Hey, we all have opinions. I can't go around hiding them forever. I'm too old for that anyway. Batman: I can understand not liking Satellite or Rockefellar's. You just like different kinds of music and those just weren't the places where you could see it. It's like me with Numbers. The only times I went there were when national acts I like came through town or when it was a showcase of a band I liked. Otherwise, just wasn't for me.
Rudyard's is the best place to see a show or have a beer in the city. Proletariat is also pretty good but gets really hot and uncomfortable when its packed show, like Broken Social Scene last night. The way the venue is set up isn't optimal for bigger type shows.
I guess I have a softer spot for Fitzgerald's than a lot of you might because I started going there regularly in the early/mid 80's when they were the only place in town that regularly and continually booked good touring bands. I haven't lived in Houston to see the place become the joke that it is now, and although I haven't been there in 10 years or more, I have plenty of good memories, great memories, really, of the place. Another spot from the archives that hasn't been mentioned was Power Tools, the place over Buffalo Bayou below street level on Franklin and, oh, Smith, Louisiana? I assume it's a thump-thump dance club now if it still exitsts, but it was a pretty cool warren of weird little rooms, and they hosted all sort of good bands: Sonic Youth, the Replacements, the True Believers, Green on Red and many more that I can't remember readily. Houston has always seemed to have an abnormally large number of rooms that spring up and book three or four or five good shows and then promptly shut either by will or by force. Anyone remember Phideaux? That place in the Village called, what, the Bon Ton Room, something like that? What was the name of that second floor fire hazard on Westheimer more or less across from Numbers? Anyone want to start naming favorite record stores that have long since come and gone?
