Apr 22, 2017
Foals, six years ago in Houston
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Foals, six years ago in Houston
James McMurtry & BettySoo Live Show Review: 8/15, FitzGerald's, Berwyn
James McMurtry
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Prior to the final song in his main set Friday night outside at FitzGerald's, singer-songwriter James McMurtry took a moment to acknowledge the unique nature of the venue. "Thanks for building this place," he said. "That's a commitment you don't see in every town." The opener, McMurtry bandmate and solo artist BettySoo, also remarked that the case of FitzGerald's is unusual in this day and age. When the namesake family owners of FitzGerald's retired just before COVID in 2020, not only did new proprietor Will Duncan indeed commit to the establishment, helping it withstand an unprecedented global pandemic via socially distanced patio nights, he saw through the continual booking of outdoor shows even as the world opened up, and the eventual recognition of FitzGerald's on the National Register of Historic Places. To most, keeping the venue the way it was would have been enough. "Usually, when a place gets sold, it goes downhill," said BettySoo. "The music gets bad, or it becomes a karaoke bar...this is the opposite!"
James McMurtry
A place as timeless as FitzGerald's, one that bucks contemporary trends, is perhaps the proper place in the Chicagoland area to see James McMurtry. In Chicago, it's rare for an artist of McMurtry's stature to have a regular bar gig, as he does in his hometown of Austin at The Continental Club with his touring band of guitarist Tim Holt, bassist Cornbread, drummer Daren Hess, and (sometimes) BettySoo on backing vocals. Friday at FitzGerald's seemed like it could have been one of those regular nights in Texas, the fans singing along just as much to his 2020s material as classic stomper "Choctaw Bingo" and Crazy Horse-level burner "Too Long in the Wasteland". The opening lines and chords to "Canola Fields", the first track on 2021 comeback record The Horses and the Hounds, garnered the most cheers. As the band played past time, the crowd nonetheless demanded an encore, so McMurtry came out on stage, with no PA, and did an acoustic, mic-less "Blackberry Winter", audience members chanting the refrain, "Tell you no!" like they were eternal words.
James McMurtry, BettySoo, & Daren Hess
Though aspects of McMurtry's set were consistent with any given night over the past several decades, his rebellious tendencies shined especially in the context of today. As he snapped a picture of the crowd between "Childish Things" and "Copper Canteen", he quipped that he was taking, "some video for the FBI." When telling the crowd to get home safely and joking, "If you're going somewhere after this, be nice to the nice officer," he clarified, "but you don't have to be nice to the ICE officer." Of course, "Choctaw Bingo" in and of itself is always a political statement, a simultaneous empathetic look at rural America and chiding of the systems that make us obsessed with guns, drugs, and money. He repeated the line, "And a Desert Eagle, that's one great big ol' pistol / I mean, 50-caliber made by bad-ass Hebrews," a not-so-subtle jab at the fact that the countries that create weapons for supposed self-protection at home manufacture killing machines overseas. When you drill down, humor and humanism come from the same etymology, a phenomenon McMurtry exemplifies.
BettySoo
BettySoo
BettySoo, on the other hand, is certainly funny, but she puts her characters through the wringer. Peer singer-songwriters Bonnie Whitmore and Jaimee Harris dubbed her "Queen of the Bummer Jams;" if a couple is hopelessly in love at the beginning of a BettySoo song, they'll be at each other's throats by the third verse. Being alone, though, is not necessarily bad, according to BettySoo. "So many friends broke up during COVID and became happier," she said on Friday. Songs like "Never Knew No Love" and "Blackout"--the latter performed with McMurtry and Hess--became celebratory anthems of freedom earned, or even freedom to come. "We’re gonna lie here together like nothing’s wrong / Window unit moaning its own sad song," she and McMurtry sang. On paper, it reads like a line from a John Prine or Townes Van Zandt heartbreaker. In the hands of McMurtry and BettySoo, the utilitarian, inanimate objects are symbols of survival and thriving.
