Music

Odds & Ends

Get in on The Rocket Summer's next music video before his major label deal kicks in

By Sam Machkovech 

Summer time: Colleyville's Bryce Avary, better known to screaming emo fans across the world as The Rocket Summer, needs your help. The one-guy-who-plays-everything band that makes Conor Oberst look like a geezer in comparison headlines a concert at The Door on Friday, November 18, but before heading back on the road for a nationwide December tour, he's enlisting the help of local director/cellist Kris Youmans. You might've seen his visual work recently on the Internet or new music TV station MTVu, as he directed The Deathray Davies' "Clock In Now" video in which Kumar Pallana (Rushmore, The Royal Tenembaums) ran around and looked...Kumar-riffic.

Youmans will be at The Rocket Summer's Friday night concert looking for potential extras for Avary's next video, which will be filmed this Sunday and Monday in Fort Worth. Youmans is specifically looking for "a mixture of different people--indie rockers, jocks, goth kids, metal heads, hip-hop kids." What, no glee club members or Mathletes? If you can't make the concert but want to be a part of the video for the song "Brat Pack," you're still in luck. Just send Youmans an e-mail: tacticscasting@gmail.com.

Hailey's damage: Good news--the Web site for Hailey's no longer looks like the bottom of a butt. But the Denton rock club didn't just redesign its home page for the heckuvit. Like most good things happening in local music as of late, Spune Productions has dropped its huge, musically pleasing stamp on the whole affair. Lance Yocom's booking powerhouse has joined forces with Hailey's to become the venue's exclusive local booker; meanwhile, Daughter Entertainment will continue to book big-time indie acts at Hailey's like Deerhoof, Broadcast and Xiu Xiu.

"For several months, [Hailey's] hasn't had anything but touring shows, and I think that hurt the room," Yocom says. "I'm hoping to create more of a 'local/regional' scene for the room again." Though the updated Web site has already announced this new Spune venture, the local impact doesn't officially kick in until the Spune Christmas show on December 11, featuring Denton treats like The Numbers Twist, Bridges and Blinking Lights, Record Hop, The Angelus and many more. In the meantime, the site has this advice for prospective local bands: "E-mail your booking request including a MySpace/Web site link with streaming audio. If you do not have a MySpace page or Web site, you're probably not ready to play shows anyway." Ohhh, face! Spune done served you before you even played a lick, looosers!...Ahem.

Bill's excellent adventure: We try to keep plugs for staff-related events to a minimum around here, but in the case of contributing writer Jeff Liles, we're making a serious exception. As part of this week's Deep Ellum Film Festival, his documentary about Bill's Records and Tapes, The Last Record Store, will debut Saturday night at the Angelika Film Center and will replay again Monday night at the Slip Inn--11 p.m. on both nights. Pick one and take a good, hard look at local music history through the eyes of a vinyl junkie.

Pookie party: Congratulations are in order to Mr. Pookie, the Dallas rapper who makes his mark on this week's Billboard charts with "Don't Test Us." The single, from his forthcoming Return of the Rippla due out in January 2006, debuts at No. 8 on this week's "R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales Chart"--not bad, dude. Unfortunately, the pseudo-crunk beat and cough-syrup-laden slur delivery prove that his rise on Billboard's charts has little to do with the track being any good. Perhaps we're out of the down-souf loop, but we're waiting for mainstream America to discover the good rappers in Dallas--the ones that know better than to jump on the boring Houston-rap bandwagon.