Saturday, August 30
Born Liars/ No Talk

No band in Houston spits and screams out rock and roll more than the Born Liars. If you read our interview of them a few months back, you’ll know that they are just as smart and funny as they are boisterous and rowdy live. At their best, a Born Liars show is something that should probably leave you a bit bruised and a bit hungover but that’s OK. You want cerebral “Rock and Roll” go see Steely Dan. You want to go see kitchy boys making terrible by the numbers music then Bayou Fest will, for the most part, fill that niche. Now, if you want Rock and Fucking Roll that spits whiskey in your face, goes off the rails, and demands you not sit on your ass, this is where you want to be. But like any spotlighted show it’s the complete bill that gets us up in arms and Ex-Insect Warfare Beau Beasely’s local retro 80’s Texas punk band No Talk opens. Melissa Launchambon described them as “badass” and said they are “Testeroni - like punk pasta.” The question we all really want answered is “How many Tom of Finland books does Beau own?”

Friday, August 29 -

Indian Jewelry/Dizzy Pilot/The Wiggins
@ The Mink
Triple Scoop of great local bands. The tribal Indian Jewelry’s new album Free Gold is so freaking epic in its awesomeness that the earth trembles under us when we play it on the massive Free Press sound system. Dizzy Pilot’s last EP was a mixed bag but when it hit its marks - take the pitch perfect Heart of a Hurricane - the band proved is could implode your brain and leave you collapsed on the floor drooling. To complete the triple action is The Wiggins whose one man show is still one of this cities best. I guess you could describe it as the kind of low-fi drum machine fueled garagey pop-psyche you’d hear as you are being sucked through a black hole and into a world where chipmunks rule.

Oldies Fest, featuring
The Mighty Hannibal, Barbara Lynn, Archie Bell
@ The Continental Club
The Mighty Hannibal is freaking amazing Atlanta R&B; but throw in a dash of “The Queen of Gulf Coast Soul Blues” and then Tighten Up with Archie Bell and you have one incredible show!!!! Seriously having this right next to the Mink show is just torture…maybe I’ll just run between venues.

Together We Are Instruments / Awake / Thomas Ayersol / J. Thelonious
@ Avant Garden (8pm)
A solid night of experimental music. Together We Are Instruments’ clever beats, lovely interplay, and smart textures make experimental music very easy to digest and that’s no insult. Awake falls under the same category but imagine the more serious minded elder brother.

The Octopus Project/Diagonals/Electric Attitude
@ Warehouse Live

Smile, The Octopus Project is in town - a band whose smart bouncy electronic pop gives Austin a good name.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers/Steve Winwood
@ Cythnia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
A pretty solid classic rock show. Sure Tom Petty for the most part lost it for me once he began collaborating with Jeff Lynn but his 70’s and a good portion of the 80’s material is great stuff and Mike Campbell is a guitarist who I’ve always enjoyed found to be underrated. Chris Gray is already camping out I hear.

G.B.H./Whole Wheat Bread/Krum Bums/Antidote/Dreadful Children
@ The Meridian (6:30PM)
Damn, I looked everywhere in the house but damned if I can’t find it. Anyhow somewhere in my old stacks of crap is my first concert ticket - the Dead Kennedys and Charged GBH at the 1983 summer slam-a-thon. So,m naturally seeing GBH still at it is gonna make me smile.

Metal Madness Massacre, featuring
Cerebral Rot, The Brilliance of Suffering, Blood Divine, Crimson Offering, & Fleshhook
@ F.B.I. Rock Club #2
Metal band names rule! If I ruled a country, all parents would have to christen their kids with Metal sounding names.

Lenny Briscoe on the KTRU Revelry Report (6pm on 91.7fm)
Tune in!

Saturday, August 30

Jeremy Enigk/Elaine Greer/Omoreka
@ Walter’s on Washington
Sunny Day Real Estate’s Jeremy Engigk is often called shoegaze but really it lush melodic pop that feels like the most comforting soft pillow at bedtime. I can’t think of a better compliment to Enigk than local chanteuse Elaine Greer whose colorful melodic work is sweet and smart.

Electric Touch/The Riff Tiffs/Jud Johnson Band
@ Warehouse Live
The Riff Tiff’s made a believer out of me recently. If all you’ve heard is their recordings, I highly recommend seeing them live for the full CinemaScope experience. Great band with few shows makes every show requisite.

Electric Touch (in-store) @ Cactus Music (4PM)
It’s free.

Saturday Secret Show
Lazy Horse/Wolves at the Door/ Georgia’s Horse
@ the Shady Tavern (2PM Free)
YES! IN YOUR FACE JD! Not so secret now, are we! Yes Lazy Fucking Horse - Garagey pop mother fuckers to the highest order. Wolves at the Door have just been accepted to the prestigious University of Low-fi Pop and are stoked for this semester’s first class - we’re rooting for them. I’ve not heard the latest incarnation of Georgia’s Horse but it’s good to know that Theresa and Tiziano are back in the saddle again making dark and textured music.

