Weekender

This list was written by SR and DL, and if you want to see even more shows that we didn't have time to cover here, check the show calendar. Here we go:

FRIDAY

Dance Your Face Off One Year Anniversary with Damaged Good$ and SOCIAL feat. Females/Schwa upstairs (The Cavern): The one year anniversary of the Dance Your Face Off party will feature a performance from the excellent Damaged Goods, photos from stephieyaknow and solid set lists both downstairs and up. One of two big dance parties on lower Greenville tonight. Damaged Good$ goes on at Midnight ya'll.

Starlight Mints/Grass Fight/Recorder (Hailey's)

Council of Doom (Public Trust): Central Booking will be hosting the Dallas premier of Council of Doom, a documentary film about a group of fixed gear bikers in California that, according to this clip, appear to do a lot of freestyle riding. Shit, don't ask me any details, I don't know anything about this stuff. Looks pretty interesting though. Its free and starts at 8pm. Free keg too. They'll be moving the party over to Zubar after that, and a lot of people are apparently planning to ride to both places if you'd like to join them.

Dave Brubeck (University of North Texas, Murchison Performing Arts Center): Wow, we weren't even aware that this was happening until earlier this afternoon, but its quite exciting that Dave Brubeck is still fucking alive, much less playing in Denton tonight. Some people like to complain that his west coast jazz is responsible for helping white people "understand" the music while simultaneously watering it down, but those people are just bored liberal arts students.

Jucifer/Hawk vs. Dove/Tendril/Soviet (The Lounge): Jucifer is louder than any band on this bill, or on any bill, period. But as a beach-hick heckling a band in San Diego once taught me, "Loud doesn't equal good." Jucifer is fine actually, but I think that Soviet is probably the most impressive band on this bill, one that's pretty crowded with groups pushing the extremes of volume and power. The one exception is probably Tendril, who claims to be a "rock conglomerate" with a "unified mission" to "bring down the house," but that will be tough to do against the other three groups.

The Party (Zubar): This will, of course, follow the thing at Public Trust tonight.

Gordon and the Whale's Watchmen Party with Sun Club/Yeah Def (Rubber Gloves): Sun Club, one of the more promising new DJ groups in Denton or Dallas will headline this Gordon and the Whale party for the Watchmen. They usually have a lot of giveaways at these things, and most of the time the crowds are quite impressive.

The Pretenders/American Bang (House of Blues)

SATURDAY

Silver Shampoo/Bleach Boys/Wiccans/Lychgate (Bunker Hill, 2614 Elm St, Denton): Very solid line up at Bunker Hill this evening. Silver Shampoo is one of the more exciting Denton bands I've heard in a while, actually-- check out "Jethro Skull" on their Myspace page and you'll see exactly what I mean. Yes, you can here the influence of shitgaze or noise pop or whatever buzzword you want to use in there, and comparing them with groups like Eat Skull, Nodzzz and even Human Eye wouldn't be unfair, but they seem to tread in the slightly more pop punk side of the pool, and it really works for them-- sing songy verses and super catchy riffs that allow you to find them rather than getting right up in your face. Quite catchy and highly recommended, and remember-- every comparison we mentioned is a GOOD one, ok? And we haven't had the chance to catch Wiccan yet (UPDATE: We just did, and we were right), but the group features members of Orange Coax and Wax Museums, so you can probably place a safe bet on quality. And Lychgate is a frightening must see. This will be a fantastic show.

Akkolyte/Vorvadoss/Cleric/Embolization (Bike House): Obviously glad to see more DIY shows in Dallas, especially one that doesn't sound so...glossy. And though we have said a lot about most of these groups, I would have loved to have also mentioned Embolization's actual music, but they don't have any tracks posted yet. Guess we'll have to actually, you know, show up. Isn't that right, Stoned Ranger?

Dub Assembly with Reso/Mundo and Lifted MC/Royal Highnuss/Koteki and Mishap (Green Elephant)

Prizzy Prizzy Please/Orange Coax/Boogdish (1919 Hemphill): Prizzy Prizzy Please sounds too much like a music school in-joke, but it seems like they'd probably take that as a compliment. They ironically jump from genre to genre to the point that it's not really ironic anymore. Not having a guitar but still managing to have shitty solos is probably the "craziest" thing about this band. The rest of the lineup makes it worth it, though.

Sleep Whale/Hotel, Hotel/Sunnybrook/My Empty Phantom (Rubber Gloves): Sleepwhale is the band formerly known as Mom, in case you didn't know, and Sunnybrook is one of the more interesting songwriters in Denton that you probably haven't noticed in between your daydreams about Will Johnson or whatever, so give it a listen.

The Heartless Bastards/Record Hop/Will E Lee (Hailey's)

Jack with One Eye/Many Birthdays/Zanzibar Snails (The Cavern)

Daniel Folmer/Dirty Birds/Young & Brave (Annex House)

Wednesday 13/Dommin/Ghoultown/Bastardos de Sancho (Club Dada): I don't think anyone really needs a detailed breakdown of a gothic/horror-punk/hellbilly show, but I was really pleased with myself after hearing the found-percussion, blues-rock clang of the costumed Dallas act, Los Bastardos de Sancho and muttering to myself, "Doo Rag! These guys remind me of Doo Rag." I look over to the Influences section and it's the first band on the list. Nailed it. Look, I'm all for a band just coming out and admitting who they borrow from. There is not enough honesty in music lately. At least they didn't claim to be influenced by Marie Curie or Anna Karenina the way so many ultra-pretentious interviews read. I always want to tell a band to jump off a fucking bridge when they have the nerve to say that shit. You don't have to read an entire Russian novel to rip off Jesus And Mary Chain.

SUNDAY

Bosque Brown CD release/Fight Bite (Dan's Silverleaf): This will be the CD release party for Bosque Brown, a group we've covered for a long time on this blog and recently interviewed a few weeks ago for the first time. There seems to be a lot of local and regional anticipation for this release, so go grab it at the show while you can.

For Your Pleasure with DJ G/Gabriel (Hailey's): Quality set with lots of funk, reggae, soul and krautrock. Might be a nice place to hit up after the show at Dan's.