1) Get your fix for live versions of songs you’ve heard a million times on Friday night as Steely Dan tribute band Naked Lunch performs at Dan’s Silver Leaf in Denton. Though I engage in the practice of recommending tribute shows out from time to time, I’m not crazy about it, because these things tend to bring people no matter what. But this is a band playing Steely Dan songs, so I am behind it whole-heartedly. Moreover, this show is dedicated to the Dan’s late, great, co-founder Walter Becker, who died in September. Cover is $15, and doors are at 7pm. This band is crewed by some real pros, and seeing as how Steely Dan is often thought of as the ultimate “dad band,” Naked Lunch’s roster is as dadly (and momly, because backup singers) as can be. Check out them doing “Peg” on Fox 4 nine years ago:
2) The Rail (3101 Joyce) has (wait for it) A METAL SHOW on Friday night. No fewer than six bands will take the West Side heavy metal mainstay’s stage, which suggests to me that the event starts at 6pm, unless these bands get like 20-minute sets and everything is backlined, which I am dubious of, because if there’s a musician that is a stickler for using his or her own gear, he or she is probably in a metal band, and even more likely the drummer, and drummers take forever to set their shit up. But as local fans are wont to point out on Facebook, people like me often don’t know anything about what we’re talking about. Those people are probably right, because the West Side metal scene often seems as insular and mysterious and different than the rest of the city’s as one of those hidden Amazon tribes is from Rio de Jinero’s upper crust. And boy are my cumbersome analogy circuits on fire today! Here’s the lineup: Rabid Flesh Eaters, Wake the Fear, Fist Full of War, Vivid and Vulgar, Legion of Doom, and Coilback. Correction: this show starts at 7pm; Coilback is written in the smallest font on the flyer, so I bet they start the show; RFE’s name is the biggest, so I presume they are the headliners. Tickets are $12 at the door. This video is of Rabid Flesh Eaters playing at the Rail Club four years ago:
3) And speakin’ of West Side Metal, the Ridglea Lounge (6025 Camp Bowie) hosts stoner metal bands Stone Machine Electric, Orcanaut, and Slow Salvation, also on Friday. Doors are at 8, and cover is $8. Stone Machine Electric practices, as evidenced in this video:
4) Holy shit, there’s a house show in Fort Worth on Saturday night, an event as rare as a tornado in California. In both cases, I’m always surprised, but in the former, I always wish that it’s the beginning of a trend. That’s not that funny of a metaphor because tornados are scary and destructive and loud, though if you live next to house that holds house shows, the comparison might actually be appropriate. Or not – this place apparently holds shows once a month. Anyhow, House of the Rising Thumb (3252 McCart) has an all-ages, four-band bill on Saturday night: Deryel Sellers at 8pm, Jesse Gage at 9pm, Big Heaven (the band Gage has with Crystal Furs’ Mandy Hand) at 10pm, and Manana Cowboy at 11. The event info is otherwise scant, so I don’t know what the cover/suggested donation is, but fun like this is usually affordable. Here’s a video of popular, white-boy reggae band Slightly Stoopid playing a house party eight years ago:
5) Three Links (2704 Elm Street, Dallas) has Punk Rock Karaoke Saturday night. This is probably fun if you’re drunk and love the Dropkick Murphys or a nightmare if you are the exact opposite of that description. Free to attend, 21+
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, as well as Off the Record, which hosts DJ events, some of which I play records at. 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 have played bass in the following bands for various stretches of time: Oil Boom, Son of Stan, Vorvon, Epic Ruins, Kevin Aldridge and the Appraisers, and 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 or ego-riffic lapses of nostalgia; it just happens that the aforementioned venues and bands are or have been part of the Fort Worth music scene, and this music scene is something I care very passionately about, having participated in it since 2002. Peace, love, and crabs.
