This Friday night, The Summer Slammer Tour makes a stop in Bryan at Revolution Cafe and Bar.
The tour, featuring five Austin bands, all somewhat varied in their sounds but definitely in the jangly guitar indie rock milieu, was put together and sponsored by Monofonus Press, an art/literature/music activist collective in Austin. I'm not sure if any of these bands is meant as a headliner, so I will tell you a little about them in no particular order.
The Pillow Queens have the scratchy guitars and ironic detachment of Television but with the same sort of bug-eyed outrage that used to emerge on early Modest Mouse records.
Over The Hill sounds like a lot of the Southern indie bands that came up in the wake of R.E.M. in the mid '80s -- bands that no one really knows any more, like Antietam and Paul K & The Weathermen. The sound is like a Tejano version of Nuggets-era psych, or like a less marble-mouthed early Kings of Leon (before they went all Strokes on us).
Diagonals would've been comfortable in the Paisley Underground, the early '80s Los Angeles post-punk movement that blended a love for Beatles-era guitar pop and the nihilistic proto-punk of the Velvet Underground. These guys probably have a Long Ryders or Dream Syndicate album around their apartments somewhere.
School Police features off-key male-female duet vocals and has the same sort of whimsy as current indie darlings The Pains of Being Pure At Heart but without the overt Smiths obsession.
Follow That Bird! is probably the band that caught my ear the most out of the five bands on this bill. There is a raw, unrefined, almost Riot-Grrrl approach to its Sonic Youth-inspired indie rock. It's a little less controlled than the other bands, noisier and violent.
It's rare that we get five bands that sound like this all at once around here, so this definitely is the Show of the Week.
I also have to take the time out to thank everyone who came out to The Arsenal Tattoo Benefit Friday at Revolution. Hopefully all the coin that was generously donated will help Cliff and the gang get up and running again after being robbed blind two weeks ago. It's heartening to see the community come out to support one of its own. And the night belonged to a new local band, 10 Ft. Hammer. Well, new to us, since I'm guessing they are all well into their 40s. Any band that comes off like a redneck version of Motorhead and Whiplash is all right in my book.
RSS
Mobile
Daily Emails
Twitter
Facebook
