Last night, one of my all-time favorite bands, ZZ Top, played the final show of the 2007 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

ZZ Top has always been one of those bands that I just assumed I'd never get to see play live. Partly because they seem to have faded from the spotlight years ago, and also because, well, they ain't gettin' any younger.

But that all changed last night...

I sat down this morning and started the first "session" that I plan to put together. These sessions won't necessarily be live performances (unless I can figure out how to pull that off), but they will be more in the form of a long mix. I've always thought it cool that someone can take a group of individually-produced songs and turn them into a single massive track, becoming all of them and none of them at the same time.

But instead of that, I wanna try taking one song and stretching it out, exploring all the themes and tangents within it. It'll be fun, I think. Might get a little weird, but it'll be fun nonetheless. I invite you to check them out.

So...the plan is to publish these as podcasts sometime soon, and make them available at a new website that I'm working on. More details on that as it develops...

I still remember that night some ten and a half years ago. It was dark and cold. I was in part of the city that I had never been to before--warehouses, abandoned buildings, empty parking lots, barely-lit alleys. Driving around those downtown streets was almost like asking for trouble, especially in the middle of the night.

But when I got to my destination, called The Hangar, I saw the crowd of people at the door and joined the line to get in. The temperature must have been in the 40s or 50s, but that didn't stop people from being warm and welcoming to me. I chatted with a few others while we all waited and we could hear music coming from inside the building in front of us. Faint at first, then growing louder and louder, until it became a thunder over the broken and worn buildings around us. Then the line started moving.

As people began to stream in, the main room became a giant crowd of bodies, bathed in light and all moving to the same beat. I had never been to anything like this before and yet, when I met a girl that I had known from high school, I felt right at home. We talked for a while, then I went to get something to drink.

As I made my way through the crowd, off to the side, I could hear what at first sounded like a total calamity going on nearby. I moved closer, and for some reason, it sounded like some sort of broken heavy metal track, the drums blazingly fast and the bass diving to extreme lows. I walked in and the room, completely dark and lit only by strobes and smoke, shook my entire body.

***

That was my first-hand introduction to drum and bass music.

That night, I had not only my first taste of the music, but of the style and mood of the culture that went along with it. It didn't matter where you were from, who you were or what you were wearing. There, you were amongst friends and everyone was welcome. The whole experience deeply affected me and my perspective on people and music and I've never forgotten it.

After more than ten years of listening to d'n'b (or jungle, as it used to be called), I'm gonna try my hand at it. It's more of an experiment than anything else, just to see if I can do it. It's always been a dream of mine to do something with music, but I either couldn't find the time or tools, or didn't have any ideas on what to do.

Under the alias Polymer Zero, I've started putting together some tracks and seeing what I come up with. There's more to come, so stay tuned.

Talk about a man seizing the moment. Kanye West, already known for being unusually candid and frank on truly important issues, lit the media on fire last week.

During NBC's fundraising concert for Hurricane Katrina victims, he took advantage of his live television segment to express his own perspective and emotion on what's happening in New Orleans. He even made the concession that he had gone shopping and tried to ignore the news before finally deciding to make as much of a donation as he could. It was a spontaneous, heartfelt moment and even though he stammered through it, he came across as absolutely sincere compared to Mike Myer's canned words.

As for Mike Myers, I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for him or just lose all respect for him. His failure to acknowledge what was happening right next to him by continuing to read his written lines was an uneasy moment at best. That is until West dropped the bomb.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Notice he didn't say "President" Bush. No, he called the man out by his first name. Nice.

Having been a fan of Prince's music for over twenty years, sticking it out through the last ten years or so has been pretty rough. I can remember first seeing the video for "Little Red Corvette" on MTV back in grade school and thinking that there was something wonderful about this song and this man who had created it. I was still probably too young to understand the meaning of the lyrics, but just the music itself was mysterious and catchy all at once.

Of course, who could forget Purple Rain and how it launched him into complete stardom? This man had almost singlehandedly brought forth a new age of rock, funk, dance, new wave and popular music to the world. In 1984, the auspicious year when so many wonderful things came together, he seemed to have it all before him.

But then what happened? I think the sheer, unabashed virility of 1999 and Purple Rain (as well as the film) were simply too much for my mother to expose me to. So I was only able to hear his few mainstream hits after that, like "Raspberry Beret", "U Got the Look" and "Kiss". And for five years, Prince remained a distant musical aside as I started listening to more rock and heavy metal, then moved to rap and hip-hop. It wouldn't be until Batman that I heard him on the radio again, and since the music was tied to a TREMENDOUS film of the same name, I was easily allowed to go out and make the purchase myself.

It was at this point that I began my second phase of Prince-liking-ness(?). I bought Batman and loved it, warts and all. Then I went out and bought Purple Rain and 1999, then still widely available on cassette. This time around, those albums had a totally new meaning and depth that I hadn't discovered before. Now I was able to grasp more of what he was saying in his music. It was about love, sex, style and fun, but in a new way. What I heard made me want to live life on my own terms, play by my own rules. I was gonna do it and do it my way. It was empowering. But not every one saw it that way.

Even as Prince's popularity faded, his talent stayed strong. My hopes that this musical genius might have another streak of hits beyond compare only led to disappointment after disappointment. I was there all the way up to "Crystal Ball", which had enough stinkers to discourage me from ever buying another Prince album. Sad indeed.

Then, as if from out of nowhere, he showed up at the 2004 Grammy Awards. It was a rare event to be sure, with Prince having pretty much abandoned any televised performances outside of morning news shows or late night television. But he then followed with an appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony that reportedly blew the roof off the place. The spotlight had come his way again.

Having bought my tickets months ago, I was more than ready to see Prince in concert. I figured it might be one of the last chances I ever have to see him perform live (and in Houston). The last time I can remember him coming to this city was back around 1998 or so, and I had thought I missed my chance. At the time, his stardom was beginning to fade into the history books, and with the year 1999 right around the corner, who knew what—if anything—he'd do after that.

But it was a beautiful night in every sense. For all the reports that he'd only be playing new stuff, the set was almost entirely old jams, with some classy reworkings that were completely unexpected. To hear an acoustic version of "Little Red Corvette" and see the entire arena bathed in red light, to see this one man in the center of it all while the crowd of thousands sings along with every word... Amazing.

Approximate setlist:

Musicology
Let's Go Crazy
I Would Die 4 U
When Doves Cry
Baby I'm A Star!
Shhh
D.M.S.R
Pass the Peas
I Feel 4 U
Love Bizarre
Housequake
Controversy
D.M.S.R.
Georgia on My Mind
Sometimes It Snows In April

--Begin Acoustic--
Little Red Corvette
I Wanna Be Your Lover
Raspberry Beret
Cream
Prince And The Band
Alphabet St.
The Rules
On The Couch
Adore
7
--End Acoustic--

Sign O' The Times
Pop Life
Let's Work
U Got The Look
Life O' The Py
Soul Man
Kiss
Take Me With U

Encore:
Beautiful Ones
Nothing Compares To U
Purple Rain

Yeah, he played all that. Over two hours of almost non-stop jamming (except for the half-hour acoustic set) and I'm betting this was an ordinary night.

Houston Chronicle - Prince hypnotizes 1st packed audience
NPG Music Club
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame