it echoes
Montrose bar sounds off with two stories of nightly DJs and live music
Music is the main priority at Echoes.
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.”
