it echoes

Montrose bar sounds off with two stories of nightly DJs and live music

Music is the main priority at Echoes.

Photo by Rebekah Flores

From Tuesdays through Sundays, Montrose cafe Echoes prides itself on being a spot that offers live music on a nightly basis. But the music always differs.

Nights have saluted a wide array of artists: soul legends, pop stars, jazz pioneers, on-the-fringe performers, and more. On Thursday, August 27, they’ll pay tribute to jazz great Alice Coltrane with mixed-genre group Aurum Son playing Coltrane tunes. The following night, several DJs will be part of “Pan-Afrikan Discotheque,” an evening of Afro-Caribbean tunes in memory of Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey’s 139th birthday.

“We do that with all types: Greek music, Turkish music, Mexican music, jazz, funk, Japanese city pop-type stuff,” owner Georgeos Kazilas tells CultureMap. “We did a Radiohead night the other night. We do trip-hop nights, Italo disco kind of nights. Yeah, I'm just someone that just loves all types of music.”

Since opening up on June 7, 2022 — Prince’s birthday, BTW — Echoes has been a place where music is the main priority. The spot didn’t even start serving food until a year later, when Kazilas snapped up husband-and-wife chefs Armando Ramirez and Ana Stanciu to oversee the Greek-Mexican kitchen.

“I guess I always wanted to have a space dedicated to exploring all types of music,” he says. “And, primarily, the idea was this was gonna be a music-concentrated space. And having a bar was kind of a means to an end, a way to make a musical space financially viable, or self-sustaining.“

It started when Kazilas invited rhythm-and-blues band Curley Cormier and the Gladiators, a staple of historic Fifth Ward lounge The Silver Slipper (where Kazilas saw them perform), for a regular residency. He then reached out to more local musicians about doing themed nights.

“As you start to meet more musicians, you kind of see what they want to do and, also, what they're capable of doing,” he says. “And I would push them outside their comfort zones a little bit and speak to them and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think about doing this type of music?’ And they would listen to it and be like, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’”

While Echoes has live music at its upstairs location, customers can also get dance tunes playing below, courtesy of Ice House Radio. Originally a mobile pop-up, the online radio station now broadcasts from a space that was formerly a car wash tunnel, with various local DJs spinning tunes live.

Ice House co-founder Jackson Allers is grateful to Kazilas for giving his radio station a home. “Georgeos understood our vision when we were still in our van in the spring of 2024 and, as a result, when we moved into that old car wash space down below Echoes, we were allowed to push the musical boundaries like no other space in Houston,” says Allers. “And, our Ice House Radio community has really been allowed to flourish with Echoes. The owners and the entire staff have been diehard supporters of our little experiment.”

Kazilas continues to schedule evenings where people can sample great food as well as music they may or may not have known about.

“Again, I started this place as a music space, dedicated to exploring all types of music, and I think the mission kind of remains the same,” he says. "What I'd like people to take away is that, almost every night, you can experience quality music, as well as quality food and drinks. You know, you might get exposed to a new type of music or new songs — whatever it is.”

echoes live music ice house radio houston

Movie Review

Jacob Elordi shines in post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Jacob Elordi in The Dog Stars.

There has never been a shortage of post-apocalyptic films in movie history, with the genre proving popular since it allows viewers to confront fears about the real world without actually having to experience the extreme conditions depicted on screen. The Dog Stars deals with its version of the end of the world in ways that are alternately genteel, brutal, and downright wacky.

Hig (Jacob Elordi), a mechanic and pilot, lives on a rural airfield in Colorado alongside his prepper friend Bangley (Josh Brolin). An unspecified virus has wiped out most of humanity and the two of them have banded together to survive. As the film begins, Hig is making one of his occasional plane trips to Denver, gathering medical supplies, gas, and treats for both the two of them and a group of Mennonites who live close by.

While Bangley is happy being a loner and taking out anyone who dares step foot on their property, Hig wants to try to find other survivors, especially when he picks up a scratchy radio signal from Grand Junction. A perhaps ill-advised solo journey puts him in contact with Pops (Guy Pearce) and Cima (Margaret Qualley), a father-and-daughter living on their own, along with other groups who are much less welcoming.

Directed by Ridley Scott and written by Mark L. Smith, the film is a relatively slow-paced affair that is occasionally punctuated by moments of violence. On the plus side, that allows for plenty of character development for Hig — who’s still mourning the wife he lost and has a deep bond with his dog, Jasper — and Bangley, whose go-it-alone mentality makes it a little difficult to fathom how he ever came to trust Hig in the first place.

This is no zombie movie, and so while characters still fear exposure to the mysterious virus, it’s more about the finality of death than hordes of undead coming after them. There are however, desperate individuals and marauding groups that become occasional threats, and the manner in which they are dealt with in the film can be shocking. It’s easy to feel the menace from the more organized groups, but when small duos or trios are dispatched without even a word, it tests the audience’s moral compass.

The film has a mostly meandering quality instead of a specific plot as Hig explores the area in his plane. This works for the majority of the film, but a few sequences in the final 45 minutes of the film give the story an abruptly bizarre turn, making them feel like they belong in a totally different movie. Scott and Smith manage to right the ship before the film ends, but to say those elements come out of nowhere is an understatement.

Elordi, whose recent roles (Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein) have been showier, has a solid presence here, becoming someone whose expertise and continuing grief are completely believable. Brolin makes for a nice foil as a man who gets by on machismo. Qualley, who tends to be over-the-top in her parts, keeps things low-key, which makes Cima interesting and sympathetic. Pearce goes a bit manic as the over-protective father, but it works in the context of the film.

Like a lot of post-apocalyptic films, The Dog Stars leaves you with more questions than answers, but the time spent with the characters makes up for any nagging plot discrepancies. Save for a couple of weird sections, the film stays grounded in reality, making it feel like an entertaining meditation on how life could be should disaster strike.

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The Dog Stars opens in theaters on August 28.

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