Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: The Sour Notes + Tax the Wolf + Art Institute + SPEAK VIII + More

Hey, folks — sorry for skipping out on the past couple of days’ shows; had to do the family thing for Thanksgiving, so y’know. For some reason, 2- and 7-year-olds don’t get “Daddy has to post about some shows” as an excuse for why you can’t play Matchbox cars or Scattergories…

Today, November 25th, is relatively light for a Friday, but there’s still some good stuff going on:

Hymn for Her/Day Sailor/The Sour Notes/The Julys @ Jet Lounge
Nice; this show combines two of the most promising H-town bands I’ve heard lately, {Day Sailor} and {The Julys}, with badass Austin (by way of Houston) band The Sour Notes.

The latter practically explode their own little, densely-layered pop symphonies a la the New Pornographers, while Day Sailor does some nice, Eisley-esque indie-pop with sweet vocals from frontwoman Amanda Tankersley. As for The Julys, they manage to merge Afrobeat guitars with sharp-edged arrangements and desperate, frantic, OK Go-like vocals; their recent self-titled EP is pretty dang great.

Tax the Wolf/Young Girls/Hello Chief @ Dean’s Credit Clothing
Talk about a relief; due to some miscommunication, for a while there it sure looked like {Young Girls} were hanging it up shortly, thus depriving us all of their woozy, Brit-sounding take on surf-pop, but happily, that turned out to not be the case. Plus, there’s always headliners {Tax the Wolf}, who are very cool in their own right, melding Latino sounds to psych-rock and doing it damn well.

The Young Maths/Art Institute/Jono Lacy @ The Mink
I’ve only heard a bit by McAllen gang The Young Maths, from their latest, ERRORRS, but it’s pretty interesting. And then there’s jagged-edged proto-punks {Art Institute}, who point backwards to all those SST bands from the early days of American punk. I still need to write up their new full-length, People Like It When You Fail; sorry, y’all, but I swear it’ll happen soon.

SPEAK VIII, featuring Twenty Eleven, Doughbeezy, Hollywood FLOSS, Tim Woods, Nosaprise, Kyle Hubbard, T2 Tha Ghetto Hippie, & Justice Allah @ Fitzgerald’s
A very cool showcase with a bunch of the new-ish leading lights in Houston’s hip-hop scene, including {Hollywood FLOSS}, the ever-excellent {Nosaprise}, the awesomely personal, down-to-earth {Kyle Hubbard}, and the bizarrely-named {T2 The Ghetto Hippie}…

Hometown Hoedown 5, featuring Blackmarket Syndicate, The Drafted, Fuska, K.T.C.M., The Lion of Wall Street, The Tag Alongs @ The White Swan (7:30PM-1:30AM)
And if the hip-hop’s not your thing, well, a nice cross-section of punk & hardcore’s going on over at The White Swan, with a lineup that includes one of my favorite punk bands around, the Social Distortion-ish {Blackmarket Syndicate}; glad to see those guys are still playing. (New album anytime, y’all? Please?)

Runners-Up:
John Evans @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Three Bad Jacks/The Teddy Boys/Little Joe Washington @ The Continental Club
Floorbound/Atlantes/Zero One Son/Hindsight/Another Run @ Warehouse Live