Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: !Yes Indeed! Fest + American Sharks + Illegal Wiretaps + Wine Fest + Touche Amore + More

And now, on to today — Saturday, September 29th — and holy crap, there’s a lot going on. Seriously, there’s so much happening this afternoon/evening that I’m pretty sure I’m actually missing a bunch of it. Damn.

Let’s get to it, then; here’s alllllll the cool stuff I know about that’s going on today. Read, and be amazed:

!Yes Indeed! Music Fest, featuring The Fox Derby, duneTX, Jealous Creatures, Alkari, A Sundae Drive, The Ex-Optimists, The Gold Sounds, The Wrong Ones, Bantam Foxes, Anomic, Antiques, Immigrant Punk, Charity Ann, Recovery Room, Empty Shells, Screwtape, & Bernal & Sherrill @ Dean’s & Notsuoh (4PM-2AM)
We’ve already talked a fair bit about this one, I know, but dammit, it bears repeating: this is going to be a great show. See here, here, here, & here for some of the other stuff we’ve written, btw.

There’re a ton of bands I like — {The Fox Derby}, {Alkari}, {Jealous Creatures}, {The Gold Sounds}, {The Wrong Ones}, {A Sundae Drive}, & The Ex-Optimists — plus a bunch I’m psyched to maybe-hopefully see — Bantam Foxes, {Screwtape}, and Immigrant Punk, for three.

I’m hoping to be able to make it up to Dean’s & Notsuoh for a little while tonight, but we’ve got family in town, so it’s still a little up in the air, unfortunately. sigh. Might try to drag my antisocial little brother up there…

American Sharks/Cartright/Sleuth/The Flesh Lights @ Walter’s
I’ve wanted to see {American Sharks} for quite a while now, even before frontman Mike Hardin‘s shift northwestwards to Austin — they’re awesomely raw and heavy, totally stripped of the glam stuff that Hardin’s old band Roky Moon & BOLT! had, just flat-out rawk & roll. So I’m glad to see the band’s back in town, even if briefly. Heard good things about Austinites The Flesh Lights and Sleuth, too.

New York City Queens @ Heights Vinyl (4PM)
Seen the {New York City Queens} a few times recently, and despite my initial skepticism, I’m more and more impressed every time. For as young a band as they are, they’re remarkably tight and fully fleshed-out in terms of their sound, and with this year’s Burn Out Like Roman Candles, their songwriting has improved even from the darn-good debut of Somewhere Different, Something New. Catch them while you can.

Clory Martin/The Illegal Wiretaps/Devil Killing Moth @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar
Glad to see those guys in {The Illegal Wiretaps} playing again — the music they make is simultaneously strange/off-putting and mesmerizing (check out the review of their most recent, Jesus, What Have You Done?, over here) — and I dig folky singer-songwriter {Clory Martin}, as well, having heard her quite a bit recently. I have yet to see {Devil Killing Moth}, but I’ve heard some really good stuff about ’em, too.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, featuring My Education @ Discovery Green (8PM; free!)
Like the {Two Star Symphony} thing from a while back, Austin spacerockers My Education will be up at Discovery Green to perform the soundtrack they’ve composed for the silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans — which Daniel Yuan reviewed back in 2010, right over here. The film’s from the 20s, and I’ve got zero idea what it’s about, but the soundtrack is pretty awesome on its own, and the My Education guys are one hell of a band.

Houston Wine Fest, featuring The Tontons, Tianna Hall, Zwee, John Wayne Schultz, Tanika Keys, The Journey Agents, Dana Abbott, Electric Attitude, the last place you look, Tax the Wolf, Autumn Stay, & Tory Tompkins @ Tranquility Park (12-10PM)
I swear, it’s like Festival Day today… This one also looks pretty damn good, with several of my favorite folks in town playing, including psych-soul-rockers {The Tontons}, down-n-dirty funk/pop band {Electric Attitude}, badass post-emo rockers {the last place you look}, and heavy/proggy, Latin-tinged rock guys {Tax the Wolf}. And hey, there’s also wine, apparently. I don’t drink the stuff, it’s true, but I know a great many people who do, including the wonderful woman to whom I am married. So there you go…

Circa Survive/Touche Amore/O’Brother/Balance and Composure @ House of Blues
I caught Touche Amore at this year’s Summerfest, not really knowing what to expect but going off of Tommy from {Square and Compass} and some half-remembered writeups I’d seen, and they surprised the hell out of me. They were honestly one of the most energetic live acts I saw all weekend, despite the late-afternoon heat. Frontman Jeremy Bolm, in particular, was pretty mesmerizing to watch, and the band played the post-screamo stuff they do like a band a full decade older. Recommended.

Red Wanting Blue/Jerad Finck/Runaway Sun @ House of Blues (Bronze Peacock Room)
Red Wanting Blue are pretty new to me, I have to admit, but I’m liking ’em quite a bit just on a relatively quick listen. They play a nicely low-key kind of Americana pop, the kind The Gin Blossoms and Buffalo Tom essentially crafted back in the ’90s (and that Blackpool Lights nearly revived a few years back).

Take a listen to “Audition,” off From The Vanishing Point, right here:

Red Wanting Blue – “Audition”

Oh, and they’re playing with local boys {Runaway Sun}, too, which is nice — they’re a damned promising group, themselves…

Runners-Up:
Florence + the Machine/Maccabees @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
B.E. Godfrey/Emily Scott/Adam Bricks/Warbler Pl @ La Carafe (813 Congress)
Space City Beat Battle, featuring Ski Beatz, Beanz N Kornbread, Paul Wall, iPod Ammo, DJ Arsnik, & a bunch of up-and-coming DJs @ Warehouse Live (Green Room)
Dash Rip Rock/Life As Lions/Dead to the World/Burn The Boats @ The Continental Club
No Power Fest III, featuring Ghost Mouse, Inky Skulls, Mitch The Champion, Saw Wheel, Days N’ Daze, & more @ East Side Social Center (2-11:45PM; $5)
Weird Party @ Cactus Music (3PM)
Mia Borders @ Shakespeare’s Pub (14129 Memorial)
Adelaine @ George R. Brown Convention Center
Kevin Kendrick/Nathan Quick @ The Big Top
Building Temples From Death Fest 2012, featuring Disgorge, Putrid Pile, Embalmer, Ingurgitate, Devour The Unborn, Sacrificial Slaughter, Uncleansed, Despise the Sun, Execration, Hod, Isolation In Infamy, Forged in Gore, Extremely Rotten, Ominous, Spectral Manifest, Funeral Rites, Flesh Hoarder, Madrost, & Whore of Bethlehem @ Fitzgerald’s (12PM-2AM)
Poor Dumb Bastards/The Dollyrockers @ Rudyard’s
Blaggards @ Molly Malone’s (Spring)
Jesse Dayton @ Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe (Galveston)
Marcia Ball @ Dosey Doe Coffee Company (The Woodlands)