"You Come A Long Way For 'I Don't Know How', Boy!"
released August 2, 2025
"Mike
Jones: Renaissance Artist"
as found in the Houston Eccentric Observer
September, 2011
by Quinn Thornton
When you think of the Houston rock scene, a few bands immediately come to mind. The Wavebenders. Paul's New Haircut. Twistermix. Never Spend Richer. Mike Jones.
Wait. Hold the phone -- er, turntable. Mike Jones!?!?!?!
"It just sort of happened," says Jones with a laugh. "I never would have guessed it."
No, that's not a typo. DO NOT ADJUST YOUR TELEVISION SET -- ER, FREE-OF-CHARGE NEWSPAPER. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200. Mike Jones, the same Mike Jones who helped establish the Houston music scene as a nationwide presence in the 2000s -- though perhaps regrettably so. Rather than the whimsical, freeform lyrical stylings of Twistermix's John Stinnett, Houston became automatically associated with gangster rap -- a stigma that H-ville's underground artists have been struggling with ever since.
It seems
that karma has taken effect, and Mike Jones is now paying penance (now if
only we could expect such behavior for our commander
crook-in-chief in Washington!). Because Jones and his weathered band
of shady characters known as the Pizza Box Architects are bringing a whole
different beat to Houston. At times rockabilly, at times straight-up
sullen indie rock, at times indescribably, Mike Jones and the Pizza Box
Architects are quickly generating buzz.
The rough, yet smooth vocals of Mike Jones accompany nicely the Architects' fiddle and beatbox. Lyrically their album, "You Come A Long Way For I Don't Know How, Boy!", displays the heartbreak of an up-and-down musical career, and the lessons that have been learned by it.
So what has brought Jones to this improbable spot?
After a platinum-selling debut, the appropriately titled Who Is Mike Jones?, Jones' agent urged him to try to broaden his appeal. Jones managed to get a spot on tour with rap-rock ne'er-do-wells Linkin Park. This association lost him invaluable street cred in an industry where reputation is everything, and he was effectively exiled from rap.
"Jay-Z did it, so I figured I could do it," Jones admits. "But he was established and I was just a kid. These days, you do that kind of thing without a long career, you're a sellout. For a while there, it was very, very hard."
"I realized something about the rap industry," he continues. "It's not about music, it's all about posturing. It's a billion-dollar industry built on the concept of talentless womanizers talking about doing things and never doing them."
After taking a break from music altogether, he began engrossing himself in the emo music scene, but eventually found it to be equally distasteful.
"There are great bands out there that people like to call "emo". Don't get me wrong", he says. "But it's, as I like to call it, an exercise in maudlin. Nothing is resolved, nothing is realized. It's all about self-pity and bitterness. And I didn't really feel like I fit in a genre whose frontmen sound like Eeyore got kicked in the balls."
"So I left the scene for a while to regroup. And I realized that I wanted to completely start over. No star power, no anything. Nothing giving me a leg up. I had the jewelry taken out of my teeth, and I didn't tell anyone where I'd come from. It didn't matter. I wanted to start legit."
And that's what has put Mike Jones where he is now. To paraphrase a popular quote around here, "Houston, we do --not-- have a problem!"
Track
listing
1. God Bless This
Mess
2. The Adventures of Magical Flying Dishwasher
3. Wicked Lies, Wickeder Liars
4. Car Broke Down (On The Side Of The Road)
5. Heinekonfessions
6. Guy I Know
7. Sprinkle The World With Peace!
8. Darth Vader Vs. Care Bears
9. Russell's Song
10. Men Are From Venus...
11. ...Women are from God Knows Where!