BettySoo
BettySoo
James McMurtry & BettySoo Live Preview: 8/15, FitzGerald's, Berwyn
James McMurtry; Photo by Mary Keating-Bruton
BY JORDAN MAINZER
On his latest album The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (New West), James McMurtry's got his head in the past. As a writer, he often culls from reference points with ambiguous beginnings, lines or characters that pop into his mind and bear a song. This time around, the inspirations are a bit more clear and concrete. For one, the record is McMurtry's first penned since the death of his father, beloved author Larry McMurtry; it gets its title and art from figures Larry hallucinated. It's bookended by covers, the opener by Austin singer-songwriter Jon Dee Graham (who suffered a stroke and underwent spinal surgery last year), the closer an anti-war classic by the late, great Kris Kristofferson. (I think of the last time I saw McMurtry live, his only real plea of the night to "tip your bartenders," his inclusion of Graham and Kristofferson tunes a show of recognition, appreciation, and solidarity.) He's also pondering American history, 9/11 ("Annie") and a legacy of institutional racism ("Sons of the Second Sons"). "Tellin' ourselves we're free / Sons of the pagan serfs / Salt of the fuckin’ Earth / In search of a Caesar," he sings on the latter, diagnosing a world that continues to hold onto border walls and racist flags.
However, that on The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy McMurtry dabbles in hyper realism and uber specific citations (seriously, he interpolates "Weird Al" Yankovic on the title track) only serves to make his fables seem all the more palpable. Take "South Texas Lawman", wherein McMurtry sees humanity in a cop who laments getting in trouble for rough ways that used to positively define him, the ultimate sign of a changing society. You may not believe you have much in common with a person who "hunts quail from horseback and cheats on both his wives" as a source of pride, but in McMurtry's deftly empathetic delivery--along with the rich timbres of Diana Burgess' cello and producer Don Dixon's slide guitar and trombone--you almost root for the titular tough guy. On "Pinocchio in Vegas", McMurtry uses the metaphor of the wooden boy to muse on lost innocence, from its all-timer opening line ("Pinocchio's in Vegas with his eye on the prize / He's a real boy now, his dick grows when he lies") to the sighing admission that "he's had to learn to be an asshole, just like everybody else." And "Back to Coeur d'Alene" is practically its own narrative arc within the record, a tale of someone trying to make it in Hollywood, leaving behind a bitter family. McMurtry's anthemic refrain of "gotta get known" could be taken straight out of a musical, Red Young's organ solo, BettySoo's backing vocals, accordion, and tambourine, and Bonnie Whitmore's bass acting as orchestral flourishes atop McMurtry's core band. "Why do I feel like a criminal for taking a good long shot?" asks the narrator. Whether the people on The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy existed or not, they struggle to toe the line between ambition and hubris, McMurtry omniscient, not judgmental, just telling it like it is.
BettySoo; Photo by Jeff Fasano
McMurtry plays tomorrow night at FitzGerald's, outdoors, doors at 5:00 P.M., show at 6. Tickets are sold out. Opening for him is his own bandmate and collaborator, BettySoo, who herself recently released a very good album, If You Never Go Away. It's full of songs about love and love lost, individuals still enamored with their exes via keepsakes ("Memento") or as evidenced by yearning ("What Would I Do?). BettySoo knows that objects and memories contain meaning, and that meaning can come and go as it pleases, so she never takes endearment for granted. "I will gather all these scattered tokens of your lovering," she sings on "Lovering", sculpting and collaging passion itself, aware later on "Light It Up" that "we know how to set ablaze what's left of us." Similar in theme but unique in aesthetic is "Human Echo", rife with bossa nova organ and drum clacks and a swaying melody. No matter BettySoo's style of expression, on If You Never Go Away, she effectively explores how we carry pieces of others with ourselves, at all times.
Alejandro Escovedo's Songs, Living and Breathing
From left to right: Mark Henne, Alejandro Escovedo, James Mastro, Scott Danbom
BY JORDAN MAINZER
He's a true master of reinvention. Don't get me wrong: It's the same Alejandro Escovedo. But he's continuing to find out that there are many right ways to tell his stories, especially when it comes to their musical accompaniment. Escovedo hasn't released a new album of original material since 2018's The Crossing, and that's okay. In 2021, he shared a Spanish-language version of the aforementioned album, La Cruzada, an act whose sociopolitical ramifications speak for themselves, in an era of increasing anti-immigration rhetoric and xenophobia that the very album explores. And earlier this year, inspired by his forebears, Escovedo decided to revisit all eras of his discography.
