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Super Happy Fun Land
Best Place to Act Like a Japanese Schoolgirl
Super Happy Fun Land Tucked into a low-slung, lime-green bungalow in the Heights, a half-block down from a perpetually whirring metal-fence factory, Super Happy Fun Land is a Shangri-la of cute, zany dorkdom. Only here can you sit on a futon, snuggle with an array of custom sock monkeys and play Parcheesi while listening to bands such as Ctrl+Alt+Del and Japanese Karaoke Afterlife Experiment. The adjoining art gallery, with its baby-blue walls and frequently cartoonish exhibits, looks like the perfect place to meet a big-eyed model straight out of the cult-classic Japanese fashion book Fruits. It's no wonder the club hosted the renowned Japanese electroclash band Polysics this year, or that it's the regular meeting place for the anime club. So strap on your leg warmers and plaid skirt, give a little giggle and head to Super Happy Fun Land, the coolest geeky place in town.
http://www.houstonpress.com/bestof/2004/bestcity/bestcity34.html
My favorite place in the universe right
now
July 23, 2004
By Mark Mullee
Staff writer
First Cut Live
Super Happy Fun Land's grassy parking lot is no different than one you might
find next to an abandoned fast-food restaurant—except for the sign displaying
the lot’s name, “Super Happy Fun Parking,” which makes it easy for drivers to
believe they’ve left their vehicles in an automotive daycare in which cars will
happily await their owners’ return from the show they came to see.
Cars parked in the Super Happy Fun Land lot on the night of July 22 would have
enjoyed, from across the street, the muffled but intent sets of Childcraft,
Manchild, The Buddy System and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.
The choice in bands exemplifies Super Happy Fun Land's reputation as Houston's
venue for experimental electronic music, underground jazz and outsider art.
Contributing to its uniqueness is the lightheartedness that permeates the walls
of the Mad Monkey Theater and the SHFL theater, café and art gallery. The last
thing the owners of Super Happy Fun Land want their patrons to do is take
themselves too seriously.
As evidence of this philosophy, the venue offers the pleasures that most of us
don’t normally allow ourselves: board games, puppets and coloring. The bathroom
walls are made of chalkboard, and invitations to participate in various
activities line the walls of most other rooms. The most acted upon invitation
urges visitors to design their own Game Boy. The resulting artistic outpourings
in colored pencil decorate one wall of the art gallery.
It works. Super Happy Fun Land has done away with the usual pretense of art
houses and the underground music scene. It’s inviting and expects nothing of its
patrons except that they enjoy themselves. The bands that perform there several
nights a week make this one expectation very easy to live up to.
On the 22nd, Childcraft started the lineup in the SHFL theater, a theater which
proves the hypothesis that the pricing of concerts is really only a measure of
the elevation of the stage above the floor. Childcraft delivered their melodious
symphony of keyboards—I counted up to ten contributing devices—from a platform
raised a little more than half a foot from the floor. This venue, like many
others, seems to follow a dollar-an-inch rule, so the cover charge for the night
was seven dollars.
Manchild’s athletic performance followed—a persistent, compelling and
attention-grabbing combination of drums, guitar and synthetic throbs requiring
Herculean endurance. Between songs, drummer John Clark attributed his
cardiovascular fitness to swimming and basketball. Even later he admitted that
as much as he loved swimming, he had difficulty not swallowing any water. The
duo finished their set with “Maniac Mansion,” a song by their “favorite band in
the universe right now.”
The configuration suggested by the name The Buddy System was not consistent with
the one-man act that played next. Then, Kurt Korthals made his set seem even
lonelier with his warbling electronic compositions. His music, a unified
abstraction of dance, fit perfectly into the atmosphere of Super Happy Fun
Land—not because they were at all similar but because the cool, elevated music
settled in any gaps that the relaxed, playful environment had made. The Buddy
System filled the evening as ice cream can always fill a full stomach.
Of course, the night was not complete; Casiotone for the Painfully Alone had yet
to play. It was the end for me, however. I had to do one of the hardest things a
person can do in life: walk out on a phenomenal show. (It was due to a
scheduling conflict and not in any way a reflection of the bands or venue.) My
only consolation was that the show had already been so fulfilling.
Super Happy Fun Land occupies the building with Christmas lights on 2610 Ashland
Street, Houston, Texas. Watch for a return of Manchild to Houston on August 6
(venue to be announced).
To contact Mark Mullee, e-mail
markism@hotmail.com
http://www.firstcutlive.tv/firstcutlive/displayPage.aspx?id=653
Chronicle file
Sax player Joe Santa Maria, 20, recently performed with reggae band King Louie and the Swinging Monkeys at Super Happy Fun Land in the Heights. Who's up next (or coming soon) at this alternative venue? Dustin and the Furniture, A Particularly Vicious Rumor and Crooks and Nannies. Got your tickets? |
2610 Ashland
713-880-2100
Web site
More venue details
A step further out on the fringes from Fat Cat's is this strange little Heights charmer. The lineup might not always be recognizable, but Super Happy Fun Land draws a diverse group of indie-pop, jazz, electronic and avant-garde acts, with the occasional circus freak like the Enigma or pop star from yesteryear like Melanie. The venue also hosts art workshops on Sundays.
|
Baby Calendar
http://www.spacecityrock.com/issue9/live-babycalendar1.shtml
Sounds Like a Party
Super Happy Fun Land brings the New Year’s noise
Music is overrated. Think about it: predetermined chords, comforting mama-heartbeat rhythms. Don’t even get us started on harmony — so predictable, so inside-the-box. Noise is where it’s at, especially when it comes to partying. After all, it’s no coincidence that more noisemakers are sold on New Year’s Eve than any other time of the year. The good folks at Super Happy Fun Land know this and are doing their spiritual duty by hosting their annual New Year’s Noise Fest. Eardrums will bleed, seizures will be had, and all conventional wisdom about tone production will be ignored as 15 noise acts — like Ohio’s Black Mayonnaise, California’s Rainbow Blanket and Houston’s very own Organ Failure — do the “Auld Lang Syne” deep into 2005. 8 p.m. Friday, December 31.
— Scott Faingold
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2004-12-30/calendar/performance.html
Scuttlebutt Caboose
BY JOHN NOVA LOMAX
john.lomax@houstonpress.com
Super Happy Fun Land, yet another of Houston's litany of eclectic underground arts venues, has opened for business in the Heights. Occupying the former Ashland Street Theater space, SHFL offers an art gallery, a patio, a theater, and sewing and crafts on Monday evenings, a children's storytelling hour Wednesday afternoons, and movies on Thursday nights. Weekends are given over to experimental bands, among other things. On June 20, Nautical Almanac and A Pink Cloud will be appearing with others. On June 26 and 27, Übertoast will bring its "delightfully disturbing" sketch comedy to the stage, while the next two nights find jazz bands performing there under the auspices of KTRU. (All events are BYOB.)
"We wanted a venue that would be versatile and kid-friendly," says SHFL honcho Brian Arthur. "We have puppet shows there, and political meetings too, but basically we wanted a place that was geared towards artistic endeavors that doesn't take itself too seriously. We don't want it to be a place where everyone's in black and reading angst-ridden poetry. We want it to be a little more lighthearted."
And with a name like Super Happy Fun Land, it's hard to imagine some sort of violent revolution fomenting on the premises. Find out for yourself by going by the joint at 2610 Ashland or visiting the SHFL Web site at superhappyfunland.com/index.html.
houstonpress.com | originally published: June 19, 2003
Houston Free Press Public Service Announcement
(ok so it is an ad, but I think it is funny).
houstonpress.com | Oct. 28th 2004
Hallow Weird
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2004-10-28/calendar/seen.html
houstonpress.com | Aug 12th 2004
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2004-08-12/calendar/performance.html
California Newspaper Merced Sun-Star compares California venue to Super Happy Fun Land
(that's how cool we are!)
Who's Listening: Super Happy Fun (Fresno) Land -May 5, 2005
http://www.mercedsun-star.com/life/story/10433237p-11232943c.html
houstonpress.com | July 8th 2004
Breaking Records
Maria Chavez ain't your typical DJ
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2004-07-08/calendar/performance.html
houstonpress.com | June 14th 2004
The Syndicate is not a girl band. We're not saying this to avoid pigeonholing this New York-based quartet's music as chick rock. No, the Syndicate is not a girl band, quite simply because the band members just aren't very girly. Ya dig? We're not sure what to call the Syndicate, besides a unique blend of original riffs and outrageous politics. You can check 'em out tonight at Super Happy Fun Land, Houston's mecca of all things indefinable. 8 p.m. 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. $6.
houstonpress.com | May 13th 2004
| Naughty Boy | |
| Bisexual singer Houston Bernard has verses full of curses | |
| BY KEITH PLOCEK | |
houstonpress.com | Friday, April 30/04
Con Artists
Guests of the state in Huntsville have a lot of time on their hands. While some pick up the shiv, a surprisingly large number pick up the paintbrush. Works of art created by 15 currently incarcerated prisoners will be on display in the Texas Prisonland Collective's "Prison Inmate Art" exhibition. "Do we send criminals to prison in hopes of reforming them, or are we simply providing a place for them to rot?" asks Lou Flores of the collective. "Sometimes we find beauty where we least expect it, and here, they contribute something positive to society." Not to mention spruce up a drab, gray cell. 8 p.m. Friday, April 30. Through Friday, May 14. Super Happy Fun Land, 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. Free. -- Bob Ruggiero
houstonpress.com | Thursday, March 19/04
Houston's Due
Save your cash and stick around for H-town's own showcase
Who needs the hassle of traveling to Austin, buying a wristband and then waiting in line with hundreds of other saps outside shows you can't get into? Houston will have its own version of a certain well-known conference at the second annual South By Due East Music Festival, which will feature two days of music and poetry. It's the brainchild of "guerrilla marketer" MArlo Blue and her boyfriend, local musician Guy Schwartz. "Everybody that's on the bill is playing music because they love it, but they also like a little attention," Schwartz says. "It's another way to get exposure for bands who maybe weren't accepted to perform up in Austin." Acts of all genres, including Zwee, Sonny Boy Terry, Drop Trio, the Hightailers, Opie Hendrix, Chango Jackson, Little Brother Project, Last Soul Descendants and the Rosta Jazz Avengers, will be featured along with Schwartz's own New Jack Hippies, on two stages. A lot of the shows will be filmed; last year's flick can be viewed at www.hippies.tv. Oh, and the whole thing is free.
Schwartz certainly has a background in musical diversity -- not only did his mother have jazz great Lionel Hampton over to dinner, but when she did, she played country records by Eddy Arnold. Schwartz's latest project is a four-disc set on which he plays four different musical genres. And he didn't have a problem finding diverse acts for this homegrown festival. "Most of us kept that week open anyway in case we were playing South By Southwest," he notes. "And hey, now we don't have to go there!" 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 20 and 21. Super Happy Fun Land, 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. Free. - Bob Ruggiero
houstonpress.com | Feb 26/04
Ergo, Super Happy Fun Land will host the second annual South By Due East fest on Friday and Saturday, March 20 and 21. So far, Sonny Boy Terry, Poetry in Reverse, New Jack Hippies, Drop Trio, Secret Beat Society, Opie Hendrix, Chango Jackson, Quantum Five, Carrie Buchanan and Collective Hallucination have confirmed, and many others are expected to enlist.
houstonpress.com | Feb 3/04
With last weekend's brouhaha becoming a distant memory, you're probably having trouble readjusting to the life of a working stiff. Fuck it. Yank off those work duds, grab a drum and head over to Super Happy Fun Land for an open drum circle. After a couple of hours of beating away your frustrations (on a drum, you sick bastard), you just might be able to face the rest of the workweek. Or you could discover your inner yawp and realize you're never going to go back to the cube-farm again. Would that be such a bad thing? 7 p.m. 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. Free.
houstonpress.com | New Years 03
For something different, check out New Year’s Noise at SHFL. Featuring performances by Goat, Kairos, Organ Failure, Muzak, Concrete Violin, T.E.F., Steel Hook, Prosthesis, A Fall Association and Richard Ramirez. Free party favors, bubbly, door prizes and vegetarian food. Including their famous Demon May Cry Chipotle Beans. $8.
