Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: The Mountain Goats + In Flames + Alvin Fielder + Square & Compass + Megafauna + More

Back around to another Friday (January 20th, this time) and yep, busy as ever. I’m personally pretty damn psyched about a couple of tonight’s shows, but first some update-y things…

For starters, there’s a show going on tomorrow night, 1/21, that I could’ve sworn already happened, back on 1/7 — {Brent Nettles} and Sergio Trevino (of {Buxton}/{Ancient Cat Society}) are both playing at new record shop Heights Vinyl. Just like they were, um, when I posted about it the last time. So, did the show get cancelled or moved or something, or did they just have so much freaking fun they decided to do it all over again? No clue. Either way, it should be good.

Also tomorrow night, there’s the Space City Beat Battle Championship; I was afraid it’d been cancelled outright when it disappeared off the schedule at the Warehouse Live site, but it popped back up again over at The Mercury Room, thankfully. Nice save, y’all.

And last but not least, the Me Talk Pretty show (which also features Hawthorne Heights) down in Clear Lake at The Scout Bar has been shifted forwards a couple of days. It was on Fri., 2/3, and now it’s on Wed., 2/1. Update calendars accordingly.

Now for tonight:

The Mountain Goats/Nurses @ Fitzgerald’s
Ah, The Mountain Goats. I will finally, finally be able to witness the awesome high-pitchedness of John Darnielle live and in-person tonight (with Superchunk-er Jon Wurster as an added bonus!), because yep, I’ll be up at Fitz for this one (barring any catastrophic accidents or projectile-vomiting toddlers, of course).

I’ll admit that I’ve been an on-again, off-again fan of Darnielle’s work over the years, but there’s a small, warm, intensely literary corner of my soul that’s pretty much got his name on it, ever since I stumbled across “Going to Georgia” literally the very first time I ever tuned into {KTRU} in my car (something I can no longer do, but hey, am I bitter?). The strange, nasal vocals and angry, desperate venom floored me immediately. Darnielle’s is a songwriter’s songwriter, goofy as that feels to type. He’s the kind of guy half the singer/songwriters in this country would listen to and go, “ah, shit — why am I even bothering?” (And yeah, that’s a question that needs asking.)

I have yet to hear All Eternals Deck, to my cringing shame, but hell, that may not even matter. From what I’ve heard, Darnielle and company are planning on throwing out some or all of the ten new, unrecorded & unreleased songs they’re working on for followup to Deck. Sweet.

In honor of tonight’s show, visitors to SCR‘s homepage will notice that the first “Featured” article over there on the left is actually old, old, old, from Issue #4waaaaay back in 2001. See, back then our own Doug Dillaman (who has since moved off to NZ and immersed himself completely in the filmmaking world and is badass at it) somehow managed to get an interview with Darnielle and peppered him with a ton of ridiculously specific, meticulously-researched questions on, well, just about everything.

Mr. Darnielle was kind enough to answer, and it turned into what is probably my favorite of all the interviews we’ve ever run in our 13-year history as a zine-type thing. Check it out right here: “Heavy Metal, Ephemera, and Popular Culture: A Chat with The Mountain Goats”. It’s great stuff.

And hey, just for fun, here they are doing a jangly, Posies-like cover of Jawbreaker‘s classic “Boxcar” on A/V Undercover:

The Mountain Goats cover Jawbreaker

In Flames/Trivium/Veil of Maya/Kyng @ Warehouse Live
Ah, damn. This kind of hurts, because despite my general know-nothingness about Swedish metal, I really do like the hell out of Gothenburg’s In Flames. Granted, the album I like best is Come Clarity, which true-fan friends have hinted is pretty much the band at their poppiest, but heck, I don’t care; “Come Clarity,” in particular, blends together the acoustic sort of thing Metallica used to do with an awesomely anthemic, nearly-emo chorus that I can’t help but howl along with in the car. And I can’t help but headbang to the rest, so y’know.

Nameless Sound, featuring Alvin Fielder/Kidd Jordan/William Parker @ Eldorado Ballroom (2310 Elgin; 8PM)
And here we are with another neat-sounding show I feel utterly uninformed about. I’ve heard of jazz icon Alvin Fielder, but I’m no jazz head — most of what I know comes from a handful of jazz records played in college, some old swing-jazz I got into a while back, and whatever my father-in-law happens to have playing at their house.

I do know that Fielder’s a bona-fide legend, however, and it’s great to see him get some acclaim from Houston’s own experimental/jazz community in the form of the Resounding Vision award he received last night from the Nameless Sound folks. Well-deserved, right there.

Mercy!/Square and Compass/DSGNS/Only Beast @ Dean’s Credit Clothing
Okay, so this is slightly more my speed. I dig the shit out of those {Square and Compass}, with their Braid-like take on throwback emo, and I’m eagerly awaiting the new stuff they’ve been recording. Sadly, tonight will apparently be their final show with bassist Josh Bodenhammer, but I’ve got my fingers crossed tight that the band will keep on rolling nonetheless. (Please?)

Megafauna/MOTHS/Jimmy Lee Deen @ Last Concert Cafe
Talked some about Austinites Megafauna the last time they rolled through H-town, and then as now, I’m mightily impressed by their slightly jagged-sounding, mid-’90s indie-rock thing. They’re playing this time ’round with a bit of a different band in {MOTHS} — the local outfit steps between spiraling, gently-shifting textures and frenzied, breakneck-pace mathcore that’s complex and wild but still nicely melodic. Think Four Hundred Years at the louder spots, and you’ll be close.

Runners-Up:
Carolyn Wonderland/Vallejo @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar
Chemistry/Fingers Crossed (split 7″ release)/Pentimento/Light Years/Fox and Cats @ Vinyl Junkie
Tedeschi Trucks Band/The BoDeans @ Verizon Wireless Theater
Alabama Shakes/The Umbrella Man/Picture Book @ The Continental Club
The Civil Wars/Staves @ Cullen Theatre (Wortham Center)
Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah Screening, featuring Gurf Morlix @ Anderson Fair
Texas Johnny Brown @ The Big Easy
The Elevation Celebration: Deeper Elevation Release Concert/Listening Party, featuring K-Rino & SPC Click @ Bea’s Island Club
John Evans @ Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe (Galveston)