Including tunes from pre-solo career bands Buick MacKane and The True Believers, Echo Dancing (Yep Roc) is 14 re-recordings of older songs. When Escovedo boarded a plane to Italy to record with Don Antonio (with whom he recorded The Crossing) and Nicola Peruch, he thought he was going to improvise a new record from his lyrical and melodic sketches. Upon hearing other bands' interpretations of his songs--namely Calexico's version of "Wave", originally from 2001's A Man Under the Influence--Escovedo thought, "I, too, can do that." The man who sings on Echo Dancing is, yes, older and wiser, having seen friends and family members come and go, continuing to find truth in stories both personal and fictional. But instead of focusing on his own voice, Escovedo obscures himself behind clouds of haze, electronic effects, sparse drum machines, and distorted guitars, the pain in his voice all the more affecting due to how isolated it sounds. On "Thought I'd Let You Know", a clattering song originally from 2016's Burn Something Beautiful, Escovedo stretches the running time a full three minutes, as if to give himself even more time to reflect alongside buzzing stabs of noise. He repeats, "We're not alone / We are all alone," the effective musings of someone struggling to make sense of the world around them.
At the same time, if songs with more traditional instrumentation sound futuristic on their Echo Dancing version, Escovedo pulls familiar sounds out of those that might have sounded dystopian in the past. The Crossing's "MC Overload", for instance, trades the original's chugging, metallic instrumentation and vocoders for bluesy picking, Gianni Perinelli's soprano saxophone, and Escovedo's deadpan baritone. And Antonio adds gospel-inflected organ to "Swallows of San Juan" and "Last to Know", which somehow sounds at home next to drum machines and dulled bass drums.
Escovedo's gear
When I saw that Escovedo was touring Echo Dancing, I thought, "Which versions of these songs would he play live?" Would we get the new version of "John Conquest" with syncopated synthesizers, or the Buick Mackane punk burner (technically and hilariously titled "John Conquest You've Got Enough Dandruff on Your Collar to Bread a Veal Cutlet")? Would he play fan favorite "Castanets", a self-described Mott the Hoople-style rock and roll song, or "Castañuelas", the slow, drippy, half-Spanish language dub version with slightly different lyrics? According to his show last Thursday at FitzGerald's, the answer was, "Sometimes, both, other times, something in between the two, and occasionally, neither." During "Sacramento & Polk", Escovedo's venerable backing band--guitarist James Mastro, keyboardist Scott Danbom, drummer Mark Henne--adopted the upbeat punk drive of the original version from 2006's The Boxing Mirror, behind Escovedo's obscured vocals, which were inspired by Echo Dancing's version. On "Bury Me", a prescient tune when it appeared on Escovedo's 1992 debut Gravity, Mastro played the original's twangy slide guitar, while Danbom extracted the pure funk from the new version. Their performance of "Too Many Tears" combined the built-up dirge of Big Station's original with Escovedo's miles-away delivery of Echo Dancing's. And "Everybody Loves Me" retreated to a soulful, back-to-basics ethos, its blues-funk towering above the original's CCR-indebted strut and new version's wonderfully puzzling industrial country.
If the true testament to a song's lasting impact is how it can emotionally resonate over time, ballad "Sensitive Boys" was the highlight of the set. Introducing it, Escovedo paid tribute to his brother Manuel, who passed away weeks ago at 94 years old. Hearing Escovedo repeat, "The world needs you now," despite what we all knew to be true was heartbreaking, yes, but the band filled the room with an undeniable warmth, from Escovedo's deep belting to Mastro's plucky guitars and Danbom's keyboards, out of which he concocted a whole orchestra worth of sounds. It's sometimes hard to remember just how long Escovedo's been around when I think to myself that he hasn't put out anything "original" in a while. Hearing Echo Dancing and seeing him live reminds me that the sort of newness I look out for, even crave, is still limited by the construct of time. With the right shift in perspective and a couple tweaks, a song can be just as living and breathing as I am.
Parker Millsap Live Show Review: 8/14, FitzGerald’s, Berwyn
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Parker Millsap shows are the type where you’ll hear whooping and hollering from even the bartenders. They’re a showcase for his raspy voice with crazy vocal range and the democracy of the band’s instrumentation: Daniel Foulks’ limber fiddle, Michael Rose’s steady electric bass, Andrew Bones’ ramshackle drums, and Millsap’s own blistering guitar and harmonica. Last night at FitzGerald’s, with little between-song banter, they managed to churn out an almost 20-song set comprised of cuts from mostly his last two albums, 2016′s great The Very Last Day and last year’s comparatively poppy Other Arrangements. The sheen of the latter didn’t matter. The band was as raw as ever, providing a well-curated set list that juxtaposed anthems like “Hands Up” with weepy slow-burners like “The Very Last Day” and “Heaven Sent”, jaunts like “Silver Lining” with contemporary country classics like “I Hope I Die”.
But it wasn’t just the variance in pace that kept the set engaging: it was also that Millsap’s songs are indebted to many classic genres. His blues picking on “Tell Me” and soul screaming on a cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People” were two sides of the same coin, but outliers like “Jealous Sun”--performed alongside only Foulks--allowed Millsap to display his intimate singer-songwriter chops. And did I mention that voice? If he wanted to, Millsap could do a convincing note-for-note cover of Jeff Buckley’s Grace AND Chris Isaak’s entire discography. He’s that good.
Live Picks: 8/14-8/15
Parker Millsap; Photo by Tim Duggan
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Americana lore, comedy, and the dream of the Nineties.
8/14: Parker Millsap, FitzGerald’s
We previewed the Oklahoma singer-songwriter’s show at Lincoln Hall last summer and subsequent appearance on Live From Here with Chris Thile. He returns to the Chicago area with a year’s experience of touring his latest album Other Arrangements, plus a recorded cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People”.
Singer-songwriter Jack Klatt opens.
8/14: Spektral Quartet + LJ White feat. the music of The Shaggs, Constellation
Tonight at Constellation, as part of their Once More, With Feeling! series, local string group Spektral Quartet plays The Shaggs’ “My Pal Foot Foot” as reimagined by composer LJ White. (They’ll be playing with a disassembled drum kit in addition to their usual instruments.) As is consistent with the series, the Quartet and White will participate in a Q+A session and then perform the piece again.
8/15: Leslie Jones, Vic Theatre
SNL star and Ghostbuster Leslie Jones delivers a stand-up set in advance of the release of The Angry Birds Movie 2 (supposed to be conspicuously better than the first one) and her upcoming 2020 Netflix special.
Comedian Lenny Marcus opens.
8/15: Jupiter & Okwess, Millennium Park
Jupiter Bokondji’s genre-bending collective Jupiter & Okwess project headlines Millennium Park tomorrow night. Their last album was 2017′s great Kin Sonic, which featured collaborations with Damon Albarn, Warren Ellis, and Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja. Earlier this year, they released a new song, the buoyant and percussive “Kwe Ngienda”. The song begins with layered drums and chanting before introducing sharp rhythm guitars and airy lead tones.
Mauritanian griot, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist Noura Mint Seymali opens.
8/15: Smashing Pumpkins, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, & AFI, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
I’m not sure any setlist could top the last time we saw Smashing Pumpkins, a tour consisting almost exclusively of songs from the first five albums. Now that they’ve released their new record, the set won’t be as satisfying, even more so because they’ll be playing more post-MACHINA material, but it will be worth seeing because the original lineup sounds so damn good live.
Opening are Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, the musically talented brother’s band that thankfully tends to play some Oasis songs and Beatles covers, and California emo stalwarts AFI, who haven’t topped Sing the Sorrow and tend to play nothing from before it. Don’t worry: “Girl’s Not Grey”’s in there.
Eilen Jewell Interview: New Eyes and Her Eyes
BY JORDAN MAINZER
“My daughter’s gonna come home soon and demand all of my attention,” Americana singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell told me over the phone from her home in Boise last month. Becoming a mother has done for her what it does for any new parent: It has made her busy, and more fearful for her and her child’s safety. But at the same time, it’s made Jewell more emotionally and musically adaptive and arguably less averse to risk. Gypsy, her first album of original material since 2015, (out August 16 via Signature Sounds), touches on these themes. For one, it sees her more willing to write directly about her life and interactions with the world. She exposes her own vulnerability on “Witness” and “Fear”. In the face of some awful “stick to politics” criticism, she decries the gender pay gap on “79 Cents (The Meow Song)” and inspires us to act about injustice on “Beat the Drum”. And for a slice of home cooking, she even covers Idaho musician Pinto Bennett, on “You Cared Enough to Lie”.
