Yr. Weekend, Pt. 3: Seahaven + Balance and Composure + football, etc. + The Lotus Effect + Caddywhompus + Muhammad Ali + More

Yes, yes, yes. I’ve been skipping a whole lot of Sundays lately, it’s true, but tonight — September 21st — there’s too much stuff going on for me to be able to shrug it off, and a lot of it is damn good. Here we go:

Balance and Composure/Seahaven/Creepoid @ Fitzgerald’s
First up, there’s Fitzgerald’s (well, one floor of it, at least; see below for the other floor), where Californians Seahaven happen to be playing, opening up for Balance and Composure. I’ve been a fan of the band since first hearing their 2011 release, Winter Forever and falling hard for their Blueline Medic (look ’em up, dammit)-meets-Modest Mouse emo-ish sound. Kyle Soto‘s voice, admittedly, takes a little getting used to, but once you wrap your head around his cracked, half-mumbled/half-yelled vocals, they work beautifully, sucking you along with the roaring guitars and post-punk drums.

Headliners Balance and Composure are no slouches, either; I like what I’ve heard off last year’s The Things We Think We’re Missing, and the badass roar sounds like it’d be a hell of a lot of fun to jump around to…erm, if I weren’t too goddamn old for that kind of thing, that is. sigh. At their best moments, B&C come off somewhere between Taking Back Sunday’s guitar-heavy roar and Silversun Pickups’ heady, hazy psych blaze, and that’s no bad place to be.

Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate)/Free Throw/football, etc./Wilding Estates @ The Summit (3536 Navigation; $10)
Then we shift eastwards, towards a place I’ve never been to out on Navigation called The Summit — not to be confused with what is now Lakewood Church, mind you — where a Count Your Lucky Stars showcase will be happening tonight. And that’s a very cool thing, because it pulls together three excellent emo bands, namely Michiganders Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), Nashville band Free Throw, and H-town’s own football, etc., plus local newcomers {Wilding Estates}.

Empire! Empire! are real-live emo icons, and I like what I’ve heard by ’em quite a bit, but honestly, it’s football, etc. that grab my interest here. They’ve steadily worked their way into my emo-boy heart, playing these methodical, intense-yet-low-key songs that bring together the best elements of folks like Mineral, Sarge, and Camber, and last year’s Audible was seriously one of the best things I heard all year. They’ve popped up again recently with a bit of news, by the way: apparently they just gone done recording a whole new slew of songs with none other than J Robbins, ex-Jawbox and nowadays rockstar producer guy. Good, good, good to hear, folks…

The Texas Buzz, featuring An Author, A Poet, The Lotus Effect, & The Flamin’ Hellcats @ The Scout Bar (Clear Lake)
Down in the Lake o’ Clarity, there’s another one’a them Texas Buzz shows, put on by the radio station everybody (well, maybe not everybody, but y’know…) loves to grumble about, The Buzz. I can’t claim to be a fan, myself, but it makes me very happy that they’ve kept up this particular weekly showcase year after year, because it highlights a lot of bands from all parts of this big-ass state that might not get heard otherwise. High-five to you Buzz folks for that (now, will you quit running ads talking about how you’re all about “new” music, while playing 20-year-old Soundgarden and Pearl Jam songs in the background? Thanks…).

Tonight’s lineup is especially cool to me, because I’m a big fan of cool alt-rock dudes {The Lotus Effect}, who’re honestly one of the best straight-up rock bands going right now in H-town, and who are tonight reportedly going to have some advance copies of new album Totality, which doesn’t get officially released ’til October 21st. Hot damn, y’all. The guys have teased us with bits & pieces of the album for a while now, including a trippy-as-hell video for lead single “Totality” — see over here for that — so I’m psyched to hear that they’re ready to show the whole thing to the world.

Plus, they’re playing with some seriously old-school Houston rockers this evening, The Flamin’ Hellcats, a band yours truly used to go see waaaaaaaaay back in the day at Emo’s and The Blue Iguana. They were one of the first Houston bands I ever saw that made me sit up and pay attention, fiery and raw and crazy as all get-out, and I’m glad to see they’re still among the living.

Caddywhompus/Future Death/The Wiggins/Muhammad Ali @ Fitzgerald’s
And last on the pile, it’s the triumphant return of ex-Houstonians Caddywhompus to their hometown; okay, so maybe that’s a bit much, but it is the first time I’ve seen ’em in the lineup in quite a while, and that’s a very welcome thing to see. The band’s gotten quirkier and quirkier since leaving town, but everything I’ve heard ’em do is still really freaking cool; Chris Rehm and Sean Hart are truly, truly talented guys, and the music they make is like the best hallucination you could possibly have.

As an added bonus, they’re playing with utterly weird garage-popster(s) {The Wiggins}, who’s extremely cool all by himself, and retro-indie-rockers {Muhammad Ali}, who I don’t see floating around town nearly as much as I used to a few years ago; they’re fucking badass, though, with these tight little chunks of pop goodness that then get wrapped up in layer after layer of razorwire guitars. You should hear all these people, dangit.

Runners-Up:
Porter Robinson/Giraffage/Lemaitre @ Stereo Live
Paige Lewis @ Pearl Lounge
Witchaven/Thraxis/Paegan/Steel Bearing Hand/Serpent Attack @ Acadia Bar & Grill
James Henry Band/John Egan @ Crescent Moon (Spring; 6-9PM)