(UPDATE #4) Post-Harvey, H-town Gets Back to Its Feet: Heroes, Shows, Fundraisers, & Friends In Need

UPDATED 9/13/17: Alright, got some more Harvey-related benefits to add to the list below, so take a look, alright? I know Harvey Fatique has begun to set in, but there’s still a long road ahead for a whole lot of our friends & neighbors…

UPDATED 9/10/17: Been a few days, sorry, and I know I’ve missed a few benefit-type things for people flooded out by Harvey; just been trying to get away from the computer a bit when not at work, y’know? It’s way too easy to get sucked in and just stare at Facebook updates & emails, at least for me. At any rate, there’s still some awesome stuff happening, so I’ve added new stuff to the list and archived the old.

Specific Show-Related Note #1: Apparently Revention Music Center had some water damage due to Harvey, and so the Modest Mouse show this Tuesday, September 12th, has been moved to the House of Blues. It looks like the rest of the RMC’s shows are still going on as scheduled, though, which is good to hear.

Specific Show-Related Note #2: You should really, really, really take a break from demolition and cleanup and work and whatever else to go hang out at Discovery Green today, for the first of the new Canned Acoustica Unplugged Concerts series. A whole bunch of cool people will be out in the beautiful (although still kinda hot) weather, reinterpreting their music strictly on acoustic instruments, and the organizers will be collecting canned goods for the Houston Food Bank, as well. Get on out there…

UPDATED 9/7/17: Added some new benefit/relief shows to the list below, one of which is tonight’s Goo Goo Dolls show up at the CWMP. I’ll be up-front about it — I am not a Goo Goo Dolls fan. But this is a total class act, right here — the band has turned the show into a food drive for victims of Harvey, and they’re donating 100% of the merch sales to the Houston Food Bank. Oh, and first responders & their families get in free. While the music still isn’t my thing, you guys have my respect & admiration, seriously.

UPDATED 9/5/17: I’ve added a few more Harvey-related benefit shows to the list below; I’ll be adding more as I hear about ’em, so check back…

What a week. I haven’t been online much, I know, at least not on SCR — I’ve been stuck to Facebook and Twitter like the rest of Houston, trying to keep tabs on friends and coworkers and loved ones. And since the water went down in our area, I’ve been out and about as much as possible, trying to help our friends as best I can.

Thankfully, a lot of fellow Houstonians are doing the same; the outpouring of help and supplies and food has been amazing. People have stepped up to help their friends and neighbors, and it brings freaking tears to my eyes when I see the scope of that, seriously. And while I’ve been focusing primarily on folks down here in my little corner of SW Houston, it’s happening all over the city.

Two people I want to point to in particular are Mark C. Austin and Dutch Small. When the floodwaters started receding, Mark jumped in his big van and started driving all over Houston, delivering supplies and food to anybody in need; he’s a real-live hero in my eyes. So is Dutch, who has been in Atlanta throughout the Harvey insanity but was nevertheless able to remotely coordinate a whole damn city’s worth of chefs and restaurants to find and cook food for thousands of people. I’ve only been a witness to it myself, via Facebook, but it was awesome to watch it unfold.

Cooler still, Mark and Dutch have now teamed up with some other folks, including cool dude Matthew Wettergreen to create a new Website, IHAVEFOODINEEDFOOD.COM, which aims to connect restaurants and cooks who’ve got food (commercial cooks/chefs/restaurants only, sorry) and people who need it all across the Houston area.

On the more musical front, there’s a slew of Harvey benefit shows happening these next few days, including the Labor Day Weekend Kick-Off Concert happening right about now over at Market Square. Austinite Walker Lukens had to bow out because of the storm, but psych-soul heroes {The Tontons} have stepped in to ably fill the void and show their hometown some love.

The band and management team The Convoy Group (which is also Mark Austin, by the by) have committed to donating $500 each to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, and Niko Niko’s will donating 15% of their sales to the Fund, too. The whole thing’s free, but come by and donate.

That’s far from the only show like that going on, of course; here’s the list I’ve got so far, and I’m sure there’ll be more, so I’ll try to update this as I can:

UPCOMING EVENTS:

PAST EVENTS:

Then there’s Trae Tha Truth, who was not only out actually rescuing people in a boat from flooded neighborhoods but who has started up a GoFundMe for Harvey relief encompassing not just Houston but also Port Arthur, Beaumont, Orange, & the surrounding towns.

The good people of White Oak Music Hall, Pegstar, & Friends of Little White Oak Bayou have banded together, too, to raise money for people whose homes have been damaged or destroyed by Harvey, with help from cool people like Diplo & Twin Shadow — you can donate money to that effort over here.

Some good friends of SCR have been flooded, including former Chronicle music writer and current poet Sara Cress, who is good, good people, musician Matt Mejia, whose home in Galveston flooded. Please donate ASAP to the GoFundMe for Sara & her husband Chad, and get on up to MKT Bar and help out Matt right now, as he plays up at MKT Bar tonight.

On a closer-to-home note, a couple of our own have been hit hard, too. Longtime writer/photographer/coordinator Jason Smith‘s vintage ’50s-Mod home down in the Westbury area flooded, and so did film writer Joshua Starnes‘ home up in Conroe. Our hearts are with our flooded friends — they’re both awesome, hardworking guys, and they deserve any help you can give ’em. We’re hoping to set up GoFundMes for both in the coming days, and we’ll let you know when that happens.

Phew. Alright, y’all, that’s all I’ve got for the moment. There’s more going on, to be sure, but we’ll tackle that later on. And feel free to comment and tell us about Harvey-related benefits, fundraisers, volunteering, whatever that we’ve missed. Stay safe, everybody, and help however you can.