Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Adam Bricks (rev’d!) + Bang Bangz + Black Flag Tattoo Party + Space City Beat Battle + Woodlands Waterway Arts Fest + More

Moving into Saturday, April 13th, now, and there’s still a crapload of excellent things going on. Quite a few are early in the day, for some reason, so I’m trying to get this in somewhat early, at least.

Before I get into it, though, I just wanted to say that it appears the Secondhand Serenade show that had been scheduled at one point for tonight at Warehouse Live was cancelled; sorry for the late notice on that one, folks.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here we go:

Adam Bricks (CD release)/Ancient Cat Society/Benjamin Wesley @ The Continental Club
This one’s my favorite of the evening, by quite a ways. I’ve been a fan of multi-instrumental oddball {Benjamin Wesley} for a while now — his laidback, rough-voiced, heavy-lidded indie-rock is downright mesmerizing — and while I have yet to hear {Buxton} frontman Sergio Trevino‘s {Ancient Cat Society} pseudo-side project, the guy’s a truly talented songwriter, and I’ve loved pretty much everything else he’s done.

The star of this particular show up at The Continental Club, though, is definitely headliner {Adam Bricks}; the Houston-by-way-of-NYC singer/songwriter releases his brand new full-length City Songs at tonight’s show, and after listening to it quite a bit this past week, I have to say, it’s pretty ridiculously great. Bricks is definitely a folkie, but he’s thankfully not a jangle-through-the-woods Fleet Foxes/Bon Iver retread, instead following in the footsteps of Dylan, Lou Reed, and Damien Jurado (with a fair bit of The Weakerthans thrown in, to boot).

Seriously, it’s well worth taking a listen — our full review’s up over here, so read that, then hit the show, where your $9 will get you your very own copy of the CD. Got it?

Bang Bangz @ Cactus Music (1PM)
The Wheel Workers @ Cactus Music (3PM)
Earlier in the day, there’s a freaking great twofer this afternoon at Cactus Music. Electro-soul/shoegazers {Bang Bangz} are hitting the stage right now (1PM), presumably playing songs mostly from brand-new album Red City, which is excellent and gorgeous and lush and dark all at the same time (and gives some of the same feeling that Adam Bricks’ aforementioned City Songs does, come to think of it).

Then at 3PM, {The Wheel Workers} take over, blazing through their shiny-happy-yet-subversive, politically-minded indie-drama-rock magnum opus, Past to Present, which is also freaking great; I love how the band can play these cheery, warm songs that make you want to bob your head along, but when you actually pay attention to the lyrics, you realize they’re singing about how we’re destroying the earth or how nobody should be able to dictate who you can love.

And hey, both are free-free-free, so head on up to Cactus & make an afternoon of it, eh?

Barred For Life Black Flag Tattoo Party, featuring The Ex-Girlfriends & My War! (Black Flag tribute; mem. of 500 Megatons of Boogie & Super Dragon) @ Vinal Edge (5PM)
Damn — I meant to post something separate about this, but the week got away from me, unfortunately. There’s a cool, cool thing happening this evening at the new Vinal Edge up in the Heights, for the new book (and documentary) Barred For Life: How Black Flag’s Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake.

The book was edited by H-town’s own resident punk historian, David Ensminger, and it sounds damn intriguing to me, at least — long before I had any idea who Black Flag were or what punk rock was in general, I remember kids at my high school with that immediately-recognizable four-bar tattoo on their arms, backpacks, or skateboards, and I always wondered what it meant. All I knew at the time was that kids with that symbol were kind of the wild kids at the school, the skater kids who didn’t give a fuck and got in trouble a whole lot more than I did. And then I got to college and finally heard Damaged, and it all suddenly made awesome, mind-blowing sense to me.

Anyway, to celebrate the release of the book, the store’s hosting a Black Flag Tattoo Party, where they’ll be taking pictures of any Black Flag tattoos people bring by, holding a raffle for a copy of the book, and rocking the hell out to the sounds of cool-ass local punks {The Ex-Girlfriends} and Black Flag tribute band My War (which I’m told includes members of {500 Megatons of Boogie} and Super Dragon). And yeah, it’s all for free; can’t beat that, right?

Space City Beat Battle, Episode XI: The Korg Rebellion, featuring Mr. Porter, Mr. Lee, & more @ Warehouse Live (Green Room)
I’d never try to claim to be any kind of an authority on hip-hop in this city; while I do love hip-hop in general, and I listen to as much as I can, every time I turn around there’s somebody who I really should already know about, y’know? It’s just not my area of expertise. So I tend to focus on handful of folks I really-truly like, like {Fat Tony} or {Kyle Hubbard} or, say, hasHBrown/Jett I. Masstyr (both the same guy, btw, in case you didn’t already realize it).

The latter’s kind of who I want to focus on for the moment, actually, because tonight at Warehouse Live is the latest installment (er, “Episode”) of the Space City Beat Battle, a regular throwdown where it’s producers who do the battling, not MCs. I’ve wanted to go for a while now, but sadly, I’ve never managed to make it out, and that sucks, because it sounds pretty damn fascinating.

Rather than blather on about something I’ve never been to, then, I’ll hand you off to the able Shea Serrano over at the {Houston Press} — check out the excellent interview/writeup he did on the SCBB earlier in the week.

Reality Klash! Graffiti Art Show, featuring Craig “BBC” Long, Werm One, & 312 @ Up Art Studio (6521 N. Main; 6-10PM)
Speaking sorta-kinda of hip-hop and hip-hop culture, I’ve been a huge fan of graffiti (when it’s done well, at least) since first really running across it on my first trip through England. And H-town’s no slouch in that area, not in the least. So I’m psyched to see art shows like this one where the focus is on graffiti as art — and hell, this one’s even at an actual art studio, not at some DIY artspace or something. Get on out and support real local artists.

The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival, featuring Ruthie Foster, Milton Hopkins, & Texas Johnny Brown @ Town Center (The Woodlands)
Alright, so this one’s kind of painful for me; it’s a good lineup, definitely — Ruthie Foster, in particular, is great — but I mostly remembered this particular festival because we took the kids last year, and it turned tragic on us.

For no apparent reason, our then-8-year-old daughter stopped breathing and passed out with her eyes wide open, and it was honestly the most terrifying moment of my life, period; I thought we’d just lost our little girl. Thankfully, the patrons of the festival immediately rushed to our aid, helping us get her laid down and get her airway reopened so she could come back to us — one woman we’d never met before was even able to take my wife aside and calm her down. And then the paramedics the festival had on call arrived and checked her out completely, making sure she was okay before we headed back down to our neck of the woods.

Like I said, it was truly terrifying, and I’ll always think of The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival with a little bit of a shiver because of it, but at the same time, it showed us how kind and compassionate and amazing everyday people can be, even when they don’t know you from anybody. If those festival-goers hadn’t dropped what they were doing and helped us, our daughter might not be here today. To all those people there that day last spring, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are all heroes to us.

Runners-Up:
Texas Massacre 5th Anniversary, featuring Lil Keke, K-Rino, Juan Gotti & Rasheed, Ganxsta Nip, G-Man, D-Rhisa, Kyle Hubbard, Chieff Renzo, Anal Punishment, Landfill, & DJ Def-Tone @ Fitzgerald’s
Born From Ruins/Lost Element/Sound Kinetic/Bullet Cell/Brothers Grymn @ House of Blues
Fucktard/Black Market Prophets/Greedy Mouth/H.R.A./Garbage Dump @ Ballistics Skate House (807 Williams; $5)
Soul Sessions, featuring A Fistful of Soul @ MKT Bar (1001 Austin; 8-11PM)
Junior Brown @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Threadbelly/The Medicine Years/The Minx Delilah @ Rudyard’s
Kristine Mills @ Winestyles The Vintage (10300 Louetta)
Good Job Underground/Hounds of Jezebel/Dead Man’s Ransom/The Vehement Burn/North Til Dawn @ Fitzgerald’s
Luau Bash, featuring The Space Rockers, D.R.U.M., Fondue Monks, DJ Bizz, & DJ Senega @ The West End (5320 Westheimer)
Third Annual Kemah Crawfish Festival, featuring The Fab 5, Grateful Geezers, Bayou Roux, Ezra Charles, Trick Dog, & more @ Under Kemah Bridge (Kemah)
Ja-Ga Reggae Festival, featuring Freddie McGregor, Error Lee & The Bare Essential Band, Music Spirit USA, DJ Hummingbird, DJ Tony 4 Real, Tessanne Chin, Paul Notch South, Mikey Faith, Galaxy Band, Neutral Sister, Toney Campbell, Peacemaker Sound, Shereal Starr, Soulfiya & The Black Lung Crew, & Illusha @ 2100 Seawall Blvd. (Galveston; 12-11:45PM)