Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: David Byrne & St. Vincent (MP3!) + BuzzFest 29 + Featherface + Zine Fest + Southern Backtones + More
We’re on into Saturday, October 6th, now, and there’s still a heck of a lot of cool stuff happening; here we go:
David Byrne & St. Vincent @ Hobby Center
And we’ll start with what is unquestionably the coolest, most intriguing collaboration of the past several years: the elder statesman of post-New Wave oddball pop and one of the reigning queens (duchesses?) of the indie-pop universe, otherwise known as David Byrne & St. Vincent. It’s not a pairing I would’ve thought of, myself, but hell, it works, and works beautifully. The end result marries Byrne’s trademark funky quirkiness with St. Vincent’s sleek pop sheen, as on these tracks:
I’m not sure tickets for this are still available, honestly, but if you can get ’em, you should go.
BuzzFest 29, featuring Three Days Grace, Silversun Pickups, Hollywood Undead, The Toadies, 10 Years, Lit, Eve 6, Dead Sara, Tremonti, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Atlas Genius, Hanni El Khatib, the last place you look, & The Stone Foxes @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Alright, so in year past I’ll admit to snickering and shaking my head at some of the BuzzFest lineups the folks over at The Buzz have put together. A lot of years there’ve been too many meatheaded, generic AlternaRock bands for my tastes, coupled with a bunch of has-been bands I never wanted to see in the first place.
This year, though, some of their picks make me raise an eyebrow a bit. I mean, there’s the usual crop of AlternaRockers, some old & some new, but then there’s the utterly awesome fuzz-rock outfit Silversun Pickups, gritty rocker-dude Hanni El Khatib, local emo-ish alt-rock/metal guys {the last place you look}, and retro-’60s gang The Stone Foxes. I like all of those bands, not to mention quasi-resurrected Buzz heroes The Toadies, and recently-reviewed LA band Dead Sara. Hell, looking back through that lineup again, I’m now kicking myself for not driving on up to The Woodlands…
Zine Fest Houston, featuring Devil Killing Moth & Say Girl Say @ Super Happy Fun Land (3-8PM; free!)
Already talked about this one a bit, but I wanted to mention it again, if only briefly; it promises to be very, very cool. If you’re into zines or publishing or DIY stuff or writing or art or just neat stuff in general, you really owe it to yourself to head over to Super Happy Fun Land to check it out…
Featherface @ Heights Vinyl (4PM)
Damn. Already missing this one, which sucks, but if you hurry on over to Heights Vinyl, hopefully you can catch part of {Featherface}‘s set, at least. The band is flat-out phenomenal, crafting intricate, primary-colored psych-pop songs that don’t sound like anybody else, and yes, you need to see ’em. Seriously.
Southern Backtones/The Ghost Wolves @ Rudyard’s
And then up at Rudz, there’s longtime rockers {Southern Backtones}, whose most recent full-length, La Vie En Noir, is damn near a masterpiece of murky, dark, otherworldly-yet-rootsy rock that bridges the gap between David Bowie and the Cowboy Junkies, and it does it with style.
Runners-Up:
Life as Lions/Anthem @ Numbers
10th Annual ZiegenBock Music Festival, featuring Ryan Bingham, Hayes Carll, Roger Creager, Jason Boland, David Nail, Terry Lee Goffee, Robert Ellis, Cody Canada, Kevin Fowler, Cannan Smith, Thieving Birds, Kacy Musgraves, Drake White, Rosehill, Lydia Loveless, & more @ Sam Houston Race Park
Acous’Mix* ReView, featuring Nosaprise, Day-Go Produce, & Sydnee Jane & the Janettes @ Notsuoh
Optimo Radio 3rd Annual B-Day Bash, featuring S.P.C., The LOEGz, Hongree Records, LOS, T2 The Ghetto Hippie, Kyle Hubbard, SubKulture Patriots, Renegade & Young Smitty, Bigg Chubba, Miranda Gil, Undergravity, & Ms. Kenya @ Jet Lounge
Turbokrieg/Mindless/hsa/Angst @ Walter’s
3rd Annual Red Cat Jazz Festival @ Pearland Town Center (Pearland)
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