Instrumentally, too, Gypsy was “a learning experience” for Jewell, marking the first time she’s ever recorded with electric guitar. Live, this means more equipment and more musicians. She’s still got the core band: her husband Jason Beek on drums and guitarist Jerry Miller. This time around, she’s adding upright bass player Matt Murphy for the first time and percussionist/roadie Michael Rundle. (With Beek recovering from open heart surgery, Rundle has to do a lot of heavy lifting.) Add her daughter Mavis and a nanny, and you’ve got what Jewell called the “happy seven, rollin’ down the road.”
That Gypsy and its subsequent tour is somewhat of a family affair is appropriate: Jewell dedicates the record to a different family, one from her childhood that made possible the spirit of the album. Growing up with the cultural limitations of Boise, the Abramovitz family, parents and four kids, one of which was Jewell’s best friend, exposed her to new music and art. The father, from New York City, “was the most exotic person I could have ever imagined,” Jewell told me. “It was like he was from a different planet.” He turned her on to Greenwich Village beat poetry and Billie Holliday. It was “exactly what I needed at the time and still really cherish,” Jewell said. With Gypsy, she pays it forward, showing new territory by venturing out of her comfort zone.
Catch Jewell tomorrow night at Hey Nonny in Arlington Heights and Friday at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn. Read the interview below, edited for length and clarity.
Since I Left You: What is unique about Gypsy as compared to your past releases?
Eilen Jewell: Well, it’s my favorite album so far of all the albums I’ve written. I feel like the writing is more honest than it’s ever been, and there’s a depth to it that I think is something I’ve been trying to achieve for a long time.
SILY: What kind of depth do you think it achieves?
EJ: The songs are really personal to me. I think I’m writing truer stories than I used to. My songs used to be kind of a blend of fiction and fact. These songs are less fiction. Not that there’s anything wrong with fiction--I love that, too--but I’ve just been wanting to write more autobiographical songs and have always found that to be more challenging. I’ve shied away from it up until now because it was so challenging. This album, I really embraced the idea of looking at something personal and writing it in a way that makes me feel good about sharing it with the world.
SILY: Is there a song that best encapsulates that feeling?
EJ: They all do, but I think “Fear” is one of the better examples of that because I’ve been grappling with fear a lot ever since my little girl came along. I’m a much more frightened person than I used to be. “Who Else But You”, as well. And “Crawl”, too. “Crawl” doesn’t sound like a very confessional song, but it’s something that comes directly from something I’ve been feeling for a longtime and have finally found out a way to put into words. A lot of songs on the album are that way: Things I’ve been struggling to communicate for a long time. I’ve finally figured out how to do it somehow.
SILY: “Fear” and “Crawl” specifically have a couple of my favorite lines on the record. On the former: “Don’t take fear for your guide / Just look him in the eye and thank him kindly for his time.” Is that a mantra to yourself?
EJ: Sort of. I’ve been trying to figure out how to live peacefully with my fears and anxieties. I feel like they’ve taught me a lot. Ever since Mavis came along, I’ve been much more of a fearful person. There are days when I want to shove all the fear away and hide it under a rug. Those days are less productive. What’s really helped me over the years is to accept fear and live next to him and accept that’s part of life. But don’t let it guide everything that you do. Don’t let it become the motivating factor for doing or not doing whatever it is you want to do in your life. It’s become something to live by, for sure.
SILY: Why do you refer to fear as “him?”
EJ: [laughs] I feel like fear is the dark stranger you meet on the road at night. For me, it’s a very masculine feeling. It’s the creeper who lives in the shadows...that tends to be a male presence. The criminal, the thief, the person who wants to take everything away from you that you love and cherish. Sorry to say.
SILY: It fits thematically with other songs where you more explicitly lament the patriarchy, like “79 Cents (The Meow Song)” and “Beat the Drum”.
EJ: Even though “Fear” is an extremely personal song for me about grappling with the newfound anxiety of becoming a mother, politically, there’s a lot of fear on both sides. Both the right and the left are very fear-driven at the moment. It does have political ramifications, as well. As I was writing it, I was thinking about all of the fear-mongering going on that’s more than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. If people want to take it as a political message, I think that’s fair game.
