Young Mammals Prepare to Get Out of Town (for a While), Tonight

It heartens me to see more and more of H-town’s best and brightest flying the coop (temporarily, mind you) to travel the country and spread their musical magic far & wide. It used to be that a touring Houston band was more of an anomaly than anything else, but in recent days lots of talented-ass folks have been hitting the road hard, from The Wild Moccasins to Guitars to B L A C K I E to georgia’s Horse. to The Western Civilization.

Tonight you can catch yet another shining star in our burgeoning scene before they roam & ramble — smiling-faced indie-pop speedsters Young Mammals are having their tour kickoff show tonight (Thurs., July 9th) at Mango’s on Westheimer (doors at 8PM or so; no clue when they’ll start), and it promises to be gooooood, y’all. For one thing, the Mammals themselves are mind-blowing live, throwing off sparks and getting ridiculously large crowds jumping and shaking to their manic, catchy, indie-fractured pop songs; the music carves and slices its way into your brain, grinning all the while. Trust me: these guys are well worth the $6 cover all by themselves.

But of course, what tour kickoff would be complete without a supporting cast? For tonight, the Mammals have enlisted new-ish fuzzed-out boogie band Hamamatsu Tom and the Bareback Hell Stallions, who grab hold of some messy, noisy rawk and run it through a gutbucket blues amp, awesomely smooth-flowing, smart, Mos Def-esque hip-hop dude Fat Tony (who’s seriously mind-blowing on his own, btw), & Ghormeh Sabzi, who play strange, loose-limbed, cracked pop songs that make me think of Animal Collective covering Bowie more than anything else.

Get on out tonight, before the YM guys head off to such exotic, far-flung locales as Atlanta, Philly, & Brooklyn. Hopefully they don’t get somewhere and decide to not come back, eh?