Where The Hell Are We? - Part 1
It all began with oil in the Gulf of Mexico. And now as a result of the glorious black gold, Houston doesn’t go to sleep. It blacks out the next morning when it's time for the afternoon siesta. And that's every Houstonian, not just myself. The Houston music scene pulses through the plywood stages the musicians gyrate on, double bass vibrations rattle windows of the project houses next to the venues, and the smell of spilled beer on thrifted denim and crusty battle jackets permeate the multiplicity of the venues throughout Houston. The last five years in the underground haven’t been kind or clean, but they’ve been real. DIY venues rise and fall like tides, and bands appear and vanish faster than you can memorize a chorus. But something’s brewing down here. And it’s louder than ever.
I lit a cigarette outside The End, a black-walled strip center bunker off Lawndale, where a kid came out of the pit bleeding from his eyebrow like he’d lost a bar fight, grinning from ear to ear like he’d obtained salvation. That’s this whole scene here in this city of oil. Blood is currency, and the only thing you need to navigate in it, is the will to take that first step.
What better place to begin our story, then at The End? The End is a Houston staple that keeps changing its name and adding stages, to the point of which I don't know what they're called anymore. They've got their normal “The End” stage, another stage next door on their “Compound” side that has an upstairs loft, an outdoor stage, and a fourth stage called “Ground Control”, that I have never located due to a nutrient deficiency I have. Bands perform sets so loud here you can feel the drywall begging for mercy. There was one evening I was in attendance at the Compound, in which a hip hop performer decided to climb the loft’s railing because he thought he was the illegitimate child of Eddie Vedder. As a result of this theatrical performance of squirrel-like superiority, the railing collapsed, and they had to close that part of the venue to fix it. These are the types of things that you can expect to happen every night here in this city.
These DIY venues are the settings where the climax of many a band's career will happen. Memories are made, lovers are wooed, and bridges are sabotaged for later destruction. To give a couple noteworthy examples off the top of my skull, The White Swan’s still kicking over on Navigation. For those unaware, it is half dive bar, half baptismal font for punks. I'm not quite sure how only a couple people have died there. In fact, I'm positive it's haunted there now. I once saw the ghost of Seth Putnam there eating a cheeseburger doing lines of an unknown powder. House of J in Second Ward feels like your cousin’s place if your cousin booked hardcore shows in the living room and had homeless people selling artwork out back like it’s Venice Beach. 1810 Ojeman is a war drum in a velvet lined garage, unassuming from the outside, but inside it’s got that electric neon energy you only find in sacred DIY ground. Then there’s Black Magic Social Club, the East End’s cathedral of blood-red light and gothic kitsch, part venue, part demon portal. Heavy doses of psychedelics are not recommended at this establishment. Satellite Bar burned bright before gentrification shot it back down to Earth, and Fitzgeralds got bulldozed instead of being turned into a holy shrine of rock and metal history. Bohemeo’s keeps bridging art and sound in a swirl of coffee, punk, and experimental haze from delta 8 pens. There's an odd sort of feeling in the air that happens at every single show in these hallowed halls. Everyone knows something is about to happen, but nobody quite knows what.
Honestly, trying to pin down Houston’s underground into neat little genres is like trying to staple smoke to a wall, which is actually possible with enough chemical help. Every band here sounds like the city itself. Humid, sprawling, unpredictable, and constantly building on the ruins of whatever came before.
Some shows blur into hardcore chaos, some spiral into psych-metal noise, some shimmer with indie melancholy, and some just erupt without warning. The bands change names, members, and even sounds faster than you can update your playlist. You might catch something transcendent at a backyard show, then never hear of them again. Or maybe they’ll pop up a year later with a different lineup, different vibe, and a fire twice as hot.
There are big names within the underground of Houston, you’ve probably heard of Labyrinth, Chironex, Popperz, Bozos, or Lágrimas, but it’s not about who's leading the pack. It’s about the pack itself. Houston doesn’t do scenes; it does moments. One night it's crust punk tearing the studs out of the wall like a crackhead looking for copper wire, and the next night it's ambient drone echoing off garage walls while someone screams poetry into a broken mic. Lines blur. Nobody asks what genre's playing, they just want to know, if it's real, if it's worth losing your voice for. There's always someone new grabbing the mic, wide-eyed and wild, ready to bleed for fifteen minutes of fame.
This isn’t some scene clawing for a spotlight. It’s a pressure cooker of sound and sweat that built itself from busted amps and pure will. It hits hard, it plays fast, and it looks out for its own. If you fall, someone lifts you. If you scream, someone hears you. You won’t find these shows on Ticketmaster... But you will find them on crumpled flyers in Montrose and Mid-Town, in Instagram stories, carrier pigeon messages, and they all take place behind the blacked-out windows of a venue that might not be there next month.
And if you’re asking where it’s all going, don’t. Houston doesn’t plan. It mutates as a result of the vast amounts of carcinogens that leak from the oil refineries in Pasadena. The city sweats through denim and writes its manifestos in Sharpie on bathroom walls. Tomorrow’s scene will look nothing like tonight’s, and that’s the point. You’re either in the room when the floor gives out… or you’re not. Maybe that's why they bulldozed Fitz. Where the Hell are we? Houston, Texas baby.
To be continued....