SILY: Like “Fear”, “Witness” is also about how having a kid has changed you, right?
EJ: Yeah, I mean when I was writing it, I wasn’t directly feeling like it was a song about new motherhood. But [Mavis] has changed the way I see the world. You could say that, more or less, it’s about learning how to see life through new eyes and how it can change your perspective so deeply.
SILY: Has it made you a more empathetic songwriter and person?
EJ: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s probably one of the biggest things that motherhood as taught me: how to empathize, at least a little, with everyone. I feel much more tenderhearted with the world than I thought possible.
SILY: On “Crawl”, you sing, “I want solitude / I don’t want to be alone.” What’s the difference to you?
EJ: The song really examines this feeling in me of being pulled in two different directions at the same time. It’s something I’ve felt off and on throughout my entire life, as far as I can remember. I want the ruby-sanctified life and the unholy life. I want to be a pure and clean person, and I want to live life cowgirl style. I’ve constantly been pulled in these different directions. I’m very introverted, yet I fear being abandoned. There are these very conflicting forces at work in me, and there always have been. It’s another thing I’ve just recently come to terms with. “Yep--this is how I work!” I’m being fought over by opposite forces.
SILY: This album is the first time you’ve recorded using electric guitar. Do you have a favorite guitar track?
EJ: I really like how the guitar came across on “Crawl”. It’s so unlike everything I’ve ever done before, on stage and in the studio. I’ve never done anything quite that musically aggressive before. I know it’s not cutting-edge guitar work, but for me, it’s different, and I’m happy about this process of coming out of my shell, covering ground that’s new for me.
SILY: How did you come up with the title and title track? Was there one that came first?
EJ: The song came first. When we were thinking about what to name the album, that was the only thing I kept returning to as a good name for the album. It’s a little bit hard to explain what the word “gypsy” means to me, but from a really long age, I’ve always been infatuated with the idea of gypsies. My friend, whose family I dedicated the album to, she and I used to have this infatuation with gypsies. We secretly wanted to be them. We both ended up growing up and choosing path in our lives that allowed us to be gypsies without obviously being technically gypsies. It’s a word that’s always been chock full of imagery for me. I wanted to give a nod to her and her family as being really important to me in terms of life in general and creativity. They exposed me to so much music, poetry, ideas, and thoughts growing up. I just couldn’t imagine growing up in Boise, Idaho, that there were people who thought outside the box to the extent they did. They took me in at a young age and opened my mind. Somehow, the word gypsy involves all those elements of my life: them, poetry, creativity, and not staying tied down to one belief or system or way of being. Having a sense of freedom.
SILY: Was that an accurate interpretation of Boise at the time? How much has it changed from an artistic standpoint?
EJ: It’s much more interesting now than it was growing up. In the 80′s and 90′s, there was very little outside influence, almost no diversity. It’s very isolated and still is. It’s the most isolated metropolitan area in the U.S. You have to drive 5 hours to get to the next big city. It still feels isolated but feels a lot bigger. It has big city issues, but it feels more diverse now. As a kid, it felt like growing up in a desert. [laughs] If it weren’t for the Abramovitz family I dedicated the album to, I don’t think I would have heard a lot of the music that’s really important to me today and certainly feel like I wouldn’t have had any companionship in my weird musical tastes.
SILY: How are you adapting the new songs to the stage?
EJ: We’re working through that. We’ve started bringing an amp for me on the road, and two electric guitars. The van is even fuller than it used to be, but mostly in a good way.
Album score: 8.0/10
R.I.P. Fitzgerald’s Houston
Demolition has begun on Fitzgerald’s, the legendary music venue in Houston, which marks the end of yet another era. Fitz’s weathered many storms over the years; controversial remarks by owner Sarah Fitzgerald just recently, changes in ownership over the years, the pay-to-play years. But through it all it remained one of Houston’s iconic music establishments. Any of us who grew up there since it opened in 1977 (!) definitely have some great memories of nights spent there. Below are some times I’ve covered shows at Fitz’s here on this blog:
10/24/2009: Red November
3/21/2011: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group (The Mars Volta secret show)
11/3/2012: Converge
12/21/2012: Pallbearer, Power Trip, and more
8/4/2014: Antemasque
8/23/2015: Screaming Females
And here is a video of my all-time favorite performance I saw at Fitz’s: