1) The 2015 Friday on the Green concert series concludes this evening, starting with Un Chien at 7pm, followed by Jetta in the Ghost Tree, and headliners Whiskey Folk. Getting to see Jetta frontman Brandin Lea perform on a big stage to a big crowd is kinda the real treat here, because it’s precisely the situation where his voice and showmanship really shine. And if your little ones are able to stay up late enough to watch Whiskey Folk, I bet you’ll see some pretty adorable dancing – the band’s klezmer-inspired sound seems to really fire up the goofball circuits in kids brains, though it also has a similar effect on a lot of adults, certainly those in the process of ramping up their blood alcohol content. I still get a kick out of this Whiskey Folk video:
2) This is a video of Pantera’s Vinnie Paul playing with a Pantera tributre at the Aardvark five years ago:
When was the last time you went to the Aardvark to see a show? In truth, the Aardvark has always functioned during the week as a holding pen for drunk, pastel-colored, TCU dumb-dumbs, but once upon a time, it was one of the main rock clubs in town. But that was also back when there were only like fifteen bands around here; now that number hovers around a thousand, not counting cover bands. If you include cover bands in that number, I’m pretty sure the count is almost a million. But anyway, the Aardvark has hung around for 20 years, and that longevity is largely due to drunk college students. Sadly, those students are almost completely uninterested in bands, which is a bummer because the Aardvark is a big room with good sound, and it’s unfortunately underused by local acts, though bands still play there more often than I think. Friday night, the Aardvark’s stage will be home to Trai Bo, Mountain Kid, and a Dallas band called Pseudo Future. The one track on Pseudo Future’s bandcamp page is highly polished, and it makes me think of how a pop emo band in 2006 would go from 47 Myspace friends to 600,000 on the strengths of a couple overproduced tracks and a press photo where the fat guy in the band is on the end, but he’s got his arms folded so you can read most of his forearm tattoos.
3) Who doesn’t love a song about mustaches? Probably someone, but I think they’re great:
Speaking of how Fort Worth has a lot of bands, Arts Goggle is on Saturday and most of those bands are probably playing somewhere on Magnolia. This year, Fort Worth South is blocking off all of Magnolia, so it will be like Open Streets minus the skateboard ramps, and artists will be showing their wares under tents in the street, as well as inside most of the businesses. The Chat Room’s lineup is pretty darn solid: Holy Moly is the headliner, and leading up to them (in order from penultimate to first) are Quaker City Nighthawks, Jetta in the Ghost Tree, Son of Stan, The Unlikely Candidates, Kevin Aldridge and the Appraisers, Gollay, and Walker and the Texas Dangers. Looks like bands start at noon.
4) Hey look! It’s VNE:
The Chat Room’s Arts Goggle lineup is mostly rock with some bluegrass, pop, and country mixed in, but at the other end of the block at the Boiled Owl, the bill is heavy on punk and hard rock, though Vincent Neil Emerson’s countrified Americana starts the show off at 6pm. After him, it’s Panic Volcanic, Toy Gun, Doom Ghost, Vicious Firs, Tame… Tame and Quiet, with War Party in the headlining spot. It would be really convenient if both bars were right next door to each other, but this just means you’ll have to walk between the two and check out all the other Arts Goggle stuff in between.
5) Ever heard of throat singing? Watch this, then imagine how it can be applied to western folk music:
Gotta throw a Dallas show in here, and it’s kind of a weird one: at the Crown and Harp on Saturday, there’s a world-renowned THROAT SINGER. If you don’t know what that is, it’s this strange vocal technique probably best associated with the Mongols and Uighurs of Central Asia, where the vocalist produces two tones simultaneously. You should look up the Wikipedia article about it because the mechanics of it are interesting, or you could just go see Jon E. Erkkila at C&H, who uses the technique in his “country folk punk” songs. But that’s not all – the show also features Unconscious Collective, the doomy, all-over-the-place free jazz project of brothers Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez; UC is one of those bands every local music fan needs to see at least once. Cerulean Giallo vocalist Sarah Ruth opens the show.
