Peter Case benefit

Comments (0) By Chris Gray Wednesday, Jul 29 2009

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8 p.m. Friday, July 31 and noon Saturday, August 1, at the Backroom at the Mink, 3718 Main, 713-522-9985 or www.minkonmain.com.

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Even if you don't know who Peter Case is, you know Peter Case. His first band, the Nerves, was in the same '70s Bay Area power-pop/punk scene as the Nuns (Alejandro Escovedo) and the Dils (Rank and File), and had "Hanging on the Telephone" snatched up by Blondie on 1978's Parallel Lines. Then he headed up the Plimsouls, whose 1982 nugget "A Million Miles Away" was one of the greatest — if not the greatest — lost hits of the '80s. Case went on to a tuneful career as an under-the-radar singer-songwriter before having open-heart surgery earlier this year, so his good friend and sometime Houston Press contributor David Ensminger organized this weekend's benefit — which itself doubles as a class-A history lesson in old-school Texas punk. Not only is Ensminger's band London Girl reuniting for the first time in a decade, he's flying in the bassist from AK-47, whose "The Badge Means You Suck" is one of the all-time Houston punk classics and sparked more than one altercation between the band and the boys in blue back in the day. Joining them will be cowpunk brigands the Hickoids and late Big Boys legend Randy "Biscuit" Turner's final project, the Texas Biscuit Bombs, plus Florida's We Moderns and contemporary local troublemakers Guitars, O Pioneers! and Anarchitex. Bring some extra change for the outdoor Punk Rock Flea Market from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday; see hotpunkcity.wordpress.com for more information and a complete lineup.