Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Appleseed Cast + Heartless Bastards + Gretchen Schmaltz + More

Holy shit, what a weekend we’re headed into, y’all. Tonight (Fri., February 26th) is actually a bit lighter than some, but there’s still some good stuff going on…

The Appleseed Cast/Dreamend @ Rudyard’s
I really have to hand it to these guys — The Appleseed Cast came around as part of the first “wave” of Deep Elm Recs-bred emo, effortlessly throwing out the heartbreakingly gorgeous The End of the Ring Wars way back in 1998(!), an album that’s remained a serious touchstone in my own music collection.

Unlike the bulk of their peers, The Cast never crashed & burned or faded away to oblivion, instead continuing to expand as a band and shed chunks of the emo tag as they went along. Tonight they’ll be doing a bit of a special show, playing all of their double-album set, Low Level Owl 1 & 2, an ambitious pair of releases that saw the band get a heck of a lot more atmospheric, trippy, and complex than a lot of people (myself included) ever thought a lowly emo band would be able to be. Ready yourself for a night of eyes-closed, stand-and-sway near-spacerock, people.

Heartless Bastards/Jeff Boortz Band/Runaway Sun @ Warehouse Live
Ah, yeah; I really, truly, genuinely love Heartless Bastards. Last year’s The Mountain was a pretty phenomenal, nicely dark/murky roots-rock record, propelled along by singer Erika Wennerstrom to come off like the jaded, brooding, middle-of-nowhere child of Chan Marshall and Dax Riggs, armed with huge-sounding guitars and thundering drums. Here’s hoping the crowd makes it out to the Warehouse tonight…

You & Yourn/Emily Lewis/ Framework/ Gretchen Schmaltz/ Doubtful Thomas/Cedar Boy Bailey @ Fuel Cyber Cafe (Humble; $7, 7PM)
Nice, nice, nice — congrats, northsiders, you’ve got a heck of a cool indie-folk show going on tonight. Not familiar with everybody on the bill, but Gretchen Schmaltz (also of the seemingly-AWOL Western Civilization) does some great, honest-voiced songs and has quite a voice to boot — seriously, she’s one of the hands-down best folksingers in a town full of ’em — Cedar Boy Bailey (aka Sergio from Buxton) is cool and low-key and warbly, and Hollywood Black frontman Ben Ellis‘s Framework project is interesting in its own right, at least from what I heard off his Intellect of Apes EP. Folks up in the Humble ‘hood, here’s your evening planned, right here.

Runners-Up:
Helstar/Plangency/Krankshaft/Decimation Theory/Blood Rooted @ Wired Live (formerly The Meridian; The Channel)
Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys/Rockin’ Lloyd Tripp/Picture Book @ The Continental Club
Lizard Professor/Pacifist/All The Way To The Bank/Waverly Hills/The Nephilim Terror/Dinner at Dahmers @ The Junction
Leslie and the LY’s/Christopher the Conquered @ Walter’s
Richie Havens @ Dosey Doe Coffee Company (The Woodlands)