Tonight: Stand Together & Rock Out With H-Town Muslims, at Walter’s

Hey, all — long time, right? This new year of ours has been a little rough on yours truly, between frenzied work to meet post-holiday deadlines at the Day Job (and yes, said deadlines have since been moved, naturally), some personal family stuff, holiday recovery time, and the flu thing I’m still fighting right now. sigh. I’m sorry for the quiet; it’s just been a little nuts, y’know?

I couldn’t let tonight (Friday, January 20th) slip by unremarked, however. Not because of the Presidential Inauguration that I successfully avoided watching, but because there are some truly awesome shows going on around town.

One of whom, I’ll admit, has a bit to do with the aforementioned Inauguration. I’m not going to go into my feelings about Donald Trump, the man who’s now the President of the United States; if you know me outside of this here Website, you’ll probably know I’m not a fan, and I’ll leave it at that.

Which is partly why I’m psyched to see tonight’s show up at Walter’s, We Belong: Houstonians of Muslim Descent Dissent. Regardless of what you think Pres. Trump will actually do now that he’s in office, it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t said some downright terrifying things with regard to Muslims, even Muslim-Americans. If you take half of what the man said on the campaign trail at face value, people who aren’t Christians of some variety or another have a right to be very, very nervous.

A lot of Muslims out there in America are frightened of the coming Trump Presidency, and it’s up to the rest of us, Muslim and non-Muslim, to stand with them and let them know they’re not alone. And what better way to stand together than to rock the hell out together, amirite?

Which brings us to the other part of why tonight up at Walter’s will be awesome, because the We Belong organizers have managed to pull together four very different (but all great) bands from right here in America’s Most Diverse City that have at least one member of Muslim descent.

There’s old-school pop-punks Turnaways (did they drop the “The,” or was it never there?), who I like quite a bit, fellow punks Giant Kitty, who are more New Wave punk than pop-punk and sharp-edged and smart enough to pull it off wonderfully, and Ruiners, a hazy-yet-fierce quartet of indie-rock dudes who (on their old stuff, at least) make me think of Surfer Blood at its best. I could seriously listen to “One” on repeat for a good hour (okay, wait, I did do that one time…).

The only unknown for me is Revels, who I’ve only briefly heard about in the past, I’m afraid — they’ve got a pretty impressive punk rawk lineage themselves, though, so I’m pretty hopeful.

Of course, the whole thing’s a benefit, and proceeds from the $10 cover will go to the ACLU, a group that will surely be working overtime to fight for the rights of various groups under the Trump Administration. Get out there and support your friends and fellow citizens, alright? Let’s show the world that we’re not going to be cowed.