Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Bad Manners + The Wheel Workers + Kris Becker + Anarchitex + Another Run + More

Saturday, May 28th, right around the corner, and there’s some good, good stuff going on. Not quite as high-profile, in a lot of cases, as some of the other shows of late, but hey. Good is still good, y’know.

For starters, ska fans can freaking rejoice at tomorrow’s show at Numbers. The original headliners were supposed to be cheeseball, bad-hair popsters A Flock of Seagulls, who I’ve never really given a shit about (not even back in my youth), but they’ve apparently had to reschedule their Houston date to August 6th.

In their place, the new headliners are ska icons Bad Manners, which has me psyched; I’ve been a fan for a long damn time (hell, my brother-in-law’s taken me around to some of their old haunts in London), and despite the fact that Buster Bloodvessel is the sole remaining original member, hell, it still sounds cool.

The show itself isn’t strictly a ska show, mind you — Numbers is billing it as “New Wave Prom,” and long-running electronic outfit Vertigo Blue and ’80s cover act KAOS are nowhere near Bad Manners musically — but it should be fun, either way. And in a classy, classy move, Numbers is declaring that not only will folks who already bought tickets for the show still be able to get in, but their tickets will be honored at the 8/6 date, too. Very cool.

If that’s not your thing, though, I’d head on over to The Mink to catch {The Wheel Workers} as they open for The Pleasants. The band plays some nicely quirky, thoughtful pop that swings between jangly rootsiness and sleek New Wave-ness (at least, it does on full-length Unite), and while I’ve yet to see ’em live, I suspect their live shows are pretty great…

Plus, the little bit I’ve heard so far of duo The Pleasants themselves has been pretty cool, in an über-ecologically-aware, indie-folk kind of way, and Dearspeak sounds interesting, to boot.

Beyond that, there’s some cool stuff going on midday/early evening over at Cactus Music… Ex-Literary Greats keyboard player/pianist {Kris Becker} will be performing at 1PM, and having heard his Inventions full-length, I’m thinking it’s going to be a good one. I went in expecting fairly dry, quasi-classical stuff, but his music instead jumps between rock, jazz, quietly melodic piano, and the aforementioned classical stuff, barely skipping a beat as it goes.

Then at 5PM, legendary local punks {Anarchitex} — who I was pretty sure were dead & buried, by the by — take the Cactus stage and light it on fire. Apologies to whoever has to follow ’em…

Other stuff: garage-rock heroes The Standells will be sticking ’round Houston for one more night, this time at the North location of The Concert Pub, old-school vato-punks The Flamin’ Hellcats are tearing up Rudz, and cool-ass Irish folk-country gang {The Dead Rabbits} are playing up at Super Happy Fun Land.

At Fitzgerald’s, there’s a neat-sounding one that I hadn’t heard much about before now — local rock dudes {Another Run} are releasing a video for track “What Happened?”, which I’m liking a lot right now, and they’re celebrating the event with some friends, including the very cool {Mantis}. AR is one of those bands I keep meaning to take a better listen to; maybe now I’ll finally get off my ass and give ’em some serious attention.

For the time being, check out a teaser/promo for the video:

Here’s the full pile:

The Pleasants/The Wheel Workers/Dearspeak @ The Mink
FANTASTIC, featuring Uzoy, BBC, Soul One, The Dark Lord, & Comp1 @ The Cellar Bar
Bad Manners/Vertigo Blue/KAOS @ Numbers
Flamin’ Hellcats @ Rudyard’s
The Standells @ The Concert Pub North
Pinata Protest/The Dead Rabbits/Vigilante/Immigrant Punk @ Super Happy Fun Land
Another Run (video premiere)/Subrosa Union/Mantis/Cadence/Oncoming Traffic @ Fitzgerald’s
Kris Becker @ Cactus Music (1PM)
Strawberry Jam/Days N Daze @ Last Concert Cafe
Anarchitex @ Cactus Music (5PM)