One Night, Two Album Releases: Deep Cuts & NEXT WAVE (& A Few Other Things, Too)

I’ve been sorely neglecting things on the upcoming-show front lately, so updating the list these past couple of weeks has made me nearly freaking giddy with excitement about some of the shows we’ve got coming down the pipe.

I don’t have time go into details about ’em now (sorry), but I do want to point to two that are coming up real fast, as in, um, tonight, Friday, January 15th. See, apparently the Hoary Gods of Houston Musicks decided that not only should there be one excellent-sounding album-release shindig tonight, but two, which means, dear reader, that you are a lucky bastard even if you didn’t (and yes, I know you didn’t) win the goddamn Powerball.

First, up at new venue Satellite Bar (6922 Harrisburg), we’ve got the official release show for Gulf Coast Companion Vol. 1, the brand-new, limited-edition cassette comp of every single thing cool beach-dwelling pop dudes {Deep Cuts} have done to date (okay, except for their also-limited-edition 7″ from last year).

If you’re a fan, you probably already know a fair number of the songs, but there’s also some cool older stuff I hadn’t ever heard before, and it’s a great reminder of just how fucking good these guys are. They are seriously the sound of Houston summertime, to me. And hey, I reviewed the album over here.

Deep Cuts themselves are playing, obviously, but they’ve brought along friends, like fellow surf-y people {Total Luau}, new Giant Princess spinoff noise project Thlon, DJ Bud Ice (who happens to be Erik Ingram of {Peasant} and {Landfill}). And to make things even better, they’ve also brought none other than B.E. Godfrey back to town from his new abode in NYC.

He’ll be playing with a full band, I’m told, which I think has been a rarity ’round here since his listen listen days, and yes, you really, really need to see/hear him play. He’s a jaw-droppingly good songwriter, no lie.

Then, if that doesn’t sound appealing to you, well, there’s also the release party for the David Garrick-curated NEXT WAVE compilation put together by the folks over at SugarHill Studios.

I’ll admit that I have yet to hear the album, sadly, but it sounds like it’ll be awesome, judging by David’s writeup over here, with appearances by excellent people like murky, dark electro-pop crew {Black Kite}, sharp-edged, hard-working rapper {Guilla} (whose performance at FPSF last year is still one of the highlights for me), and bright-and-shiny rockers {Catch Fever}, who I caught live at one of Jason Smith‘s shows a while back and was bowled over by.

And lo and behold, those very people are playing at Walter’s tonight to celebrate the comp’s release, along with {Dollie Barnes}, which is Haley Barnes‘ excellent new-ish band effort, and a guy named JAWWAAD who I hadn’t heard much about ’til recently but who sounds pretty promising.

Now, I should note that these two deals are far from the only things happening this evening, and should you shrug at both (although no, you shouldn’t), well, you’ve still got options. Hit up Rudyard’s to catch {A Sundae Drive} in all their fuzz-pop glory, headbang slowly to the sludgy, Lovecraftian doom of {From Beyond} up at Fitzgerald’s, catch the eminently soulful {Moji} at The Nightingale Room, go hardcore with {United Races} down at a pretty-new record store called Wired Up on Telephone Rd., witness some classic R&B and soul getting spun by {A Fistful of Soul} over at The Continental Club}, or celebrate the official grand opening of MATCH, just north of the Continental on Main, with their Light up the Night block party.

Pick your poison; whatever you choose, it’ll be well worth it.