The Music The
If you want poetry, read a book
houstonpress.com | SUN November 16/03
| A.J. Jones |
| Charlie Salas-Humara, Chip Francis Matze III and Dave Huebner of The Planet The |
Musicians are poets, but they still have to be musicians. Albums aren't supposed
to be books on tape set to a tune. So it is with the music of The Planet The, a
Portland-based prog-rock band that revels in dabbling in the weird. Vox/guitarist
Charlie Salas-Humara explains: "If you notice, there's not really any lyrics.
It's just all made-up words.
I'm not really into telling people my trip, but it's kind of nice to have another instrument, a voice playing like a lead over the top of it."With all that soulful babbling going on, their sound becomes tough to pigeonhole. "We've been describing it as dance/punk/prog, like a mixture between Yes and Kraftwerk," he says. Traces of Devo and Ween also appear, especially when the band busts into a thumpin' groove, waits for the house to start bouncing, then suddenly switches to melancholic ambience, leaving the crowd confused and begging for more. 8 p.m. Sunday, November 16.
-- Keith Plocek
houstonpress.com | Saturday, July 12/03
For its seventh anniversary celebration, Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre is setting up a Puppet Kissing Blackmail Photo Booth. If it's your idea of a good time, you can make out with one of the Bobbindoctrin heroes, such as Ivan the Fool or Cruel Frederick, and then buy up your own or someone else's blackmail photos. At the event, the company will be premiering The Edge of Space, its first toy theater production. And Rotten Piece, Two Star Symphony and the Sexy Finger Champs will provide the tunes. 9 p.m. Super Happy Fun Land, 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100. $15.
We're not sure either
5/15/03
-
http://www.glasstire.com
Are we just
too crusted with scepticism?
Super Happy Fun Land
seems too weird not to be an ironic joke.
- Rainey Knudson
Deathrock.com: You have been doing a lot of touring recently, any good war stories?
Jessie: Our favorite show we have played in the last few months was in Huston, Texas at this place called "Super Happy Fun Land". It used to be a church, but now it's painted flourescent green and seems like an afterschool center for delinquents, I hear that many experimental jazz groups play there. The bands we played with were THE FACADE, and SWARM OF ANGELS who were both incredible. While they played, there were about 8 people sitting in the pews looking completely bored, the energy was like a deserted movie theater. Before we began we had to ducktape shut all the chairs, suddenly there were lots more people and the show was incredible. Afterewards we hung out all night drinking tea and jamming out with the members from the other bands.
http://www.deathrock.com/coverfeature/index02.shtml
Well, after Austin, we
play in Houston, Texas, in this venue named SUPER HAPPY FUN LAND. It's our best
show in Texas I think, the venue is awesome, the people who run it too, and the
kid who opens for us, Brad, is a really cool musician, and he plays with a great
drummer, who reminds me of the Butthole Surfers, who are from Texas too. Super
Happy Fun Land totally gets me back in the tour, and reminds me of how much I
love playing shows, how much I love traveling around, and how much I think
Kimya's songs are wonderful, and what a good friend she is, and how cool it is
to be touring together.
http://www.hermandune.com/diary/
Voodoo Organist, with Two Star Symphony and the Invincible Czars
houstonpress.com | Feb 17th 2005
A versatile instrument, the organ can add an angelic glow to hymns, an eerie hum to horror movies and a seedy soul to garage rock. In the hands of Scott Wexton, the Voodoo Organist, it achieves all of these objectives, sometimes during a single song. Wexton alternates between haunting and holy tones, incorporating upbeat instruments into his rollicking revival numbers and pumping up the percussion on his blues tunes. Like Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Tom Waits, he whistles through the graveyards, using his abundant charisma to persuade listeners to follow him into foreboding territory. Live, the one-man band's skull-intensive stage setup establishes his demonic credentials. He released his latest album, Holy Ghost Town, last week, which made it a timely gift for goth couples who wanted Valentine's Day to sound as haunted as Halloween. -- Andrew Miller
Friday, February 18, at Super Happy Fun Land, 2610 Ashland, 713-880-2100.
