This Week's Best Concerts

Fed up with the incessant caterwauling of Mariah Carey and Christmas music in general? As a public service, here is a holiday playlist absolutely free of treacle and cheap sentiment. If a Grinch resides within you, this is your jam. Links are provided for the curious and the foolhardy. Truly, there is something here to offend everyone.

Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto – James Brown
Merry Christmas from the Family – Robert Earl Keen (please see below)
Merry Effing Christmas – Mr. Garrison from “South Park”
Hanukkah Song – Adam Sandler (30th anniversary!)
Run Rudolph Run – Keith Richards
Kung Fu Christmas – National Lampoon
Here Comes Fatty Claus – Rudolph and Gang
Santa Claus is a Black Man – Akim and Teddy Vann (OK, this one is kind of cute)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Texas Tornados
Christmas in Hollis – Run-DMC
Santa Claus and His Old Lady – Cheech and Chong
Back Door Santa – Clarence Carter

Ticket Alert

Punky hard rockers Amyl and the Sniffers will bring the “Cartoon Darkness” tour to the White Oak Music Hall on Sunday, April 6, and tickets are on sale now. Explaining the band’s name, lead singer Amy Taylor told the BBC, “In Australia we call poppers Amyl. So you sniff it, it lasts for 30 seconds and then you have a headache – and that’s what we’re like!” And who can (*sniiiiffffff*) argue with that?

Fans of Americana won’t want to miss Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit on Tuesday, April 8, at the 713 Music Hall. Tickets are on sale now, with plenty of good seats remaining. So what’s the deal with the “400 Unit” handle? It seems that years ago in Florence, AL, near where Isbell was raised, the psychiatric ward of the town hospital was known as the 400 Unit because it was in a building separate from the main structure with a different address. The ward has since been renamed, but Jason Isbell and the Behavioral Health Center doesn’t have much of a ring to it.

The venues just keep getting larger for hometown heroes Khruangbin, who will perform at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on Saturday, April 12, as part of the “A La Sala” (From the Living Room) tour. Not only that, the band was just nominated for a Grammy award in the Best New Artist category. Presales are up now, with the general sale set for Thursday.

Speaking of the Way Out in the Woods Pavilion, the roster is beginning to fill up for next season, with rapper Nelly scheduled for Thursday, September 4, and Keith Urban, the country star from Down Under, set to perform on Saturday, October 11. Tickets for these shows are on sale now, with goods seats available in both cases.

Concerts This Week

Who wouldn’t want to spend the holidays with Robert Earl Keen? The Houston native and former Lyle Lovett roommate has a tremendous catalog of songs to choose from, including the immortal “Merry Christmas from the Family,” which describes the folks who show up at a holiday gathering and includes lines like “Carve the turkey, turn the ball game on / Make Bloody Mary’s ’cause we all want one / Send somebody to the Stop ‘N Go / We need some celery and a can of fake snow.” Keen’s “Lights, Camera, Christmas!” extravaganza hits the House of Blues on Thursday.

Another singer-songwriter born in Houston (OK, technically the Woodlands), Jack Ingram, will perform at the Heights Theater on Thursday. Ingram has notched a dozen hits on the Billboard country charts and has been part of a successful collaborative venture with fellow country big shots Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall. ‘Cause Knowledge is Power: Ingram set a world record in 2009, doing interviews with 215 radio stations in one day. A PR person’s dream!

Savvy readers may have picked up on a theme here, as we move on to discuss guitarist Hamilton Loomis (born in Galveston), who will play the Dosey Doe Big Barn on Friday. Loomis is the real deal, having worked under the tutelage of legends like Bo Diddley, Joe “Guitar” Hughes and Johnny Clyde Copeland.

Rounding out our list of musicians from the Bayou City who will be playing around town during the holidays, Houston native Carolyn Wonderland, along with Austinites Marcia Ball and Shelley King, will be at the Heights Theater on Saturday. This musical triumvirate has been performing together — as much as their individual careers allow — for several years now, and we are all the richer for it.