MySpace a place for friends

The Suspects are Houston's original ska band... before anyone else, there were The Suspects!

Come see The Suspects on Thursday July 30, 2009 at the Continental Club in Houston! Or, come see The Suspects on Friday August 28, 2009 at the Flamingo Cantina in Austin. It's our first show in Austin in ten years!

The Suspects formed in Houston in early 1993 and played their first show in October of the same year. Multiracial and multicultural, The Suspects quickly became the top ska/reggae band for the high school and college crowd in the greater Houston area. The first seven-inch single was recorded in 1994 at Austin's Sweatbox Studio, and was quickly followed by a debut CD recorded at Sugar Hill Studios in Houston.

Only a month or two after the release of their first CD, lead vocalist Chris Kendrick (now fronting Houston's Igents) chose to leave the group. Tomas Escalante joined and stayed through the life of the band. Moving from a black skinhead rudeboy with a punk rock pedigree to somebody who looked like a frat-boy record store clerk in the vocalist position caused the band to lose a lot of fans, but Tomas's superior vocal abilities won over just as many.

Over the next six years The Suspects did everything a band should: they won "Song Of The Year", "Best Ska/Reggae Band", and "Best Horn Section" awards from the local music papers. They toured up the mid-west (hello, Wausau, WI!), played with all the touring bands that came to Houston, and recorded a small handful of Cd's that all most nobody listened to.

In 2002, with interest in ska music having faded (both with the public and inside the band), The Suspects played their last show with their good friends Middlefinger at their unofficial home, Fitzgeralds.

Things are different now. People and attitudes change, but the music can/will stick around forever; why not jump up on stage and play that music? See you at the show!