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Tag: Fabulous Thunderbirds

  • Houston Concert Watch 10/22: Alice Cooper, The Mars Volta and More – Houston Press

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    I have never been one to dwell on death.  While it is a fundamental part of life, it is also generally a stone drag.  But I must address the passing of Ace Frehley, one of the founding members of Kiss who inspired tens of thousands of kids to pick up a guitar during the ‘70s.  These are now the same middle-aged guys you see in Guitar Center on Saturday trying out an instrument, playing too loud, and looking around to see if they impressed anyone with their rendition of “Smoke on the Water.”

    Over the years, many people expected that Frehley might die of a drug overdose or some similar fate, due to his wild lifestyle and the fact that, for many years, he was in nonstop party mode.  No, the Space Man (who discarded his harmful habits years ago) died as the result of a head injury caused by a fall in his home studio.  It is my fervent hope that, when he fell, he had just recorded a blazing solo.

    The original Kiss lineup was split into two factions.  Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were the “straight” guys, definitely horndogs but eschewing (to quote Keith Richards) “booze and pills and powders.”  Frehley and Peter Criss, on the other hand, made up for their bandmates’ sobriety in spades. 

    This division was unwittingly put under a microscope when the band appeared on Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow show on Halloween in 1979.  Frehley and Criss were ripped and having a great time, while Simmons and Stanley glowered.  Frehley in particular hit it off with Snyder.  When asked to explain his outlandish outfit, he said, “Actually, I’m a plumber!”  To which Snyder, who was by then getting into the spirit of things, replied, “Listen, I’ve got a little piece of pipe backstage that I’d like you to work on.”  You can see the video here, with the previous exchange beginning at the 11:53 mark.

    Frehley was always completely genuine, a hardcore rocker through and through.  When he plugged his Les Paul into a dimed Marshall amp, you could hear not only his influences – Zeppelin, Hendrix and Clapton – but also his own sometimes quirky but always blazing inimitable style.  Rest easy, Ace.  Thanks for never letting us down.

    Ticket Alert

    Tickets are still available for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s show on Friday, November 7, at the 713 Music Hall.  Ditto for funk-father George Clinton at the House of Blues on Friday, November 28.  Clinton’s show is scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, so, if the family is still sitting around in a turkey / tryptophan coma, you can say, “Well, Granny, I have to go. Got to do some serious funkin’,” as you walk out the door.

    Gary P. Nunn will always hold a special place in the heart of Texans, as he is the man who wrote “London Homesick Blues,” aka “I Wanna Go Home with the Armadillo.”  The progressive country legend will be at the Heights Theater on Wednesday, December 10, with a show billed as the “2025 Birthday Bash.”  Nunn was born on December 4 – in Oklahoma! – but don’t tell anyone that last part.  Tickets are on sale now.

    Now that all of the classic rockers are of a certain age, many of their offspring have forged their own careers in the music business.  For instance, there’s The Sons of Cream.  The band includes Kofi Baker (son of Cream drummer Ginger Baker) on drums, Malcom Bruce (son of Cream bassist Jack Bruce) on bass, and Rob Johnson (nephew of Ginger Baker) on guitar.  Their mission is simple: play songs recorded by Cream faithfully but with their own interpretative twists thrown in to keep things interesting.  As a bonus, the band also plays some Blind Faith (a band which included Ginger Baker and Cream guitarist Eric Clapton) material too.  Tickets are on sale now for the Sons’ show at the Heights Theater on Sunday, February 15.

    Concerts This Week

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    Texas music fans have long been familiar with guitarists Ian Moore, Jesse Dayton and Johnny Moeller, so there was great anticipation and excitement when it was announced that the three string slingers had formed a new group, the Texas Headhunters.  You can read more about the group’s gestation here in this week’s Houston Press interview with Moeller.  The guys will be spanking the plank on Friday at the Heights Theater.

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    The only member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ original lineup still in the group is vocalist / harmonicist Kim Wilson.  But that doesn’t mean it is any less of a band.  After a Grammy nomination last year, the T-Birds are on tour with a show that pays particular attention to the Chicago blues which inspired Wilson as a young musician.  The Fabulous Thunderbirds will play Main Street Crossing on both Saturday and Sunday, so take your pick.

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    Why would someone want to go see Alice Cooper and Judas Priest?  Why? Why the hell not?  A few months ago, the pioneering shock rocker released an album recorded with the original Alice Cooper band (yes, at one point, “Alice Cooper” was the name of the band, not the lead singer) to positive reviews, which must have put some pep in his step and glide in his stride.  Ol’ Black Eyes is back!  Also crushing it in old age is Judas Priest, led by Rob Halford, the Metal God.  What a double bill.  Catch it on Sunday at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

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    For hip-hop fans, Toyota Center is the place to be this week.  NBA (Never Broke Again) YoungBoy rolls in on Tuesday with the “Masa” tour and a bill that includes Offset, NoCap, DeeBaby, Mellow Rackz, Baby Mel, Lil Dump and k3.  If you plan on attending the show, bear in mind that there are street closures due to construction around Toyota Center, so head there early and plan accordingly.