500 Megatons of Boogie/ Novox/ The New Satans / Caprolites
@PJs Sports Bar
This show just popped in our radar but briefly 500 Megatons are a hoot live and Novox are epic!

Sunday, August 31 -

Paul Collins Beat (in-store)
@ Cactus Music (3PM)

Paul Collins plays a free one before hitting the Continental Club

Power Pop Fest, featuring
Paul Collins Beat, Nikki Corvette, The Boss Martians
@ The Continental Club

Power Pop Festival I guess says it all. Paul Collins most famous outfits The Nerves (responsible for the Blondie hit Hanging on The Telephone) and The Beat (The American Beat not the English Beat) have put out some of the best examples of straight up jangly American pop. What can I say about Nikki Corvette but she’s cool. Go and read our interview with her ( Link).

House Show/Potluck, featuring
Airon Paul Dugas, Robert Ellis, Cory Derden, & AWAKE (acoustic)
@ 901 Eleanor (free, 5:30PM)
Oh sure you’ve thrown a house show before but with a Pot Luck? I don’t think so. Should be neat! Dugas does a mellow acoustic thing and I’ve yet to see Awake’s Acoustic thing but I trust it will be as cool as their electric version.

Tambersauro / The Quietest / The Pat Sajak Assassins
@ Walters On Washington
In our September issue we spotlight Tambersauro on the eve of their newest release - Theories of Delusional Origin. The Trio has for years been making some of the most amazing proggy mathrock you could hear and last year’s split 10″ even made my list of top releases of 2024. Now the band is coming out with a new album and it not only delivers on the promise of the band’s earlier recordings but expands the band’s compositional palate.

Tuesday, September 2 -

GZA @ Warehouse Live
Hi my name is Gary. You may have heard this band I was in called the Wu-Tang Clan.

Wednesday, September 3 -

Love or Perish (ex-Peechees) / The Monocles / The Carpolites
@ Dean’s Credit Clothing ($8)
Ex-Peechees Carlos Canedo’s Love or Perish is all in your face vocals and guitar with a driving beat that suggests that, live, they may just kick some serious ass. The Monocles are rock and roll fisticuffs plus they have sax on that new song on their myspace - yais! And the Caprolites? Just down and dirty garage.

//TENSE///The Factory Party/The Wiggins/A Thousand Cranes
@ The Mink
//TENSE// sounds like every awesome 80s drum machine and keyboard you ever dreamed of owning. The Factory Party have clearly studied their New Order and Joy Division. We already told you how awesome the Wiggins are. A Thousand Cranes should be reason to remember to bring errrr….the waterpipe this time.

Bleed The Sky/Gigan
@ Jet Lounge
Yuss Metal. OK check out Still Image Symphony on Gigan’s web page. That guitar is awesomeness - admit it!

Thursday, September 4
The Donkeys/Listenlisten
@ Rudyard’s
San Diego’s Donkeys play some pretty and laid back country tinged pop with sweet guitars and nice vocals. Listenlisten’s simple rustic music should be a gorgeous understated accompaniment.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND FESTIVALS

Saturday August 30 - Monday, September 1 -
Texas 2024 Music Festival,
featuring a whole latta bands like
The O’Jays, Maze, The Whispers, Marcia Ball, Los Lobos, and Buckwheat Zydeco
@ Eleanor Tinsley Park

Ya got yr Gospel, Smoove Jazz, Soul, Zydeco, Conjunto, and it’s got the O’Jays which makes me say “Hell yeah bring on the vintage Soul Train dance footage!!!!
..

Friday, August 29 Monday September 1 -
Rock The Bayou,

featuring a crapload of bands like

Queensryche, Ratt, Skid Row, Y & T, Lynch Mob, Faster Pussycat / Sammy Hagar, Lita Ford, Dokken, Great White, Enuff Z’nuff, Bullet Boys / Alice Cooper, Warrant, Yngwie Malmsteen, Slaughter, L.A. Guns, Dangerous Toys, Lillian Axe / Bret Michaels, Twisted Sister, Jackyl, KIX, Firehouse

I will give Sammy Hagar some love - the guy writes some crap but then occasionally kicks out a great rock song (Rock Candy alone gives him immunity for life). Of course Alice Cooper is OK and Twisted Sister always had the smarts to play it dumb and with a sense of humor but to be honest most of this is like the grand collection of lame 80’s metal LA crap. Fuck Brett Michaels and Poison, it was crap then and it’s crap now. More power to him if he can score a paycheck on VH1 but please let’s face facts - Poison sucked then and they suck now. Yngwei Malmsteen to me was always the epitome of souless guitar histrionics where people are more impressed by technique no matter how poorly written the mateiral or how souless the performer. At least Whorehound and the Hates are playing.