Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: MS Understood + Our Scene United + Local Live Houston + Young Mammals + The Suffers + The Fox Derby + More

It’s looking like one hell of a day/night today, Saturday, April 6th, so I’ll skip the usual blather and just get right to all the cool things happening. Here we go:

MS Understood: Music for a Cure for Multiple Sclerosis, featuring The Tyburn Jig, The Wheel Workers, The Rads, A Sundae Drive, Jealous Creatures, Brand New Hearts, & The Boulevard Nights @ Fitzgerald’s ($10/$15)
Talked about this one already, I know, but hey, it’s worth re-mentioning, because not only is it a darn good cause, but it’s a great pile of bands playing, especially {Jealous Creatures}, {A Sundae Drive}, {The Wheel Workers}, {Brand New Hearts}, & {The Tyburn Jig}. Get on up to Fitz tonight, people. And hey, if you happen to see a bearded guy with a very-faded Olympics baseball cap roaming around, say “hi.”

Our Scene United: A Benefit for Victims of Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery, featuring Greedy Mouth, Shfux, Marla Strange, Troothless, Hoffle Stoff Awaffogus, Fuska, & Shut Up Sidney @ East Side Social Center (4202 Canal; 7PM, $3)
And speaking of benefit-y things, there’s this one, over at the East Side Social Center (aka the former storefront location of Vinyl Junkie; R.I.P., y’all…). It’s a benefit for Mosaic Family Services, a nonprofit that helps victims of human trafficking here in Texas.

To help raise money for MFS, then, the organizers have gathered together an oddball bunch of bands that includes Greedy Mouth from Corpus Christi, Shfux from Waco, Marla Strange from Belton(!), and then locals {Hoffle Stoff Awaffogus}, {Fuska}, and {Shut Up Sidney}. I like the latter two quite a bit and have heard good things about HSA (although I have yet to hear them for myself), so this should be good. And hey, it’s a righteous freaking cause.

Local Live Houston 3rd Year Anniversary, featuring Yello Echo, Devil Killing Moth, Beach Bones, Easy Credit Dance Theater, The Annie B! Band, & Jon Black @ Avant Garden (1-8PM)
Local Live Houston 3rd Year Anniversary, featuring Jody Seabody & The Whirls, Power Rage, Six Gun Sound, & Cosmic Bug Loaf @ Rudyard’s (9PM-2AM)
A double blast tonight in the Montrose, with a show encompassing the stages both at Rudyard’s and the Avant Garden to celebrate the three years of life and online-radio coolness for Local Live Houston, a fiercely H-town-focused community radio outfit we here at SCR happen to like a whole damn lot.

Don’t get me wrong; I still like KPFT, and there will always be a special place in my soul for {KTRU}, but it’s been great to have LLH as an alternative these past few years, especially since I’ve been kinda up-and-down on some of KPFT’s non-musical programming for a while now. If you haven’t tried ’em out yet, check out Local Live; I think you’ll walk away impressed.

For tonight’s celebration, to boot, they’ve brought along a cool crowd of folks across the two venues; I especially like throwback rockers Jody Seabody & The Whirls, smart/sharp rapper {Jon Black}, acoustic/spacey people {Devil Killing Moth}, soulful rock band {Yello Echo}, and up-and-coming indie-rockers {Beach Bones}. The show’s already going on now, so get on up to the Avant Garden soonish…

Young Mammals/Gun Outfit/Ex-Girlfriends @ Mango’s
Yay! It always does my soul good to see the {Young Mammals} lurch back out of the cave where they hibernate, even if it’s only to roar and rage for a little while; these indie-rock kids are hardly kids anymore, really, but eh, that’s still kind of how I’ve got ’em fixed in my head, for better or for worse. Regardless of their age, they still blaze with that fiery energy that’s usually only something a band of youngsters can pull off, and believe me when I say that it’s freaking mesmerizing to see.

Plus, there’s {The Ex-Girlfriends}, a band I seriously need to check out, seeing as it consists of folks from {The Busy Kids}, {Talk Sick Brats}, & The Vipers. Hit up Mango’s tonight and get all sweaty and rock out with people you’ve just met but love anyway, dammit.

The Suffers/DJ Meshak @ The Orange Show ($15)
Ooh, yeah. H-town ska/reggae/rocksteady group {The Suffers} are flat-out badass — any hope of an album coming somewhere down the line, y’all? Please? — and The Orange Show is similarly badass, albeit in an architectural/folk-arty way rather than a musical one. A very, very cool, damn near unique band in a very, very cool, absolutely unique venue; hard to beat that…

The Fox Derby @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
And finally, up at the Mucky Duck tonight, there’s a somewhat surprising show with {The Fox Derby}, whose Britpop-gone-American sound feels like an odd fit for the venerable folk/country/Celtic venue. But hey, who’m I to pigeonhole? The Derby are great whether they fit in or not, blending Oasis and Blur and Morrissey with post-rockers like TV On The Radio or Bloc Party, and they play far, far too infrequently these days. See them while you can, y’all.

Runners-Up:
Cleanup/Giant Battle Monster/The Dead Revolt/Sunrise and Ammunition @ Walter’s ($5/$8)
The Sing Your Life Traveling Acoustic Showcase, featuring Kara Melton, Melissa Savcic, Brian Jurek, Jeremy Grisbee, Charity Ann, Adam Bricks, Tom Lynch, Jason Long, Gilbert Alfaro (Spain Colored Orange), Moji Abiola (The Journey Agents), & Pete Tijerina (Young Girls) @ The Alley Kat Bar & Lounge (3718 Main; formerly The Mink)
Nick Gaitan & The Umbrella Man/Whiskey Folk Ramblers @ The Continental Club
Soul Sessions, featuring A Fistful of Soul @ MKT Bar (1001 Austin; 8-11PM)
Sat., April 6 – Pearland Crawfish Festival, featuring Tin Cadillac, Cross Town Renegades, Jesse Roach, Texas 99, The Downstairs Mix-up, Richard Cagle & The Voodoo Choir, Junior Gordon, TreynWrek, Annika Chambers & The House Rules Band, Bon Ton Mickey & The Zydeco Highsteppers, Scars Heal in Time, & Wild Rabbit Salad @ Highway 288 between FM 2234 & Broadway/FM 518 (Pearland)
DJ Metallord’s 4th Annual BDay Bash: The Big 40, featuring Bag of Tricks, Saxon King, Burial Shroud, Black Hole Caravan, Behelit, & more @ White Swan Live
K-Rino @ Warehouse Live (Studio)
Walter “Wolfman” Washington @ Market Square Park