Yr. Weekend: LIMB (Reviewed!) + B L A C K I E (Reviewed!) + Raekwon + Paris Falls + Screwtape + Resonant Interval + Tool + More

It’s shaping up to be quite a handful of days, coming up. Starting tonight, Fri., June 18th, there’s good, good, practically unmissable shit literally each night…

Before I get to that, though, I feel compelled to hang my head in shame & beg forgiveness — I swear by the eternal spirit of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I will be posting an unnecessarily thorough, geeky, utterly biased/gushing writeup of that little “festival” thing we had here a few weeks back (well, one day of it, anyway). It’s gonna happen, honest. It looms near, and all wise men should be afraid.

But hey, that’s for later. Here’s what’s for right now:

Fri., June 18:
LIMB (CD release/tour kickoff)/B L A C K I E/Giant Princess/Somosuno/Cosmic Sound/Featherface/Hadrian & Antonius @ El Rincon Social (3210 Preston St.; 7PM)
The show of the weekend for me, I have to say. Fully three of the bands playing tonight — {LIMB}, {B L A C K I E}, and {Giant Princess} — have put out phenomenal albums in the past couple of weeks, which makes tonight feel like some kind of cosmic convergence. I still need to check out the new GP more fully (although I’m liking it so far), but I’ve heard B L A C K I E’s Spred Luv and LIMB’s The Shape of Punk for Some, and holy fucking crap, are they incredible. Seriously. I get to the end of Shape, in particular, and I’m in awe. It’s just…I dunno. Listening to LIMB these days is like the first time I heard Spiritualized or My Bloody Valentine or something, where it’s just this massive sound that makes me want to cry tears of joy. Take that however you will.

(And hey, should you feel compelled to read more fully-fleshed-out musings on the LIMB and B L A C K I E releases, you can do that very thing right over here and here. Have at it.)

Screwtape/Tax the Wolf/Michelle Thibidaeux/Band on the Run @ The Continental Club
Haven’t heard ’em yet, sadly, but I’m damn psyched about Screwtape, which I hear is rapper {Nosaprise} fronting a rock band. I love Nosa’s stuff in general, so I can only imagine how damn cool this’d be. Kudos to the {29-95.com} folks for setting this show up.

Lower Class Brats/Krum Bums/The American Heist/Blackmarket Syndicate/The Dead Rabbits @ Walter’s
Young Girls/Recreator/Muhammad Ali @ Bohemeo’s

Sat., June 19:
Raekwon/Zilla/T.H.E.M. @ Warehouse Live
Raekwon! Holy hell yeah, y’all. 1995’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… is probably the best Wu-Tang-related album I’ve ever heard, matched only barely by Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale. The flow is insane, the storylines are great, all of it…and then he went and followed it up with Immobilarity, which probably only like five other people but me bought, it seems like (and I ended up selling my copy). It flat-out sucked. What the hell happened? I’ve got no clue, honestly, but from everything I’ve heard, last year’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II climbs back to the heights of that first solo album. Keeping my fingers crossed that that’s the case.

This Will Destroy You/Chiaroscuro/Omotai @ Mango’s
Neat, neat, neat. I’ve heard good-good things about This Will Destroy You, specifically from David Cobb at {Houston Calling}, so I’ll just point you over to his site for the in-depth goodness on that. For my part, it’s {Omotai} that really gets me psyched — they’re heavy, monolithic, epic, all those badass Viking-god words that make you think of mythical giants cleaving mountains in twain with Grimnyr, the Battleaxe of Doom, and while I haven’t seen ’em live yet, on disc they’re fucking amazing.

Paris Falls/Side Arms/Luke Lukas/Ensane @ Walter’s on Washington
Don’t those {Paris Falls} folks ever stop recording? I swear, I have this image of them all rolling out of bed in the morning in the same big, ramshackle band-house, staggering downstairs for coffee and donuts and then plugging in and rocking the fuck out ’til the sun sets, the tape rolling all the while. Granted, that situation may only exist in my head, but damn, whatever they do works. “Goodmorning,” off the band’s last full-length, is an awesomely retro, deceptively grinning blast of rootsy psych-rock, and it’s one of those songs I feel compelled to force on everybody I know, seriously.

