Your Weekend, Pt. 1: American Fangs (New Interview Up!) + Lamb of God + Angry Samoans + Mos Def + More

Fuck…has it been a week already? This week feels like it’s gone screaming past me, leaving me confused and behind on everything. Not good… Anyway, I figured I’d do a quick hit on what all’s going on this evening, Friday, April 24th, so here’s the stuff I think is going to be worth checking out; your mileage may vary, as always:

American Fangs/The Manichean/ Heptic Skeptic @ Mango’s
Yes, yes, yes. I’ve been totally stunned by American Fangs since my first listen to their too-short self-titled EP, to the point where I just can’t stop talking about the damn band. They mash together elements of metal, punk, and straight-up pop to very cool effect, coming off like a streetwise version of the Foo Fighters hanging out with old-school East Bay punks, and they’re really, really, really good, to my mind, and only bound to get better.

So, since our inglorious Myspace Age makes it next to impossible to actually find shit out about somebody by checking out their Website, I figured I’d blast some questions their way and see what happened. Lo and behold, singer/frontman Gus responded, in a highly entertaining, informative-yet-coy way — check out the whole exchange here, if you’re interested. It’s going to be an off-the-hook show, from the looks of it — no clue on The Manichean, except they look like grotty metal dudes, and I think Heptic Skeptic are a ska band that includes the excellent Kam Franklin, but I’ve never actually heard ’em play. And hey, it’s all going down at the newly-relaunched Mango’s…

Lamb of God/As I Lay Dying/Children of Bodom/Municipal Waste/God Forbid @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Metal, metal, metal. I’m sick of all the bullshit about how metal’s dead, there hasn’t been any good metal since ’91 — that’s all crap. You’re just not looking in the right places, folks, and Lamb of God is one of them places. Check out Scott’s full-on review of their latest album here, if you haven’t already.

Angry Samoans/ Molotov Compromise/Rats In The Attic/The X-Pats @ Walter’s on Washington
The Houston Press had a cool writeup about how the Angry Samoans were a punk band made up of and aimed at music critics, but I can’t find the link right now. Gah. Either way, they ended up being taken relatively seriously and became part of my own after-the-fact indoctrination into punk rock. A classic band.

Mos Def/Ledisi/Bilal/Stokley @ Arena Theatre
I’ll admit it: I own no Mos Def albums. I do, however, still play Black Star‘s debut on a regular basis, and I love Mos’s laid-back, sleepy-yet-sharp delivery in general. And if you haven’t bothered watching 16 Blocks because Bruce Willis is tired & old, seriously, you need to see it just to see Mos’s performance; he steals the show.

Electric Attitude/ Magnetic @ Dean’s Credit Clothing (8PM; $5)
Dunno Magnetic, but I’ve seen Electric Attitude, and they won me over, slowly but surely — funky and retro-sounding, but nowhere near pretentious, with a frontman who very nearly pulls off the whole Mick Jagger thing. Damn.

Steel Lounge Underground, featuring Suraj K, DJ Witnes, & Ceeplus Bad Knives @ Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (5216 Montrose)
Sadly, I’ve received word that The Mathletes will not be playing tonight’s installment of Steel Lounge Underground, the cool-ass merging of music & art that happens sporadically over at the CAM — Joe Mathlete is reportedly sick with some nasty variant of the bubonic plague or something, and it’s bad, bad, bad. That said, the DJs who’re slated to do their thing are all very cool,

Runners-Up:
The Soarce/Slivered/Orents Stirner @ Rudyard’s
Wild Sweet Orange @ The Meridian
Big Business/Tweak Bird @ Warehouse Live
Texas Crawfish Festival, featuring Destroyer (KISS tribute), Cory Morrow, Leroy Thomas & the Zydeco Roadrunners, LT Roberts & the Zydeco Mob, Josh Ward, Glass Intrepid, Project H, Right to Refuse, & Leaf @ Old Town Spring (Spring)