This Weekend, Part 1: Westfest!

Yes, the coming weekend is shaping up to be the best one we’ve seen in a while, and a large, large, large part of that is because of, yes, the Energizer Bunny of local music/etc. festivals, Westfest, aka the Westheimer Block Party, which is set to explode this Saturday, October 11th. With each one of these things they throw, the Free Press Houston gang seems to go bigger & better, and this one promises to be no exception to that trend.

How can you go wrong, really, when you pile roughly 80% of the best damn bands in town on one intersection in Montrose and let people witness the whole damn thing for pretty much no dollars? (Okay, so the “big” closeout show inside Numbers with Austinites Voxtrot and local luminaries The Jonbenet, Bring Back The Guns, Satin Hooks, B L A C K I E, Lisa’s Sons, Something Fierce, and Antenna Inn, is $12, but the festival itself is free.) It’s like the intersection of Taft & Westheimer becomes this giant whirlpool of all the best, most badass music in the city, so all you really need to do is meander around & soak it all in.

I’m not going to try to cover the whole damn schedule here — the schedule & map’re below — but here’re my recommendations, in somewhat-arbitrary order:

Bands I Desperately Need to Finally Check Out Live:

• Piano Vines
• Antarctica Starts Here
• listenlisten
• The Wild Moccasins
• The McKenzies
• News on the March
• Lenny Briscoe
• The Jonbenet
• KAM
• Earnie Banks

Bands I’ve Seen Before Who Rule:

• The Ton Tons
• Bring Back The Guns
• Something Fierce
• The Riff Tiffs
• Buxton
• Co-Pilot
• B L A C K I E
• Giant Princess
• Balaclavas
• The Mathletes
• The Gold Sounds
• The Goods
• The Hates
• D.R.U.M.

Bands I’m Kinda Curious About or Need to See Again:

• The Endangered Sea Lions
• Satin Hooks
• Room 101
• GhostTown Electric
• Hell City Kings
• Tambersauro
• Shina Rae
• The Literary Greats
• O Pioneers!!!
• Guitars
• Spain Colored Orange
• Basses Loaded
• Two Star Symphony
• Free Radicals
• Tha Fucking Transmissions
• Electric Attitude
• Dunnock’s Ill Advisory

Damn, between those three lists, it’s looking like, um, I’m gonna need a clone. Whoa. Apologies to the bands I didn’t list someplace or another — most of ’em I just wasn’t familiar with, even to wonder about.

Anyway, there it is; want a crash course in almost all that’s good with/in the H-town scene (I see no Teenage Kicks, Bright Men of Learning, or Stadium on the bill, for three, and the only ska band I could pick out was resurrected old-timers O’Doyle Rules, who I’m glad to see live again)? This is where you need to be, y’all.

And, as promised, the relevant time/place info: