1) MASS’s (1002 S Main) Friday night banger is, well, it’s bangin’ – for one thing, it’s headlined by Sub-Sahara (aka my new favorite band), but the middle slots of the four-band bill are filled by Dallas-based, surf-rock blasters Sealion and All Clean, the industrial-influenced project from Oil Boom guitarist and Son of Stan drummer Zach Edwards. As if that weren’t enough to get you in the door, party punkers Teenage Sexx open the show. Doors are at 8, it’s 18+, and cover is $8. Here’s Sealion at Trees from back in July:
2) Lola’s Saloon (2736 6th) has a Friday night rock party that’s also tough to beat: psychedelic pop band The Hendersons headline, with the prog-influenced, blues shredding rock act Arenda Light in the middle slot, and the futuristic disco rock of Vodeo in the opening slot, which, as you probably guessed, is 10pm. Cover is unspecified, but if you go to Lola’s regularly, you can probably guess what it’ll be, too. This Arenda Light video dates back to December of last year, and I bet when members of Arenda Light watch it, they think, “Wow, hard to believe that was that long ago!” That’s what I think when I watch old videos of my bands, anyway:
3) Shipping and Receiving (201 S Calhoun) gets irie on Saturday with Pablo and the Hemphill 7, Lion Eye, Idol Job, and Denver, CO’s Project 432. This is an outdoor reggae show, with temps in the low 70s. What more do you need to know about that? 21+, cover is a reasonable amount in US dollars. The show starts at 8pm.
4) Roots-rocking songwriter Rodney Parker has a solo show on Saturday along with Americana troubadour Charlie Shafter at Fort Worth Live (306 Houston St); Parker put out an excellent album last year called Bomber Heights, so I imagine you’ll hear a lot of that, but last time I spoke to him about his music, he said we was writing some new stuff, so I bet he throws some of that in his set, too. The all-ages show is $6 and it starts at 8pm. Here’s Rodney Parker with his band, 50 Peso Reward from a Lubbock show in 2013:
5) Team to Beat Show of the Week Alert (after the following bit of backstory): If you grew up in the ’70s or ’80s in a born-again Christian family, you were probably exposed to PTL, the evangelical Christian TV network founded by televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. In 1987, the Bakker’s opulent lifestyle crumbled when Jim was forced to resign amid charges of both embezzlement and rape, eventually getting convicted of 24 counts of fraud in 1988, which earned him a 45-year federal prison sentence and a half-million-dollar fine. Ultimately, Bakker served five years of his sentence before getting paroled, but the scandals would cost him pretty much everything, ending his marriage and estranging him from his son, Jay.
In the wake of Jim Bakker’s downfall, Jay became disillusioned with the Christian fundamentalism he was raised in, and as a young adult, he did what many young adults struggling with the absurdities of a faith-centric childhood do: lots of drugs. But eventually, Jay Bakker rediscovered Christianity on his own terms, embracing a liberal interpretation of acceptance, forgiveness, and inclusion. And now, 30 years after the collapse of his parents’ fraudulent ministry, he’s on a standup comedy tour called Loosen the Bible Belt: A Tour for Humanity, which, in a serendipitously appropriate bit of scheduling, comes to MASS on Sunday night.
Besides Bakker, the Loosen the Bible Belt show stars three other comedians: Kristen Becker, known for founding the Dykes of Hazzard comedy tour and her LGBTQ activism; former bartender/current joke-slinger Meghan Deponceau; and Ms. SarahMarie Rose, whose weapon of choice is a ukulele. As a bonus, a portion of the proceeds goes to groups working to ensure all southern citizens have access to equal rights. The show is 18+, and tickets are $10; doors are at 8, and the show starts at 9pm. Kristen Becker has some opinions on Barbie, seen here in this video:
FULL DISCLOSURE/WRITER BIO ALERT: per editorial suggestion, in addition to writing about music and other shit for the FW Weekly, I am an investor in a venue/bar called Main at Southside, colloquially known as MASS. I also bartend at the Boiled Owl Tavern, a bar that also hosts shows a few times a month. And, since we’re on the subject of warning you against what may be perceived as my own icky, unseemly self-promotion and/or conflicts of interest, I play bass in the following bands: Oil Boom, Son of Stan, Darth Vato. Sometimes I talk about one or more of those entities in this space, but I assure you that it has very little to do with my own vested interests; it just happens that the aforementioned venues and bands are part of the Fort Worth music scene, and this music scene is something I care very passionately about, as I have been part of it since 2002.
