Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Electric Attitude + Omotai + Dynamo Post-Game + Animals as Leaders + Gary Floyd Benefit + Exploded Drawing + Fuzzy Fest + More

Oh, wow. That is a big-ass list of good shows happening tonight, so many that yeah, I’m gonna have to keep this kind of brief. Without further blatheration, here goes:

Electric Attitude (CD release)/Spain Colored Orange/Nick Greer & The G’s @ House of Blues
Yup, this one’s the biggie for me, at least; I’ve been listening to {Electric Attitude}‘s new full-length, Skintight & Solid Gold, a whole lot lately, and yeah, I’m pretty blown away by it. I was wary after their previous EP, which kind of left me wanting, but this time they seriously delivered, blasting out a tight, dirty, raw-yet-shiny funk-rock explosion that hits everybody from old-school touchstones like James Brown, P-Funk, and The Bar-Kays to Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture, and Cold War Kids. Check out the full review here, then go witness the spectacle live and in-person.

KEN mode/Inter Arma/Omotai/Smoke Mountain @ Mango’s ($10)
Dunno everybody playing tonight at Mango’s, but I’ve been meaning/wanting to take a serious listen to Canadian noise-makers KEN mode for quite a while now. And I definitely know {Omotai}, who are probably my favorite of Houston’s current crop of sludgy, doom-y, prog-y metalheads; the music they make is loud and punishing but still cerebral and complex, simultaneously lulling your brain into a mesmerized state while they beat you into the ground with the fury of the music itself. See them live, and I guarantee your jaw will hit the floor.

Dynamo Post Game Show, featuring Hoofprints, Catch Fever, Brand New Hearts, & The Lovable Old James @ Warehouse Live (free!)
Not sure if this one’s already gone by or not — apologies if it has, but I’ve been having to watch the midgets today — but if it hasn’t, you really need to go, whether you’re a Dynamo fan or not. (And if you’re not, and you live in Houston, well, then I’m actually not going to speak to you, period, so there’s that.)

See, because somehow this particular post-game show includes two of Houston’s absolute-finest post-emo indie-rock/power-pop bands, namely {Hoofprints} and {Brand New Hearts}. I seriously, seriously love these two bands, especially BNH, and if you are at all a fan of folks like The Promise Ring, Knapsack, Papermoons, or even Moods For Moderns, you will, too.

The Dillinger Escape Plan/Animals as Leaders/Periphery/Norma Jean/Cattle Decapitation/The Ocean/Revocation/Aeon/Rings of Saturn/Thy Art Is Murder/An Oath of Misdirection @ House of Blues
I’ll admit I’m not real up on most of the folks playing tonight’s metal/metalcore extravaganza going on tonight at the House of Blues (aka The Summer Slaughter Tour), but I do like some of the names on that list, especially appropriately-named, deep-sounding, German doom-metallers The Ocean, snarling prog-hardcore outfit The Dillinger Escape Plan, and the supremely cool prog-metal crew Animals as Leaders, whose guitarist/frontman Tosin Abasi plays his 8-string guitars in ways that barely seem like they’d be possible for a mere human. (I suspect he’s actually an alien, but that may just be me.)

Gary Floyd Benefit, featuring Ex-Girlfriends, Talk Sick Brats, & Beatless @ Sound Exchange (7-10PM)
Damn. It’s a shame to hear Gary Floyd is in such bad shape these days; I knew the Dicks frontman had had health problems in recent years, but apparently now the medical bills are through the roof, and he needs help. The guy’s a real-live punk legend, both here in Texas and everywhere; get on up to Sound Exchange to help support. Cool people {The Ex-Girlfriends}, {Talk Sick Brats}, & Beatless are playing, and there’ll be an auction of photos of Gary & some of Gary’s own artwork. Help out a Texas punk legend, y’all.

Exploded Drawing XXII, featuring JonWayne, Lo Phi, Sampler & Son, soundfounder, Kinder, LIMB, REZ, FLCON FCKER, & Josiah Gabriel @ Continuum Headquarters (2500 Summer St.)
Feel like checking out some truly oddball, non-dance-y EDM? Well, here you go — Exploded Drawing XXII collects three of my favorite Houston-based electronic-y type people, {LIMB}, {FLCON FCKER}, and {Josiah Gabriel}, all three of which are strange, yet weirdly compelling. I’m probably least familiar with Gabriel, but I really, really dig the other two, albeit in different ways; LIMB is definitely the more menacing of the two, while FLCON FCKER (what I’ve heard, anyway) is more laidback.

Fuzzy Fest IV: A Benefit for Pugs, featuring Contaminants, Ass, Marla, Shfux, Troothless, 2 Buck Drunks, Statuette, Molotov Compromise, Days N’ Daze, Warhounds, Black Coffee, Funeral Horse, & Garbage Dump @ The Compound (2305 Wheeler; 5PM-12AM)
Wait, what? Okay, I have no idea what this means, except, um, I guess it’s a benefit show for pugs, as in the dog? Actually, from their FB page, it looks like it’s an annual event, a Houston-area benefit for animals in general, and hey, I’m definitely good with that. Plus, there are darn good people playing, like {Black Coffee}, {Funeral Horse}, and Days N’ Daze…

Runners-Up:
The March Divide @ Avant Garden
Adam Ant/Prima Donna @ Warehouse Live
Ramesh Srivastava (Voxtrot)/Young Girls/Orthy @ Walter’s
The Caldwell/Deep Cuts/Poor Pilate @ The Continental Club
Free The Water II, featuring Ensane, Nikkhoo, Renazons, & Sunrise and Ammunition @ Rudyard’s
Stevie’s 666 Birthday, featuring Saya, Mannequin Mishap, Funeral Horse, Alaska, & 1819 @ The Doctor’s Office (1301 Nance)
94.5 The Buzz Bud Light Weenie Roast, featuring 311, Cypress Hill, Sublime with Rome, Pennywise, & G. Love & Special Sauce @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Vessel/The Minx Delilah/Karma Points/Satellite Brigade/Letters To Voltron/Sleeper Street @ Fitzgerald’s
Summer Sound Series, featuring Corporate Park, Filth, Future Blondes, Bastard Cult, Alimanas, T.E.F., & Werewolf Jerusalem @ The Station Museum of Contemporary Art (1502 Alabama; 3PM)
Metal Fist/Steel Wheels Festival, featuring Whiskey Bliss, Maximus, Dani Vargas Group, & The Lotus Effect @ Pasadena Fairgrounds (Pasadena)
Blaggards @ Molly Malone’s (Spring)
Wounded Warrior Project, featuring the Scooter Brown Band @ Dosey Doe (Spring)