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    Rising from the ashes of At the Drive In during the early noughts, The Mars Volta (please include the definite article) is a musical collective which coalesces around guitarist / guiding light Omar Rodríguez-López and vocalist / lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala.   How to describe the band?  Well, Rodríguez-López has been quoted as saying, “”Progressive is not a dirty word for people to use about us.”  Ok, then, let’s go with prog rock, thought the Volta frequently flashes its psychedelic influences.  Get trippy on Tuesday at the 713 Music Hall.

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    Tom Richards

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  • The Fabulous Thunderbirds Have Been “Struck Down by the Blues”

    The Fabulous Thunderbirds Have Been “Struck Down by the Blues”

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    Any musician who has labored in the trenches for 50 plus years could be excused for being burned out, jaded or just plain tired. Kim Wilson is none of these.

    On the contrary, Wilson is completely psyched about the release of the album Struck Down, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of his band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds. The record captures the classic T-Birds sound, but in no way does it sound dated. Houston audiences will have a chance to hear the new material live when the band plays for two nights at Main Street Crossing on Wednesday and Thursday, August 7 and 8.

    Vocalist / harmonicist Wilson founded the T-Birds – along with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan – in Austin in 1974. At the time, Vaughan described the band thusly: “We’re an encyclopedia of music from the Gulf Coast, you know, Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester, Texas shuffles, rockin’ Cajun. We are all 27, handsome motherfuckers that dress cool, and our music drives girls wild.”

    Flash forward a few decades, and Wilson is the last T-Bird standing, having led the band through numerous personnel changes since Vaughan’s departure from the group in 1990. There have been many hills and valleys, but Wilson is bullish on the new album and the band’s future.

    Contemporary blues acts often strike a precarious balance between “authenticity” and “relevance,” and Wilson seems comfortable with maintaining this equilibrium. “This is not a museum piece,” Wilson says via Zoom from his home in California. “This is a modern recording, but the sound of it is incredible. Shelly Yakus (John Lennon, Tom Petty, U2 and dozens of other heavy hitters) did the mixing.

    “I haven’t recorded digitally in about eight years, and I found out what they’ve done with digital recording, and it’s kind of blown my mind, how good they can make it sound. They’re about ready to make me a believer. I had a couple of Grammy-nominated CD’s, and they were recorded straight to analog mono. So this is a departure from that. But, that being said, it’s an incredible sounding CD.  Since the Tuff Enuff days [ca. 1986], it’s really the best thing we’ve done, by far,” Wilson says. “Between the material, the sonics, the performance, it’s the best record we’ve done. Including Tuff Enuff.  It’s a true T-Birds record.”

    Wilson and Yakus had never worked together prior to Struck Down, but they quickly discovered a simpatico approach to making records. “The first thing Shelly said is that you have to mix with emotion. And I said, ‘Oh. This is my guy.’ I’ve never had anyone tell me that. You have to have someone who’s a little bit old school for a band like this.”

    So, the album’s title song, “Struck Down by the Blues.”  What exactly does that mean? “It means you just get hit by it. It’s like a truck. And you don’t care what happens after that, you’re gonna do it,” Wilson enthuses. “You’re gonna do it no matter what. I used to say that I was either going to be a musician or a wino. But I had no choice. I was gonna do it no matter what. And it worked out great.”
    From there, the conversation takes a philosophical turn, with Wilson (who would know better?) reflecting on the notion of what it takes to be a real bluesman, as opposed to a poser or a pale imitation. “You have to be you and do it to death. That’s what I learned from all those old guys that I played with. I was friends with everybody. Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Buddy Guy. And when I was I kid, I was playing with some Texas guys – Albert Collins, Pee Wee Crayton and Lowell Fulson. I was 18, 19, 20 years old when I was playing with these guys.

    “And I learned from them immediately, you’re gonna do it to death, and that’s it. You’ve got to have a monstrously high standard. You’ve got to believe in yourself, because if you don’t believe in yourself, ain’t nobody gonna believe in you.

    “Here’s the thing about blues,” Wilson says, as the master class continues. “All these guys who originated it – and the women – they’ve all got their take on things, they’ve all got their own personality, they’ve all got their own style, they’ve all got their own quirks. It’s an amazing thing to gather all that stuff in. Now it’s more like everybody’s singing church music and calling it blues. It’s very generic. When they mixed rock with blues – not rock and roll, rock – that’s when things got really muddled.”
    Happily, old-school T-Birds fans don’t need to worry about those sorts of things. Wilson makes it clear that he and the collection of musicians that he has assembled are staying true to the spirit and the essence of the blues. “What I love about these guys is that they have their own take on things,” Wilson says. “No matter what I tell them, it’s going to translate and come out of their soul in a whole different way, their own way. That’s very important.

    “In this homogenized, generic world that we live in, it’s really good to have your own identity. And this band is expounding on the past of this band [the T-Birds], which was expounding on the past of music. If you expound on the past, you can hear the past, you can hear the present, you can hear the future. I think there’s a true future with this band. And people are going to realize that when they hear this record.”

    The Fabulous Thunderbirds will play at 8 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, August 7 and 8, at Main Street Crossing, 111 W. Main in Tomball. For more information, call 281-290-0431 or visit MainStreetCrossing.com.

    For more information on the Fabulous Thunderbirds, visit FabulousThunderbirds.com

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    Tom Richards

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