1) Team to beat show of the week alert: dreamy, Brooklyn-based, Krautrock-inspired rock band Diiv is playing at Trees in Dallas tonight (Friday) with Norman, Oklahoma’s Broncho, a band called Winter, and another band called the Paranoyds in the opening slots. Unlike a lot of other so-called dream-pop bands, Diiv has a nervous urgency to their music, which gives all those twinkling guitar melodies and breathy, reverb-soaked vocals an ominous color, such that you might want to call this band “unsettling dream-pop.” You should think about playing their sophomore LP, Is the Is Are, the next time you wake up from one of those dreams that seem fine (you have an opportunity to pilot a giant robot, you’re about to go on a big trip, etc.) until some kind of anxious plot development occurs (a beloved, long-deceased relative appears and wants to know when you’re going to make him/her a drink, you can’t leave on your trip until you take a final for a math class you didn’t bother to attend all semester, your teeth suddenly crumble in your mouth). If you happen to fall back asleep while it’s playing, you might find yourself re-entering the dream again, with the added bonus of a real-world soundtrack. Trippy shit, right? Be sure to write it all down right after you wake up! Also be sure to show up to Trees in time to see Broncho – their new album officially debuts tonight, too. Check out the first single:
2) If you’re in Deep Ellum to see Diiv tonight but change your mind for whatever reason, head across the street to see nervy Denton punks Radioactivity at Three Links. Besides direct support from Birthday Suits, Radioactive’s Dirtnap Records label-mates Mind Spiders are on this bill, as are a rock band from the Midwest called Nature Boys. This is a new video from Mind Spiders, for a song called “Cold”:
3) Album release party alert: Stone Machine Electric is dropping their new album at the Grotto Friday night. I don’t think those guys are into drugs at all, but their music sure sounds like it. Heavy, effects-laden, and doom-y, Stone Machine Electric is a good soundtrack for journeys into inner space, whether you’re couchlocked and staring at the patterns of your living room rug or finding subtle faces hiding in the topography of popcorn ceiling. The rest of the bill is heavy as fuck: FTW, FOGG, and Thinman Conspiracy are the openers. Should you have plans to take mushrooms at home one night and are making a playlist in anticipation, kick it off with Stone Machine Electric’s “I Am Fire.”
4) There’s a garage rawk show at the Grotto on Saturday night. I think that’s a pretty fair way to describe bands like Mean Motor Scooter, power trios (okay, not all of them are trios) that use reverb and other effects to dress up a particularly Fort Worthian-style of punk-influenced hard rock. I think Bad Blonde fits into this, and so do Dead Vinyl, but neither of those bands are on this bill. Instead, the opening slots are filled by (in order of direct support band to first opener) The Confounded, The Sex RYNOS, and Dangeroo. The Sex RYNOS have the best name out of these, so I wanted to post a video of theirs but was unable to find one; I was tempted to post a video of actual rhinos having sex (and boy are there a lot of those), but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even for the purpose of a joke. Here’s a Mean Motor Scooter video instead:
5) From 1 to 6pm on Sunday, Lola’s is holding its monthly Rock and Roll Rummage Sale, and that’s always fun to day drink and browse; following your quest for bargains, the Fort Worth Songwriters Showcase kicks off at 8pm, featuring local songwriting badasses Jacob Furr, Vincent Neil Emerson, Scott Copeland, Luke McGlathery, Kenny Uptain, Nolan Ryan Robertson, Alexandria Rhea, Maria Demus, Joe Savage, Caleb Stanislaw, Denver Williams, Morgan Lindley, and whoever else shows up. Should your Sunday Funday stretch into the evening, this is a chill event to ride into Memorial Day’s afternoon barbecues or trips to the cemetery to honor the fallen. If you’re doing both, I hope the remembrance comes first. All jokes aside, the USA’s freedom isn’t free, and we all need to remember that thousands of men and women join the military to take on a lot of hardship and heartache for an absurdly disappointing amount of compensation, just so the rest of us can enjoy posting on Facebook from the comfort of our beds and couches. Sorry for this heavy-handed tone at the end of that! Here’s a commercial I grew up with for a flea market in the Sacramento area called Denio’s; the song’s hook is pretty hard to shake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSP6AeRb7fc[/youtube
