Yr. Weekend, Pt. 3: The Suffers + We Were Wolves + Co-Pilot + Boats N Hoes + More

It’s now Sunday, June 30th, the last day of the weekend, and there’s still good things happening. Here’re a few worth checking out:

The Suffers/Alan Hampton/Michael Lassoff @ Khon’s Rooftop (2808 Milam; $5)
I raved recently about {The Suffers} excellent new 7″, “Slow It Down”/”Step Aside,” and the band deserved every damn word of it. They’re sweet and soulful, hitting all my own personal ska/rocksteady sweet spots perfectly; listening to ’em, I think of The Pietasters, The Adjusters, The Slackers, & Venice Shoreline Chris, among others, and those are all among my absolute-favorite ska bands ever. Singer Kam Franklin is definitely the focus, with her husky-yet-gorgeous voice, but don’t count out the rest of the band, because they’re a supremely talented crew — my jaw literally dropped as I watched the horn players at FPSF this year.

Add to that the prospect of experiencing the band at night, on the rooftop “stage” at Khon’s, with the lights of Midtown/Downtown right behind…damn. Kinda wishing I could break out of the house this evening myself. sigh…

We Were Wolves/Purple (album release)/Co-Pilot/The Phuss @ Rudyard’s
If smooth, soulful rocksteady’s not your cup of tea, however, hey, you should hit up Rudyard’s, instead, because there’s a damn good lineup of rawk happening over there tonight. Relatively early in the evening, there’s badass, high-flying spacerock dudes {Co-Pilot}, who are flat-out one of my all-time favorite bands from this city or any other; even a few years on, I still listen to their 2010 release, The Course of Empire, which seriously deserves all those terms like “epic” and “majestic” that get thrown around far too frequently. (And hey, guys: any word on a followup? Please?)

Then there’s Beaumont band Purple, who I caught a while back and was very impressed by; the trio rocks the hell out, especially drummer/singer Hanna Brewer, somehow channeling a weirdly Sonic Youth-ish noise-rock sensibility into something a whole lot more energetic and punk. And closing out the night are {We Were Wolves}, themselves Beaumont transplants and another band that rocks like crazy, albeit in a far more straight-ahead fashion; they’re a lot closer to folks like Red Fang, Early Man, or maybe Federation X than anything else, and they do a damn fine job of it.

Boats N Hoes: Boys & Girls Club, featuring Damon Allen, GRRRL Parts, Fredster, Cuba Gooding Jr., & Brandon West @ Secret on-boat location (bus leaves Boondocks at 5PM; $42)
Finally, this one’s neat for a couple of reasons… For one thing, it’s a freaking boat party, which means that you can’t even get to the party unless you show up at 5PM at Boondocks to get on the bus down to wherever the hell it is they’ll be sailing from (Lake Conroe, I think?).

The other part of this is that it’s kind of a last-hurrah-type thing for Houston music scene mainstay {Damon Allen}, who’s moving out to L.A. Which makes this bittersweet, at least for some folks — not only has Damon been one of this city’s top DJs for more than a decade now, but before his headlong plunge in the DJ life, he played in some excellent indie-rock bands (That Gospel Sound, for one), and before that he fronted iconic straightedge band {Refuse To Fall}. Talk about a long & varied musical career, right there. Anyway, we here at SCR wish him all the best — he’s a good dude and a fine musician, whatever he turns his hand to.

Runners-Up:
Suzanna Choffel @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Barry Manilow @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Chapel Blues/Free Rads/Machete @ Fitzgerald’s