Westheimer Block Party: Images

-FUPPETS-, as usual, put up some guerilla art for the Westheimer Block Party crowds to discover and enjoy. These are drawn on brown wrapping paper and are from 4-5 feet long and a yard wide with India Ink. The paper is put up and the drawing is done on site in less than 2-3 minutes. Click the image to enlarge.








Here is the kingpin himself, Omar Afra, as usual, right in the thick of things, making sure everyone is having a great time.

Westheimer Block Party - The Last Time Is The Best Time

Oh what a thrill it was, and what a portent of things to come. Omar Afra, the big-cheese behind the Free Press Houston and the grand master making the Westheimer Block Party happen, has announced on the FPH website that this past weekend's Block Party will be the last.

This will be the last Westheimer Block Party. However, the next one will be the return of the Westheimer Street Festival. It may take 2 months or it may take 2 years but this festival has outgrown our singular capacity. There can only be a return of the Westheimer Street Festival. The streets must be shut down, the city must get behind the event, and I can no longer personally foot the bill. Our staff can no longer handle the capacity of the growing festival and squeezing all of these people into the same block is becoming hazardous. The streets must be shut down. We have an on camera commitment from Annise Parker, that if elected, she will support street closure if we can find financing for necessary portopotties, police, and clean up. She even shook my hand on it. But we need the community involved. So whoever is elected, we are asking for a big community turnout at the first city council open session the new mayor presides over. We need 500+ people to swamp city hall and show city officials that there is indeed a large constituency that supports arts and music. We will let you know when this transpires but we NEED your support. We love this community so much and want to see WestFest grow but it cannot in it's current form. We will be forming a non-profit to meet this challenge which will be made up of only Jedi's who have an unyielding love for arts and music. It is time to take BIG steps and we will do whatever it takes to shut down the streets. Thanks for all of your support and love.

Omar Afra

BTW- Summer Fest is gonna be GINORMOUS. You would pee your pants if you knew who we confirmed today.

God Bless the Trose'.

Omar Afra
Managing Editor

To give some more background on the above quote, Annise Parker is one of two people vying to win the run-off election for Houston Mayor. The Westheimer Street Festival, formerly the Westheimer Arts Festival, was the yearly original weekend-long party that fueled the Montrose insanity. At it's peak, upwards of 200,000 people would show up and the streets from Montrose to Taft would be closed off completely. It was an insane and awesome affair and is fondly remembered by -FUPPETS- and by all the other freaks, weirdos, and lovers of freaks and weirdos out there.
Omar did good by creating the smaller Block Party format, but it has indeed gotten out of hand. Without street closures, and without the support of police and the city government, it is very difficult to justify letting 15-30 thousand freaks overrun what is a busy intersection at the heart of the Montrose. Oh, what beautiful chaos it is.
Summer Fest is a weekend long concert held by Allen Parkway put on by the good folks over at FPH. This next 2010 Summer Fest holds promise to blow the roof off of Houston.

-FUPPETS- will be uploading some images from this weekend's Block Party tonight. On a very sad note, a FPH staffer died late Saturday night, falling to his death from the Hazard St. bridge over Hwy. 59. His name was Lee Powers. Omar and the FPH are going to put a benefit concert at Mango's to raise funds for Lee Powers' funeral expenses.

Westheimer Block Party - Fall 2009 Edition

It is that time of year again. Once again, the bad-ass mo-fo's over at the Free Press Houston have arranged for a tremendous weekend of music, art, insanity, and carousing, or as it is called, the WESTHEIMER BLOCK PARTY!
This twice-a-year event grows and grows each time, and is always a tremendous blast to attend. From the over two hundred and fifty local and regional bands, to the ideal people-watching, to the cold, cold beverages on sale, this weekend promises to be a good time for all.
Of course, the Block Party is free for all to attend, with at least ten different stages set up around the axis of the corner of Taft and Westheimer. On Saturday night, the main headliner will be a performance by Dead Prez and Japanther, which will take place at the infamous Numbers Nightclub, and will cost a measly $12 to get in!!!! CHEAP!

Here are the schedules for Saturday's half of the Block Party.

Here are the schedules for the Sunday half of the Block Party.

The last Block Party in the Spring of 2009 was a massive success, and ended with a tremendous set by the one and only Devin The Dude. This year's fest will expand to two days so be ready and pace yourselves on Saturday! If you can ride a bike to the Block Party all the better, as parking gets quite funky by the time festivities are fully in effect. So, if you find yourself in Houston TX this weekend, head into Montrose for a free party you will wish never ends. HERE is a map of the location.

DEAD PREZ - It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop

Westheimer Block Party 2009 - In Video Form

Here for your viewing pleasure are a couple of videos captured at the spring Westheimer Block Party 2009, this past weekend.

Cops arrested a tagger for not having ID, and "resisting." He was painting on paper.
Bullshit.

Westheimer Block Party - Recap

This past Saturday was the bi-annual Westheimer Block Party, which is getting bigger and better every time. The great people over at Free Press Houston put on this all day festival of music, sights and people over a 4-5 block area of upper Westheimer.
The founder of FPH, a bad-ass mo-fuck named Omar, was seen running around from very early in the morning making sure everything was set up. At Noon, bands on 6 or 7 separate stages started things off.
According to the po-po estimates, around 11,000+ attended this spring's event. That is a jump of about 3,000 from last Fall's event. This is the view near one of the outdoor stages, in the parking lot of Avant Garden.

Having witnessed the death of the old Westheimer Arts Festival, it is very heartening to see the amount of people that come out to support this new Block Party.

A few Highlights & Memories Of The Day:

-Inside Mango's, at Noon, LadyHeat played a fucking raucous set to get things started just right. I hope each band brought their own microphone cuz the singer of LadyHeat was shoving that mic into his pants and rubbing it on his crotch like he had an itch to scratch. Great energetic set. Too bad there were only like 13 people in Mango's at the time. Below is the LadyHeat singer in full heat.

-Near the large stage between Numbers and La Strada, a booth was selling sausage on a stick, hamburgers, buffalo burgers, vegetarian burgers and "MouthJoy," an amazingly delicious blend of homemade lemonade and pureed strawberries. Waiting in line for a sausage, a cute Indian girl was seen getting her veggie burger, taking a bite and looking at it incredulously. She asked if the guy was sure it was not real meat, was assured it was not, and went on her way to a booth she was running. Ten seconds later she came back, having taken a few more bites, and asked again if it was veggie. The dude running the stand told her it was a Boca Burger and that they had two grills going, one for meat and one for veggie. She did not seem to know what a Boca Burger was, so he showed her the box. She analyzed the box and the ingredients list like it was an IRS form, and left satisfied yet still unsure. As she left, I asked "what was up with that?" and the dude replied "I guess they tasted too good." That is a prime advert for Boca Burger if I ever saw one.
- The weather was just perfect. PERFECT. Every few seconds a cool refreshing breeze would blow by making sure everyone stayed in a great mood.
-At the stage in front of Mango's, one of -FUPPETS- favorite performers forgot his magic hat and wizard robes, but nonetheless proceeded to tear through some righteous noise skronk. His name escapes, but he is one of the Super Happy Fun Land's resident nuts. (*EDIT, Sozavac Instigator says his name is MUZAK JOHN) He drew a very interesting mix of skronk-heads and little children. The little children had their mind's blown and it brought a tear to the eye. His finale was a truncated cover of the South Park theme song, for the kids, you know. Check it.

-Impromptu sets were rockin in front of the Austin Layne Hotel and in front of the defunct porno store next to Numbers, as well as one guy rocking a skronk set from the back of his pick up truck in the parking lot of La Strada. DIY motherfuckers!!!!

-While waiting to cross the street at Westheimer and Taft, the Instigators saw a projectile heading our way from across the street. Reaching out to try and catch it was a bad idea as the water balloon (as it turned out) exploded and covered all of us with pinkish water. Looking down and noticing a box full of confetti-filled eggs and water balloons, I bent down to grab one for some sweet revenge when a loud, overly-tough voice bellowed "Drop it! Drop it now!" Upon looking up, one of Houston's Finest grabbed the box and confiscated it. Ahhh, stifled revenge.
-There were so many bands , so many people, so much jail-bait (ha ha!), so many sights/sounds/smells etc. . . . It was a wonderful time.
-Around 2:30 PM I went out and commandeered a section of fencing behind the Number's outdoor stage, and preceded to make a drawing with India ink on board to help decorate the area. That drawing is the first image in this post. It was a quick ten minutes of guerrilla art, and I was done. It was very cool to see people checking it out and taking pictures of it and with it, and not only that, but when the wind knocked down parts of it, people were kind enough to put the pictures aside so they would not be damaged. When I came back around to check on the drawing, I put it back up on the fence.

There's much more as it was a full day of fun. Here is a slideshow on Flicker of pictures from the Westheimer Block Party.

REMINDER: Westheimer Block Party - 3/28/2009

(From the good people at Free Press Houston)

Here are answers to some FAQ:
- The Westheimer Block Party is Free All day.
- The evening festival that features Valient Thorr, St. Vincent, Devin the Dude, HEALTH, Indian Jewelry, The Show is the Rainbow, and more will require the purchase of a wristband that gets you into the venues they are at.
- If you do not buy wristband via presale, they will be available at doors of each venue for 20 bux plus small service fee.
- Will call for pre-sale is at Numbers side door.
- Presale ends Thursday
- Alex Wukman and Andrea Tabor's real wedding will take place at 7:45 at Numbers outdoor stage and will be officiated by the Mayor of Montrose.
-As always, parking will be a pain so we STRONGLY encourage you to ride your bike, carpool, take the Metro, etc.
- Tim Dorsey will arrive at approximately 11:33 AM and leave at 1:44 AM.

SPREAD THE WORD.

DEVIN THE DUDE @ Westheimer Block party - March 28th

Just two weeks to go until the bi-annual Westheimer Block Party hits. -FUPPETS- has been spreading the word about this for a bit now, but for now, -FUPPETS- would like to showcase some of the headliner acts that will be performing on the 28th. The day-long block party is free to all comers, and includes over 8 stages and 50 bands of all types and weirdnesses. The evening part will take place after 7:00 PM, and will charge. A wristband can be purchased fro $20 which will allow you to enter all performances, but individual cover charges will also be taken at the door if you do not wish to see all the acts.
Here are 4 of the headliners, ranging from laid-back hip-hop to folkie stuff for the ladies and the wusses, to bar-rock to skronky indie rockin'.


DEVIN THE DUDE - 'Lacville '79

HEALTH - Heaven

VALIENT THORR - Man Behind The Curtain

ST. VINCENT - Jesus Saves, I Spend

WESTHEIMER BLOCK PARTY

The good folks at the Free Press Houston have released a video commercial promoting the bi-annual Westheimer Block Party, taking place this March, the 28th. Watch it below. The all-day festival takes over a 6 block area of upper Westheimer and has at least 5 stages, each with bands rockin' your ass off. Once night falls, Number's nightclub will host some killer acts, including Health, Devin The Dude, St. Vincent and more. Killer shit people! Everything is free, except for the evening show at Number's. Wristbands will be sold for that part of the event, available pre-sale at FreePressHouston.com