THURSDAY

Last Joke/El Cento/Leatherbag (Dan’s Silver Leaf): In case you missed it earlier this week: FrontRow’s Dick Sullivan had some provocative and thoughtful musings on Last Joke’s Ryan Thomas Becker’s career trajectory, as well as his 11 other wishes for the local music scene in 2012.

New Fumes/Water Falls/Diamond Age (The Crown and Harp): New Fumes is fresh off of playing a New Year’s Day after-party show for a Yoko Ono performance in Oklahoma. And guess what. I’ll never have to type again in reference to a local band?

Out of Time/Vaste Burai/Truth/Real Talk (1919 Hemphill): Pretty straight-ahead hardcore show for 1919, which got me to thinking about how say, ten years ago, the proverbial youth of America were much more intense. Shows like this were the norm. Then it became more commonplace to be “weird,” as opposed to angry. I could go into the countless socioeconomic theories on why that is, but I won’t bore you. Instead, I’ll return to another topic, where I was complaining about having to double-check links on these particular shows, in order to make sure they weren’t cleverly hidden pranks that led the reader to some rabbit hole of offensive or inane material. Over the holiday break, a very wise man brought it to my attention that it was my generation that started all of this internet tomfoolery. He said, “You know, The Myspace Generation.” He said it with utter contempt. And reminded me that you only knew a band was good on Myspace if they made their genre designation a complete parody or farce. “Visual/Reggae/Other” etc. It was just completely lame to be sincere about anything. I’d like to think that we weren’t all that bad and aggressively posturing, but guilty as charged, I suppose.

Wild in the Streets (Amsterdam Bar): Lisa Bush never steers you wrong as she hops from decade to decade and back again, glorifying the records of rock and pop past that actually made you bother with it in the first place. I’m no traditionalist, but occasionally the right kind of 45 will hit you right in the gut, making you wonder how far we’ve fallen.

Bad Antics/Black Cop/Completely Effed/Collick/Droppped Cause (The Phoenix Project): I read a status update recently where a musician was openly asking the public whether or not the Phoenix Project was a good place to perform. My feelings concerning that are “If you have to ask….” At the risk of sounding elitist, if you’re worried that a DIY space off of Haskell is perhaps not up to your standards of professionalism, then it might not be what you’re looking for. However, the best way to remedy that curiosity is to simply show up and catch one of the many shows that happen (even on weeknights) at a place that has managed to survive against many odds thus far. But you should also “respect the space,” as is so often requested in venues of this nature. Here’s a message from Phoenix Project show promoter, Jenny Ray:

RESPECT THE SPACE MEANS : DONT COME TO THE PHOENIX AND THROW YOUR BEER EVERYWHERE AND FLAIL AROUND LIKE AN IDIOT BC YOU THINK IT’S ‘FUNNY’ OR ‘PUNK.’

Okay, fine!

FRIDAY

“You Know What You Are” (Texas Theatre): Let me be the first to say what a wonderful place for a lively event or after-party the Texas Theatre is. After the surreally summery alien planet of “Lights All Night” last weekend, the historic Oak Cliff spot was the perfect place to come back down to earth, complete with fully clothed adults. Now, that’s not a value judgement at all; I was completely entertained at the Dallas Convention Center. How could you not be? But when I picture this appropriately moody record party to cap off an evening spent thinking about the life and times of Al Jourgensen (this is the celebratory cap to the showing of Fix: The Ministry Movie), it actually sounds like a really good idea. And I don’t even like Ministry. Featuring the Funeral Party’s Keith P and Anthony Stanford.

Filth/Marshall Applewhite Experience/The Watchers/Young Church (Good Records): I’ve seen a lot of special, intimate, shows at Good Records over the years, both intimately special, and specially intimate. The Rock*A*Teens and Farah come to mind as prime examples of both. Occasionally the beloved record shop will have a completely off-the-wall bill that would have some of its more squeaky clean customers, the kind innocently looking for a soundtrack for an afternoon at the Katy Trail, briskly jogging to the exit. This is one of those shows, in case you can’t tell by the first listed act, Filth. The project is the alter ego of local artist Rob Buttrum, and features large doses of tape manipulation. Speaking of tapes, Buttrum is also a label owner, and should have releases from his own Out of Body Records imprint. The Marshall Applewhite Experience is a new solo act featuring Steel Hook Prostheses’ Larry Kerr, and Good Records’ own Mark Church plays in both Young Church and The Watchers, who haven’t performed in about a year. Which only indicates that the store must really like this guy to let two noisy acts he’s involved in play during regular business hours. This isn’t exactly your average coworker with the cute weekend cover band.

Willie Nelson (Billy Bob’s): Willie Nelson and Billy Bob’s. This is one of those things that you pretty much have to do at least once, and the price is right. Willie flies through songs medley-style just like Jonathan Richman and certain rap acts, so it can be downright cruel to hear your all-time favorite melody dissipate into some lesser song right when you expect the bridge to come in. I once heard that he did the most perfect version of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” at the Cattle Barron’s Ball years ago for the prettiest penny, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. I hope it is.

SATURDAY

Garuda/Wild//Tribe/Unraveler (Lola’s): One of Fort Worth’s most widely respected and heaviest of acts, Garuda, performs just often enough to keep its many fans satiated. Well, almost often enough. Garuda seems especially great when I compare them to some of the clownish material that passes for serious hardcore since the time when they were much more active. There was a band on this bill with a name so ridiculous, I just couldn’t type it. If I can’t say it in front of my brother’s girlfriend, then it’s probably too silly to even bother with. But now you’ll look it up, so I just did the band a favor. See how this works?

“Away from the Numbers” (Fallout Lounge): Guest DJ tonight is the always impeccably dressed Fred Holston, who is a photographer, musician, and son of our own Bill Holston, of “Law Man Walking” fame. Fred has an affinity for various outsiders and ne’er-do-wells of song, particularly those from the 60s, and therefore his selections should be solid. Expect everything from Houston composition outlaws The Red Krayola to at least a couple of people that dated Nico. That’s my safest guess.

Blackstone Rangers/Kiwi Sisters/Jak-E-Chan (2826 Arnetic): Presented by Dallas Distortion Music, who are also involved in this Jak-E-Chan group if the project’s Bandcamp URL is any indication. After a quick listen to the mostly instrumental and heavily treated guitar-scapes, I realize that we are dealing with a completely literal case of truth-in-advertising. They play distorted music in Dallas, no doubt about that. My only issue is that there is a track actually called “Grunge Fuzz.” Don’t do that, guys. It reminds me too much of this (skip to 3:33).

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