with Arlo Monday, July 18 - Film Noire Tuesday, July 19 - Vinyl Tuesday with Cory Wilson at 8:30 pm Wednesday, July 20 - Randy Soffar Singer/Songwriter Song Swap and Open Mic @ 8:00 pm Thursday, July 21 - Bombs Over Texas Comedy Night followed by Pelayo Parlade Organ Trio Friday, July 22 - Along Those Lines Jazz Funk Saturday, July 23 - Saturday Night Jazz with Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble Sunday, July 24 - “Leon’s Laugh” Comedy Open Mic Night with Arlo Monday, July 25 - Film Noire Tuesday, July 26 - Clayton Ferris Jazz Trio Wednesday, July 27 - Randy Soffar Singer/Songwriter Song Swap and Open Mic @ 8:00 pm Thursday, July 28 - Bombs Over Texas Comedy Night Friday, July 29 - Los Vertigos Saturday, July 2021 30 - Saturday Night Jazz with Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble 38 Music News • August Sunday, July 31 - “Leon’s Laugh” Comedy Open Mic Night with Arlo

1006 McGowen St. Houston, Texas 713-650-1006

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Leon’s Lounge

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OPEN MIC WEDNESDAYS 8-11:00 PM All Musicians’s and All Genre’s of Music Welcome!

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1006 McGowen MIDTOWN HOUSTON, TX 47 45 43 39 713-659-5366

June 2021 • Music News August May2022 2021•• ••Music MusicNews News 45 March Music News February 2022 Music News 2021

The Biker, The Blues - Those Dirty Get Down Slow Blues The last time I saw a woman hitch hiking on a freeway ramp it almost got my ass busted by the young woman’s Dad, who just happened to be the sheriff of a southwestern county off of interstate 10.

Something she had excluded to tell me but then again she was way attractive and was looking for a ride. So today here I am once again in just about in that same situation, however, this time she’s a little older with this amazing award winning smile wearing nice tight jeans with her thumb out. Well what’s a gentleman to do? Like a moth to a flame my bike instinctively knew exactly how to glide over to where she was standing while the muscles in my face automatically produced a smile broadcasting hello. I said the weather is fine and I got a portable seat for the back fender to sit on if you would like to get off this ramp. She shook her long brunette hair out of her face then bunched it up and put a wrap around her new ponytail and moved closer to the bike. I got off the bike unrolled my sleeping bag and took out the seat, lowered the foot pegs, got back on and offered her my right hand to get on. No names were exchanged, no destinations were discussed it was just a ride to somewhere, anywhere. I knew I would hear her story down the road, at least what she wanted me to know and she would pry to learn mine but little would be accomplished. I had just filled the tank and we were on our way west for at least a couple hundred miles. So there I was with this woman’s arms around me going eighty miles an hour on a sunny day heading west. What could go wrong? A semi-truck driver blew his air horn as he came up on us. I was going around eighty and he passed us like we were sitting still. The wind whipped off the back of his trailer and moved us a little. The afternoon sun felt good and the mile markers were flying by. Soon we would be approaching the Missouri/ Kansas border. Those arms around me were relaxing more and more as we continued west. She noticed a roadside rest sign, tapped my shoulder and pointed, I certainly knew what that meant. We slowed down made the off ramp and wheeled up to a parking space just in front of the restrooms. Afterward we made our way over to a picnic table and at first just stood by it then we finally sat down for a spell. Her name was Gracie. A small town girl from central Illinois on her way to see her married sister and niece in Joplin just east of Kansas City. She said she hadn’t expected a ride on a nice bike but it was cool and thanked me. I asked her if her backside was sore and she said no not yet anyway. We smiled. I asked if she was ready to push forward or did she want to stay there and hitch a ride in a cage (a car). She thought the term cage was humorous and giggled. She said no let’s go and off we went to find this place named Joplin and her sister’s home. Polite gal, good looking, soft spoken with a really good personality. Once we arrived on the outskirts of town she pulled out her cell, called her sister and after telling her sister about the ride she verified the address. She entered the address into the phone’s map and we were actually very close to where she needed to go. We arrived and her sister rushed out to greet us and with some consternation invited me in. I could feel her hesitation so I thanked her and said I would move on. Gracie’s sister said wait a minute I don’t mean to be inhospitable just you know continued on next page

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Music News • July 2022

Page 2 - The Biker, The Blues - Those Dirty Get Down Slow Blues leery. Once inside I met the cutest little three year old girl without a father. I didn’t know what the story was but I didn’t think I needed to know either. The little girl was a doll and was smiling right through me. I visited for about an hour and found the door. Gracie walked outside with me and asked where I would be staying and I said I didn’t know but I wasn’t going far as it had been a nice, long ride and time to shower and kick back. That was about it. I followed my instincts back out to the main highway and headed a bit west. Up ahead I could see the bright green sign of a Holiday Inn. If the doors on their first floor rooms opened to the outside and if they had a room on the first floor I was home for the night. They had both and I checked in. I parked the bike just outside the room door to let it cool down as I was waiting for dark before pushing it inside. I unfastened my sleeping bag, found my shaving kit and headed for the shower. Afterward I was hungry so I walked back to the front desk area. Now here is where it gets interesting. The more I looked at this place the more it seemed like I might have been here in the past but something didn’t seem right. It turned out the hotel had been remodeled two years earlier so I may have been there prior to that but I still wasn’t sure. I heard a sax wailing in the bar at 6:30 and that seemed odd but the band wasn’t practicing it was the real deal plus the place was packed. The bar had wings, cold beer, and good music so what’s not to like and remember this is at a freaking Holiday Inn no less. The bar was full of happy hour customers that were talking about needing to go home but weren’t going to leave. The band was putting out some funk and blues and had a really good sound working. The sun was just about down so the ambiance in the room was changing from the just an after work crowd to a I am letting my hair down kind of crowd. It was interesting. Around 8:30 I decided to check on my scooter and maybe wheel it inside. I paid the tab and arrived in front of my bike just in time to see a couple of pre-teen boys looking it over. I asked them if they liked it and they said yes. They asked if it was loud. I said let me show you and started it up. They cupped their hands over their ears and smiled. I mean really smiled. Soon their mother came calling saying it was time for them to head indoors and off they went. OK, so now the engine was warm again so it was either wait for it to cool or maybe go for a quick look around. I opted for the latter. I had over heard a couple in the bar say they were going to a place named 66. I took a quick look on my cell and found “Sports Bar and Restaurant 66” just up the road in Webb City. I arrived and the place was well lit outside and inside the folks seemed like they were all neighbors just having a good time. What I found really cool was they had a back porch area where you could smoke your cigar and kick back.

