This One Goes to Eleven

Life is obviously too short to live in Houston.

The Two Gallants were entertaining the crowd with their punkish alt-country Delta blues at Walter’s on Washington Friday night in Houston when a neighbor called the cops to report a noise complaint. The cops arrived, and ~~it was business as usual~~ all hell seemingly broke loose.

Apparently Officer G.M. Rodriguez, approached management and asked them to turn down the sound. The bar complied, but as Rodriguez was leaving the scene, someone decided to get all anti-establishment and turn the music back up, this according to the Houston Police Department. Oh not they didint.

Apparently the band didn’t get the memo, but nobody fucks with ~~The Jesus~~ The Rodriguez. The affronted cop took things a little personally and decided to go medieval on everyone’s ass.

Accounts of the night’s events vary, obviously, with bar patrons saying the cop was violent from the beginning, and HPD saying that the officer followed police procedure. Whatever the case may be, what is indisputable is that Rodriguez emptied a Taser round, firing three times at patrons and musicians. One of those Tasered was a University of Houston sociology student doing a "field paper on the music scene." Ouch.

What with the intranets and all, there are MySpace blog accounts of the evening, as well as a brief YouTube clip of the melee. And the message boards are buzzing.

Damn. And we thought we had a crazy weekend.

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By matthewodam in News on October 16, 2006 5:14 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Uriel Dugan

Madonna says she may adopt another child from abroad following her proposed adoption of a Malawian boy...

john

doesn't everyone just wish it was Declan the cop tackles and fucks up? How can we back up time and make this happen? If it were up to the collective desire, I guess it would have already happened.

a

if you notice, the guy that is basically the only SANE one in the first part of the video (trying to hold the cop and band back) is Mose, the sound guy from the parish here in Austin. there are 4 parts to this melee as i have seen via video and discussed via internet. 1. cop tells club to stop music..music doesn't stop. 2. cop goes on stage and essentially attacks dudes on stage (2nd half of that is seen in clip above) 3. cop throws some guys' camera accross the club and then chases him into a corner and tells him he isn't "going anywhere" after the kid just pleads with the cop, "i just want to leave, man. can i just leave?" and 4. cop chases another group around the back side of the bar into a small corner and i assume this is when the taser happened. 5.(post) backup arrives and they arrest what i have heard to be as many as 7 people.

i don't want to say that this is the cop's fault..becuase it is obvious that the crowd is provoking him. but what i cannot understand is why this could not have just ended after stage 2. i also don't really understand why this cop went alone to the scene, when it was a noise complaint, you would expect to enter into a CROWD of people. it would have been wise for the cop to wait for backup BEFORE he tried to difuse the situation.

Huey Newton

Shoot pigs in the face.

whitney

The "university student writing a field paper" is my friend!

JUBCHA

I WAS THERE AND SAW IT ALL GO DOWN AND HAVE SOME REALLY GOOD VIDEO BUT IF I POST IT MY P.O. WILL GET WIND AND I MAY GO BACK UP. ....IVE' SAID TOO MUCH...

Benji

My favorite part is the end, when the cop starts talking into his radio and you can hear a girl retort, "WE need backup! Fuck you!"

Word.

Declan McManus

That's a pretty good description actually. I wholeheartedly approve.

You didn't say hi at Sufjan. I was sad. I even shaved and was wearing pants.

odam

that's what i get for believing the mainstream media. ok, i revised after giving them a brief listen. so, if you don't like it, well, i'll taser you. hell, i'll taser you, IRREGARDLESS, declan. IR.RE.GRAD.LESS.

ok.

nice seeing you at Sufjan, btw.

Declan McManus

And before you call me out on my inability to quote what you said.. alt-country, country rock, laidback, laid-back, etc blah blah etc.

It's been a long day, and I still haven't gotten tased yet!

Declan McManus

Two Gallants are neither laidback nor (really) alt-country.

But, they are pretty damned good and Saturday's show at Emo's was orders of magnitude better than the derivative hipster dance rock outside.