Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Latch Key Kids (Rev’d!) + A Sundae Drive + Jealous Creatures + Two Star Symphony + Aesop Rock + More

Alright, y’all — stuck at the house dealing with a feverish munchkin this evening (a fever of 103.8’s never a good thing), Friday, August 10th, but there’s plenty for you non-homebodies out there to be doing/hearing. Here goes:

Latch Key Kids/Broken Gold/Ballistics/Rotten Waters @ Fitzgerald’s
Okay, so confession time: waaaaay back in January, I went to the {Latch Key Kids}‘ release party at Fitz for the band’s then-new EP Democracy: The Art of Maintaining a State of Fear, with every intention of reviewing it for the site.

Heck, I actually started writing it up the very next day…and then, well, it got dropped. For a long damn time, unfortunately, so long that there didn’t seem to be much point in publishing the thing. This week, though, I realized that the half-done review was still lingering out there in WordPress Limbo, and with the band playing again tonight, hey, why not?

That show, btw, was a blast, and I’d guarantee tonight’s will be, too — look over here for that long-overdue writeup of the last time they played here in H-town. The Kids have seriously barely missed a step since The Good Old Days of the late ’90s, blasting through some old-school (but not dated-sounding), sociopolitically-minded skate-punk. They’re a hell of a lot of fun.

And hey, they’re apparently recording tonight’s show, too, for the TonyGonzo Show, which airs somewhere on the West Coast; not sure of the details on that, but if you feel like going out over the airwaves rocking out, here’s your shot.

Unfortunately, there’ve been a few lineup changes recently, namely that {The American Heist} and Spastic Fit had to cancel for some reason; they’ve been replaced (kind of, anyway) by {The Ballistics} and a band I’ve never heard of before called Rotten Water. Riverboat Gamblers side project Broken Gold is still playing, too, and that’s definitely a good thing…

A Sundae Drive/Jealous Creatures/Elect Trick City/Lovable Old James @ The Mink
It’s a close, close, three-way tie for my top pick for the night, honestly. Along with the LKK show at Fitz, there’s also this show over at The Mink, which happens to include two of my absolute-favorite newish H-town bands, the fuzzy-edged, Seam-/Pixies-like {A Sundae Drive} — who I have got to see live sometime soon, I swear — and windswept, dark-tinged, indie-rock-out-West outfit {Jealous Creatures}, who live in a no-man’s-land somehwere between The Cowboy Junkies and ’90s-vintage Britpop, a place I’d dearly love to dwell in for a good long time.

Don’t know a whole lot about duo {Elect Trick City}, but what I’ve heard about ’em has been very positive, so make sure you get over there early, eh? (As in, um, right now, maybe?)

Two Star Symphony (CD re-release)/Ancient Cat Society @ Warehouse Live (Green Room; $10)
And here we have the third in the triumvirate, with {Two Star Symphony} playing their re-release show for their remixed & remastered debut(?) album, Love & Other Demons. I haven’t ever heard that one, unfortunately, but I was fortunate enough to be able to check out their most recent album, Titus Andronicus, which the insanely talented (and I mean “insanely” in both possible ways) quartet wrote as the soundtrack for a dance/theater interpretation of the ridiculously gory/brutal Shakespeare play of the same name. And let me tell you, it is one of the creepiest pieces of music I’ve heard, ever, and I love it. The band takes classical and chamber music and turns it into Gothic horror-theme music like nobody else.

They’re playing, too, with {Ancient Cat Society}, a side project of sorts involving Sergio from {Buxton} and a band I’ve meant to see for quite a while now. It’s Buxton-like from what I’ve heard, but gentler and more folk/bluesy. Make sure you check them out, too.

Aesop Rock/Rob Sonic/DJ Big Wiz/Edison/Dark Time Sunshine @ Fitzgerald’s
Lastly, the other floor at Fitz has a full-on indie-hip-hop explosion. I really, truly dig Aesop Rock — have for many moons, now that I’m thinking about it — and he’s one of a handful of rappers I hold up as shining examples of what you can do when you eschew the thug-rap path in the hip-hop industry. Like those Rhymesayers folks and his erstwhile Def Jux comrades, Aesop is smart, sharp-tongued, fast, and unbelievably smooth. Oh, and he can still make the dancefloor bounce, make no mistake about it.

Not real familiar with the other folks playing, although I’ve liked what I’ve heard by space-rap duo Dark Time Sunshine, too. I do have a little bit of a gripe, though: no local rappers? There’s a veritable flood of indie-hip-hop talent in this town right now, from {Kyle Hubbard} to {Fat Tony} to {iLL LiaD} to {hasHBrown} — there wasn’t space on the bill for one of ’em to warm up the room before the out-of-towners hit the stage? C’mon, son.

Runners-Up:
Punk Peep Show, featuring Donkey Kick, The Vipers, Stay At Home Mom, Noguey, No Reply, & Snatch Punch @ Mango’s ($4)
Smokers Club, featuring Chevy Woods, Smoke DZA, Doughbeezy, Fat Trel, & Joey Bada$$ @ Warehouse Live (Studio)
Skyrocket!/Little Joe Washington @ The Continental Club
Junior Brown @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck