The Rundown, Part 1: Fashion + Punk + House Par-tay

Yep, this weekend has officially got me torn up, at least in terms of figuring out what the hell’s the best show to check out.

Take tonight, Friday, November 14th, for the first part of it. Over at The Mink, local artiste & designer Forsa Pink is having her “Almost Famous Fashion Show”, and while I know absolutely zero about fashion in general, the local folks she’s recruited to play the opening definitely have my attention. Headlining (I think) is Glasnost, who I ran across a while back & who then seemed to fall off the planet — glad to see they’ve re-emerged from hiding. Last I checked, they were kind of a nu-New Wave band, in the same vein as, say, The Killers but with maybe more of a Britpop fixation.

Also playing are The Tontons, a band who’ve become one of the coolest, tightest, most unique acts in town, not to mention one of my personal favorites. They play this smoky, sultry, psychedelic, swirly rock with the most bad-ass vocals you’re likely to hear in Houston any time soon. They’re worth seeing, seriously.

There’re a couple of other folks I’m not familiar with, SerJ & Grrrl Parts, and the whole thing starts at 9PM — it’s $7 “before” (before what?) and $10 “after,” so take that how you will. It should be an interesting deal, definitely…

Unfortunately, at the same time as the fashion show, local punk icons Something Fierce are opening for The Scrips up at Fitzgerald’s. I have to say it’s been a looooong damn time since I’ve seen one of the small-ish contingent of cool local punks playing up at that place; it’s good to see — SF’s Stephen G.‘s declared that they’re going to “take [Fitz] back.” Sweet.

To make the pulled-in-all-directions thing worse, though, there’s also a house party going on with some good local folk, over at 1506 Caywood Lane (aka Stitched Tire House); I don’t recognize a lot of the names (Bigfoot and the Bear, Tiziano Dominico, Steve Eck and the Midnight Still, Baby Hurricane), but J.D. of Lenny Briscoe (ex-Over Sea, Under Stone, among other things) is set to do his Broman thing, along with Cory Derden & Airon Paul Dugas, both of whom seem to pop up a lot when people are talking about good local singer/songwriter types. BYOB, 7PM, and I’ve got no clue how much it’ll be…if your tastes run towards the low-key and you don’t mind hanging w/people you don’t know, this is your deal.

Runners-Up:

• Rock Band Live Tour, featuring Panic at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional, & The Cab @ Reliant Arena (yeah, yeah — Dusk and Summer is a damn good album, darn it)
• The Hood Internet/Car Stereo Wars @ Boondocks
• The Invincible Czars @ Rudyard’s

More for Saturday & Sunday, soon to come…