1) There is a solid block of shows scattered about town on Thursday night; it’s almost like if NBC’s ’90s-era Must See TV block lent its shows to channels all over the map –Mad About You is on CBS, FOX gets Friends, Seinfeld goes to ABC, and Frasier ends up on Cinemax for some reason. Maybe the nation’s basic cable subscribers are being treated to a month of free premium channels? Who cares! We’re here to talk about music shows! This first of these rad Thursday night shows is “Jokes on Paper,” an exhibition of Whiskey Folk bassist Jack Russell’s wiseass block prints featuring acoustic performances from Whiskey Folk’s Tyler Rougeux and Stephanie Donaghey of Toy Gun. It’s at some place called the Yellow Rose Art Space, located between Commerce and Calhoun at 150 S. Hall. To be honest, I looked up that address and it rendered a location in Crowley, so you’ll just have to do your own digging/Facebook pestering, but it starts at 7pm, and all three of the artists mentioned are worth getting an early start on Thursday night partying.
Also, remember Madman of the People? No? Well here’s a Must See TV promo that highlights an episode of another forgettable show, The Single Guy – but Ross Gellar is in it, probably being a total drip as usual:
2) Okay, so the second of these recommendable shows on Thursday night is at 1912 Club on Hemphill, and it’s probably the team to beat. Clear Acid is headlining, Squanto is opening, and two bands from Minnesota, The Cult of Lip and Brilliant Beast in the middle (10:30 and 11:30, respectively). Here’s Brilliant Beast:
If you don’t know any of these names, be forewarned that this bill is not for the faint of heart; Squanto’s cyborg-having-a-panic-attack glitch-pop is an acquired taste for a lot of people; for others, it’s indecipherable noise. I think it’s among the best music coming out of Fort Worth right now, but be sure to take that with a grain of salt. The bill gets creepy, hazy, and weird with the Cult of Lip – this Cult of Lip song gave me chills, so I can only imagine that it’s pretty unnerving live. I’d call this music Creep-Gaze, though that makes me think of people who get drunk at bars and then won’t stop staring at you. Brilliant Beast is more of an uptempo, poppier take on shoegaze, which will be a nice mental palate cleanser between The Cult of Lip and Clear Acid. If you’re familiar with New York’s Naam, that’s probably a reductive comparison to Clear Acid, but Clear Acid’s waaay heavier, and a lot more ominous – if you could turn guitar sounds into a toxic, psychedelic fog, that’s probably a better description. The show starts at 9:30 and it’s $5. The bar is cash only, too, so don’t order and then ask if they take plastic.
3) Lola’s has Tidals, ATR, and Starbass on Thursday night as well. I don’t know who ATR, but I’m assuming they are not Atari Teenage Riot. Remember them? They made this video:
Please feel free to correct me if they are in fact playing, but as an aside, I know there are a lot of details to cover in a Facebook show invite, but a link to each of the bands, plus the lineup orders and times are the most helpful ones. Just saying is all, and having just said that, I’d also like to point out that when a show has a zillion bands on it, finding and inserting links for all those fuckers is surprisingly time consuming, so I get why Facebook invites are often bereft of links to bands. In fairness, I do it often with these lists (like in the next item, for example). But anyway, whoever ATR is, they’re sandwiched between two increasingly popular electronic duos, Starbass and Tidals. Starbass, who opens, is a little gimmicky with the costumes, but it’s all in good fun and their grooves are nice and droney and hypnotic. Tidals’ dubby sonic collages flicker and wobble together in a weirdly compelling way – sometimes I’ve thought it makes for good background music at a club, and then by the end of their set I realize I’ve been watching them for 30 minutes without moving or talking to anyone, which is no small feat for any band around here. Doors are at 8pm, show starts at 9. Cover is $7, or $10 if you’re a minor.
4) Lolaspalooza (at Lola’s, duh) is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but this year, the annual celebration of local bands is traveling back in time to that sweet era between rap metal’s drunken, aggro, sunburned day in the sun and craft culture’s dorky, cozy, artisanally mustachioed reign of banjos-and-auxiliary-floor-tom-players-terror. I’m talking about the heyday of the Wreck Room, Lola’s owner Brian Forella’s legendary rock club that turned to dust under the backhoes of West 7th real estate ambitions back in 2007. There are plenty of folks who can tell you about that club better than I can, but to give you an idea, this is Mastodon playing there in 2003:
Of course, there were plenty of other now-big bands that made regular pre-fame stops at the Wreck, but it was also a home bar for tons of local bands between 1997 and 2007. This year’s Lolaspalooza is billed as the Wreck Room Wrevival, and it’s three days of sets from many of the Local Bands of Eld who got to play the dearly departed Wreck’s stage in its various forms, which grew from a chicken wire-enclosed, bottle-chunking target zone to the wide, deep, carpeted den of sonic bliss that existed when the joint was finally demolished. I’m gonna be lazy and ask that you look up the event invite on Facebook for the lineup, but the headliners on each day are as follows: Friday, it’s Garuda and Pinkish Black; Saturday, Slow Roosevelt and Addnerim; and Sunday, it’s Benway and Pablo and the Hemphill 7. All told, there are 23 bands over the three nights, all of which will surely bring out a lot of memories. There will never be another Wreck Room, but the soundtrack to its Wrevival is still a pretty good substitute.
5) This band from Austin called Gentleman Rogues is playing at Shipping and Receiving on Saturday night. I’m not gonna lie: the opening chords of the first song I listened to (the bandcamp version of a 7” single called “Mocking Love Out of Nothing at All” ) made me think of “One Headlight” by the Wallflowers. But then it turns into this anthemic, mid-tempo pop punk stuff. Definitely enjoyable, but to me it sounds dated, specifically to mid-aughts Warped Tour bands, minus the lip rings and black socks. I dunno. See what you think here, but if you dig it less than I did, War Party headlines and Ill Smiths are the openers, so you’ll get a nice night of reverb-happy, drunk rock singalongs. If you’re in a bad mood on Saturday, this show will be a good remedy. If you’re in a bad mood now, click that War Party link, because it goes to “Hobo King.” That song always makes me laugh, because it says everything I’ve ever wanted to say to a panhandler.
