RodeoHouston 2018

Blake Shelton fights off flu, riles up RodeoHouston crowd

While his debut single might have been “Austin,” Blake Shelton had no problem showing Houston a good time Thursday, March 1 at his RodeoHouston show, his first time back in three years.

Four songs into his performance, Shelton shared a personal medical situation, and in true cowboy form, made light of it. “Let me say one thing — I’ve never done this before, but there is a flu going on around right now and I am literally at the peak of having the damn flu right now as I’m up here doing this show. I apologize if I sound like crap, but I wanted to get that out of the way. I damn sure wanted to do my part up here in Houston,” he shared amongst the screaming crowd.

The singer-songwriter-TV personality looked completely at home on the brand-new star-shaped stage, kicking off his 12-song set list with “Gonna” to the packed arena’s delight, even while battling some obvious feverish symptoms.

“It’s been like 3 years — I thought y’all were mad at me. I was nervous coming back out here,” The Voice coach joked, referencing how long it had been since he played on the rotating stage in Houston.

As he's done the past 15 years of his career, Shelton let his country twang, lyrics, and stage presence serve as his obligatory nod to country music. No cowboy hat, no studded jeans or studded belt (ahem, Luke Bryan!), just good ole country singing with some real talk between songs.

“Let’s do a sexy drinking song,” the country singer said before singing his hit “Sangria.” Afterwards, the star raised his RodeoHouston plastic cup, and offered a toast “to country music.” (Not like you had to twist the arm of Houston fans to cheer on anything the 41-year-old had to say on stage.)

“It’d be a crime not to try something brand new — tell me what you think,” he prefaced before playing his new radio single “I’ll Name The Dogs.” With the crowd cheering even louder than before, Shelton finished with, “y’all are just cheering because you feel sorry for me,” which was met with the loudest cheers of the night.

“A bunch of damn hillbillies” is how Shelton referred to the crowd — as a bunch of people sitting around watching a man with the flu, but he reveled in the moment, and throughout his entire set. It seemed he made a mental note to put forth his best efforts, to ensure he'd be part of RodeoHouston every year — rather than every three years. Shelton came across as a man with a mission, a love for all things country music, and the Lone Star State. Fans couldn't ask for anything more.

Giving himself a little break on stage, Shelton let his fiddle player Jenee Fleenor, a Texas native, take center stage for a few minutes. It's hard to tell if the crowd was more impressed with the fact she was a local gal, or an epic fiddler.

"There's no way I can play in Texas and not do this next song, but there's a super good chance I'm going to suck when I sing it, so please, please, if y'all know the words of this song, in the name of God, sing along with me," Shelton pleaded, before playing his debut hit, "Austin."

Houston fans weren’t the only ones wishing Shelton a good show. Longtime celebrity girlfriend, Gwen Stefani took to Instagram a few hours before he hit the stage to wish him well.

Shelton’s Set List:

Gonna
Neon Light
I’ll Name The Dogs
Every Time I Hear That Song
Guy With a Girl
Ol’ Red
Came Here To Forget
Hillbilly Bone
Austin
Honey Bee
Boys ’round Here
Encore: God Gave Me You

Shelton heads straight to Dallas to join Trace Adkins, Carly Pearce, and Brett Eldredge as he continues his Country Music Freaks Tour. And fans can catch him on The Voice Monday and Tuesday nights on NBC.

Hopefully it isn’t three more years before he's welcomed back on RodeoHouston’s legendary dirt.

Shelton earned plenty of goodwill from the crowd.

Photo by Jacob Power

Shelton earned plenty of goodwill from the crowd.

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super duper

Quirky Houston DJ drops genre-blending mix CD inspired by video games

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

If you’re the type of person who has dubstep, Southern hip-hop, and Koji Kondo’s iconic “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. in your streaming-music library, then Squincy Jones has created the perfect playlist for you..

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

Super Nintendub is the name of the mix where the Houston-born-and-bred DJ mashes up all those aforementioned music genres. A capella bars from Houston heavyweights (Megan Thee Stallion, Paul Wall) and other Dirty South MCs (Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG) gets laid over grooves from underground dubstep artists (Numa Crew, Blay Vision, Hamdi). But we also get music from various Nintendo (Castlevania III, Ninja Gaiden) and Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI) games. Jones also throws in audio samples from commercials and gaming-heavy movies like WarGames, The Wizard, and the Adam Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.

Needless to say, Jones has always been a gamer. He’s had his run of game systems: NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, even the old-school Atari 2600. He recalls his days blowing the dust out of such cartridges as Contra, Double Dragon, and Duck Hunt. In the past, Jones has released a series of mashup mixes – titled Blend Pack – with cover art that resembles/salutes classic video games.

“I'm a huge fan of all the eight-bit and 16-bit stuff,” says Jones (government name: Shane Rector), 41. “I play a lot of the new games, or I have played a lot of the new games, but not as much anymore. You know, being a parent and having a full-time job – you don't really have time for video games anymore.”

Super Nintendub is a sequel to Nintendub, a dubstep mix he played during a party way back in 2008. “I added some a capellas, [like] a Bun B a capella,” he recalls. “I had some other Dirty South tunes from the time. I layered them because they're at the same tempo as dubstep. Another friend that does music gave me a folder of Nintendo songs. So, I just randomly layered it on top and kinda slowed down the Nintendo music, and it sounded cool as hell to me.”

The mix picked up fans overseas when he dropped it online. “I've always wanted to make a follow-up to it because I got so much good feedback,” he remembers. “People from all over were writing about it."

Jones decided to release Super on compact disc, sold in rectangular keep cases – packaging that’s very familiar to gamers – with double-sided artwork also by Jones. (A digital link is available upon request to those who buy the CD.) While the limited-edition disc is available for purchase on Jones’s Bandcamp page, the CD mix shouldn’t be confused with the Super mix that’s currently playing on the page.

“I wanted to have them in the mix as well,” he says. “But I'm not entirely, you know, confident with my production skills. So, I just kinda had it on the side to go along with the release of this mix.”

Since releasing Super in September, Jones says he’s gotten good feedback from those who’ve bought a copy. “Because it looks like a video game,” he says, “a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, cool! Is it an actual game or an actual DVD or whatnot?’ But it's always hit or miss because some people are like, ‘Oh, man, I don't have a CD player’ or "Wow, you actually printed a CD,’ because everything's, you know, digital.”

He’s looking into playing a big-screen version of Super, where videos of the rap songs are spliced in with video-game footage and other retro clips, somewhere around here. “I was thinking like either a movie theater or somebody mentioned Aurora Picture Show, or maybe Wonky Power, to do like a viewing or showing or whatever – kind of have a party for it.”

Even though Jones enjoys merging gaming and music – his dual obsessions – he still prefers to be known as more than a video-game DJ. A veteran of the Houston DJ scene for a quarter of a century, he continues to do gigs like his upcoming monthly residency at Eight Row Flint.

“I do open-format DJing,” he says. “I've done raves and dubstep parties. I've played on the radio. I've played at Mid Main, where it’s a mainstream crowd. In this day and age, everybody has their branding or whatnot. I just love video games, so I just kind of take that as my branding, I guess.”

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