Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Waxahatchee + Shovels & Rope + The COPS + Eric Johnson + More

Hey, people — I’m psyched as hell about some recent show announcements over the next few months (Superchunk, Okkervil River, & Mastodon, for three; check the shows list for the dates), but right here and right now, it’s shaping up to be a damn good weekend, too. Here goes…

Waxahatchee/Night Shop @ Rockefellers
I’m sad to have to admit that I haven’t given nearly as much thought/attention to Waxahatchee as I should have. Most of what I’d heard by Katie Crutchfield was good, but slow-ish and hazy, and it just didn’t grab me, y’know? After last year’s Out in the Storm, however, holy shit am I paying attention.

It’s fiery and addictive as hell, blending driving ’90s indie-rock seamlessly with rough-edged Americana and just a hint of dreampop; there’s a Dinosaur Jr. vibe to a lot of it, but it’s crossbred with, say, The Darling Buds, to create a sound I swear to God I dreamed about hearing back when I was in college.

Get on up to Rockefellers to catch Crutchfield & company, seriously. Here’s some video prodding, should you need it:

Shovels & Rope @ The Heights Theater
There’re only a handful of bands/musicians out there that have managed to break past my long-held grudge against country music in general. Okay, so maybe not “in general,” but certainly I loathe country music that’s formulaic and hyperprocessed and dumb, and a shitload of what passes for the genre is all of those things, sadly. I can’t stand that crap.

And then there’s Shovels & Rope. The South Carolinian duo — Michael Trent & Cary Ann Hearst — make some of the rawest, truest, most brutally real music that you’re likely to ever hear. There’re a whole lot of country touchstones on last year’s Little Seeds, to be sure, but along with that there’s a whole lot of heart, a lot of Springsteenian/Waitsian stories; the things they sing about aren’t always pretty, as on the grim “Evil” or the timely “BWYR” or the desperate “Botched Execution,” but damn do they work, and amazingly well.

Enjoy the dirty-yet-exuberant blast of “I Know,” right here:

The COPS (record release)/Daggerhead @ Insomnia Gallery (708 Telephone; free!)
Head on over to Insomnia Gallery for a cathartic, anarchic blast of punk rawk tonight, should that be what you’re in the mood for — and if you’re not in the mood for that, well, I’m not sure what country you live in, ’cause lately this one makes me want to drink and pogo like a teenager until I forget my troubles.

The COPS have been around a few years now, and yeah, I pretty much dismissed ’em as yet another gimmicky, “ooh, look, we’re wearing uniforms!” punk outfit, the likes of which H-town has seen several times over the years. I’ve gotta say, though, First Offense is nicely furious and tuneful, despite the weird, faux-police themes of all the songs. I keep thinking of Guttermouth’s more melodic moments, the Ramones, or maybe Houston’s own Monocles, and neither of those are bad things, not at all. The music’s buzzy and energetic but never so messy you can’t tell what the hell’s going on.

So there you go; slap a sneer on your face and get out there and mosh, y’all.

 

Eric Johnson/Arielle @ House of Blues
Last but not least, it appears that (mostly-)instro-guitar rock icon Eric Johnson is up at the House of Blues tonight. And holy shit, he’s got a new album, Collage, that I had no idea existed and which is really pretty damn good — I’m digging the salsa-ish take on “Pipeline,” in particular.

Of course, the soft spot in my heart for Johnson is primarily because of 1990’s Ah Via Musicom, which got played to death on my Discman for a long damn time back in the ’90s — occasionally while I pathetically attempted to play along. He was one of a very, very small number of guitar-hero dudes of the time who I loved in part because they actually seemed to be enjoying what they were doing, not just showing off what magic hands they happened to have. As somebody who decidedly did not have said magic hands, I appreciated that.

Even now, listening back to “Cliffs of Dover,” I can feel a big dumb smile creeping across my face. Thanks for sticking around, Mr. Johnson; you’ll probably never realize how big an influence you were even to the guitar-challenged musicians out there.

Runners-Up:
Ruiners/Meeting House/Gravedweller/Trembler/Groundhog Day @ 1812 Oak Lake Cir. (Pearland)
A Fistful of Soul/Von Hindenburg @ The Continental Club
Guitar Legs (Rosie Flores & Sophia Johnson)/Sisters Morales @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck