Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: the last place you look + Haute Wheels + Dawes + Kid Congo Powers + Bayou City Art Fest + For The Community VI + Cameo + Shellee Coley + More

Yeah, it’s a hot-yet-stormy Saturday (October 12th), and what that means, unfortunately, is that there’s a lot of awesome-sounding stuff going on…and I’m not sure what has or hasn’t been rained out yet. Your mileage may vary, alright?:

the last place you look/Nothingmore/Downfall 2012/Six Gun Sound @ Fitzgerald’s
We’re going to start off with the band that’s probably the best — to my mind, anyway — loud, guitar-heavy, alterna-rock-ish outfit this city has going, {the last place you look}. Nava & his crew are loud and raw but amazingly tuneful and melodic and emo-tinged at the same time, and holy fuck, I love pretty much everything they do. Their last release, 2009’s See the Light Inside You, is a flat-out classic of sincere, thoughtful, raging emo-rock goodness, and it kills me that four years on, we still haven’t seen their followup.

Granted, I know they’ve had a handful of lineup changes, but I got a chance to hear a couple of early mixes two years(!) ago now, and they were freaking great…and then, nada. I know the band’s still hard at work, and they’ve been touring relentlessly this past year, but still — make it happen, y’all, please?

Haute Wheels Houston, featuring Craig Kinsey, Electric Attitude, & Journey Agents @ Houston Community College Southwest (5601 West Loop South Freeway; 12-5PM)
And here’s the first of the “Is it still happening, even in the downpour?” festival-type shows going on today… I sincerely hope it’s still going on, because the whole Haute Wheels Houston thing is pretty cool — I love the idea of all those food trucks in one place for people to check out, and of course, the bands are pretty great, too. Today’s lineup includes gritty funk/soul gang {Electric Attitude}, who are like a cross between ’70s throwback funk and Franz Ferdinand (in a good way, mind you), and {Craig Kinsey}, the rough-voiced frontman of the Sideshow Tramps and a damn fine troubadour in his own right. Brave the rain, have some good truck food, and enjoy some cool music…

Dawes/Jason Isbell @ Warehouse Live
Funny; it just occurred to me that there’re only a couple of “non-Houston” shows on my list of cool stuff for tonight. This definitely deserves a spot, though, because Dawes are pretty excellent. I didn’t have much clue who they were before they popped up on the list for FPSF this year, but once I heard ’em, I was immediately fairly impressed.

When I saw them live, that impression pretty well exploded; not that they were bad, at all, but because they were damn good. Up on that stage in the fading summer sun, they blew me away with their Eagles-meets-Fleetwood Mac sound, a sound that’s folky and warm and gorgeous and somehow distinctly Californian. They were a little goofy up on the stage, to be sure, but hell, with music like that I didn’t even mind.

Kid Congo Powers & The Pink Monkey Birds/Weird Party/The Wind Ups @ Rudyard’s
Whoa. If you don’t know who Kid Congo is, then I’m afraid your knowledge of punk rock’s illustrious history has some major, major holes in it. From co-founding The Gun Club with Jeffrey Lee Pierce back in the late ’70s and then hooking up with The Cramps after that, the man’s had an indelible handprint on that weird, rockabilly-tinged side of the American punk scene. I can’t claim to’ve heard anything by Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, his most recent band, but I’m damned optimistic that it’ll be good.

Plus, they’re playing with H-town’s own band of edge-of-punk weirdballs, {Weird Party}, who are messy and sharp-edged like a rusty knife in the back while you’re taking a shit. I know, I know, that sounds terribly, but trust me, it’s badass.

Bayou City Art Festival, featuring Bombon, Kashmere Stage Band, The Suffers, 10YR, & Craig Kinsey @ Sam Houston Park (Downtown; 12-7PM)
And then there’s “Is it still happening, even in the downpour?” Festival #2, although in this case I’m seeing tweets from the festival organizers about who’s on stage, so that’s a pretty promising sign. And again, I hope the show goes on, because the Bayou City Art Fest has been a lot of fun when we’ve been in years past, and they’ve got some top-flight people playing, like the aforementioned {Craig Kinsey} — dude, did you clone yourself or something? — awesome rocksteady heroes {The Suffers}, and the resurrected soul marching band Kashmere Stage Band. Again: brave the rain; you won’t be sorry.

For The Community VI, featuring Molotov Compromise, F5X, Cryptics, EndIsNow, Modern Explorations, Marissa, Inzurgo, Black Queen Speaks, FLCON FCKER, Nikhoo & P.L.X.T.X, Artificial Earth Machine, Wayword, Vegetale Kingdom, Ensane, Aquaspek, Silent Hunters, The Romanalisas, & HakeemAbdul-Jabbar @ The Compound (2305 Wheeler; 3PM-1AM)
Dang. I totally missed last night’s installment of For The Community VI, which sucks, because I really like this whole series of shows the Houston Free Thinkers group’s been putting on. I dunno a lot of these folks, but {FLCON FCKER}, {P.L.X.T.X}, & {Black Queen Speaks} are all darn good, and I’ve wanted to hear several others in this pile for a while now, especially {Silent Hunters} and {Molotov Compromise}. Get out & hang with some indepedent-minded noise-punks, eh?

Cameo/Lakeside @ Arena Theater
I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about Cameo and how freaking great they are, but I’m going to have to do so again, because, well, they are. Forget “Word Up” — no, don’t get me wrong; I do like the song, but there’s a lot more to the band than that. Long, long before the band’s one quasi-rap hit everybody knows, these guys were an insanely tight funk band. If you haven’t also heard “Rigor Mortis” and “Talkin’ Out the Side of Your Neck,” you’re missing out.

Shellee Coley @ The Red Brick Tavern (Conroe)
Finally, for those out on the north side (or elsewhere, really), I’d heartily recommend hitting The Red Brick Tavern tonight to catch {Shellee Coley}. I don’t like a lot of singer-songwriter-type musicians these days, for some reason — got kind of my fill of them this past decade, I guess — but there’s something about Coley that draws me in, despite my general wariness. I think it’s partly that she’s not a kid; she’s somebody who’s been through life already and is singing from a position a whole lot closer to my own than some 20-something folksinger guy with a guitar. She sings about being a parent, and about falling out of love and trying to make it work anyway, and about hoping the person you love stays in love. And hey, I can definitely relate to all of that.

Runners-Up:
Scott H. Biram/We Were Wolves @ Fitzgerald’s
Only Beast (CD release)/Devil Killing Moth @ Notsuoh
Wild Child/B.E. Godfrey and Co./The Wandering Bufaleros @ Walter’s
Lionel Richie/Dumpstaphunk @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Praia Urbana, featuring Stacey Pullen, David Penn, Alex Clavijo, Bobby Blyss, Steven Towers, Nathan Swift, JC Vanegas, Marlon Mancilla, & Tony Santana @ Last Concert Cafe (2-11PM)
Pearl Lounge Grand Opening, featuring DJ Sarah Battle, Fox & Cats, Kari K. and The Stonewall Riot, & Colonial Blue @ Pearl (4216 Washington; 5PM-2AM)
Champa Moore/DJ Sun/DJ Drew @ Fox Hollow (4617 Nett)
Praia Urbana After Party, featuring Alex Clavijo, Bobby Blyss, Steven Towers, Bjorn Larsen, & more @ Jet Lounge (11PM)
The Reivers/The Wannabes/duneTX @ The Continental Club
Red Cat Jazz Festival, featuring Ronnie Laws, Marva King, Joey Sommerville, Tom Browne, Alex Bugnon, Maurice Brown, Mike Phillips, Kevin Toney, Brian Best, Theresa Grayson, Jeanette Harris, & Chris Mitchell @ Beach Central Park (Galveston)