Different groups around Houston

[Joe Rogers]

What (if any) interaction do the different musicians/local music scene groups in the Htown area have?

H.A.A.M - Houston Association of Acoustic Musicians
H.B.C - Houston Band Coalition?
Guitar Houston
GoGirls

Just wondering. Seems to be a lot of different groups trying to accomplish the same things.

[Tyson Reddic]

Hey Joe,

I don't see that anyone "took the bait" on this one. (??) Nobody wants to discuss it???

You are so correct, I started creating my own group last month because I didn't think there WERE any orgs out there.

Everyone seems to be so isolated and quiet about it. Is Houston really that bad off?

Reference this article in the Houston Press.

Hey, should I start mine or just join one of these others? (Did I just answer my own question?)

L8R,
T-Wrecks

[Joe Rogers]

Thanks for reading between the lines there Tyson. I was trying to get something started. Not to bash anyone but to get folks thinking.

There is a boatload of talent in the area here yet everyone is focused on just doing their own things. Bands, venue's, support staff (studios, music stores, etc...) all have their own little groups and it seems that none of these folks really try to do different things. I know that there are a few very localized success stories but nothing that saus "Holy shit, this is going to be big".

Multiple groups all trying to do roughly the same thing. I would think that there is power in numbers.

[Tyson Reddic]

Hey Joe!

I'm glad that the neglect didn't run you off!! :)

We have to keep pushing. I'm a member of another group that is mostly comprised of members OUTSIDE Texas. Amazing activity. Shoot, I had to turn of my email updates.

They added a chat applet to the site and the darn thing keeps beeping and beeping; indicating that someone else has logged onto the site. WOW!

I guess it's on US to invite more "movers and shakers" to this site. I have tried and will continue. We Texans don't seem to be as "cohesive" as others.

Maybe we take the few of us that are energized and shoulder the responsibility of making something that says, "Holy shit, this is going to be big."

[Sound Check Music]

I agree.. Everyone can come to my studio and hang and meet each other..

[Michael DeLuco]

You should try and organize the group and propose a date and time. Sounds Like a great idea for networking.

Peace
Mike

[Joe Rogers]

Rather then forming yet another group, does it make better sense to get involved or more involved with the groups that are already out there?

HAAM and HBC are the two biggies (at least as far as I can see). Are any of you guys active with those groups?

[Love It To Death - the Alice Cooper Tribute Show]

What exactly are these groups for? Sure we're all out there doing our own thing - what can we do together? Educate me. :)

[Joe Rogers]

All of them are basically trying to promote the Houston Music scene. HAAM specializes in the more acoustic areas, HBC seems more geared towards hard rock but at the end of the day, they all want to get more people out to shows.

The thing that I notice about all of this is that the focus is on the bands. It takes a village and a major missing component that I see is venues.

I'm a firm believer in 1+1=3.

[Tyson Reddic]

I know three things for sure.

1. I'm Black.
2. There's too much division in my neighborhood.
3. There are TOO many great musicians that are famous in a clique!

Music, is Music. It comes in different stylings but EVERYBODY loves some form of Ice Cream and Music! (Sidebar: I can't make Ice Cream.)

I love the music I play. I WANT to love the music YOU play!

See my post below.

[Tyson Reddic]

Hey,

Did you get any takers on this offer???

Thanks,
Tyson

[Bill Nelson Band]

Maybe the thing to do is join all of them. To me the biggest problem that we have in Houston, is the same problem that the music industry has overall... segmentation. Too many bars cater to a specific genre. Too many of the groups cater to specific genre, etc. When I was a kid, you could hear Black Sabbath and Poco played back to back on the same station. Then, I could go to the music hall and see Foghat, and Firefall on the same bill. I could go to Dome Shadows and see Oz Knozz (metal,) Lightning (rock,) and Allen Haynes and The Texas Boogie Band (blues,) in the same night. Back in those days, club owners still advertisewd local shows on the radio, and their were 40 live music venues in town that were packed Thursday thru Sunday, every week. You could actually make a living playing music in Houston back then. From 1970 to about 1977, the Houston music scene was actually much bigger and more vital than the Austin scene.

Now, everything is broken down into very narrow categories, which would be fine if any of them were particularly potent on their own, but they are not. So, what happens is that club owners and promoters narrow their focus on a particular genre, and you have a lot of small scenes going on, instead of one big one.

I don't mind doing whatever I have to do to put myself out there, but club owners nowadays are lazy, and cheap. They totally rely on bands to do the marketing for them, and then they complain about a band's crowd size. If they would invest in some radio, they would at least be doing their part to get people out, and everyone would benefit. Their is only so much that you can do with myspace, email and flyers. My experience with myspace so far is that for every 1000 people I can reach, about 3 people will actually show up at a show. That is not a very good result.

Here is an idea: What if we band together to do a show at a venue, and see if we can get the venue owner to go in halfs with us on the radio time???

Forgive me for rambling. Paul, what are you doing up so late on a school night?? LOL!

BN

[Love It To Death - the Alice Cooper Tribute Show]

Thinking.................always thinking. Something's gotta give in this town. I'm not just sitting here saying poor me. More like poor us. It sucks now more than ever thanks to the weather but for some time I have been wondering what could be done to bring back SOME KIND of music scene here.