Ol' Samuel's Music Emporium, Vol. II

We're back with even more bands that we've come across. The amount of music in this town is astounding - our current list of active bands/musicians is nearing the 350 mark and we know that it's far from comprehensive. In the interest of fairness to bands of which we were previously aware, we'll be adding one or two of them to this post each week.

[Ed. Note: We decided we liked Ol' Samuel's better. You know, Samuel. Sam Houston. Work with us here.]

Volume II

Cavernous: Admittedly, we'd chanced upon Cavernous' blend of instrumental metal at the last Westheimer Block Party. It took us an absurd amount of time for us to recall that we needed to look them up on the old computer box, however. It certainly was time wasted, because these fellows are good.

Somosuno: Again, this is a name we'd heard several times, but we failed to do our homework. We've seen Fernando's posts on Hands Up, and he is arguably one of the most adamantly pro-Houston, pro-scene-unity guys around. Somosuno makes upbeat horn-tinged punk that is certain to lift up your day. We see a few tricks up their sleeves that will prevent people from dismissing them quickly.

Giant Princess: This week Houstonist is trying to atone for our sins of omission. This is yet another band whose name we've seen upon countless flyers, as well as stopping by their set at the previous Westheimer Block Party. Their brew of indie rock with pop overtones and a messy garage feel makes for some fun music.

Fired For Walking: A medley of hard rockers, slow burners, and fast grooves, their brand of rock & roll is diverse but coherent. We weren't certain if this band was still active until they cropped up in our web-crawling this week. Other sites: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter.

I-45: Self-proclaimed "slip hop" that blends some old 90s-style samples & riffs into vocals that are similar but not equal to late 90s rap-rock. Also, we definitely heard a sample of a sound from an electronic pack that came with one of our GI-Joes inside of The Bike Song.

The Bottom Four: Indie-folk with some touches of old country and reverb-laden vocals. We hear some Green On Red at work in here. Other sites: MySpace, Twitter.

From the vault

Sara Van Buskirk: Sara's a dear friend of ours, with a stellar voice and some truly great songs that draw influence from Bob Dylan, Springsteen's Nebraska, Cat Power, Patty Griffin, and Ryan Adams. Do yourself a favor and check out her tunes now, and you'll want to be at the release show for her album that'll drop in late March/early April. Other sites: Facebook, Reverbnation.

Photos: Cavernous, Giant Princess