Know Your Idols

Halloween is long past, and even Mardi Gras is a memory now, but it's always fun to play dress-up. Houston's indie-rock community discovered as much at last month's Hootenanny, topped by Mathletes' rapturous turn as Talking Heads — the Mink ain't no disco, indeed, but it sure was a party — and now it's the local hardcore and metal kids' turn. Swap out longhairs in sweaty Sabbath tees for American Apparel-clad bedheads and you're halfway there. (To head off the inevitable "But what do you really sound like?" questions, bands are allotted ten minutes for their own material.)

Here goes, last band first: Decade-old vets Eyeagainst do the demented D.C. thing as Bad Brains; Austin/Houston hybrid Amplified Heat stay well within their comfort zone as Jimi Hendrix; the Drunks trade booze for speed as Motörhead; American Terrorist hopes to score some girls, girls, girls as Mötley Crüe; Morgue City calls down the Spiders from Mars as Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie; Whorehound wallows in the Melvins' Olympian sludge; Jalambo Chispa does the one-armed scissor as At the Drive-In; Mechanical Boy risks a severe beating as Tears for Fears; Dicky Hands do it OC-style as the Adolescents; and Until Dawn runs to the hills as Iron Maiden. The faint of heart are advised to do likewise.