Yr. Weekend, Pt. 2: Nick Greer and the G’s + Giant Battle Monster + Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires + Swans + Will Play For Food + More

Damn, it’s late, but damn, there’s still a crap-ton of good-sounding stuff going on this Saturday, June 28th, if you’re not already out and about; I’m gonna try to keep it brief. Here we go:

Nick Greer and the G’s (album release) @ Warehouse Live (Green Room)
First on the list is the album release for the utterly-awesome Nick Greer and the G’s. I’ve always been intrigued by Greer, from his Mantis project onwards — he’s always seemed kind of mysterious and obscure, a character who vanishes for long periods of time without any word, but then, BOOM, he pops back up with something new and amazing.

His current band is one of my favorite funk/soul/whatever outfits of pretty much ever; I have yet to hear new album Heart On Fire, sadly, but I’ve been listening to last year’s self-titled album, and it comes off like Justin Timberlake if he actually was from the streets and not the House of Mouse. Soulful like Stevie Wonder and gritty like Otis Redding, with lots of great horns, impressive piano/keys (from Greer himself, I believe), and some well-crafted rap verses. Recommended.

Math-Rock Bullshit Fest, featuring Feuding Father, Giant Battle Monster, Mannequin Mishap, notLando, Blast Dad, Dadsmom, Coffee Coffee, & American Existentialism @ 2215 Commerce St. ($5)
Of course, if piano-heavy, streetwise soul isn’t your thing — and complex, noisy rawk is — well, 2215 Commerce Street (sorry; just realized the listing had it listed as being at The Ponderosa, but I think that’s a different venue) is where you need to be. The dudes in {Giant Battle Monster} are hosting, I believe, and them being on the bill alone makes it well worth the price of admission; watching those guys play is intense, like witnessing one of those creepy-ass “experiments” where somebody gives meth to a rat to see what it does. The one time I’ve seen them live, I walked away pretty sure their guitarist was being electrocuted while playing.

Lots of other folks are on the bill, as well, mind you, including a handful about which I’ve heard good things, like {Mannequin Mishap}, {Dadsmom}, or {Blast DAD}. For the rest, I’ve got no clue; you’ll have to check the event page or, hell, just go. $5, man, right?

Diarrhea Planet/Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires @ Fitzgeralds
First off: Diarrhead Planet? I have no fucking idea, none at all. Gah. Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, however, are pretty damn fantastic. It’s a white-hot holy mess of swampy blues, raw-throated country, and straight-ahead, overfuzzed rawk, kind of a cross between Dax Riggs’ murky Southern rock voodoo and blues revivalists like The Black Keys or Jack White, except there’s a solid-steel soul of an Alabama country boy beating beneath the hood.

Dereconstructed, the band’s latest, makes me think of J. Roddy Walston more than anybody else, really; both Bains and Walston sound like they come straight out of the backroads and barrooms of the Deep, Dirty South, and they’ve brought that sound back with ’em from side-of-the-road dives your city-boy ass would probably never be brave enough to enter.

Swans/Xiu Xiu @ Fitzgerald’s
I will admit that back when I first heard Swans, back in the ’90s when they were still around the first time, I wasn’t much of a fan. This time around, though, I’m older and (hopefully) wiser, and a bit more opened-up to more experimental stuff like this (or, hell, maybe it’s that some of that sound that used to be totally experimental is a whole lot closer to the mainstream than it used to be, I dunno).

It’s still definitely not music that’s fun to listen to — new album To Be Kind is murky and noisy and droning, a sound that’s like listening to what goes on inside a serial killer’s head when he’s dreaming. It’s background music to some scary, never-written film where there’s a desert, at night, and murder, and rape, and I have no freaking idea what else, because I’m peeking through my fingers so I can’t see it all. It’s kind of like that, at least to me; take it however you want.

Will Play For Food, Vol. 3, featuring Black Grass Gospel, Thread Belly, Hardy & Co., The Grizzly Band, Fear The Poet, Dykes on Bykes, Oceans of Slumber, Cassette Tape, Radio Springs, Fox & Cats, Recovery Room, Gabe Veray Trio, Southbound 45, & Alvin & the Slickpunks @ The Scout Bar (Clear Lake)
Finally, way, way down in the Lake o’ Clarity at The Scout Bar, there’s a badass benefit show going on for the Galveston County Food Bank called Will Play For Food, Vol. 3. $10 gets you in, gets you a T-shirt and compilation CD (of the bands playing, I’m guessing), and gets you a whole bunch of excellent, excellent bands, including indie-popsters Fox & Cats, prog-y metal guys {Oceans of Slumber}, reggae outfit {Cassette Tape}, and roots-tinged punks {The Grizzly Band} (not to be confused with {Grand Old Grizzly}), who I’ve only recently heard but am liking quite a bit. Good cause, good music; do it, y’all.

Runners-Up:
The Journey Agents/Kuumba Freeque/Yello Echo @ The Continental Club
The Hormones/The Guillotines/Poor Dumb Bastards/The Velostacks @ Rudyard’s
King Nugget/Wasi Townsend/Only Beast/Bang Feather Bang/Darwin’s Finches/Night Viking @ Notsuoh (6PM; $5)
Dustin Prinz @ The Tasting Room (1101 Uptown Park Blvd.; 6PM)
Idaho Green/Ancient Gods/Kitten Crisis/Bad Hex @ Super Happy Fun Land
HIKES/Archer Youngster @ Mangos ($7)
Behelit/Diminished/Irrenconcilable Suffering/Gods of Death Screw/The Nephilim Terror/Human Chunks @ Walter’s
InsaneFest 2014, featuring The Mercury Cure, Sons of Blackwater, Alloy Dragon, Six Gun Sound, Torrid Complex, Black Kennedy, Black Hole Caravan, Distartica, Worhol, The Steve Satchel Band, Vessel, The C4 Band, Knocturnal Maddness, & Whiskey Fueled Death @ BFE Rock Club (6PM-2AM)
BrokenQuote/Ornaments/Lion Among Men/Forget About Tomorrow/Jeremy Carswell & The Nypmhs @ The Alley Kat