Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Square and Compass + What Made Milwaukee Famous + Sunrise and Ammunition + Willie Nelson + More

Yep, into the weekend, now, and it’s Friday, January 25th, with plenty of cool stuff going on. Here we go:

Square and Compass (CD release)/Chemistry/Broken Satellite/Spastic Fit/The Last Humans/Growing Pains @ Mango’s ($5)
Damn, do I love these guys. {Square and Compass} hit every single old-school emo touchpoint I can think of, and they do it awesomely well. Tonight’s the official release for new album, How to Escape, which takes those emo/indie-rock/pop-punk tendencies and hones ’em to a sharp, sharp edge, resulting in a rock-solid, impeccably crafted set of raging, melodic guitar-rock songs; check out the full review over here.

Or, heck, take a listen yourself:

I dunno most of the other folks on the bill, sadly, although I do like what I’ve heard so far from fellow emo-influenced rockers {Chemistry}; need to hear more of those guys, definitely…

What Made Milwaukee Famous/Grandfather Child/Charles P and The 10% @ Fitzgerald’s
Always cool to see Austin band What Made Milwaukee Famous come back through town — and back onto the scene in general, as it’s been half a decade since previous release What Doesn’t Kill Us. Now, though, they’re back with this year’s You Can’t Fall Off the Floor, which sees the band slipping away from their previous Cotton Mather-gone-indie sound in favor of something more thoughtful and ’70s-sounding.

Check out the video for “Gone and Done It Now,” with the band as the featured performers on an late-’70s/early-’80s talk show run by a drunken, lecherous asshole:

Plus, they’ve got H-town badasses {Grandfather Child} as one of their openers, and they’re worth the price of admission all by themselves. Honest, if you’ve yet to witness Lucas Gorham & co.’s melding of rock, soul, and sacred-steel gospel, there is a real-live hole in your life. You need to fill it.

Sunrise and Ammunition/Cleanup/excuseMesir/Hoffle Stoff Awaffogus @ Avant Garden
This is a nice one, particularly since it features two bands I’ve heard & reviewed — and liked quite a bit — very recently, {Sunrise and Ammunition} & {excuseMesir}, both on the same stage.

It fits, too, since both bands have a definite vein of agile prog-rock flowing through their veins, although on new album Tesseract, S&A is nearly so far down that path as to be jazz:

For their part, on new-ish EP With You In Mind, excuseMesir comes off more like late-night, darkly-imagined indie-prog; think old-school Modest Mouse with Tontons singer Asli Omar on the vocals:

And then, of course, there’s openers {Hoffle Stoff Awaffogus}, whom I’ve yet to hear but who definitely, um, have a memorable name…

Willie Nelson/Folk Family Revival @ Nutty Jerry’s (Winnie)
And then, way, way, waaaaay out in Winnie, at Nutty Jerry’s, there’s a pretty stellar-looking show featuring the legendary Willie Nelson, who last graced H-town at Summerfest last year, I believe, and local boys {Folk Family Revival}, whose rough-edged, gospel-tinged country-rock bowls me over every damn time. Good news for folks out on the east side of town, definitely.

Runners-Up:
Second Lovers/The Blackwells/The Rosedale Highs/Elyse @ Fitzgerald’s
Super Robot Party/PuraPharm/Hear Me Now @ Walter’s
We Scare Coyotes @ BFE Rock Club
Blaggards @ Ashford Arms Pub
Emilie Autumn @ Warehouse Live (Studio)
Church ov Melkarth (record release)/Humut Tabal/Project Armageddon/Vntitled/Blood Stone @ Super Happy Fun Land ($7)
Sleepy LaBeef/The Wagoneers/Little Joe Washington @ The Continental Club