The eighth edition of the always free and musically packed For the Community festival runs from Saturday afternoon into early Sunday morning. Once again, promoters Visionary Noise and Houston Free Thinkers have assembled a lineup of artists, poets and musicians representative of our city's diversity.
Last Concert Café and Eastdown Warehouse will host more than three dozen musical acts. It's the second time this year the festival has dropped in the warehouse district and the February edition enjoyed strong attendance. Not to go Frank Billingsley on y'all, but the weather is going to be ridiculously great, so the hope is even more music fans will crowd Nance Street for the day's offerings.
Of those offerings, here are eight promoter Micah Jackson and Rocks Off chose for adventurous listeners or FTC newbs to seek out:
REWIND: Houston's Rowdiest Festival Moves to the Warehouse District
BIZ VICIOUS 5:30 p.m., Eastdown Warehouse
Biz Vicious was introduced to me by way of Unified Underground's 2014 summer compilation. His track, "Sick Cadence Cicadas" was my first taste of the electronic music and electrifying rhymes he serves up.
Biz's altar ego Brian Eley has been a poet, singer-songwriter and rapper, but recently added producer to his resume to bring Biz Vicious into focus. The result is a fun blend of unpredictable beats and winning lyrics. For a sample, head over to the Vicious one's Soundcloud and find "Biz Please (Got Em Like)," where the artist humorously bares his soul with the line "I admit that I'm a narcissist, why else would I produce, rap and listen to this?"
KRISTAL CHERELLE 6:40 p.m., Last Concert Café
Singer-songwriter Kristal Cherelle's debut album released this summer with an appropriate title, Fighter. It's fitting because she's got a knockout voice and she's a scrapper, battling for new listeners by taking shows practically anywhere they'll book her.
The album is heavy on relationship songs, the kinds Taylor Swift could be writing ten years from now, if she ever experiences the joys and struggles of an actual relationship. The best of the bunch are the title track, a mournful "Pain," which showcases her vocal range and "Where We Need to Be," which recalls Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me." Talent and a strong work ethic suggest Cherelle is not just here for the fight; she's in it to win it.
GRAND ANTLER TEETH 8:50 p.m., Eastdown Warehouse
Grand Antler Teeth is a new Houston band that won't seem new at all to some. That's because members of the band -- vocalist John Alton and percussionist Chad Liebold -- are former members of Cosmic Bug Loaf. They've recruited Jeremy Carswell and David Sanmiguel, from Jeremy Carswell & the Nymphs, to form this project. The band played its debut show just last month at Rudyard's.
Jackson is touting this as one act to catch and the best reason -- besides the music -- may be to see how these musicians from other projects meld together for something all-new.
MANINKARI 9:20 p.m., Last Concert Cafe
This quartet celebrates its first year together with an FTC performance at Last Concert, one of its favorite venues. The band's vocalist is Derrick Broze, the Houston Free Thinkers organizer whose interests vary from organic gardening to politics to his day job of activist journalism. His lyrics and presentation should be anything but run of the mill.
He's backed by Ephraim Paz on guitar, bassist Chad Zimmerman and a drummer who simply goes by Kevin. The notion of simplification, a return to the basic spirit found in all things, is at the heart of Maninkari's music. It'll be interesting to see how many revelers take the band's transcendental trip with them.
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