Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: the last place you look (Rev’d!) + The Suspects + Greg Ashley + Adam Bricks + Ghost B.C. + Sci Fi Electronic Lullaby + More

Apologies to all for dropping the ball last weekend; I had to go out of town for a family thing and didn’t have a whole lot of time when I could do the actual show writeups. sigh. But hey, I’m back now, and as we roll into the weekend on this Friday, May 2nd, there’s plenty going on.

First up, though, a heads-up: the Deer Tick show that had been scheduled for Monday, May 5th, up at Fitzgerald’s has been cancelled, along with the rest of the band’s Texas and Louisiana dates. Apparently John McCauley‘s undergoing a medical procedure and has to get off the road to recuperate, which is understandable. Hopefully they’ll be back around soon…

Anyway, on to the here and now; I’m already running late, so I’ll have to keep it brief:

the last place you look/Saturate/Society Society/The Vehement Burn @ The Scout Bar (Clear Lake)
And for once we start with the furthest-out show first, on down in Clear Lake, where The Scout Bar has cool, cool, cool alt-rock with emo tendencies, from one of my absolute favorite bands, {the last place you look}. These guys are heavy, melodic, anthemic, and heartfelt, all at the same time, and new EP Rip It Out is flat-out phenomenal, one of the best things I’ve heard lately. Check out the full review over here.

The Suspects @ The Big Top (free!)
On up to Midtown, where another of my all-time favorite bands, {The Suspects}, is playing at The Big Top, aka “That Odd Place Next to The Continental Club.” I don’t think I’ve ever been inside, honestly, but hell, who cares? There’s bound to be a stage of some sort, and from that stage will be emanating some of the finest, most well-honed, most authentic Third Wave ska you’re likely to ever hear. No, seriously; over the years, The Suspects have gone from being “hey, I know those guys, they’re cool” to being my personal yardstick for what ska should sound like. First and Second Wave bands aside, I judge pretty much every ska band I hear nowadays by how they measure up (and they usually don’t). And hey, the show’s free, so what’s there to lose?

Greg Ashley (ex-The Mirrors)/The Brothers Piano Company/Adam Bricks @ Walter’s ($10)
Folks who hung around this city’s music scene back in the late ’90s/early ’00s should recognize Greg Ashley‘s name, at the very least. For a brief, shining while there, he fronted an excellent psych-garage-pop throwback gang of kids (no, literally, they were kids) called The Mirrors who a lot of people, myself included, pretty much assumed would lunge upwards towards fame and greatness and all that crap. They were really damn good, and the 2001 full-length they left behind, A Green Dream, is excellent.

This being Houston, though, the usual happened, and the band split up not long after (I swear to God, it’s like a bona-fide curse or something: release a long-awaited full-length; everybody loves it; break up). Ashley moved on to the Bay Area, and possibly to New Orleans as well, I’m not sure, recording as The Gris Gris for several years. It seems he’s touring on his own these days, and while I’ve got no clue what his solo stuff sounds like lately, it’s bound to be good.

Plus, he’s got {Adam Bricks}, a local urban-folk musician (think old-school Bob Dylan with a smirk) transplanted down here from NYC who I happen to like a whole hell of a lot. Get there right now, if you can…

Ghost B.C./King Dude @ House of Blues
And now, for the weirdos. I’m somewhat stunned this is at the House of Blues, to be honest, because while I’m fairly intrigued/interested by Ghost B.C., I hadn’t figured they were all that well known just yet, at least in the States. But hey, their quirky, quasi-ecclesiastical shtick’s gotten them some press here this past year, so what do I know?

Here’s the overall gist: Ghost B.C. are a band of Swedish metal dudes from the city of Linköping (or are they? oooEEEEOOOOoooo…) who dress up all in hooded robes, with a frontman who wears corpsepaint and dresses like the Pope. They’re all nameless except the frontman, who is called “Papa Emeritus,” and who’s given at least one interview wearing what sure looked like extensive makeup to make him look like an old man (and I think he was speaking only in Italian, too). They’ve so far managed to keep all of their identities secret, which in itself is pretty impressive in this day and age, and the music they play is pretty entertaining, kind of a baroque sort of prog-metal with doom-y and pseudo-Satanic overtones. Lots of organ balancing out the guitars, which just makes me smile. So there you go.

NOLATRONIX Presents Sci Fi Electronic Lullaby, featuring SPEx, Keno Sims, Stephen Farris, FLCON FCKER, Zoofeelia, & Hakeem @ Avant Garden (8PM; $7, or $5 w/sci-fi costume)
Speaking of weird, there’s a fun, strange-sounding show happening over at the Avant Garden tonight, as well. It’s being billed as “Sci Fi Electronic Lullaby,” and people who come dressed up in sci-fi-themed costumes get a couple of bucks off the door price, which gets you inside to bliss out to cool electronic artists like {FLCON FCKER} and {Stephen Farris}. The whole thing’s being put on by a promo group out of New Orleans called NOLATRONIX, and they seem like good folks, so I’d say the show’s definitely worth a shot.

Runners-Up:
Dillinger Escape Plan/Tera Melos/Vattnet Viskar @ Fitzgerald’s
Bryan Anthony and The Gentlemen’s Club/Fat Tony (DJ set) @ MKT Bar (5-11PM)
Electric Attitude @ O’Malley’s (Galveston)
Petty Cash/Ma & God/Sweet Beast/Zin Sin/Bang Feather Bang/Jesus, the Crazy & the Bad Kids @ Notsuoh (7PM; $5)
Jeff Hanneman Tribute/Matt Reinbold Birthday Bash, featuring Hel-Razor, Malevolent Force, Toxic Steel, & Funeral Rites @ The White Swan
Where the Girls Are, featuring Third Ear Caravan, DollyRockers, The Atomic Nightingales, “Tha Lady” D Donna McIntyre, Myrna Samperi Sanders, & Room For Three @ Last Concert Cafe (6PM-1AM)
Nikki Hill/Homer Henderson/Picture Book @ The Continental Club
Bruce & Kelly (CD release) @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
Texas Crawfish & Music Festival, featuring Kevin Fowler, Junior Gordon, Bri Bagwell, & Justin van Sant @ Old Town Spring (7-11:30PM)