And beyond them, I’m digging the heck out of {Side Arms} lately — nice and rough around the edges, with all kinds of nods to Ye Olde Indie-Rawk of yore, the kind that blended punk with pop and hardcore and didn’t get all twee and emo about it. Sweet…

Tyagaraja @ Cactus Music (3PM; free!)
Fresh off their Battle of the Bands-won appearance at Bonaroo, {Tyagaraja} have returned to town, heads held high in triumph (okay, it’s a mellow, self-effacing kind of triumphantness, but you get it). Missed ’em at Summerfest, unfortunately, but I’m liking the new album, Open Book, quite a bit so far. I’ve seen the band’s eponymous frontman once or twice before, including in a more intimate, low-key setting like this, and it’s been great.

’70s Costume Birthday Bash for Stephen Duran, Gilbert Alfaro, & Olivia Torres, featuring The Journey Agents @ Dean’s Credit Clothing
Brittney Shane/The Journey Agents/Electric Attitude @ Jet Lounge
Vewwwy intewesting…apparently {Journey Agents} will be playing both these shows tomorrow night? Hrm. Well, hell — I guess they are technically right down the street from one another…

Landon Pigg/Madi Diaz/Mikey Wax/Josiah Hall @ The Meridian
Don’t know a lot about Tennesseean Landon Pigg, but what I have heard has been pretty cool, in a delicate, Brit-sounding folk-pop kind of way; some of the stuff I’ve heard (mostly the more recent songs) sounds like vintage Radiohead, but then there’s “Sailed On,” which comes off like solo McCartney as interpreted by The Verve and is downright great.

Juneteenth Summer Jam, featuring Morris Day & The Time, Shock G, & Dwele @ Sam Houston Race Park
C’mon, you know you want to go to this. Morris Day! Have you not seen Purple Rain? And Shock G from Digital Underground makes it that much better. Hell, if this wasn’t waaaaay the fuck out of town, I’d be tempted to try to check this out.

Sara Van Buskirk @ Cactus Music (1PM; free!)
Golden Axe/Bald Eagle Burger/Novox @ Rudyard’s
We’re All Doomed! Fest, featuring Smoking Spore, Sanctus Bellum, Project Armageddon, Serpent Sun, Defending The Kingdom, & Black Hole Caravan @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar
Monster Metal Showcase, featuring RAZR13, Necrofaith, Metavenge, Metalloyd, Legion, Ethreal, & Sol34 @ Warehouse Live (Studio)

Sun., June 20:
Resonant Interval Sound Series, featuring Amy Morrison/Doug Falk/Hsin-Jung Tsai, MFM, & Tatsuya Nakatani & Omar Tamez @ The Exoskeleton (2808 Milam; 7:45PM, $5-$8)
Ah, yeah. I dunno what’ll happen to the Resonant Interval thing when Lance Higdon flees to Hotlanta, but I’m glad they’re trundling along like nothing’s changed, at least for now… This week features locals {Doug Falk}, Amy Morrison, & Hsin-Jung Tsai playing as a trio (trumpet/upright bass, oboe/English horn, & piano, respectively) and performing some new stuff they haven’t played for audiences ’til now, plus Philadelphians MFM, who apparently do “paranormal soundscapes” (which sounds cool on its own), and Tatsuya Nakatani & Omar Tamez, as well, who tour separately but will apparently be performing as a duo. Expect some strange, intriguing, off-the-map sounds, y’all.

Tool/Wovenhand @ Toyota Center
I’ll admit it: I honestly haven’t paid much attention at all to what Tool‘s been up to for the past couple of years. Friend Marc forced me to listen to “Lateralus” after the album’d been out for quite a while, and I was astounded to find that yeah, I still liked it. I think the way he explained it makes the most sense: “the song ripples out of the speakers.” Yep, pretty much…

Shock Treatment, featuring Blackmarket Syndicate @ Rocbar

That’s all I’ve got for this weekend; have fun, be safe, all that stuff. More to come.