Tonight: Hot Water Music + OFF! + Grandfather Child + Folk Family Revival + Coog Radio Anniversary + More

Sorry for the recent quiet, all, but I’ve been out of town for Day Job work, meeting people & hiking around Cambridge, MA. (Which is very, very cool, incidentally, even if it’s more expensive than God to live here.)

However, there is literally a heaping pile of awesomeness happening back on the home front, and I didn’t want to let it slip by without a mention. So here’s what looks cool to me (from afar) for Thursday, September 20th:

Rise Against/The Gaslight Anthem/Hot Water Music @ Bayou Music Center
Hell, yeah. I’m not super-duper up on The Gaslight Anthem, myself — although I’ve got friends who love ’em to death, and I keep meaning to give ’em more of a listen — but I do like political punks Rise Against, and I freaking love old-school emo touchstones Hot Water Music. Never got to see ’em live the first time around, and it kinda kills me that I’m not in H-town for tonight’s show. sigh. Chuck Ragan‘s an awesome singer; I could listen to him roar out songs like “I Was on a Mountain” for days & days & days…

OFF!/Negative Approach/Power Trip @ Warehouse Live (Studio)
Still haven’t heard punk supergroup OFF!, either, somehow…just keeps slipping past me. From everything I’ve heard about them, though, they sound pretty mindblowingly great. Josh M. actually reviewed their self-titled debut back in June; check that out over here.

Thursday Concerts at Discovery Green, featuring Grandfather Child & Folk Family Revival @ Discovery Green (6PM; free!)
Wow. This is like a roots-rock pairing for The End Times, y’all. {Grandfather Child} are incredible, with their alternately sweet/crooning and desperate/howling mishmash of soulful blues-rawk (not to mention that lap steels are always badass), and {Folk Family Revival} play full-throated, heartfelt roots-country that sends shivers down my spine. And hey, because you’re an hour behind me, you still have time to get over to Discovery Green & see ’em play. Woo!

Coog Radio One Year Anniversary Show, featuring The Beans, Agent Ribbons, FLCON FCKER, The Roosevelt House Band, & Josiah Gabriel @ Mango’s (free!)
Last but definitely not least, there’s tonight’s One Year Anniversary Show for those crazy kids over at {COOG Radio}, who you might remember from this year’s HP “Best Of Houston” Awards. They were relatively new to me then, but I’ve been extremely, extremely impressed with ’em since. They post so frequently and intelligently that it makes me hang my head in shame.

But anyway, they’re celebrating one year of existence tonight, and it’s a good lineup. Sadly, it seems {Female Demand} dropped off the bill, but there’s still {The Beans} and {FLCON FCKER}, both of whom I’ve been meaning to see, plus out-of-towners Agent Ribbons, who also sound damn good. Get on over there & help celebrate.

Runners-Up:
Food Not Bombs Benefit Show, featuring Willie Collins Band, Free Radicals, Tyagaraja, & Adam and the Ancient Gods @ Fitzgerald’s
Darrin Love/Elaine Greer and Friends/Without a Face @ Fitzgerald’s
Citizen Cope @ House of Blues
Acous’Mix Re*View, featuring Collective Dreams, Fox & Cats, & Lion Among Men @ Notsuoh
Bike Night, featuring Black Queen Speaks @ Brick House Tavern & Tap (290 & Bingle)