FRIDAY
Drug Mountain/Def Rain/Bitch Bricks/Bukkake Moms (The Where House): Nevada Hill is a Dallas artist and musician who was recently diagnosed with melanoma, and as a result has to go through the living hell that is the seemingly endless process of carving, chemicals, and radiation that entails the treatment for cancer. To make matters worse, Hill doesn’t have health insurance, and hopefully that will someday be nothing more than a relic of a dark and ignorant time in our nation’s history, next month’s policy change notwithstanding.
The Observer had an extensive and well-written piece on this whole terrible ordeal, and it’s worth reading in its entirety. Tonight is the first of three benefit shows for Hill, and each will feature his own band, Drug Mountain. Unfortunately Hill won’t be at tonight’s event due to this week’s surgery, and I’m sure I speak for all involved when I say that I hope we see him back onstage as soon as humanly possible.
Nervous Curtains/Dove Hunter/Frauen (Double Wide): There will be quite a bit of Nervous Curtains news soon, from a new single, an upcoming tour, and even a spot scoring a film at Richardson’s new Alamo Drafthouse next week. FrontRow will have the details in the following days.
Black Milk/Yung Nation/The Outfit/Blue, The Misfit/Sam Lao (Club Dada): Noteable Detroit hip hop artist Black Milk relocated to Dallas from Detroit recently, and this marks his first time making a public appearance since the move. This Red Bull-sponsored event will only set you back three dollars, but as one writerly friend remarked about the flier: “Put Sam Lao’s name on a taco? Really?”
“Vinyl Fantasy” (Crown and Harp): If you ever accidentally stumbled into the Inwood Theatre bar and noticed that the music was especially good, it might have been because the “Vinyl Fantasy” DJs were playing soul and girl group classics. I had that happen once, and I’ve never forgotten it. Luckily for me, they’ll be much more centralized tonight, as the DJs Emptycylinder and Handsome Reward have found a new home at Crown and Harp.
“Punky Reggae Party” (Single Wide): And if you’re already listening to DJs at Crown and Harp, why not just walk down the street to hear some hybrid classics of the less considered punk/reggae genre. I know that sounds dubious, but it’s very carefully selected. Besides they color outside the lines a little on that one. Tonight’s guest DJ is Baron Saturday, who you may know from the Dallas Smoke mod club.
DJ Lord Byron/Son of Sam Nicholson (Panoptikon): If you didn’t get enough Depeche Mode at their concert earlier in the evening, you can stop by this goth-spot and hear “2 more hours of nonstop Depeche Mode” from midnight until closing time. I’m not big on Depeche Mode, but I love the super fandom aspect of this.
Other Friday shows—
Boxcar Bandits (Sweetwater)
!!!/Ice Eater/Son of Stan (Queen City Music Hall)
Fedde Le Grand (Levu)
SATURDAY
Breakaway Music Festival (FC Dallas Stadium): Frisco continues to be a magnetic entertainment hub that is quickly threatening to usurp Arlington as our own personal North Texas version of Anaheim. Got all that? America’s growing love affair with the other football continues as we are now even hosting music festivals at soccer stadiums, on top of the fact that we are also acknowledging professional soccer exists with greater frequency. A year from now when more of us have healthcare coverage, this may just look like the United States of Europe or something. Can we ever get back on track? Throw more festivals with Wu-Tang Clan and some of our own locals like Yeah Def, and Booty Fade, and maybe I don’t even mind if we ever go back to being the old America. More information is available here.
I also should mention that there is a Breakaway Music Fest after-party at Eternal Eden in Dallas. Admission is 20 dollars for men; 10 bucks for ladies. 18 and up are welcome and I’m about to give the greatest hours I’ve ever typed for an after-hours event: 3 am until 8 am. 8 am? Maybe we really are turning into Europe.
Laci Taylor/Billy Bones/Boom Boom Kid/Delilah Dynamite/Janie Slash/Barry Whitewater/Booty Stew (Taqueria Pedritos): The No Thanks Festival in Emory, TX is coming up in a couple of months, and as a completely independent event it has to raise the funds somehow. Tonight’s benefit features everything from burlesque to comedy, a chamber duo, and of course, hardcore punk to help the cause. The show starts at 7 pm and admission is fifteen dollars.
“Carlin’s Cancer Battle Benefit” (Crown and Harp): It’s with a lamentable heaviness that I have to write up two different benefits in the same weekend pertaining to the same damn problem, but this is yet another example of a contributor to our music community, stricken with cancer, and without any way real way to pay for the astronomically expensive treatment.
It’s with fondness that I remember Carlin Stultz booking some very diverse and imaginative midweek shows at both Double Wide, and Club Dada’s “New Music Tuesdays” in the mid-aughts. Her curatorial choices were a lone bright spot during some pretty bad times for booking and for entertainment in Deep Ellum, period. Stultz has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and her friends and supporters are returning the favor of the chance she took on many of them, by taking over both floors of the Crown and Harp in order to make a dent in the towering stack of medical bills. This staggeringly packed double-event starts at 7 pm. Make sure you don’t miss the reunited Tame…Tame & Quiet, who were one of the better indie rock acts of their time. The schedule:
Upstairs DJs:
7:30-8:30 Wild in the Streets
8:30-9:30 Josh Hammertimez
9:30-11 DJ Tigerbee
11-12:30 Gabe Mendoza
12:30-2 DJ Sista Whitenoise
Downstairs Bands:
7:30 – Ornaments
8:15 – Ape Hangars
9:00 – Casa Magnetica
9:45 – Street Arabs
10:30 – New Science Projects
11:30 – Tame…Tame & Quiet
12:30 – Notfugazi
The Weeknd (Verizon Theatre): More info is available here.
Ronnie Heart (Dallas Contemporary)
Theologian/Steel Hook Prostheses/Black Leather Jesus/Inhalant/Breakdancing Ronald Reagan vs Breathing Problem (Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios): New York’s Theologian, otherwise known as the solo project of Lee Bartow, has maintained a high profile in underground noise music for decades now, not only for his association with the beloved Crucial Blast record label, but by also starting the Annihilvs Power Electronix imprint, which has been operating for the past sixteen years. Make sure to get there early enough to see Houston’s Black Leather Jesus, which is just as respected, as its one of the most notorious noise collectives in our giant state, and please don’t ever tell my mom I told you to go watch something called Black Leather Jesus.
Other Saturday shows—
Glamorama (Beauty Bar)
Hooray For Earth/Things of Earth/New Fumes (City Tavern)
SUNDAY
Youth Code/Night Sins/Awen/Vulgar Fashion (Sons of Hermann Hall): This is a solid lineup of bands that you would usually associate with the “Discipline” Collective out of Denton, but they obviously had their hands full already the night before. Still, by all means go, because you don’t often see a lineup like this at Sons of Hermann.
Image: Frauen, performing live at Bryan Street Tavern, August 2013. Credit: Andi Harman.
