Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Mills-McCoin’s Circus + Kina Grannis + Scott H. Biram + SPC Anniversary + Spring Fandango + More

On to Saturday, now, April 14th, and if my goddamn HTML editor (thanks so fucking much, HyperEdit) will quit freaking crashing on me every 20 minutes, this’ll hopefully be an actual timely little mid-weekend writeup-type thing… Tonight’s got a crapton of good stuff going on, truly; get on out and see/hear some of it.

Here’s what looks/sounds good to me:

Mills-McCoin’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus, featuring Roky Moon & BOLT!, Blackie Dammett, Poor Pilate, The Handshake, The New Movement Improv Troupe, The Dirty Mac & Cheez, Kam Franklin, Holy Drag, & Craig Hlavaty @ The Orange Show (7-11PM)
This one’s the biggie, at least to my mind; local scene fixture John Mills-McCoin is “curating” tonight’s show up at The Orange Show (cross fingers the weather holds, y’all), which he’s dubbed “Mills-McCoin’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus,” and it sounds like it should be one heck of a show.

See, not only are soon-to-be-deceased glam-rockers Roky Moon & BOLT! playing, along with quirky folk-blues outfit {Poor Pilate}, {The Handshake}, & {Blackie Dammett}, but there’ll also be clowns (I think?), a pseudo-ringmaster/mistress, and even a strongman (aka {Houston Press} writer Craig Hlavaty). Check out Jef With One F‘s excellent interview with Mills-McCoin over here, on the HP site for more info, but trust me when I tell you that it’s going to be freaking great. No lie.

Oh, and I have to shamefacedly admit to totally screwing something up, by the by. See, when I first saw “Blackie Dammett” on the bill, I figured that was actually the infamous {B L A C K I E}, he of speaker-crushing aggro-hop fame; he’d done at least a couple of shows where he added a “Dammit” onto his name, so I thought, “oh, okay; it must be him.” And I added him to the show listing. Cool, right?

Well, no. It turns out that this “Blackie Dammett” is actually a band, one that’s totally separate from the aforementioned rapper. sigh. Sorry about that, y’all — profuse apologies for the mixup. (Hell, I didn’t even realize the original “Blackie Dammett” was Anthony Kiedis‘s dad ’til I started Googling this band…very weird.)

Kina Grannis/Imaginary Friend @ Fitzgerald’s
I’m sure some who read this will roll their eyes and/or cringe at this one, but who the fuck cares? Music doesn’t always need to be dark or dangerous or intense — everything’s got a place, even gentle, warm-hearted pop songs. And what can I say? I was thoroughly charmed by Kina Grannis‘s stop-motion video for “In Your Arms,” made entirely with thousands of jelly beans and Grannis herself, and once I got past that central gimmick, I realized that hell, I actually like the song, too.

In case you hadn’t already seen it, here you are:

Scott H. Biram/Sean Reefer & the Resin Valley Boys @ The Continental Club
And now, for something completely different… If jangly, sweet-voiced pop isn’t for you, well, there’s always The Continental Club, which tonight has rough-voiced, ornery, whiskey-smelling country-boy Scott H. Biram, who I love even more every time I hear him. The guy’s country, to be sure, but he’s not some preening wannabe cowboy in too-tight jeans and a black cowboy hat; he’s like that redneck guy you see at the trailer park on the outskirts of town, sitting in a lawnchair with a trucker cap on his head and a beer in his hand, burning some random crap in a pile on the gravel in front of his trailer. Well, except that unlike that guy (I’m assuming, anyway), Biram plays a mean guitar and can belt out a gritty, bluesy tune in a big way.

And hey, while we’re doing videos, here one of him doing his thing:

South Park Coalition 25th Anniversary, featuring K-Rino, Ganksta N-I-P, Point Blank, PSK-13, The Terrorists, Murder One, Street Military, Bam of the Killa Klan, 20-2-Life, Section A, Rhyme Felony, Texas Tech, Sniper, Cl’che, Rapper K, O.G. KO, Justice Allah, Se7en, Shan-No, Filero, & more @ Numbers
I’m not going to claim to be an expert in anything relating to the South Park Coalition crew of rappers, DJs, and assorted other folks; it’s not my scene, really. If you like music and live in Houston, however, you’d have to be utterly and completely blind and/or dense to not recognize the massive imprint the SPC’s had on Houston-bred hip-hop. Has it seriously been 25 freaking years? Damn.

Mr. Lewis and the Funeral 5/Jealous Creatures/The Tyburn Jig @ Dean’s
I dunno Mr. Lewis and the Funeral 5 at all, sorry, but the other two bands, {Jealous Creatures} & {The Tyburn Jig}, are two of the most promising, uniquely cool bands I’ve heard in this city in the last couple of years. The Creatures are particularly awesome, with a sound that merges fuzzed-out indie-rock a la Magnapop with the windswept darkness of the Cowboy Junkies circa “Seven Years.” And speaking of windswept darkness, yeah, that’s pretty much the Jig’s forte, too — they do spooky, out-Western twang-surf rock that’s trapped in the netherworld halfway between Goth and Ennio Morricone.

The Caroline Sessions, featuring The Handshake & Tiziano Dominico @ Spring Street Studios (2PM)
Argh. I goofed on this one, I’m afraid; I saw that it was the return of The Caroline Sessions — which is very cool, btw — and assumed, wrongly, that it’d be held at the Caroline Collective itself. Except that it’s at Spring Street Studios, instead. Erm. Whoops?

At any rate, um, the show started just a few minutes ago (at 2PM), so get on over there & check out the folks playing. {Tiziano Dominico} is very cool (what I’ve heard of his stuff, at least), and while I have yet to see or hear {The Handshake}, I’m told they’re damn good. Go enjoy some nice jangle-pop/folk on this beautiful, beautiful day, before the rains come back in to flood us out of our homes, eh?

The Spring Fandango: An Old Fashioned Street Dance, featuring Papa Grows Funk, Danny Barnes, Tony Furtado, Cedric Burnside Project, MilkDrive, The Hightailers, Carrie Ann and the Apocalyptics, Steve Straker Band, Puppet Pizzazz, Tribal Lillies, & more @ Last Concert Cafe
I can’t say I’m a huge, huge fan of a lot of folks playing at this year’s Spring Fandango, but it sounds like a cool deal even still. Last Concert Cafe is a neat place, and there are some people on the bill I like quite a bit, namely the Cedric Burnside Project (formerly one-half of Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm & grandson of R.L. Burnside) and Houston expats Carrie Ann and the Apocalyptics, who I’ve liked since they were actually still down here. This thing’s well worth catching for those two performances alone.

The festival’s not strictly in the LCC, mind you — like the latter part of its name says, this is meant to be a street festival, so they’ll be shutting down Nance St. starting around 3PM. There’ll also reportedly be hula hooping, chalk art, crafts, puppets, and belly dancing; get on over to the northeastern edge of downtown…

Runners-Up:
Annise Parker’s Hunger Plan: Food Sharing Ordinance Benefit, featuring Days N’Daze, Free Radicals, Say Girl Say, Nikkhoo, & Marissa. @ The Mink ($6; 18+)
Ryan Scroggins & the Trenchtown Texans/Jason Bancroft & the Wealthy Beggars/The Dollyrockers/The Witherees @ Rudyard’s
Kemah Crawfish Festival, featuring Hamilton Loomis, The Sonny Boy Terry Band, Tommie Lee Bradley, Richard Cagle & The Voodoo Choir, The Paul Ramirez Band, Eugene Moody and The Blues Back Band, Brad Absher Band featuring Anthony Terry, Texas Johnny Brown, .07 Blues Band, Don Kesee & The Blues Masters, Tommy Dardar, Jimmy “T-99” Nelson Scholarship Showcase featuring Rebecca Laird and Eric Hoovestol with Rich Del Grosso, Trudy Lynn with Blues For Two (Pops Stewart, Peewee Stephens and Lil’ Joe Frenchwood), Eric Demmer & The Sax Dawgs featuring Evelyn Rubio and The Veri Teri Greene, Bon Ton Mickey and the Zydeco Hotsteppers, Trey Gadler and Dead Mans Hand, Clara McVille, Scars Heal in Time, The Leo Trio, Jerome Beatiste & The Zydeco Players, Big Slick, Ann “Crawfish” Brown, Hoodoo Voodoo, & Sugarland Brass Band @ Kemah Bridge (Kemah)
Graffiti Cathedral/Calvin Stanley @ Fitzgerald’s
Houston Flamenco Festival 2012, featuring Cuadro La Tempestad @ Del Espadin Flamenco Studios (3939 Hillcroft; 8-10PM)
British Invasion, featuring Picture Book & Von Hindenburg @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar
Scout Bar Eight Year Anniversary Party, featuring The Hunger, Parabelle, EraseTheVirus, Soul in Tension, & Silk Knives @ The Scout Bar (Clear Lake)
First Look Festival, featuring Cameron McCarthy, Shipra Mehrota, & Hikeshi Naniwa Tobi @ Asia Society Texas Center (1370 Southmore)