Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Deftones + Mikey & The Drags + The Handshake + SHFL 10-Year Anniversary + Ragged Hearts + More

Next day of the weekend today, with Saturday, March 30th, and it’s kind of on the crazy side tonight; there’s a ton of stuff going on. Here we go:

Deftones @ Bayou Music Center
Oh, yes. I can’t skip the one & only of the whole crop of nu-metal bands that didn’t (and still doesn’t) blow goats — okay, maybe them and fellow Sacramento band Far were worth listening to, but they didn’t survive nearly as long. Deftones have remained reliably great for 20 freaking years now, long, long after the bulk of their compatriots have faded into deserved obscurity, and in the process they’ve created their own special breed of loud, raw, yet undeniably atmospheric and lush heavy rock.

Mikey & The Drags (7″ release)/Psychic Palms/Grandfather Child/Springfield Riots/A Fist Full of Soul @ Mango’s (free!/$5)
I’ve been wanting to check out Mikey & The Drags for a while now, ever since frontman Miguel Ponce (aka Mikey Drag) let me know what he’d been up to after old band The McKenzies went the way of the dodo. Sadly, I feel like hammered crap right now and fighting off some sort of nasty cold/flu (Valley Fever, maybe), so it’s looking like tonight won’t be that night. Argh.

But hey, at least now I’ve got the band’s brand-new 7″, “Spill Your Guts”/”Solstice,” to tide me over. It’s freaking great, just classic, retro-yet-clean garage-rock that’s less punk and more straight-up classic pop-rock/power-pop, with an awesome organ sound that makes me think of ? & The Mysterians more than anything else, albeit with the aggro edge of, say, The Sonics. Check out the full review here…

Anyway, the band’s officially releasing the 7″ tonight up at Mango’s, and they’re bringing along a great bunch of friends to help out, including the Lucas Gorham-led neo-blues-soul outfit {Grandfather Child}, {Psychic Palms}, DJing by Stewart from A Fistful of Soul, and the maybe-reunited psych-pop-fuzz band {Springfield Riots}. Don’t miss out, y’all.

The Handshake/Square and Compass/MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR/Deep Cuts @ Walter’s ($7)
Okay, sure, there are a few other alternatives, like, say, this one over at Walter’s. For starters, there’s proto-emo badasses {Square and Compass}, who’re like a more-modern, catchier Braid, and whose How to Escape is very cool.

Then there’s headliners {The Handshake}, a band I seriously need to hear more of; from what I have heard, from the band’s American Arguments EP, they’re like a strange, cool cross between early, The Bends-era Radiohead and jangly, road-worn Americana. Check ’em out for yourself:

Oh, and there’s also Austin band MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR (the caps are apparently required?) and locals {Deep Cuts}. Looks good to me…

Super Happy Fun Land 10 Year Anniversary, featuring Muzak John, Rusted Shut, The Annoysters, Organ Failure, Ak’chamel, Nick Greer, Days N’ Daze, Concrete Violin, Black Magic Marker, Nonsense Music Band, PSA, The Southmore House Presents, Caleb Fraid, Poopy Lungstuffing, Clockpole, & Free Radicals @ Super Happy Fun Land
Hooray for the Land of the Super Happy; long may she endure. Hard to believe it’s only been 10 years; it feels like the place has been around forever…

I honestly love this place, and it fills a great, great niche in this city’s scene, serving as a quirky, oddball, loosey-goosey antidote to “real” clubs like Fitz or out-and-out bars like Rudyard’s. I hope Brian Arthur & Olivia Dvorak, the duo behind the venue/artspace both in its old-school Heights location and the “new” location up near downtown, keep it going for a long, long time to come.

And hey, tonight’s celebration includes some truly cool folks, like folk-punks Days N’ Daze, Dvorak’s own ukelele-playing {Poopy Lungstuffing} alter ego, jazz/funk/marching band icons {Free Radicals}, utterly insane noisemaker {Muzak John}, and yes, vitriolic, drunken, in-your-face rawk dudes {Rusted Shut}. Get on up there and raise a glass or three.

Rich Hopkins & The Luminarios/Ragged Hearts @ Rudyard’s
I’m not real familiar with Tucson-bred Rich Hopkins & The Luminarios, I’m afraid, but I’m definitely familiar with {Ragged Hearts}; when I first encountered the band, they looked like a gaggle of glam-rock refugees (which, frankly, may have been the case), but the music they played was closer to Social Distortion’s country-ish moments, or Lucero, but crossed with The Kinks, and it was damn good.

I haven’t heard anything new from the band since 2007’s Her Bright White Light, so I was psyched to learn that they’ll finally be recording their second album this summer. Holy freaking hell yes, folks.

Ruiners @ Khon’s (2808 Milam)
Talked about these guys a little while back, and I’m still damn, damn impressed; they do an awesomely noisy kind of ’90s-sounding indie-rock, the kind done by folks like Superchunk or Sebadoh in their prime, and I’m psyched as hell to see what they do going forward. Oh, and they’ve apparently got a music video on the way for personal-fave song “One,” so keep an eye out for that.

Brothers Grymn/Lower Life Form/Full Service/Truck Stop Assassins/Kyle Hubbard @ Fitzgerald’s
And last but not least, a cool lineup that includes a couple of the best underground-ish rappers in town, namely {Lower Life Form} — who I thought had broken up, for some reason — and the sharp-yet-personal, talented-as-hell {Kyle Hubbard} (seriously, You’re Not That Special is pretty great), as well as rap-rockers {Brothers Grymn}, who I have yet to hear but about whom I keep hearing good things…

Runners-Up:
Southern Culture on the Skids/Clouseaux/Morry Sochat/Allen Oldies Band @ The Continental Club
Iskallt Regn/Agatha/The Ex-Girlfriends @ East Side Social Center (4202 Canal)
Blaggards @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar
Krudas Cubensi/DJ Gracie Chavez/Fawksie One/Nite N Dae/Rain Flowa/Ashlei Mayadia/Hummingbird Moon Sis*stars/DJ Esteff @ The White Swan
Nightlife, featuring Ceeplus Bad Knives, Mr. Castillo, Brandon Duhon, & DJ Scorpio @ Clutch City Squire (410 Main)
Blue October @ Sam Houston Race Park
Selkie, a sea tale, featuring Misha Penton & Divergence Vocal Theater @ 4411 Montrose Special Events Gallery (4411 Montrose)