live from joe mathlete's living room

Houston's indie music scene has never been more vibrant, and one of its biggest contributors is instrumental extraordinaire Benjamin Wesley. I first caught Wesley perform with his other musical project, Tha Fucking Transmissions, a few years back, but it wasn't until seeing his solo project for the first time that I truly became intruiged. He mixes acoustic instruments with pre-fabricated beats, then layers his Jeff Mangum-ish vocals over the top. He is as talented of a musician as I've ever seen, and is just waiting to break into the national indie music scene. I suspect it will happen soon.

Recently, Wesley was recorded for a Live From Joe Mathlete's Living Room session where he performed his tune "Have You Ever Done It." Give it a watch:

I can assuredly tell you that nobody can make an accordion look as cool as Benjamin Wesley. Nobody.

A few months ago, I spent a Sunday afternoon sipping pints with half of local band Buxton during what turned out to be one of the most surreal musical experiences of my life. During conversation, Sergio (lead singer and guitarist of Buxton) had nothing but good to say about an up-and-coming band from Baytown called Ghost Mountain. He even so kindly gave me a copy of their debut LP, Siamese Sailboats, just to see what my opinion was of the budding groups sound. It took a few listens to truly appreciate what this duo had created, but the Animal Collective-like beats topped by sporadic youthful rapping was definitely a sound that was very new to my ears. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I had to miss their opening slot during Buxton's 7" release party, but hopefully they'll be hitting one of Houston's local venues again real soon. Recently, Ghost Mountain brought a few of their toys to Joe Mathlete's place for the first set of non-acoustic material from the semi-regular living room sessions that our friends over at 29-95 have been featuring on their site as of late. Video of the session follows.

I'm looking forward to seeing this "twee-hop" group sometime in the near future. They are advertising an opening slot for Joe Mathlete's group, The Mathletes, during their CD release party on August 15th that also features Young Mammals in support. See you there?

I'm relatively new to Houston's own folk-pop princess Elaine Greer, only ever hearing a few random tracks from her MySpace page. I wasn't expecting much of a voice from the pint-sized ukulele-sporting chanteuse, but after catching this video from our friends over at 29-95, I was immediately sold. The vid finds Greer playing through a snippet of Journey's "Small Town Girl" before being joined by News On The March's Austin Sepulvado on auxiliary percussion and back-up vocals for a run-through of a newly penned track. All going down in local musician-turned-blogger Joe Mathlete's very lucky living room, this three minutes is pure pop bliss in it's finest form.

I'm going to try and make more of an effort of covering the local scene, so if you know of something that I might like from in and around Houston, feel free to send it my way. I receive a ton of e-mail every day, so even if you don't hear back from me, that doesn't mean I'm not reading it. My focus is on all types of different music and sizes of bands, but hopefully I can do a better job in helping Houston command the respect that it deserves.