Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Female Demand + The Lemonheads + Southern Backtones + Downtown & Whiskey + More

Howdy, folks — it’s Friday, February 10th, the first day of the weekend (technically, anyway; I’d intended to mention last night’s shows this week, too, but ran out of time — sorry…), and while it’s not as busy as several weekends have been lately, it’s still looking pretty promising.

Before we dive in, though, a couple of things worth noting. First, a very observant reader/old-skool hip-hop fan pointed out that the show 2/25/12 at the Arena Theater, with EPMD and De La Soul(!), was no longer listed on the Arena’s Website or on EPMD’s site, and lo and behold, he was right. Looks like the show ain’t happening, y’all, which sucks, because De La are awesome, and I never got to see ’em live. sigh.

Along similar lines, the 2/28/12 show down at The Scout Bar in the Lake o’ Clarity, with Swedish corpsepaint-wearers Dark Funeral, has vanished mysteriously from the Scout Bar’s listings, and the Dark Funeral site doesn’t list any shows ’til April. Sorry, death metal dudes.

On the less-bad side, one upcoming show’s shifted slightly; the Bare Wires show (with Mikey & The Drags, {Guilt Party}, and Jim and the Toms, among others) scheduled for 3/3/12 will now be happening…on 3/2/12. Just one day different, same location (Nak Productions at 4121 Bartlett), same everything else.

Okay, you can breathe easy now; on we go to tonight’s shows:

Female Demand (album release)/B L A C K I E/Caddywhompus/Zorch @ Fitzgerald’s
Dangit, dangit, dangit. I’ve yet to hear the brand-new release by two-man apocalypse machine {Female Demand}, Outside the Universe, but I’m told it’s good, good, good (check out Jef With One F‘s excellent writeup over here) — I really, desperately need to hear it, and soon.

And hey, in the meantime, there’s this badass album release show tonight up at Fitz, which features not only those crazy, strange FD guys, but also the ever-awesome destructo hip-hop of {B L A C K I E} and cool transplanted Houstonians {Caddywhompus} — who bear an eerie resemblance to their still-in-H-town brethren in that they’re a two-man deal with wild-ass prog-rock tendencies. Recommended, seriously. Your mind will be blown, one way or another.

The Lemonheads/Meredith Shelton @ Fitzgerald’s
Ah, Evan Dando. Sure, this is technically The Lemonheads, but honestly, was the band really ever anything other than Evan + Other People? And frankly, I don’t care what you think — Sophomore-In-College Me freaking adored It’s a Shame About Ray (which Dando & his bandmates will apparently be playing in its entirety for this show, btw), listening to it over and over and over again so that the damn songs are imprinted on my soul. Seriously; I haven’t heard the album in a decade at least, but just looking at the song titles, the music pops back into my head, unbidden. It was — and is — a pretty great album.

Southern Backtones @ The Hideaway (3122 Dunvale)
Okay, so I’ve been listening to the about-to-be-released full-length by the {Southern Backtones}, La Vie En Noir, quite a bit this week, and slowly but surely, it’s getting under my skin. It didn’t happen immediately, but it’s happening; the band does subtly dark pop-rock songs like few other bands can. Keep an eye out for the official album release tomorrow night…

Downtown & Whiskey/Monuments and Melodies/East of August @ Avant Garden
I’m pretty new to Downtown & Whiskey, but even after a brief taste, I’m enjoying the heck out of the quartet’s gently rough-edged country-folk; it’s nicely melancholy and downtrodden, with a booze-roughened voice that works perfectly with the lyrics about love and loss. And then when they step sideways into this sort of dreampop-y thing, hell, my jaw drops.

Runners-Up:
ALL DREAD SET Closing, featuring How I Quit Crack & The Wiggins @ Cardoza Fine Art (1320 Nance)
Soul Rebels Brass Band/Little Joe Washington @ The Continental Club
Adrian Zavala Band/Finding Reason/Devil Killing Moth @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar