1) Welp, I was forced to buy a new laptop, but it was on sale at least, and when you’re… you know what? Who gives a shit? Kevin Aldridge is playing at Fort Worth Live (306 N Houston St) on Thursday night, and that’s tite as hell. Fort Worth Live is downtown, above the Red Goose. His performance is for people ages 21 and older, and the cover is $0. Here’s an old video of Kevin Aldridge and an old iteration of his band, the Appraisers, featuring yours truly fumbling my way through the bass part:
2) Also on Thursday night: a new venue in Arlington is opening, and it’s hosting a free concert from the Toadies, with special guests 1100 Springs! Texas Live (1650 E Randol Mill Rd) is the latest addition to Arlington’s Globe Life Park/Six Flags/Wet and Wild Fun Corridor, and it’ll be interesting to see how this place competes with the other large-capacity venues in DFW. This video is about a minute and a half about the place’s construction:
3) Damn, Thursday’s pretty busy! Lola’s Saloon’s show that night is a throwback to when it was basically a country club for people in loud rock bands: Austin’s beloved cowpunk band The Hickoids are the main attraction, with opening riffage from local stoner rock band Blood of the Sun and Port Orchard, WA-based Mos Generator. If you’ve ever gotten a boaner from or during a Deep Purple song, you will enjoy this bill. Show is all-ages, cover is $12, doors are at 8, bands start at 9.
4) MASS’s Thursday night show is pretty tough to beat; the headliner, a dude from Houston named George West, plays trippy, electronic R&B that reminds me of this time I ate mushrooms by myself in my apartment and sat in the bathroom listening to the air conditioner click on and off while the shower dripped and the toilet tank ran, and I remember thinking that if I had a sampler, I could make a pretty cool song out of it all, because those are the kind of mental acrobatics and wishful thinking I engage in when I’ve taken psychedelics. Anyway the openers are all local, and all land somewhere on the hypnotic, psychedelic music spectrum: Tidals is in the 11pm spot, and their dubbed out, sample-heavy loops sound excellently druggy. All Clean’s pummeling, electronic-spined guitar rock sounds anxious and heavy and will make your solar plexus feel weird. [Trauma Ray] is a new shoegaze band that’s making the rounds, and their gauzy haze of guitar effects will set the tone for a really fun night. MASS is located at 1002 S Main, and the cover to this 18+ show is only $7! Here’s [Trauma Ray]. Pretty cool, right?
5) OMG this new laptop is so much faster than my old one! I bought that Toshiba in 2014, and the guy at Best Buy was sort of surprised that it lasted as long as it did – apparently it had this heat sink problem where the fucking thing was overheating to a whopping 250 de—whoops! There I go again talking about myself again! Back to the show listings! Panic Volcanic headlines MASS on Friday night, and their less-is-more approach to power trio-ing (they are bass, drums, and vocals, you see) will be a brain-clearing counterpoint to the meticulously orchestrated post-rock of Driving Slow Motion, who are the direct support. DSM are preceded by Icarium, themselves a knotty, technically proficient prog band, and the openers are Roar Shack, who along with PV, bookend this bill with loud rock ’n roll. I’m into this Driving Slow Motion video. Beautifully shot!
DISCLAIMER/WRITER BIO ALERT:
Besides writing articles about music, movies, bars, and restaurants for the FW Weekly, I’m also a partner in Main at South Side, aka MASS, and I tend bar at the Boiled Owl Tavern and Off the Record, all of which are mentioned frequently in these columns. And since we’re on the topic of things that might look like my own unseemly self-promotion, I’ve played bass in a bunch of local bands since 2002; currently that resume includes Darth Vato and Son of Stan.