Party by Numbers
houstonpress.com | FRI 3/4/5
You know the scenario. You're drunk, baked or both with your friends when someone looks over at the clock and notices the time: 12:34 a.m. "Dude, what does it mean?" someone asks. "Exactly," someone else responds. We're not sure if this is what transpired when the folks at Super Happy Fun Land devised their 3,4,5 Festival -- which evidently celebrates the date March 4, 2005 -- but we wouldn't be surprised. Toast the day with a lineup of local indie bands that includes The Dimes, Buxton, Apology, Electric Space Party, Stolen Library and The Guns of Will Sonnet. 8 p.m. Friday, March 4. 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. $5. -– Steven Devadanam
Landfall, the Oots, Sound Theory and Belville
houstonpress.com | Jan 20th 2005
Good young power-pop bands are hard to find. Too often, youthful musicians try so hard to cram the whole world into every note of every song that they forget about the audience. The twin-guitar power trio Landfall doesn't make that mistake -- pleasant songs come before grand, sweeping statements, and clever arrangements win out over virtuosity in their clattery, hook-packed Weezer-like pop. They don't want you to feel their pain, they just want you to have fun. If Landfall's a sunny-Saturday-afternoon-in-the-park of a band, then Belville is an after-hours-at-the-hole-in-the-wall-bar type of group, as menacing and boozy as Landfall is engaging and caffeinated. Sound Theory -- whose members are acolytes at the My Bloody Valentine/Jason Pierce/Jesus and Mary Chain temple -- is also on the bill, as are the Oots, an alternately droning and crackling indie rock band with occasional roots-rock guitar flourishes. Between them, these four bands promise to constitute a big part of Houston's underground rock scene for the second half of the first decade of the 21st century, so a ticket to this show is akin to a quick gander into the scene's crystal ball. -- John Nova Lomax
Friday, January 21, at Super Happy Fun Land, 2610 Ashland, 713-880-2100.
Sounds Like a Party
houstonpress.com | Dec 30th 2004
Super Happy Fun Land brings the New Year’s noise
Music is overrated. Think about it: predetermined chords, comforting mama-heartbeat rhythms. Don’t even get us started on harmony — so predictable, so inside-the-box. Noise is where it’s at, especially when it comes to partying. After all, it’s no coincidence that more noisemakers are sold on New Year’s Eve than any other time of the year. The good folks at Super Happy Fun Land know this and are doing their spiritual duty by hosting their annual New Year’s Noise Fest. Eardrums will bleed, seizures will be had, and all conventional wisdom about tone production will be ignored as 15 noise acts — like Ohio’s Black Mayonnaise, California’s Rainbow Blanket and Houston’s very own Organ Failure — do the “Auld Lang Syne” deep into 2005. 8 p.m. Friday, December 31. 2610 Ashland. For information, call 713-880-2100 or visit www.superhappyfunland.com. $8. — Scott Faingold
Houston Chronicle Blogspot April 24/2006
Unlike, oh, every other venue in Houston (or in most cities), SHFL showcases the odd, the weird, the extreme, and the psychotic. In other words, anything goes, musically, at this venue. No one judges anything an artist performs, as the venue's main creed is "SHFL is always looking for unusual performers. We are also seeking people who are looking for a bizarre, yet charming and laid back place to hang out and have fun!" This philosophy, and the owners' maverick approach to running a music venue, has yielded much success for SHFL. When you're there, you find a diverse audience ranging from businessmen to children to punk rockers, not just the avant garde underground bohemians you might expect to see.
http://chapelhill.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/10774.php
(Picture of piano playing at SHFL and nice comment)
Now on Tour Interview with Polysics
By: Tyler
Champley
Do you guys have any favorite shows or tours?
We played at a venue in Houston called Super Happy Fun Land and that was quite
an experience. It was a very 'interesting' venue (band laughs).
http://www.nowontour.com/news/interviews/00040.php
Twine Time
Sonic Trio bring their “Sideshow” to Houston
http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/2005/march/music0318.htm
Ok, so it is an online diary entry:
http://www.hermandune.com/diary/24.htm
And a blog review:
on 8/20/2005 
Super Happy Fun Land is a place where experimental music as well as hardcore punk and other undervalued genres of music can be heard live in an intimate if not slightly bizarre setting. It is a great place to catch local Houston groups such as Kairos, Deconstruction Crew, Rusted Shut and other audience favorites. Prepare yourself to be charmed by an environment alive with sock monkeys, childhood nostalgia, murals and music that you just can't find anywhere else in this city.
http://houston.judysbook.com/theater-ticket-agencies/105459/Super_Happy_Fun_Land.htm
