For those who have never darkened its doorway, Dan Electro’s is a club in the Heights that has been around since 1988, hosting local and regional talent. However, on Thursday, August 6, Mattel – the company that gave the world Barbie and Hot Wheels – will bring its travelling UNO Social Club to Houston and Dan Electro’s.
The card game was initially marketed in 1971 by an entrepreneur from Ohio who flogged the first version of UNO out of his barber shop. Later, the company was sold to a funeral home director, who located the corporate offices behind his planting parlor. Mattel purchased UNO in 1992, and in 2018, the game was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, joined that year by the pinball machine and the Magic 8 Ball.
The idea of booking an UNO evening at a rock and roll club might seem odd to some, but when the game’s cross-cultural appeal is considered, it starts to make sense. UNO is an easy game to master, even for children. But that doesn’t mean that the competition is not fierce. I recall my grandmother explaining to one of my uncles, following a family round of UNO, that the purpose of the game was not to make your opponent cry, particularly when said opponent was a nine-year-old girl.
More information on Houston’s UNO extravaganza is available here.
Ticket Alert
Don’t accuse Stephen Wilson, Jr. of getting stuck in a rut. In his 47 years, Wilson has been a Golden Gloves boxer, a microbiologist who developed the Dentastix Fresh canine teeth-cleaning chews, and (these days) a top 40 country artist. Tickets are on sale now for his concert on Saturday, October 3, at the 713 Music Hall.
Singer-songwriter Paula Cole appears to be following the dictum of Houston Oilers head coach Bum Phillips, who famously said, “Dance with the one that brung ya.” Cole’s pinnacle of commercial success occurred during the late ‘90s, when two of her songs, “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait,” plopped her right in the middle of the zeitgeist. Cole will celebrate the 30th anniversary of This Fire, the album that introduced those tunes, by performing record in its entirety on Thursday, November 5, at the Heights Theater.
Vocalist and bassist Thundercat has traveled all over the musical map since starting his career with the punk band Suicidal Tendencies. Since then, he has worked with Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq, Snoop Dogg, Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar. Catch Thundercat (and yes, his name comes from the animated television series “Thundercats”) on Saturday, November 7, at the White Oak Music Hall.
Concerts This Week
Several bands came out of the Deep Ellum scene that flourished in Dallas during the latter part of the ‘80s, most notably (at least in commercial terms) Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. But while most of those Deep Ellum bands are vague memories now, one artist from the bunch is still out there raising hell. I’m talking here about Reverend Horton Heat, both the band of that name and its guitarist / vocalist Jim Heath, who has created an onstage persona with the same handle. If you are in the mood for some cranked up psychobilly, look no further than the Rev’s show on Thursday at Main Street Crossing in Tomball.
It has been said of psychedelic rock that much of the genre’s music has aged about as well as a banana. The same could be said of many offerings from the New Wave era (Ebn Ozn’s “AEIOU Sometimes Y,” Men Without Hats’ “The Safety Dance”). But, as is the case with most musical movements, care must be taken so as not to throw the baby out with the New Wave bath water. Case in point: The Fixx, which will play the House of Blues on Thursday. Led by Bowie-esque lead singer Cy Curnin and guitarist Jamie West-Oram, The Fixx achieved success in both the pop and rock realms with classics like “One Thing Leads to Another” and “Saved by Zero,” appealing to MTV viewers while retaining credibility as a serious and innovative band. With this upcoming visit to Houston, we can see if they’ve still got it.
Neo-garage rockers the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney) have dusted themselves off after a scuttled national tour in 2024 (following a pissing match with Live Nation) and released two albums in two years: No Rain, No Flowers (2025) and Peaches! (2026). Catch the reinvigorated Black Keys on Friday at the White Oak Music Hall.
I suppose it takes more than the death of a band’s namesake to derail a classic rock cash cow. This certainly seems to be the case with the Coral Reefer Band, the outfit that backed the late Jimmy Buffet for several decades. Though the Reefers can no longer put “Jimmy Buffett and…” before the band’s name, they are still on the road, with a concert scheduled for Friday at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. The tour has been dubbed “Keep the Party Going.” A cynic might say that a more accurate name could be “Keep the Money Flowing,” but certainly not me.
If you aren’t sure that you can sell out a venue, one approach to ameliorate the situation is to stack the deck. That is to say, book several opening acts with their own fan bases who can be counted on to supplement the overall marketing effort. This would seem to be the strategy employed by creepy metalcore dudes Motionless in White, who will play the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on Saturday, accompanied by Lorna Shore, Fit for a King and Static Dress. Now, with all that music on stage, things will be starting early, so as to avoid violating the Pavilion’s curfew of 11 p.m. Accordingly, Static Dress will crank things up at 6:30 p.m., with Motionless in White’s headlining set beginning at 9:15 p.m.
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