Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Fitz Relaunch III + Slayer (Reviewed!) + Electric Attitude + Fly Fest + Buxton + KTRU Benefit + More

I’ll be down at the beach tomorrow (Surfside in the house…) and celebrating Midget #2’s 1st-ever birthday the next day, so I wanted to point up the cool stuff going on the rest of this weekend at least relatively early — hell, extremely early, for me. I know, I know, breaking with tradition tends to be risky, but what the heck; here goes:

Sat., September 25:
Aesop Rock/Rob Sonic/DJ Big Wiz/B L A C K I E/Roky Moon & BOLT/Brandon West and the Black Hats @ Fitzgerald’s
Alpha Rev/Tyagaraja/Levi Weaver/Estelline @ Fitzgerald’s
Night #3 of the grand Fitzgerald’s Reboot Extravaganzica Thingie, and it’s another pretty epic one, with these two lineups on the two floors (first one’s up, second one’s down, I think). The “main” bill is somewhat heavy on the hip-hop, but hey, that’s cool by me — I like Aesop Rock quite a bit, and I would love to see the look on his face when he sees {B L A C K I E} obliterate the place beforehand. Plus, when I saw Roky Moon & BOLT at The Mink a little while ago, they were fucking amazing, and everything I’ve heard from {Tyagaraja} has been excellent, too.

Electric Attitude/Grizzly/Spain Colored Orange/The Fox Derby @ Mango’s
Honestly, I wasn’t sure Mango’s even still had shows anymore — I’d heard rumors that the place might be jettisoning the whole live-bands thing, and their Website hasn’t been updated since this time last month, looks like. Hopefully that’s not the case, because it’s still a cool little place, and I love that they put oddball shows like this one, where funky, soulful, Killers-meet-James Brown guys {Electric Attitude} close out the night after the rough-edged y’allternative sounds of {Grizzly} and the smooth, thoughtful orchestra-pop of {Spain Colored Orange}. It’s shows like this that make me love this city, I swear.

Fly Fest, featuring K-Rino, Fat Tony, Hollywood Floss, Guerilla Foco Clan, Dirty & Nasty, HashBrown, Jettimasstyr, Ensane, Kyle Hubbard, Simple Success, Daraja, John Dew, t.h.e. MisFit Crazy8, D-Risha, Jon Black, iLL LiaD, Rob Jay, Alibi Rankz, First Day of Skool, Twenty 11, Components of the Modern Age, Sammus, The Forces, Nikkhoo, Loz tha Lyric3st, Renzo, & Joe Edwards @ Walter’s
Dunno a lot about this one, I’m afraid, except that it’s apparently an all-day festival of really, truly, seriously underground hip-hop, and most of it appears to be A) local and B) utterly mind-blowing. Granted, I have yet to see/hear most of these folks, but I’ll follow {Fat Tony} to the ends of the earth, at this point (and while I know I’ve said it before: “Invasion” still kills me, every time), and I’ve heard excellent, excellent things about {Hollywood Floss}, {Guerilla Foco Clan}, & Jettimasstyr and HashBrown (the former of whom I’ve also seen called “Jett I. Masstyr,” btw). It’s going to be a tough choice, definitely.

Citizen Cope @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Tax the Wolf @ Cactus Music (5PM)
Lick Lick/Woodgrain/Novox @ Rudyard’s
Rush @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Flyleaf/Story of the Year @ Warehouse Live

Sun., September 26:
Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Hell, yeah. This was supposed to happen back in January, but then Tom Araya of Slayer had some health problems, so the whole thing got postponed/cancelled. ‘Til, well, right now. Which is a truly great thing, because this is honestly the best retro-metalhead lineup I can imagine. (Okay, almost — it’d be really cool if Metallica and/or Judas Priest were playing, too, but it’d have to be old, Black Album-and-before Metallica.) Damn, I need to go back and listen to Anthrax‘s Among The Living again…

(Oh, and while you’re here, check out Scott W.‘s very cool review of Slayer’s latest, World Painted Blood, right over here.)

Cotton Jones/Buxton/Pepper Rabbit/Monahans @ Fitzdown
Dunno the touring bands, sorry, but {Buxton} rules, no matter what. Period. Slightly cracked, weird-yet-friendly indie-country-folk that’s really like nothing else out there (not entirely, anyway).

Free Show for SaveKTRU.org, featuring Free Radicals & Nonsense Music Band @ Notsuoh (8-10PM)
Yep, another benefit for the Save KTRU crew, and one worthy of attention, definitely — I’ve recently been reacquainted with {Free Radicals}, the ever(?)-evolving pseudo-collective of jazz/funk/reggae/salsa/etc. lovers that magically arose out of the ashes of the long-dead Sprawl, and I was happily surprised (although honestly, I shouldn’t have been) at how good they were. Plus, there’s also bassist Dug Falk‘s own “band,” {Nonsense Music}, about which I’ve heard good things. And all for a good, good cause.

Irish Aires KPFT 90.1 Fundraiser Picnic, featuring Blaggards, Constant Billy, Murder The Stout, & more @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar ($10; 2-6PM)
Sadly, I’ve never listened much to the Irish Aires program, although since I freaking love Celtic folk in general, I really, really should. I can attest, however, to the fact that at least two of the bands playing this benefit, {Blaggards} & {Murder the Stout}, are pretty great; the former do a nice mashup of pub-rock and folk, although the more I listen to the one album of theirs I’ve got, the more I wish it were rawer & wilder than it is, and I actually hired the MTS folks to play a company party and thought they were excellent. Frontman/sole original member Hugh Morrison, in particular, is a cool guy…

phew. That’s what I’ve got for the rest of the weekend, folks — be safe out there.