Houstonisms

First, I want to apologize for being lately tardy on my posts. My weekend schedule has become increasingly busy. These out-of-town obligations, coupled with ever more parenting demands, has meant a temporary loss of my Saturday morning blogging time. But things should be settling down a bit now.

I do want to mention two Houston-related music items that should not go without notice from you out-of-towners.

First, Anna Garza (she of HandsUp Houston fame) is spearheading the first annual Girls Rock Camp Houston. This being their first year, they’ve been clearing a lot of logistical hurdles and raising money. I am happy to say I was able to connect GRC with a law-school pal of mine at Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts (TALA) to handle their obligatory mumbo jumbo. I’ve also contributed to the effort through Kickstarter. I encourage you to do the same. My understanding is that the donations help fund scholarships for some of the girls.

What is Girls Rock Camp Houston? It’s a School of Rock for girls:

Girls Rock Camp Houston, in collaboration with the University Of Houston Moores School Of Music’s Preparatory and Continuing Studies Program, is a one-week summer day camp formed in October 2009 to offer girls (ages 8-18 years old) music and art based workshops. Targeted areas include: musical development, self-esteem enhancement, creation of their own music, friendship and community building, and nurturing individual talents within a cooperative atmosphere. Additionally, girls will benefit from physical & artistic activities that complement their music instruction.

Goals for the program include empowerment of girls & women though music and providing the opportunity for all definitions of girls & women to succeed in any music-related venture. Girls of all backgrounds and musical levels are encouraged to apply, since a limited number of scholarships will be provided.

Girls Rock Camp Houston will offer campers a chance to write their own songs in a band setting and perform them during a concert at an actual live music venue at the end of the week long session.

For more info, check out this Houston Press story. The actual event will be the second week of August (so that’s pretty soon).

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Secondly, I want to send out my condolences to Mark Brubaker who has worked exceptionally hard trying to make the Houstonist blog into a good local-music citizen and blog worth reading. Sadly, the Gothamist network has decided to shut the Houston edition down. From the Space City Rock obituary:

Damn. This bums me out — while I was initially a little skeptical of the whole Houstonist thing, I’ll admit, back when it started out, I’d been really, really liking what Editor Marc Brubaker had done with the place, especially in terms of covering local music. It’s steadily built from an “eh”-inducing site seemingly focused more on bar-hopping and pretty people (’cause God knows we need more of that kind of media, don’t we?) to a bona-fide news source that’s beat yours truly to the punch a hell of a lot of the time.

Which is why the news that parent company Gothamist has decided to close the curtains on their Houston-based spinoff. Not sure when the site itself’ll be down, but apparently it’ll be soon. sigh.

Bru’s still keeping busy, it seems, between the Prairie Cadets, new project Postmarked, his photography, and his own soon-to-be-expanded site on Houston music, H-Town Rock, and I’m relieved as hell about that. Sad to see the ship go down, though. It had a good run, y’all — thanks for all the hard work!

I second SRC’s sadness, and I too am looking forward to seeing Brubaker continue to cover Houston music through H-Town Rock. As one of the chorus of regular bloggers/reporters covering Houston music, Brubaker has helped me answer the question, “does anybody actually care about the music we’re putting out.” The answer, surprisingly, has been yes. And even if we’re still playing to 12 people on Thursday nights, I’m stoked that a handful of press outlets helped get two or three of those 12 people out to the show.