New Song: “Lipstick Smile”

“Shutting It Down,” Live at Bohemeo’s

“Dividing All We Are,” Live at Bohemeo’s

Great gig at Bohemeo’s in southeast Houston the other night. This tune is from our first CD, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy. Here was the set list if you couldn’t make it..

Hello There
Suzanna
Let It Flow
Someone Came To Help Me
Shutting It Down
Dividing All We Are
Run Towards the Warmth of the Sun
Rain on the Scarecrow
Time Is My Enemy
Father’s Day
Guess Again
My Town Is Gone

“Rain on the Scarecrow”/SXDE/SXSW

We dropped this John Mellencamp classic about the plight of the American farmer into the setlist a few gigs back and the version we cranked out at Rudyards the other night is killa. We’ll post some other songs from the gig in the coming days.

We’ll be hangin’ with the hippies at Dan Electro’s, 1031 E. 24th St., this Sunday, March 13. We’ll hit the stage at 8 p.m. as part of South By Due East (SXDE), Houston’s answer to SXSW. Just a word of warning, if you walk out on the patio, it might smell a little funny.

Speaking of SXSW, if you’re up in Austin for the music industry’s big party on Saturday, March 19, we’ll be at Guero’s Taco Bar ,1412 South Congress, at noon. You simply cannot beat tacos, chips and salsa and orange is in. Free copy of our first disc, Another Lame Semi-Tragedy, for whoever wants one.

New Song Alert! “Shutting it Down”

Another one that we hope to have out soon…

New Song Alert! “Guess Again”

This is one of the new songs we are recording and hope to have out sometime soon. We recorded it live at Bohemeo’s, a great little bar in southeast Houston. Let us know what you think. Peace.

“HOUSTON TEXANS NUMBER 1″ by George and Jeff

When Houston was awarded a new football franchise after the Oilers bolted for Tennessee, I thought the team needed its own fight song. When I came up with the idea for “Houston Texans Number 1,” the name “Texans” didn’t even exist. After a little persuasion, Jeff decided to record the song with me, and once the name “Texans” was set, we laid it down in his garage in the Heights.

Our old friend Robbie Parrish played the march on the snare, we brought in two horn players from Houston band Global Village (they probably thought I was an idiot when I was humming their parts to them), I took the lead, then Jeff and I sang the other voices about 50 times to make it sound like 70,000 people were singing.

The tune was played on KILT 610 Sportsradio (Texans flagship station) a few times, and KPRC Channel 2 reporter Mary Benton did a story on us, but I couldn’t get the team to listen to it. Then one day I ran into then General Manager Charlie Casserly in the parking lot of the Randall’s grocery store. He told me where to send the song, they heard it, but in the end opted to go with country music star Clay Walker’s theme song.

With the Texans 2-0 and waiting for the Dallas Cowboys this weekend, I though now was as good a time as any to resurrect our poor old fight song. Let us know what you think.

Houston Texans Official Website

Clay Walker’s “Houston Texans Theme Song”

KPFT Radio Interview, Pt. 1

On May 14, 2010, we traveled to the studios of KPFT Radio in Houston to promote our latest single, Someone Came To Help Me, and talk about our upcoming gig at Rudyards. This is part one of our interview on the show RadioActive.

George and Chris play “Someone” for patients at The Methodist Hospital in Houston

Jeff and I debuted Someone Came To Help Me at the “Celebration of Life” event at The Methodist Hospital in Houston last year to a very enthusiastic crowd. He couldn’t make it this year, so Chris stepped in and did a stellar job.

It’s a very emotional event with transplant patients, caregivers, donor families and doctors all giving first hand accounts of how they have been affected by the transplant process. The song fit the stories perfectly and was very well-received by the more than 200 people in attendance.

This is a different type of gig for us. It’s pretty nerve-wracking to play in that environment. When you are in a club, it’s loud and you can get crazy. At this event, it’s extremely quiet, there is no stage so people are sitting right on top of you, staring and listening intently and then there’s the emotional factor that raises it to a whole another level. We were both a bit nervous when we played it the first time at the start of the event, but we slowed it down the second time at the end and it was a much better performance.

All in all, it was a great event. Anytime you can sing your songs during the work day, it’s a good day.

New Song Alert! “Someone Came To Help Me”

NOW AVAILABLE ON iTUNES

Well folks, we finally have some new material to share with you. “Someone Came to Help Me” is a tune that was inspired by patients, donor families and caregivers at The Methodist Hospital Transplant Center in Houston.

We played acoustically at a “Donate Life” event at the hospital in 2007 and 2008. Both years we performed “Here Comes the Sun” and “Let My Love Open the Door.” Both great songs, but the event really needed its own tune. I came up with the words and melody, Jeff added some chords and we played it at the 2009 event to a very enthusiastic crowd.

This song started it out as a demo with Jeff programming drums and playing acoustic guitar and me singing just trying to get something together for the folks at Methodist, but we decided pretty early on we should produce it as a band.

Jeff and Chris cut the basic tracks in October, which included organ, bass, acoustic guitar and Chris’ great electric guitar part that weaves throughout the song. When that was completed relatively quickly, we tried a number of different vocals sessions afterward trying to get the right sound, but it just wasn’t coming together. After some time away from it and listening to some Steve Earle for inspiration, I completed the vocals at end of January. Chris and Jeff did some further tweaking to the instrumentation on the song as well.

Mixing commenced at Chris’ Rogers Recording in early February and after a number of sessions to fix the groove and the acoustic guitar track, we all felt like something was missing. Was it a guitar part? Another vocal? Then Chris found a trippy keyboard sound that felt like a mixture of a bunch of different noises and that did the trick. Jeff played it all the way through, Chris added some excellent effects and it really turned the track in the right direction.

This was our first try at mixing our own material and Chris really knocked it out of the park. He upgraded his entire studio last year and it has really made a difference in the overall sound of the band. We are almost done with a bunch of songs we started last summer with drummer Leesa Harrington-Squyres, our former drummer and current drummer for Lez Zeppelin. We hope to have those ready to release digitally in the next few months.

The song is also available for download on Rhapsody, Zune, Napster, Lala, Limewire, Nokia and eMusic.