Tonight: The Houston Press Music Awards Steal the Show

Yes, yes, yes. Apologies for the quiet these past several days, folks — your humble Editor Guy Jeremy has been off on vacation in Southern California with the fam, seeing more LEGO sculptures than he ever imagined could exist in one place, and frequent writer/photo guy Jason has been computer-less of late due to some very bad technical difficulties.

I (Jeremy, that is) am still recuperating somewhat from my sunburn/damaged legs, but nevertheless, tonight, Thursday, August 7th, promises to be pretty dang great. {Valens} and {Tigerparty} (or is it {Deep Cuts} and Modrag?) are at Mango’s, Miniature Tigers are at Fitzgerald’s, {Devin The Dude} is down at The Scout Bar in Clear Lake, and {Children of Pop} and {FLCON FCKER} are at Walter’s, and all those shows are well worth seeing on their own.

Really, though, the big deal this evening is the Houston Press Music Awards Ceremony up at the Warehouse Live. Unless you happen to be in one of the nominated bands or have some kind of VIP-type coolness about you, odds are good that you won’t be at the actual ceremony itself, which is invite-only (and runs from 6:30-9PM), but you can head up there at 9PM, pay a handful of bucks, and catch an excellent-sounding lineup of great, great local bands.

Hell, you can even scratch the “local” from that last sentence, there — I’ll happily declare that the folks playing tonight are great no matter where they hail from. They’re just plain great, period, no qualifiers necessary.

The night kicks off nicely with the gritty, appropriately electrified blues-soul dance-funk-rock of {Electric Attitude}, a band who are freaking phenomenal to witness live, and segues into the heavier, metal-er, post-emo guitar rock roar of {the last place you look}, who collectively dwell in a special place in my soul (and iPod, obviously). If you’re at all into heavy rock (or anything resembling late-’90s emo), you need to check out this band…

After that, it’s a one-two punch of badass frontwomen, starting with {The Suffers} and soul queen Kam Franklin — she and her nearly-a-dozen-strong bandmates have surged in from the side these past few years, becoming Houston’s best representatives in the realms of rocksteady and straight-up soul, riding the line between early Bob Marley and Sharon Jones with aplomb. They’re really, really awesome, as are ultimate headliners {The Tontons}, who’ve evolved from being a bunch of talented, enthusiastic kids into one of H-town’s best bands in living memory. On record, they’re complex and alluring, blending psych-rock, dizzying pop, and sultry-sweet jazz, and live, they’re downright magnetic.

So there you go, people — get up there early, because I’d bet this sells out.