Tonight: Grandfather Child(!) + Luke Franks Or The Federalists + Little Joe + Fat Tony + More

Thursday night coming up, and there’s some good stuff going on, so I didn’t want to miss it again in the weekly run-down of Cool Shows to See or Dwell in Suckland. Ignore the ominously dark clouds overhead & get on out tonight:

29-95.com Presents, featuring Grandfather Child & Beetle @ The Continental Club
The big, big, big show of ’em all, at least to me. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Grandfather Child was probably the coolest damn band I caught at the Free Press Summerfest back during those sunnier, hot-as-fuck months. They play like a tent-revival on mescaline, with frontman Lucas Gorham stomping and howling and wailing away on his lap steel while his bandmates blaze away like they’re having the time of their lives. Seriously: go see this band. You won’t be disappointed, honest.

Luke Franks Or The Federalists/David Ramirez/Chris Hawkes/Jaimee Harris @ Bohemeo’s
Kind of a surprise, this one… I got sent a copy of Luke Franks Or The Federalists‘ new album, The Way We Were, and while I dug into it too late to write the thing up for tonight, I’m enjoying the gentle, warm-edged roots-folk-pop these California boys make, evoking Townes Van Zandt, a Westernized Nick Drake, or the less-experimental side of Wilco. Delicately jangly, beautifully-written songs that grab hold pretty much immediately and make you feel like you’ve listened to the band for years & years (see “Over, It’s Over,” in particular). And that’s no bad thing, in my book.

Fat Tony @ Willy’s Pub (Rice University campus)
Speaking of the Summerfest, rapper Fat Tony was one of the acts I sadly only got to see bits & pieces of, but damn, what I did hear was pretty mind-blowing. I think he’s currently at the top of my own personal heap of H-town hip-hop acts, and I say that never having heard a whole damn album. Smart, funny, geeky, sarcastic hip-hop with a seriously cool sense of the way things should fit together.

Crossing Togo @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
I’d been hearing of Crossing Togo a little while now but hadn’t really given ’em much thought beyond how odd their name was, I’m afraid. After hearing some of the band’s debut(?), Of Love, Scorn & Insecurity, though, I’m finding myself a bit more intrigued. They’re not fully clicking with me yet, but I find myself humming along with their jangle-pop-meets-world music groove, which reminds me of a prettier, less gritty Citizen Cope or Everlast. Kind of odd that they’re playing the Mucky Duck, but hey, it sounds like it could be a good show…

Little Joe Washington/Capybara/Free Radicals @ Mango’s
A last-minute change, this one looks like — the bill was originally just KC-dwellers Capybara, who I dunno from anybody but who sound nicely playful and intriguing in an indie-pop way, and now excellent local jazz tribe Free Radicals are opening, with legendarily erratic, strange, and cool Houston bluesman Little Joe Washington headlining out the night. Always entertaining.

Runners-Up:
Hatebreed/Cannibal Corpse/Unearth/Born Of Osiris/Hate Eternal @ The Meridian
Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights @ House of Blues

Back with more soon…