Nice evening, a fresh cigar, a cold drink - life is good. Now we just needed some music. Music was coming from some place, somebody was spinning Eric Clapton’s “I Shot The Sheriff” and right after that Nazareth’s “Hair Of The Dog”. I be home Jack.

Plus there was this cute looking Hispanic gal with all the things in the right places and the right sizes. Maybe I could move in and be the janitor at 66? There was a lull in the music so I left my cigar outside and found the music machine. Now I am not saying what was on my mind but I did play Little Feat’s continued on next page July 2022 • Music News

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Page 3 - The Biker, The Blues - Those Dirty Get Down Slow Blues “Spanish Moon”. Know what I mean Jean and the place came alive. I looked around and the girls up and down the bar were swaying back and forth to the beat. I also chose the next track on their album “Dixie Chicken” and we were off and running. Someone yelled free tequila shots at the bar and a man has to have his priorities so it was shots, music, cigars and pretty women but not in any particular order. I looked for that Mexican cutie but either my eyes were deceiving me or I was a quart low because she was nowhere to be found.

That was a bit of a bummer but right at that time the song entered its rag time piano solo with their traditional New Orleans style brass. Cheers at the bar and then back to the juke and then out to my stogie and the evening air.

Uh-oh she was out there too still looking fine but there was a small, no make that a rather large problem. The guy with his arm around her was as big as a bread truck and as tall as forty year old oak tree. Are you kidding me? Then again she did look my way and smiled and so I began to plot. Shame on me, shame on me, shame on me but you know sometimes you just got to set the badger free. Just add some good music and well you are not at church if you get my drift. I must have selected the whole album because “Triple Face Boogie” began to play but it didn’t matter as Little Feat kicks ass. “Waiting For Columbus” is probably their best album. I wasn’t even trying to hide eye contact, nope those horns were on full display baby. Have you ever had a day, an evening, when the music was telling your story? Well on this night it seemed so and I was being set free by a recording from years ago. The piano was rolling the blues and the guitar was talking to all of us. Oh you should only have an evening like this... Well Mr. Universe got up from his barstool and let that sweet young thing there all alone, poor girl. Soon after he left she picked up the ashtray he had been using, walked over to my table and motioned for the ashtray with all of my cigar ashes in it. I said, “If you’re not careful girl you are going to light my fire” and she said, “Oh I thought I already did that” then turned and walked away. I said, “You are bad you are just so bad, ouch it burns when I think about it.” I couldn’t see her reaction but I could sure see her walk away. The song ended, what timing and that caused me to go back inside. I ordered a drink, grabbed an ash tray, punched up some music and returned to my outside cove area. I punched up “Fire” by the Pointer Sisters. It seemed appropriate and that swaying I mentioned earlier was back. But you know while in front of that juke I could not help myself and I selected Mitch Ryder’s “Devil With A Blue Dress On”. That woman was remaining on my mind. After those two numbers then Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”. Outside the speakers were cranked up so I just relit my cigar, took a sip of my scotch and continued to take in the evening. Almost immediately my new, shall we say, friend returned with a clean ash tray and said here you go. I said, “You are evil and must be destroyed” she laughed like hell. Then a song I didn’t play spun and I volunteered that I hadn’t played that one and she said but I did. It was a really cool song by Anastacia, her over the top song “Freak Of Nature.” by the album of the same name. I got quiet as I could see deep into those beautiful brown eyes, my bet at the time was on mutual desire. Was I right? Was I going to go for it with Mr. Clean in the other room? Yep! Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. I said, Call me at the Holiday Inn rm 106. She said, “Now who’s being confident?” and left me there alone. I paid the tab and outside my scooter was still there no chips or flat tires. It fired right up and it was time continued on next page

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Music News • July 2022

Page 4 - The Biker, The Blues - Those Dirty Get Down Slow Blues to make the trek to LaLa Land back at the Holiday Inn. On the ride back to where I came from the traffic was moving right along without any problems and then it happened the officer’s lights came on including his siren. Yep the officer wanted me to pull over and so I complied. The usual so called reasoning for the stop but basically it was a stop and learn more about me stop. I was a bit concerned because the tequila and scotch had married up rather well by now and I wasn’t sure how well I could walk a white line. I felt ok, no problems in judgment just wondering how I would do if it came to that, which it didn’t. The evening had went from a late afternoon smiling happy hour crowd to a later that night happy hour crowd to being stopped by a county patrolman. He gave me back my license and registration and said have a nice day. The bike turned right over, I lifted the kickstand, pulled in the clutch, went into first gear, looked at the flow of the traffic and left the officer sitting in his car. Life can be strange. I guess he was protecting his turf but like any minority and bikers on a chopper are indeed a minority in their own right it doesn’t feel good. Yet on the other side of the coin you meet some really nice folks along the way. Folks living without prejudice, living happy, being free. Their kids are normally just like they are and through these folks the world seems a bit less bitter. This odyssey I am on is just that, a free wheeling exploration from coast to coast. It has its moments but then again you have moments no matter where you live. I just choose to live as a nomadic traveler, sort of a modern day gypsy. Neither from here nor there. Free to enjoy a non structured lifestyle. Sort of like the great blues men and woman in U.S. history. Always on the move, always sharing their talent but more times than not when off stage alone. Obviously some of what they wrote and brought to life in song came from their traveling lifestyle. As they say the blues is a feeling and when that feeling came over them they would write and assemble tunes like nobody’s business.

For example, B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone”, heartfelt for sure. In his song the man is stating the thrill is gone, it’s over. Most of us have experienced that situation at one time or another. Not fun. Then Buddy Guy’s “Damn Right I Got The Blues”.

Maybe songwriters just can’t write something like those two numbers unless they have something to bring to the table. This night in Joplin caused me to think of Dr. John and Sarah Morrow performing “Such A Night”. He sings about a special night with thoughts of getting away to the dark end of the street. This night I was sure I would go for it big guy there or not. She probably saved my life now that I think back on it. I mean if The Hulk had attempted to destroy me he probably could have and I am she knew that but we were having fun so I guess I was a humorous break in her daily routine. But I was into her big time. When I finally got into the hotel the red light on the phone was blinking, someone had tried to reach me. My smile was restored as there it was that wonderful soft spoken accent complete with that devilish fun laugh of hers. I called the number, she answered but since gentlemen don’t tell the ending to these kind of stories this one will end right here. Let’s just say I will remember arriving into Joplin in a good mood and leaving Joplin in a better one. Life on the road, there are no sure things out here. A bit of heaven one day and a bit of hell on another. I have to say that overall being this free bolsters your faith in the every day people of this nation. Lots of good people. Living life getting along and being a friend to man. That’s cool. Take that gal that I gave the ride to she was on her way to help her sister with taking care of her niece, that’s really cool! Meeting good people doing good things. I get to see it firsthand.

