Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: The Wheel Workers + The Orbans + Featherface + Clandestine + More

Weird. It’s Friday (February 18th), and yet it’s a much “lighter” night, in terms of cool musical things going on, than any weekend night I’ve seen lately. (Hopefully that doesn’t mean I’ve missed a bunch of stuff in the shows list…)

But hey, no worries — that just means that everybody & their brother only has a couple of choices to make this evening. And the one I’d push for, personally, is over there on the right. Tonight at Walter’s local pop-rockers {The Wheel Workers} are having their CD release for new album Unite, which we literally just got up on the site over here.

Now, I’m feeling kinda bad about it, but the review’s less than full-on adulation — I do like the album, though, and if the band keeps at it, I think later on down the line they could make something that utterly & completely blows me away. Just ain’t there yet; sorry, y’all…

But hey, this looks like it’ll be an awesome show, even still; while I quibble about frontman Steven Higginbotham‘s lyrics a bit, I can’t deny that they’re damn talented musicians, and I suspect they’re pretty great live. Definitely check ’em out if you can.

Plus, there’s also Fort Worth band The Orbans, whose album When We Were Wild has crept its way onto my best-of list for this past year (which is coming, btw, for those who care about stuff like that), and local quartet {Featherface}, whose most recent EP also happens to be fairly awesome.

Check out the video for “A Youthful Offender” below:

Seriously, get there early for these guys, too…

In terms of other stuff, I’m always, always, always happy to see {Clandestine} playing again (tonight up at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck); the band was around when I first moved here and died off back when a bunch of other Celtic-folk bands in town seemed to disappear, except that these folks actually came back together back in 2006 and have been rolling on since like the “break” never happened. Nice.

And I can’t forget tonight’s show at Rudyard’s, with the awesomely-named {Krullur} — how badass is it to reference the movie Krull and delicious pastries in one word? — H.R.A., and {Talk Sick Brats}, about whom I’ve heard good things. Meanwhile, over at The Mink you can nod out to classic tracks with Fistful of Soul.

Pick one, then get on out, eh?