1) On Thursday night at the Grotto, professional wiseacres Wondercrust Movie Watchers Club is slashing the tires of The Dirtbike Kid, the 1985 fantasy film in which A Christmas Story’s Peter Billingsly plays a kid who, with the help of a magical dirt bike and the power of pie fighting, saves a hotdog stand. The show is free, popcorn is free, and you are free to get drunk and laugh as WMW’s comics eviscerate this dopey movie with jokes. After the movie, dark folk rock band the Phantom Sensation peform. Wondering what a magical dirtbike does? From watching this trailer, I would say it goes off jumps and causes car accidents:
2) Fort Worth Weekly contributor and longtime local music fan Jasun Lee is celebrating his birthday, and it’s a big one, so big in fact, that the legendary Denton band Brutal Juice is headlining his party at the Chat Room. You will be certain to hear stories of the Magnolia Avenue of Eld, when bands like Brutal Juice and the Toadies (and, according to this list of setlists I found, Jawbreaker, Rancid, and the Offspring) played at a club called Mad Hatter’s, now occupied by King Tut Egyptian Restaurant. Mad Hatter’s closed over twenty years ago, which is still not as long as Jasun has been watching local bands. As usual, the show is free, and Huffer and Mean Motor Scooter open. Fun fact: Brutal Juice had a video debut on MTV’s 120 Minutes, on an episode hosted by then-newly popular alternative music band Stabbing Westward. The segment and the video within are pretty much the most ’90s thing I have ever seen. It’s like what you’ll feel in 2034 when you see a “remember when?”-style picture of a psychedelic Bart Simpson eating pizza with a psychedelic Garfield. Anyway, this Brutal Juice song is more recent:
3) Friday night is the live debut of Programme, the newest project between Nathan Brown and the Cleanup’s Landon Cabarubio. If you want hot sports opinions on prog, talk to these guys, though I bet those views and influences will be made obvious in their music. Or not. WHO KNOWS? Nathan Brown’s musical antics are at least as entertaining as the one he plays out on social media, but I get the vibe that this particular project is a serious labor of love and planning, performed by two highly skilled musicians. The free show starts at 9pm at Republic Street Bar. Programme play the middle slot, in between Squanto’s opening set and headliners Tidals. I feel like this Squanto video will be useful in a future documentary about community libraries:
4) Panther City Pep Rally is Saturday at Lola’s. Per the semi-annual event’s usual m.o., you can expect to see a lot of your favorite local musicians orient into different bands to tackle the hits of ’90s alt-rock radio. But this time around, the parameters have been expanded to include whatever cover band any participants wanted to assemble, so you’ll see outside-the-’90s tributes to the Beatles (Abby Roadsters), Tenacious D (NR/CD), System of a Down (Kombucha Mushroom People), plus genre-specific sets (Nap Sack plays early emo stuff like Sunny Day Real Estate and Promise Ring, Dropping Tomatoes plays hard rock songs ranging from Metallica to Pearl Jam), and newer s’90s band sets that cover the Lemonheads (The Dandolions), Fountains of Wayne (Fountains of Shame), and Stone Temple Pilots (The Big Empty). The doors open at 1pm, and cover is $10.
5) Did you read this week’s music feature on Movie the Band? Not to be one of those “you kids are going places” kind of jagoffs, but I’ve listened to their Lakehaus Tapes EP at least five times in three different stages of inebriation (“sober” is stage zero, if you’re counting), and it’s my current new favorite piece of local music. You can check them out on Saturday at Republic Street Bar, when they open for Trai Bo, and Valencia Orange, which self-description reads “sad sap spoken word acoustic duo from Fort Worth, TX.” If you like sarcasm and noisy slacker jams, this show is right in your wheelhouse, I think, though Trai Bo throws down some earnestly funky grooves. Dance sarcastically if it suits you, but this bill is full of good vibes. Show is free. Here’s an informative video on Valencia oranges:
