PREVIEWS // Oct. 25, 2012

Jazz Guitarist Corey Stoot Set To Ignite Café 4212 Tonight

Houston seethes with virtually unknown talent. Outside of musician circles, few in the general public are likely to recognize Corey Stoot. But the Sam Houston High School graduate has deep Houston musical roots and a resume that any guitarist would kill for. He's also a hard traveler.

Stoot's guitar work has carried him all over the world, most recently to a sold out arena show in London during the Olympics at the end of a month-long European tour as the guitarist with world renowned Caribbean ensemble Morgan Heritage. But Stoot isn't genre-bound; he's worked with Geto Boys, played on UGK's monumental Ridin' Dirty, worked on albums with rappers Devin the Dude (who bestowed the nickname Funkafangez on Stoot), Paul Wall, and Mike Jones, and toured and recorded with reggae superstar Bankie Banx. He's also worked with Kelly Rowland and recently backed up LL Cool J on the Letterman Show. Stoot also plays with hugely popular zydeco outfit Step Rideau and has a regular church gig when he's in town.

PREVIEWS // Oct. 23, 2012

THE SEARCH FOR 'SUGAR MAN' IS OVER

The idea that the American pop culture machine is infallible in crowning its latest and greatest flies out the window in the face of Rodriguez. In fact, perhaps no one demonstrates the vicissitudes of that fleeting rainbow called fame the way Rodriguez does.

In less than a year, the 68-year old demolition man from Detroit has gone from a long forgotten cult figure to the Letterman Show. The subject of the astounding documentary Searching For Sugar Man, which refers to the title of his most well-known composition, Rodriguez is an all-American story. Born and raised in Detroit, he had a brief career with a couple of politically astute folk-rock albums at the tail end of the hippie era in the early Seventies before, for the most part, giving up on a life of music except for a few tours of Australia, where a local label kept his music in print and he got modest airplay.

PREVIEWS // Oct. 20, 2012

Cow Punk Pioneers Ride Into Town Tonight

As a piece of music history, the Meat Puppets qualify right up there with a career that spans 30+ years, drug addictions, prison terms, and over-doses, and that has seen the band evolve from hardcore punk to cow punk to almost an institution after breaking up and reforming three times. The Puppets are still probably best known for sitting in with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged in 1993, which is odd to a certain extent since they were never really pigeon-holed as a grunge band.

Originally formed in Arizona but now basing in Austin, the Puppets came storming out of the college punk scene and soon had enough buzz to sign with legendary punk label SST Records, who also counted Black Flag, Gun Club, Dinosaur Jr., Minutemen, Husker Du, and Sonic Youth on their roster.

PREVIEWS // Oct. 12, 2012

Legends of the Fall - Stone River Boys at Under the Volcano

Armed with one of Rolling Stone magazine's Top 100 guitar players of all time, former Paladin Dave Gonzalez, and with one of Houston's most beloved front men of the past twenty years, part-time Hollister Mike Barfield, the Stone River Boys pack a mean punch. Their album Love on the Dial is a straight-up country soul punch to the jaw.