July 2022 • Music News

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“Live And UnZoomed” Tour featuring REO Speedwagon, Styx, and Loverboy Land at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion July 24th

By Kevin Wildman One of the hottest triple bills to hit the tour circuit this year is going to be touching down at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on July 24th. This is the deadly triple threat concert of REO Speedwagon, Styx, and special guest Loverboy. This highly anticipated tour has been the talk of the nation since it was announced early this year. The tour kicked off May 31st at Grand Rapids, MI at the Van Andel Arena, and is scheduled so far to continue until September 18 where it is going to conclude in Bangor, ME at Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion. The show has been dubbed the “Live & UnZoomed” tour.

REO Speedwagon became a household name back in the early ’70s with their constant touring as both a headliner and an opening act. God knows how many shows I saw this band at throughout the 70s. For a while I thought they were a local act, they had been performing around Houston for such a long time. It wasn’t long before they racked up a string of fantastic hits such as “Ridin’ The Storm Out,” “”157 Riverside Ave.,” “Flying Turkey Trot,” “Son Of A Poor Man,” “Like You Do,” “Only The Strong Survive,” “Back On The Road Again,” and more! By the time the 80s hit here, they kicked off the decade with their hit album, Hi Infidelity, which contained the massive hit songs, “Keep On Loving You” and “Take It On The Run.” That album alone spent 15 weeks at the #1 spot and earned the band the highly sought after RIAA Diamond Award for sales of over 10 million albums in the U.S. All in all, between 1977 and 1989, REO Speedwagon racked up a massive 9 consecutive albums that were all certified either Platinum or higher. The hits just kept on coming for REO Speedwagon.

Who can forget songs like “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “In Your Letter,” “That Ain’t Love,” “I Don’t Want To Lose You,” “Roll With The Changes,” “Take It On The Run,” and the list just goes on and on.

This just wasn’t any ordinary band. This was America’s band, bring joy and spreading great music wherever they touched down.

As you would expect, you can’t keep a good band down and nothing’s going to

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Music News • July 2022

hold this band back. The band’s frontman is still the charismatic Kevin Cronin. He and his bandmates Bruce Hall (bass), Neal Doughty (keyboards), Dave Amato (guitar), and Bryan Hitt (drums) are still keeping the spirit of REO Speedwagon alive now. Imagine, this band has been rocking for over 50 years now.

As we said, nothing’s going to hold this band down and even the Covid Pandemic couldn’t do it. Right after Covid hit, Kevin Cronin started is own series of webisodes in April of 2020 keeping the music of REO alive. He called his home broadcasted show, “Songs & Stories From Camp Cronin.” The show featured acoustic performances from Kevin and his family and ran for 24 episodes.

Cronin and members of REO gave back over the past 16 months by participating in charity events for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Marilou & Mark Hamill’s USC McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative, John Oates’ “Oates Song Fest,” “Stars to the Rescue,” Acoustic-4-A-Cure, and more.

We’re told that soon Kevin will be releasing his autobiography about himself and life on the road. It seems he started keeping a journal about the band’s performances starting on the band’s 2016 UK tour and the writing bug bit him and he

hasn’t stopped since. We’ll be looking forward to that when it comes out.

Another one of America’s bands on this tour is the legendary Styx. Styx was formed in Chicago in 1972. Some of the members had been performing together before that, but in ’72 it came time for a name change and the only one they could agree on was Styx. The name change seems to have been a lucky one for the band, as Styx has become one of the most successful bands in the world since then.

Styx has racked up quite an impressive record of hit songs. Who hasn’t heard songs like “Lady,” “Lorelei,” “Come Sail Away, “ Renegade,” “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights),” “Babe,” “The Best Of Times,” “Too Much Time On My Hands,” “Mr. Roboto,” “Show Me The Way,” and that list just goes on and on as well.

Since their formation, they have had eight songs that hit the Top 10 on the Billboard Top 100 and 16 Top 40 singles.

That list is still growing as well. To date, Styx has sold way over 54 million albums.

Not content to just rest on their laurels, Styx continues to tour and release new album. Their most recent album is continued on next page

“Live And UnZoomed” Tour continued from previous page

the weekend), delighting audiences around the world since forming in 1979.” Now after that shameless little bit of plagiarism, it’s safe to say that nobody can forget a young Mike Reno taking to the stage in his red outfit, or how about guitarist extraordinaire Paul Dean blazing away.

Paul and Mike met more than 40 years ago and have had a solid relationship with this band for it’s entire run. Joining them onstage, Loverboy still includes original members Doug Johnson on keyboards and Matt Frenette on drums, with Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve replacing the late Scott Smith on bass.

Loverboy has turned out a slew of hits on their own as well. Let me know if some of these songs ring a bell for you….

“Working For The Weekend,” “Lovin’ Every Minute of It,” “This Could Be the Night,” “Hot Girls in Love,” “The Kid is Hot Tonite,” “Notorious”, “Turn Me Loose,” “When It’s Over,” “Heaven In Your Eyes” and “Queen of the Broken Hearts.” Yeah, I can see it in your eyes, you remember all of these.

Loverboy has sold over 10 million albums, had four multi-platinum albums for Get Lucky, Keep It Up, Lovin’ Every Minute Of It, and their self-titled debut, Loverboy. These guys ruled the airwaves in the 80s and their song “Working For The Weekend” has become somewhat of a national anthem for some.

Crash Of The Crown, which was just released this past year. Although a great deal of the album was written prepandemic, the album was recorded during the pandemic. Here’s another band that’s not going let something like Covid stop them in bringing new music to their fans.

Crash Of The Crown is the band’s 17th album release.

(bass, guitar, vocals). You can be sure that these guys will be rockin’ your socks off when they take the stage at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

Now, our last addition to this concert extravaganza is the Canadian supergroup, Loverboy. Just to pull a little something from the press release, “ Loverboy has been “Working for the Weekend” (and on

This band has continued to tour since their inception in 1979 except for a brief hiatus between 1988 and 1991, but hell, everybody needs a break once in a while.

Their most recent album is 2014’s Unfinished Business.

Yeah folks, this is going to be one helluva party, so mark your calendars for July 24th. It’s going to be a blast. And yes, the show is on a WEEKEND, so I know all of you out there are going to be working for this weekend. Party on and we’ll see you there.

They released some more new music on September 17, 2021, The Same Stardust EP. It originally sold as part of Record Store Day on June 12, 2021. It was a special 12-inch vinyl only and it featured two new songs, “The Same Stardust” and “Age Of Entropia” on side one. Side two featured live versions of five of their songs, “Mr. Roboto,” “Man In The Wilderness,” “Miss America,” “Radio Silence,” and “Renegade.” If you didn’t pick one up, don’t worry, the EP is also available online as a digital download. Isn’t everything nowadays.

The members of Styx are James “JY” Young (lead vocals, guitars), Tommy Shaw (lead vocals, guitars), Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums, percussion), Lawrence Gowan (lead vocals, keyboards) and Ricky Phillips July 2022 • Music News

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Banda MS Perform At Smart Financial Centre For Two Nights, July 22 & 23

by Sergio Lizarraga

achievement.

In the month of May 2020, the song “QUÉ MALDICIÓN” (Feat.

BANDA MS & SNOPP DOGG) is released, this release revolutionized the music industry in Mexico and the world.

With this collaboration between BANDA MS AND SNOOP DOGG, a new musical genre has been created, the same one that the public and time will be in charge of giving it a corresponding name.

“WHAT MALDITION”, a song that broke with all previously established parameters and that proves, once again, that in a globalized world, music is the best tool to cross borders and explore unknown territories. Listening to this song, it will be difficult to pigeonhole it into a musical genre, since different musical sounds converge in it, ranging from banda to urban hip hop.

Two of the most important and influential musical exponents in their respective genres come together musically to obtain an exceptional result and the song “WHAT MALDICIÓN” proves it.

This success story begins in 2003 in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, the BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA was born, taking the initials of their homeland to give the group its name. The founders of the band managed to combine their ideas and concerns to offer people a different and original product; using its own formula and printing a cheerful and versatile touch.

The name of the BANDA MS appeared on radio stations, newspapers and television channels in Russia, Spain, Argentina and Colombia, among many others. With this, the banda genre took a step forward in the world music scene, making the MS the forerunner of this great 48

Music News • July 2022

Youth, explosiveness and talent, are the words with which we can currently define the BANDA MS, created by seven teenagers who, after having belonged to other renowned groups, decided to form their own musical organization. For a year and a half they planned the birth of a new band, they began to take the first steps to make reality, what at that time, were only dreams.

To date, BANDA MS is synonymous with stability and interna-

tional projection. Always with firm objectives, the group has earned the nickname of “the highest grossing band”, a slogan that reflects the work that has been carried out over more than 15 years of musical career.

His first record production was released in 2004 and was entitled “NO PODRÁS”, from this album the singles came off: “No podrs” and “La suata”, both authored by his vocalist Oswaldo Silvas. In this same year Alan Manuel Ramírez Salcido joined the band, with the aim of offering the public a musical variety mixing two exceptional voices.

A year later, they released the album “MI MAYOR ANHELO” whose first single was the song “Ayer la vi por la calle”. From this album, the popular theme was also released: “My greatest yearning”, with which the BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA receives the award for “Best theme of the year” awarded by an important Mazatlán radio station.

In 2006 “LA RAZA CONTENTA” was released, in which only corridos were included, highlighting the hits “El 24” and “Chuy y continued on next page

Banda MS continued from previous page Mauricio”. In 2007 his next production titled “ESCUELA DE RANCHO” came out, from which the song “El mechón” came off, a song that became a success and was a turning point in his career.

To date, BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA has received multiple awards and recognitions in Mexico and the United States. Proud representatives of the music of Sinaloa, the group has become an ambassador that through the sound of the tuba and the tambora has crossed borders, always carrying the name of Mexico very high, endorsing the well-earned title of “the most blockbuster”.

In 2017 BANDA MS decides to do something different, creating their own reality show. This series is entitled “BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE”. The first phase will consist of 15 chapters, each of them with an approximate duration of 7 minutes.

This reality show has the fundamental characteristic of including totally unpublished content.

long way to go.

In 2018, innovating again, the MS includes in its musical show an acoustic segment in which it is made up of instruments that are not usually used in a Sinaloa band crew, such as the piano, the soprano sax and a “bugle”. Additionally, there is also a segment where the sound of the accordion is incorporated into the band, thereby creating a special atmosphere.

The MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA BAND has distinguished itself since its inception for being different. The group has chosen to wear some of its performance costumes with numbers that distinguish each of its members. The meaning has reference to data such as birthdays and anniversaries.

The 17 musicians that currently make up this musical organization are fully aware that when things are done with faith and conviction, the results will always be positive. 14 years have passed and much progress has been made, but there is still a

Today the group not only represents Sinaloa music, but has also become a representative of part of our culture and our folklore. Every day the responsibility is greater, but also day after day the satisfactions are greater.

“We are a group like any of today’s well-known bands, but with a different interpretation style, so as not to sound like the others and thus be able to stand out from the competition.”

“When the boys and I started this musical project, we dreamed of living what we are now living. But what we never imagined was that we would achieve it in such a short time; stepping on the stages we have stepped on and being where we are at this moment. We know we have a long way to go but everything went beyond our expectations. I saw myself with a good band, playing well, working... but not like what we have achieved so far”.

July 2022 • Music News

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Jessi Uribe and Paola Jara Bring Their La Conquista Tour USA 2022 To Smart Financial Centre July 15 50

Music News • July 2022

Known as a significant event in the Colombian pop music industry, Jessi Uribe and Paola Jara collaborated for the first time in 2020 to perform an online concert called “Tour La Conquista 2020” which garnered a viewership of more than 20,000 people in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Spain, and the United States simultaneously. Now the pair will bring La Conquista Tour USA 2022 live to the Smart Financial Centre on July 15.

Jessi Uribe was born in the city of Bucaramanga on March 22, 1987. He grew up in a musical environment, his father Fernando Uribe, a mariachi singer, from whom he inherited the talent, took him to his presentations in a recognized disco in Bucaramanga, Colombia. From very early on he began to sing in different scenarios where he found a taste for the popular and ranchero genre.

In 2008 he appeared in a contest called Latin American Idol where he was chosen among 30,000 participants and only 20 artists from Colombia qualified

in Argentina, thus becoming part of the 50 best in Latin America.

Another of his talents and passions is composing since he writes about his experiences or those of his friends, thus managing to transmit those stories to his followers. His lyrics have already been recorded by other artists and have been awarded prizes such as the Latin Grammy.

In 2017, he participated in the contest of the snail channel “A otrolevel”, with which he raised the popular genre and demonstrated the union of his colleagues who supported this process.

Later, with the help of his current label Mano De Obra, he released the song “Dulce Pecado”, with which he has obtained great recognition at a national and international level. ¨Sweet sin¨ exceeds more than 360 million views on YouTube, in addition to being number one in the main radio stations in the country.

Jessi has managed to stand out with other releases that have achieved a significant number of views on YouTube and streams on the main platforms such as Spotify, Deezer and Claro, among his great successes: “Someone I Like”, “Matemos las Ganas”, ¨Ok¨, ¨The last No¨, “Como Si Nada”, among others, this last single was made with the renowned popular artist Paola Jara.

He has made important musical collaborations with artists such as Andy Rivera, Espinoza Paz, Américo, Paola Jara, Ovi, Alkilados, Jhonny Rivera, Pipe Bueno, among others.

In 2019 he was called to be part of the jury of the television program Yo Me Llamo, along with César Escola and Amparo Grisales, something that was very positive for his career.

In the year 2020, despite the global situation that was experienced with the pandemic, Jessi continued to surprise his fans with a series of releases and musical continued on next page July 2022 • Music News

51

and events, both public and private, in which she was accompanied by mariachis and tracks, which helped her open the doors of the music industry in Medellín and other cities in the country.

One of the most representative moments of her career occurred when she opened for the Vicente and Alejandro Fernández concert in the city of Medellín. Soon after, she opened the Juan Gabriel concert, among others. It was a great achievement for the artist, as these events gave her the visibility that she had sought long ago.

Jessi Uribe and Paola Jara continued from previous page collaborations, among which are: ¨La Culpa¨, ¨Since You Went¨ , along with the Chilean artist ¨Américo¨, ¨Dicho Y Hecho¨ with Alkilados, ¨Se Te Nota¨ with Pipe Bueno, and closing the year with a flourish with the song ¨Una Oportunidad¨ which currently debuts as the band sound of the Mexican telenovela Quererlo Todo from Televisa and Univisión.

Jessi starts this 2021 stomping with a new premiere titled ¨El Alumno¨ in collaboration with the Mexican artist ¨Joss Favela¨. This theme quickly managed to exceed 3 million views on YouTube, in addition to occupying the first position in National Report rankings.

Jessi continues to work on his musical career to continue surprising and winning the hearts of his fans who are an important part of his great growth and musical success.

52 Music News • July 2022

Paola Jara was born in Apartadó (Antioquia) where she started in music at an early age. Throughout her childhood she lived in different municipalities such as Apartadó, Abejorral, Palmira and Medellín where she finally settled. Her passage through these places allowed her to learn about different cultures and lifestyles that led her to discover her true passion. During these years, she participated in various music contests held in the regions and institutions where she studied. As she was in high school, she alternated her studies with guitar classes and singing practice.

As she pursued her degree in college, she continued to explore music on a professional level. She began making presentations in places

After a couple of years, Paola Jara was part of the RCN Channel contest “Se Busca Interprete”, in which she participated representing the popular genre, under the guidance of Galy Galeano, being one of the finalists of this contest. She won the affection of the public and was able to expose her talent to the entire country. In 2009, at the hands of music producer Iván Calderón, she launched her First Record Production entitled “Paola Jara” from there her first success “Voy a Olvidarte” emerged, which occupied the first places in the main stations and television channels of the country.

From that moment on, her career continues to grow to what Paola Jara is and what she represents today within the popular music industry in Colombia. She has earned recognition and respect within a genre that was primarily represented by men. She taking a very important part within the public of popular music such as women.

Julio 2022

En Español Jessi Uribe y Paola Jara

Banda MS Julio 2022 • Music News

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Banda MS se presenta en Smart Financial Centre por dos noches, 22 Y 23 de Julio Palabras de Sergio Lizárraga En el mes de Mayo del 2020, se da a conocer el tema “QUÉ MALDICIÓN”, (Feat. BANDA MS & SNOPP DOGG), este lanzamiento revolucionó a la industria musical de México y el mundo.

“QUÉ MALDICIÓN”, una canción que rompió con todos los parámetros previamente establecidos y que comprueba, una vez más, que ante un mundo globalizado, la música es la mejor herramienta para traspasar fronteras y explorar territorios desconocidos.

Al escuchar esta canción, será difícil encasillarla en un género musical, pues en ella convergen diferentes sonidos musicales que van desde la banda hasta el hip hop urbano. Dos de los más importantes e influyentes exponentes musicales en sus respectivos géneros, se unen musicalmente para obtener un resultado excepcional y la canción “QUÉ MALDICIÓN”, así lo comprueba.

El nombre de la BANDA MS apareció en estaciones de radio, periódicos y canales de televisión en Rusia, España, Argentina y Colombia, entre otros muchos. Con ello, el genero de banda dio un paso adelante en el 54

Music News • Julio 2022

ámbito musical mundial, convirtiendo a la MS en precursora de éste gran logro.

Con esta colaboración entre BANDA MS Y SNOOP DOGG, se ha creado un nuevo género musical, mismo al que el público y el tiempo, se encargaran de adjudicarle un nombre correspondiente.

Esta historia de éxito comienza en el año 2003 en Mazatlán, Sinaloa nace la BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA, tomando las iniciales de su tierra natal para darle el nombre al grupo. Los fundadores de la banda, lograron conjuntar sus ideas e inquietudes para ofrecerle a la gente un producto diferente y original; empleando una fórmula propia e imprimiendo un toque alegre y versátil.

Juventud, explosividad y talento, son las palabras con las podemos definir en la actualidad a la BANDA MS, creada por siete adolescentes quienes luego de haber pertenecido a otras reconocidas agrupaciones, decidieron formar su propia organización musical. Durante año y medio planearon el nacimiento de una nueva banda, se comenzaban a dar los primeros pasos para hacer realidad, lo que en aquel entonces, sólo eran sueños.

A la fecha la BANDA MS es

sinónimo de estabilidad y proyección internacional. Siempre con los objetivos firmes, la agrupación se ha ganado el apelativo de “la banda mas taquillera”, un slogan que refleja el trabajo que se ha llevado a cabo a lo largo de más de 15 años de trayectoria musical.

Su primera producción discográfica se da a conocer en el año 2004 y llevó por título “NO PODRÁS”, de éste disco se desprendieron los sencillos: “No podrás” y “La suata”, ambos de la autoría de su vocalista Oswaldo Silvas. En éste mismo año se integra a la banda Alan Manuel Ramírez Salcido, con la finalidad de ofrecer al público una variedad musical mezclando dos voces excepcionales.

Un año después, editaron el disco “MI MAYOR ANHELO” cuyo primer sencillo fue la canción “Ayer la vi por la calle”. De éste álbum también se dio a conocer el popular tema: “Mi mayor anhelo”, con el que la BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA recibe el premio como “Mejor tema del año” otorgado por una importante radiodifusora de Mazatlán.

En el 2006 se da a conocer “LA RAZA CONTENTA”, en el cual se Continúa en la página siguiente

Banda MS

Continuación de la página anterior incluyeron únicamente corridos, destacando los éxitos “El 24” y “Chuy y Mauricio”. En el 2007 sale su siguiente producción titulada “ESCUELA DE RANCHO” de donde se desprendió el tema “El mechón”, canción que se convirtió en todo un suceso y que fue un parteaguas en su carrera.

A la fecha, BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA ha sido objeto de múltiples premios y reconocimientos en México y Estados Unidos. Orgullosos representantes de la música de Sinaloa, la agrupación se ha convertido en una embajadora que a través del sonido de la tuba y la tambora ha traspasado fronteras, llevando siempre el nombre de México muy en alto, avaló el bien ganado título de “la más taquillera”.

El 2017 BANDA MS decide hacer algo diferente, creando su propio reality show. Esta serie lleva por título “HERMOSA EXPERIENCIA”. La primera fase constará de 15 capítulos, cada uno de ellos con una duración aproximada de 7 minutos. Este reality, tiene la característica fundamental de incluir un contenido totalmente inédito.

por recorrer.

En el 2018 innovando nuevamente, la MS incluye en su espectáculo musical un segmento acústico en el cual conformado por instrumentos que habitualmente no se usan en una dotación de banda sinaloense como por ejemplo el piano, el sax soprano y un “bugle”. Adicionalmente, también hay un segmento en donde el sonido del acordeón se incorpora a la banda creando con ello una atmósfera especial, La BANDA MS DE SERGIO LIZÁRRAGA se ha distinguido desde sus inicios por ser diferente. La agrupación, ha optado por llevar en algunos de sus trajes de actuación unos números que distinguen a cada uno de sus integrantes. El significado tiene referencia a datos como cumpleaños y aniversarios.

Los 17 músicos que conforman actualmente esta organización musical, están plenamente conscientes que cuando las cosas se hacen con fe y con convicción, los resultados siempre serán positivos. Han pasado 14 años y se ha avanzado mucho, pero aún hay camino

Hoy por hoy la agrupación no sólo representa a la música sinaloense, sino también se ha convertido en un representante de parte de nuestra cultura y nuestro folklore. Cada día es mayor la responsabilidad, pero también día con día son más grandes las satisfacciones.

“Somos una agrupación como cualquiera de las reconocidas bandas de la actualidad, pero con un estilo de interpretación diferente, para no sonar como las demás y así poder figurar de entre la competencia”.

“Cuando los muchachos y yo comenzamos con este proyecto musical, soñábamos con vivir lo que ahora estamos viviendo. Pero lo que nunca imaginamos fue que lo lograríamos en tan poco tiempo; pisar los escenarios que hemos pisado y el estar donde estamos en éste momento. Sabemos que nos falta mucho por recorrer pero todo se salió de nuestras expectativas. Me veía con una buena banda, tocando bien, trabajando… pero no como lo que hasta hoy hemos alcanzado”.

Julio 2022 • Music News 55

Jessi Uribe Y Paola Jara llevan su gira La Conquista USA 2022 al Smart Financial Centre el 15 de Julio 56

Music News • Julio 2022

Conocido como un evento significativo en la industria de la música pop colombiana, Jessi Uribe y Paola Jara colaboraron por primera vez en 2020 para realizar un concierto en línea llamado “Tour La Conquista 2020” que obtuvo una audiencia de más de 20,000 personas en Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, España y Estados Unidos simultáneamente. Ahora la pareja traerá La Conquista Tour USA 2022 en vivo al Smart Financial Center el 15 de julio.

Colombia clasificaron en Argentina, logrando así formar parte de los 50 mejores de Latinoamérica.

Jessi Uribe nació en la ciudad de Bucaramanga el 22 de marzo de 1987.

Creció en un medio musical, su padre Fernando Uribe cantante de mariachi a quien le heredó el talento, lo llevaba a sus presentaciones en una discoteca reconocida de Bucaramanga, Colombia.

Desde muy temprano empezó a cantar en diferentes escenarios donde fue encontrando el gusto por el género popular y ranchero.

En el año 2017 participó en el concurso del canal caracol “A otro nivel”, con el cual dejó en alto el género popular y demostró la unión de sus colegas quienes apoyaron este proceso.

En el año 2008 se presentó en un concurso llamado Latin American Idol donde fue elegido entre 30.000 participantes y solo 20 artistas de

Otro de sus talentos y pasiones es componer ya que escribe acerca de sus vivencias o las de sus amigos, logrando así transmitir esas historias a sus seguidores. Sus letras ya han sido grabadas por otros artistas y se han visto galardonadas premios como los latin Grammy.

Posteriormente de la mano de su actual disquera Mano De Obra, lanzó el tema ¨Dulce Pecado¨, con el cual ha obtenido gran reconocimiento a nivel Nacional e Internacional. ¨Dulce pecado¨ supera más de 360 millones de reproducciones en YouTube, además que se posicionó de número uno en las principales emisoras del país.

El artista ha logrado destacarse con otros lanzamientos que han logrado un número importante en reproducciones en YouTube y streams en las principales plataformas como Spotify, Deezer y Claro, entre sus grandes éxitos se destaca: “Alguien Me Gusta”, ¨Matemos las Ganas¨, ¨Ok¨, ¨El último No¨, “Como Si Nada”, entre otras, este último single lo realizó con la reconocida artista popular Paola Jara.

Ha realizado importantes colaboraciones musicales con artistas como Andy Rivera, Espinoza Paz, Américo, Paola Jara, Ovi, Alkilados, Jhonny Rivera, Pipe Bueno, entre otros.

En el año 2019 fue llamado para formar parte del jurado del programa de televisión Yo Me Llamo, junto a César Escola y Amparo Grisales, algo que fue muy positivo para su carrera.

En el año 2020, a pesar de la situación mundial que se vivió con la pandemia, el artista continúo Continúa en la página siguiente Julio 2022 • Music News

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realizando presentaciones en sitios y eventos tanto públicos como privados, en los que se acompañaba de mariachis y pistas, lo que la ayudó a abrir las puertas de la industria musical en Medellín y en otras ciudades del país.

Uno de los momentos más representativos de su carrera se dio cuando fue telonera del concierto de Vicente y Alejandro Fernández en la ciudad de Medellín. Al poco tiempo, abrió el concierto de Juan Gabriel, entre otros. Fue un gran logro para la artista, pues estos eventos le dieron la visibilidad que había buscado tiempo atrás.

Jessi Uribe Y Paola Jara Continuación de la página anterior sorprendiendo a sus fans con una serie de lanzamientos y colaboraciones musicales entre las que se encuentran: ¨La Culpa¨, ¨Desde Que Te Fuiste¨, junto al artista Chileno ¨Américo¨, ¨Dicho Y Hecho¨ junto a Alkilados, ¨Se Te Nota¨ junto a Pipe Bueno, Y cerrando el año con broche de oro con la canción ¨Una Oportunidad¨ la cual debuta actualmente como la banda sonora de la telenovela Mexicana Quererlo Todo de Televisa y Univisión.

Jessi inicia este 2021 pisando fuerte con un nuevo estreno titulado ¨El Alumno¨ haciendo colaboración con el artista Mexicano ¨Joss Favela¨. Este tema logra rápidamente superar los 3 Millones de visualizaciones en YouTube, además de ocupar la primera posición en rankings de National Report.

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sorprendiendo y ganándose el corazón de sus fans quienes son parte importante de su gran crecimiento y éxito musical.

Paola Jara nació en Apartadó (Antioquia) donde inició en la música a temprana edad. A lo largo de su niñez vivió en diferentes municipios como Apartadó, Abejorral, Palmira y Medellín donde finalmente se radicó. Su paso por estos lugares le permitió conocer diferentes culturas y estilos de vida que la llevaron a descubrir su verdadera pasión. Durante estos años, participó en diversos concursos de música que hacían en las regiones y en las instituciones donde estudió. A medida que cursaba el bachillerato, alternaba sus estudios con las clases de guitarra y la práctica del canto.

Mientras buscaba su título en la universidad, seguía explorando en la música a nivel profesional. Inició

Después de un par de años, Paola Jara hizo parte del concurso del Canal RCN “Se Busca Interprete”, en el cual participó representando al género popular, bajo la tutoría de Galy Galeano, siendo una de las finalistas de este concurso. Se ganó el cariño del público y pudo exponer ante todo el país su talento. En el 2009 de la mano del productor musical Iván Calderón lanzó su Primera Producción Discográfica titulada “Paola Jara” de allí se desprende su primer éxito “Voy a Olvidarte” que ocupo los primeros lugares en las principales emisoras y canales de televisión del país.

A partir de ese momento, su carrera continúa creciendo a lo que es y a lo que representa Paola Jara hoy en día dentro de la industria de la música popular en Colombia. Se ha ganado el reconocimiento y el respeto dentro de un género que estaba principalmente representado por hombres. Tomando una parte muy importante dentro del público de la música popular como son las mujeres.

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Calling All Captains Perform At The Acadia Bar and Grill Calling All Captains made their Acadia debut this past month. The band hails from Edmonton, Alberta in Canada and is on tour in support of their debut fulllength album, Slowly Getting Better. Their unique sound is a cool mixture of pop, punk, and post-hardcore with a very aggressive feeling to their music. The show was great. Look for good things coming from these guys.

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Sir Mix-A-Lot Performs at the Wildcatter Saloon In Katy Rap Music echoed through the air this night at The Wildcatter Saloon in Katy. The legendary Sir Mix-A-Lot brought his crew down to the Wildcatter to celebrate the sound of rap in an all night affair that involved several other crews as well. You may remember Sir Mix-A-Lot from his hit song “Baby Got Back.” Mix likes big butts... Yes he does!

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Chief State Peform At The Acadia Bar and Grill Chief State, from Vancouver, B.C., Canada was on tour this month supporting their new album, Out For Me, which was still to be released. It finally hit the shelves this month on July 1st. Their tour brought them along with Calling All Captains to the Acadia Bar and Grill. Their Pop / Punk style of music and performance was a big hit this night at the Acadia. It’s great to see bands like this performing in Houston at The Acadia, your home for some of the best Rock in Houston!

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Green For A Day Perform At Rise Rooftop This day at Rise Rooftop, it was a celebration of Green Day as Houston’s finest Green Day tribute, Green For A Day brought the sights and sounds of this auspicious band to the fans there. If you were a Green Day fan, this must have been heaven for you.

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Ground Crew 4 Perform at The 19th Hole Ground Crew 4 performed this night at The 19th Hole. This cool band is really making a name for themselves with their high energy show and their cool combination of metal, punk, grunge, and alternative rock. Keep your eyes and ears open for their new product that is supposed to be out in the near future. We’ve heard rumors that they’re in the studio right now working on that project. We can’t wait to hear it as soon as it comes out. (Photos By Music News) 68

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Christian Shields Performs At The Acadia Bar and Grill This evening Christian Shields brought his band from Austin to Houston’s Acadia Bar and Grill for an evenng of smack-in-your-face Rock And Roll. Christian relocated from Rhode Island to Texas a few years ago and hasn’t looked back. He and his band are known for putting on a spectacular show and that’s just what he did at The Acadia performing his great new originals as well as songs from his last album release, This Is Rock n Roll.

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Victims Of Virgo Perform At The Gold Club III It was and evening of Classic Rock, Pop, and Country this night at The Gold Club III in Friendswood this night. On stage was the multi-genre sounds of Victims Of Virgo and they were pumping out their hearts to the crowd performing songs

by Pat Benatar (“What You Trying To Do To My Heart”), Blonde (“Call Me”), Foo Fighters (“Learning To Fly”), 3 Doors Down (“Kyrptonite”), Alannah Myles (“Black Velvet”) and The Black Crowes (“Shake Your Money Maker”). It was really a great evening of fine entertainment by a really good band. Check out the Gold Club III next time you’re looking for a place to party. (Photos By Music News) 72

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Tone Royal Performs at The Wildcatter Saloon in Katy One of the opening acts for Sir Mix-A-Lot was rapper Tone Royal. Tone comes from Austin Texas and is the co-host for DoubleToasted.com. He receives a lot of praise and appreciation from both the fans and the press for his cool brand of Rap. He was also featured on the mysa.com website list of the “21 rising stars in their 20’s. His clever wordplay, widespread subject material and powerful tone of voice were enough to earn him the first place of Austin’s Rap For A Stack Competition - twice. His EP “late” won Album of the Year at the 2019 ATX Hip-Hop Awards. His show at The Wildcatter Saloon was noting less than inspiring. (Photos By Greg Holleman) 74 Music News • July 2022

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The Christopher Seymore Band Performs At Shady Acres Saloon This night we went to see the Christopher Seymore Band Perform at Shady Acres Saloon. Christopher usually hosts Seymore’s Sunday Shootout at Shady Acres, but this night he was performing with a full band, so we decided to check it out. I’m really glad we did. Seymore and Company put on a helluva show this night performing songs from Merle Haggard (“Okie From Muskogee”), Hank Thompson (“The Wild Side Of Life”), Charlie Pride (“Is Anybody Going To San Antone”), Ray Price (“Heartaches By The Numbers”), George Jone (“You’re Still On My Mind”), and Buck Owens (“Act Naturally”). It was truly a great evening of Country Music. He’s on our list to see again.

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Zak T. Tyrant Performs at The Wildcatter Saloon This is the third set of pictures from the Rap Concert of Sir Mix-A-Lot at The Wildcatter Saloon. Pictured here is rapper Zak T. Tyrant performing with his drummer. He put on an impressive show just as good as the other two rappers we’ve featured in this month’s issue. (Photos by Greg Holleman) 78 Music News • July 2022

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Sparky Parker Performs At Green Oaks Tavern The Sparky Parker Band put on a fine show at Green Oaks Tavern in Houston. It was great seeing Sparky, I hadn’t seen him in a while. His distinctive style of Blues-Rock is always a blast to take in. This night he was delighting the crowd there with cool songs from Tom Petty (“Last Dance For Mary Jane”), The Rolling Stones (“Dead Flowers”), Eric Clapton (“I Shot The Sheriff”), Stevie Wonder (“Superstition”), and some cool originals as well. If you get a chance be sure to see Sparky sometime and also be sure to drop by Green Oaks Tavern in Humble for some great music. They have cool bands playing there several nights a week (Photos by Music News) July 2022 • Music News 79

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Cory Wilson and the Houston Ensemble Perform At Leon’s Lounge Saturday Nights were Jazz Night at Leon’s Lounge this past month, so we decided to drop by and check it out. I don’t know a lot about Jazz, but I know what I like, and these guys were great. One of the founding members of this band is saxophonist Cory Wilson.

Cory has toured worldwide, performing on shows such as David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and more. He decided to settle down a bit and formed the Houston Ensemble, a jazz collective and has a great time performing around Houston now! Check him out sometime at Leon’s. And look, it’s Brendan Nase performing guitar with Cory this night. (Photos By Music News) 80 Music News • July 2022

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A New Level Perform At The Last Concert Cafe This evening The Last Concert Cafe presented a night of Pantera featuring Houston’s Premiere Pantera Tribute, A New Level.

These guys put on one of the most authentic tributes to Pantera to ever come out of the South. The Last Concert Cafe certainly rocked this night. (Photos by Jennifer Schmitz) July 2022 • Music News

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Road II Ruin Perform At Rise Rooftop Houston’s premiere Ramones tribute band performed this day at Rise Rooftop. It was a whole day of tribute bands, but this one really stood out. Not too many bands can pull off a tribute show like this, but Road II Ruin just nailed it. If you’re into The Ramones, then keep your eyes open for this one. They don’t play around Houston too often, but when they do, it’s definitely and experience.

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Joe Cain Performs At Tony’s Mexican Restaurant This evening, our good buddy, Joe Cain was performing at Tony’s Mexican Restaurant on Ella Blvd.

Every Friday night, Tony’s hosts live music on their outdoor stage in front of their restaurant. This night Joe was belting out hit after hit, putting on a fine oneman show, performing a little of everything from Classic to Contemporary Rock. It really made for a good show and went well with our meal there as we chose to sit outside on their patio and enjoy the music. Check Tony’s out sometime on a Friday night.

(Photos By Music News)

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The Jay Hooks Band Perform At Katie’s Bar Jay Hooks was in fine form this night as he and his band consisting of Kevin Berry (drums) and Roger Tausz (bass) put on a helluva show at Katies Bar in Bacliff. The trio blasted through a ton of great Blues songs like “Crosscut Saw,” “Pride And Joy,” “A Fool For Your Stockings,” “I’m Going Down,” and “Parchment Farm.” Jay sounded better than ever and it was great to see Kevin Berry back in town and on drums.

And of course, it’s always a blast listening to Roger Tausz holding down the low end. It made for a great evening of the Blues.

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Michael Kennedy Performs at The 19th Hole It’s always great to see Michael Kennedy perform. Besides being a fine songwriter, he is also the consummate showman. When I heard he was going to be at the 19th Hole, I just had to drop in and catch the show. The show was great as expected. I sure would like to see Michael put an album out soon. Believe me, he really is a good songwriter. Here’s another guy you need to see if you can get the chance. When you do, tell him we sent you!

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Keeshea Pratt Performs at Houston’s Hottest Blues Club The Big Easy Tonight it was packed to standing room only capacity at The Big Easy when Keeshea Pratt took to the stage. We’re not suprised! Keeshea is always a hit at The Big Easy. In 2018 Keeshea won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and was crowned Houston’s ‘Queen Of The Blues.’ She is without a doubt one of Houston’s finest Blues Singers. Her shows are second to none and she keeps the room hopping. Tonight the room was filled from one side to the other. It would have been hard to fit anyone else into the dance floor as there was not a square inch open. The back bar was filled to capacity and even the pool tables were staying booked up with people playing pool all night long.

Everywhere you looked the place was filled with people. There wasn’t a seat to be found anywhere in the place. Yeah, this is what it’s like when a big name like this shows up at The Big Easy, which by the way, is a lot of the time. Next time you need a little Blues in your life and you’re near Kirby Road in the University/Rice area, drop on by The Big Easy. You’re going to have the time of your life.

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