Help A Brotha Out: Benefits for Airon Paul Dugas, 12/27 @ Walter’s & 1/4 @ Stitched Tire

Okay, so here’s another plea for some holiday cheer. Seems that on December 14th, talented-as-hell countrified H-town troubadour (and Amy’s Ice Cream staffer) Airon Paul Dugas was hit head-on while riding his scooter and suffered some major, major injuries (see the poster to the right for details on what got broken, or check out the remains of the scooter he was on), and like many musicians/ice cream shop workers, he reportedly has no insurance. In short, he needs help, and us Houstonians have a chance to chip in.

Friends of Airon’s have organized two different benefit shows that I’ve heard about so far; the first will be on Saturday, December 27th up at Walter’s on Washington, and beyond the charitable, humanitarian aspects of the thing, the lineup for the night’s, well, pretty sweet in itself. The organizers have pulled together Dugas pals Paris Falls (who played as Dugas’s backing band early this month at the Continental Club), Dannzig (the Misfits cover band, not the real Miniature Prince of Darkness), Guitars, Teenage Kicks, The Wild Moccasins, and, as an added bonus, a rare appearance by local supergroup-ish “hugcore” crew Friendship. Hot damn. (Oh, and there may be other bands playing, too; I’ll try to update this post if I hear of any last-minute additions.)

While we might butt heads at times on the political stuff, I truly dig Paris Falls’ updating of fuzzy, garage-y Beatle-isms, and at the other end of the spectrum, I also truly, truly dig pretty much everything Brit-power-pop revivalists/worshipers Teenage Kicks do — every time I think I’ve got a favorite song (i.e., “Bound for Glory”), they go and put out another that stages a coup on my iPod and takes its place (i.e., “I’m Not Surprised”). Plus, there’s The Wild Moccasins, who by all accounts are freakin’ incredible — seriously looking forward to their CD release on January 23rd — and Guitars, a supergroup in their own right and reportedly extremely cool. I missed Friendship the first time ’round, unfortunately, so I dunno what they’re like, but there’s a ridiculous amount of nostalgic scenester love for the band, so take that as a recommendation.

On top of all that, the shindig includes a keg and Amy’s ice cream with admission, which is honestly pretty cool just all by itself (heck, I went to a St. Patrick’s Day thing at St. Thomas once pretty much to score free Amy’s Guinness ice cream, so y’know). And then there’s Aaron Danger, who’ll be selling bunches of records & donating all the money made to Airon, and a raffle/auction for cool stuff like tattoos. It costs $10 to get in, although I have no doubt any donations above & beyond are appreciated, and the thing starts at 8PM.

A bit further out, calendar-wise, there’ll be a second benefit for Dugas on Sunday, January 4 at the Stitched Tire House (1506 Caywood Ln.). Which is handy, because some of us (ahem) already have set-in-stone out-of-town plans for the next several days, so the backup benefit thing is pretty cool. This one sounds to be a little more low-key, with laidback rockers Lenny Briscoe, Ellis and Hart, Rhett Burch, & quirky folksters Sew What playing starting at 7PM or so. This one’ll be $5-$10 to get in, I guess depending on what you feel like, and it’s apparently a potluck, so it’d probably be a good idea to bring food and/or brew.

Either way you want to do it, just do it — think of Tiny Tim (the literary character, not the weird midget singer) on those sad, sad crutches, replace his face with Airon’s, and do whatever you can to avert that future. Help the guy out, y’all…