Glad They’re Not Dead: The Phlegmatics

Yeah, it might be a little sad, but this made my week — I honest-to-Yahweh thought Katy-dwelling pop-punk dorks The Phlegmatics had gone the way of the dodo ’til I ran across the band’s MySpace page (as far as I can tell, their “real” Website is toast).

I’d seen the band once and only once back in ’05 or so when I dragged a friend downtown for the Houston Press showcase was bowled over…and then, nada, at least not that I could see/hear about. It would’ve fit the H-town Rock Band Template: gig like crazy, make friends, get some local press attention, then implode under the weight of the non-stardom all Houston bands have to deal with.

Luckily, that isn’t the case here, and the band’s resurfaced recently to play some shows — they’re playing tonight, Sept. 25th, up at Walter’s on Washington, and then again on Sept. 28th at Rack ‘Em Up Sports Bar.

Which is awesome, ’cause these guys are great, seriously. They write those catchy, quirky, too-smart-for-their-own-good pop songs that Rivers Cuomo used to write (before he, ah, essentially ran out of ideas), their guitars have a nicely melodic crunch to ’em, and despite his self-professed nerdiness, frontman Jonathan and bassist Jonas can actually sing. And on top of it all, they all play like they freakin’ love it, which makes it all work perfectly. Think Weezer, Nada Surf, Nerf Herder, and The Stereo, throw in the snarky humor of power-pop heroes Too Much Joy, and you’ll come close to what these guys sound like.

Oh, and apparently the band’s been busy while they’ve been hiding out — they’re working on a new album, Sophomore Effort (n’yuk, n’yuk), and there’s at least one new song (“Unibrow”) in their Myspace player from that, even though it doesn’t show up in the list (for me, at least). I’m gonna have to keep an eye out for that one, definitely…