1) Welp, it’s weed day, and holy shit, Sleep has a new album out! It’s called The Sciences, and it’s available for streaming and downloading at the usual spots. On a local level, Lola’s (2736 6th St) is celebrating the international stoner holiday with the third annual Fort Worth 420, a festival featuring Quaker City Nighthawks (outdoor stage, 10pm), Sally Majestic (indoor stage, 11pm), Royal Sons (outdoor, 9pm), and seven other bands. Okay fine, here are the other bands in somewhat random order: Calliope Musicals (10pm, indoors), Scott Copeland with Joe Savage and Tommy Luke (outdoor, 11:15), Ryan Tharp (outdoor, 8pm), Shadows of Jets (outdoor, 7pm), Cut Throat Finches (outdoor, 6pm), Dead Vinyl (outdoor, 5pm), and Matt Tedder Trio (outdoor, 4pm). Smoke ’em if you got ’em, or if you are not on probation, but don’t be dumb about it so as to get someone else in trouble. There will be “interesting” vendors selling what I assume are weed-related things, food for purchase, and the cover for the whole thing is $20. Here’s QCNH playing “Rattlesnake Boogie” in Waco last summer:
2) Head to Three Links (2704 Elm, Dallas) Dallas on Friday and Saturday for Ska by SkaWest IV. I don’t need to explain what that name means. Friday’s bands: The Holophonics, Shaka, Los Kurados, How’s My Driving, The Broke$, Johnny’s Big Red Rocket, The Fullstops. Saturday’s bands: Abraskadabara, Matamoska, Madaline, Behind Deadlines (wow, a name I can really relate to!), The Land Before Tim (haha, good one, guys), Hans Gruber and the Diehards, Flip and the Combined Effort (I don’t wanna look, but I bet there are a zillion horns in this band), The Big News, Zero 2 Panic, Stinky Gringos, Mad Dog and the 20/20s, and Expresión Clandestina. Friday’s doors are at 7 and bands start at 8; doors to Saturday’s hep-hep-hepping are at 2 and the upstrokes start at 3pm. Two-day wristbands are $35 a pop, or, if you can only handle that much ska for a single day, Friday is $15 and Saturday is $22. Both days are all-ages, and you can buy your tickets here. This is a video of the Toasters, who are probably my favorite ska band of all time; they’re not playing Ska by Skawest, but they are playing Lola’s on June 1:
3) I can blame some of the time spent linking all those ska bands on my slow-ass laptop, but the process literally took eight entire minutes of my life, so I hope you click on at least three of them. Anyway, another 420 show in Dallas that’s worth your while is Acid Carousel, Majik Taylor, and an “exclusive DJ set” from Who Cares at Transit Bicycle Co. (1915 Greenville, Dallas). I have a feeling Acid Carousel is on their way to becoming a much bigger deal before too long, so catch their fuzzy, psychedelic garage rock act at these small shows before you have to shell out big bucks for tickets to some festival you don’t really want to go to in order to see them. Here’s Acid Carousel performing at some psychedelic party in Austin:
4) Herb Alpert tribute act A Taste of Herb is playing at the Common Table (2917 Fairmount St) in Dallas on Saturday night at 10:30. It’s 21+, and I’d would love to see the young and Uptown-y act baffled by mid-century pop-jazz. I’d also love to hear Herb Alpert songs played live. The reactions of a bunch of recent SMU alumns are kinda just icing on the cake. Or whipped cream, if you catch my drift. Here’s Herb playing “Whipped Cream” in 1966:
5) Oh god, here comes a thousand more links, but support local music, right? Especially if it’s sold in a local record store. Saturday is Record Store Day, and both Doc’s and Dreamy Life are having parties. Doc’s (2628 Weisenberger) party is basically a grand opening, and the bands start at noon; the lineup looks like this: Cosmic Creeps at noon, Ashes at 1pm, Elise Amara at 2, FOGG at 3, Whiskey Folk Ramblers at 4, and Oil Boom at 5pm. As for Dreamy Life (1310 W Allen), their Record Store Day show starts at 1pm, and their bands begin at 2 with Mañana Cowboy, followed on the hour by Party Static, Lizzie Boredom, The Prof. Fuzz ’63, Big Heaven, Sub-Sahara, and War Party in the headlining spot. Both events are all-ages and free. I didn’t know this, but there’s an Atari 2600 game called the Cosmic Creeps:
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.
