Keep Calm, Fight Cancer Benefit Walters, September 6-8
Leave it up to Houstonians to stand up and join the cause. Not even 48 hours after Walters announced that longtime owner/den mother Pam Robinson was battling Stage 4 cancer, that single status update had already reached 15,000 people through shares, likes and comments. Plans for this three-day benefit for her were announced almost immediately.
Currently, 20 bands have stepped forward to contribute their time and talents to the cause, which Walters is labeling"Keep Calm//Fight Cancer." Tonight, many of Houston's top indie acts come together, from the Tontons and New York City Queens to Second Lovers and Featherface. Saturday is reserved for hardcore and punk bands such as Pride Kills, Black Congress and Peloton, before Sunday's show welcomes acts like The Last Starfighter, Pbearadactyl (sic) and Safe Haven.
REWIND: Here's to You, Pam Robinson: Musicians Rally Around Beloved Walters Owner
But it wouldn't be a benefit without eats from some of Houston's delicious food trucks, as well as a silent auction, where benefit-goers can bid on things like Fun Fun Fun Fest passes, local artwork, salon gift certificates and more. Each show will cost $10 for entry, and 100 percent of the proceeds from both tickets and the silent auction will go towards paying for Robinson's medical needs. ALYSSA DUPREE
Krewella Stereo Live, September 6
Krewella was afforded one of the highest honors a contemporary act can receive back in May, when their air-punching neon jam "Alive" landed on the 46th iteration of earworm almanac Now That's What I Call Music. (Their neighbors included Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Ke$ha.)
The Chicago-based singing sisters Jahan and Yasmine Yousaf -- who you may be impressed to learn were born in Houston -- and trusty producer Rain Man have become a go-to act at EDM festivals including Ultra, Electric Daisy Carnival and Spring Awakening behind other supersize-fun songs like "Play Hard," and "Can't Control Myself." Now debut full-length Get Wet is sandwiched into Columbia Records' fall release schedule between John Legend and MGMT, further proof that Krewella belongs in the big leagues. With Seven Lions and Candyland. CHRIS GRAY
Chelsea Wolfe Fitzgerald's, September 7
Severe, ominous and spectral aptly describe Chelsea Wolfe, whose electronica-flecked new album Pain Is Beauty (Sargent House) has a foreboding sound that matches its Bronte-esque cover art. The five-piece L.A. band, named after its possibly pseudonymous lead singer (catch the clever Jack London pun?), debuted with 2010's The Grime and the Glow before softening its more metallic elements last year on the more folk-sounding Unknown Rooms.
Fans of both pain and beauty -- to say nothing of P.J. Harvey and Tori Amos -- will find plenty to appreciate here, with songs like "Feral Love," "The Warden," "Sick," and most of all on pensive eight-minute epic "The Waves Have Come." With True Widow. CHRIS GRAY
More shows on the next page.
