New "local" music blog
Ramon Medina has put together a new type of music blog that, conceptually at least, seems pretty unique. It’s called NONALIGNMENT PACT: Music in Seven Days From Seven Writers. Basically, the blog brings together seven ghosts of Houston Scenes past who have since flung themselves to greener pastures. Each day of every week, a different writer will contribute a new post about the musical goings-on in their adopted city.
Ramon’s assembled a pretty good roster of musician types who were well known denizens of the early/mid-90s Houston scene, including former de Schmog/Texas Guiness Lovers frontman Killian Sweeney (Chicago), ex-Ultra Hummus guitarist Doug Dillamen (New Zealand), former KTRU station manager Heidi Bullinga (New York), longtime host of the KTRU local show Justin Crane (Austin), and former Dry Nod guitarist Carlos Anaconda (Chapel Hill — that’s not his real name BTW). Mike Gunn guitarist John Cramer and Ramon are both checking in from Houston. What’s the point? According to Ramon:
My hopes in rounding up these super-friends is to have a blog that provides some snippet of what music means to us – the excitement of a new song, the boredom of loading musical equipment before a show, the feel of a local scene, or what ever the hell strikes us or (when we choose to punt our column) our guests. In short this is our transmission to you and we hope you enjoy it.
I think this is a really great idea. First, it’s a potentially great window into cities and scenes Houstonians don’t get to experience very often. All the represented cities are home to vibrant music communities that are (no offense, H-Town) much more interesting than what we’ve got here. And the words are coming from people who know music and, better yet, know Houston.
Another advantage of Ramon’s approach is that it’s designed to avoid blogger fatigue. With each blogger only responsible for one post per week, they might actually be able to keep up with it. So far they’re on schedule.