Live Music Now

11 coolest concerts to catch in Houston this October

Choices, choices, choices.

In most normal years, October means an uptick in concerts due to Houston's periphery to the two-weekend Austin City Limits Music Festival. (Check out our must-see list here.)

This year is different. Even without the ACL bump, bands are clamoring to get back on the road after 18 months of venue closures to make up losses incurred while on lockdown and venues are only more than willing to book them.

That means a smorgasbord of acts and performers crowding concert listings, making for some extremely tough choices as a casual live music fan. Thankfully, CultureMap is here to help make those decisions easier with some of the most noteworthy shows through the end of October.

Here are 11 to catch this month:

Modest Mouse with Future Islands
Friday, October 8
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N Main St.

Popular Pacific Northwest act Modest Mouse returns to Houston for a lawn show at White Oak with a new album in tow, The Golden Casket, their first in six years. Much beloved for it's eccentric take on punk-inflected, left-field indie rock, they hit the big time with the instant classic single, "Float On," from 2004's high-water mark, Good News for People Who Love Bad News after a series of much beloved early albums.

Bringing in The Smiths guitarist and Johnny Marr for a time, the band largely survived lead singer Isaac Brock's more questionable offstage moments. They'll be joined by the fantastic, atmospheric Baltimore rockers, Future Islands, that made a career on lead singer Samuel T. Herring's innate charisma and quirky dance moves. Act now because tickets are limited.

Tickets start at $47 plus fees. Doors open at 6 pm.

Sleigh Bells
Tuesday, October 12
Warehouse Live, 813 St Emanuel St.

Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells struck an immediate chord when they burst onto the scene in 2010 with their killer debut, Treats. Featuring Derek Miller’s heavy guitar riffing, it juxtaposed Alexis Krauss’s sugary, throwback, pop coo against hip-hop beats.

Many pegged them as the next best girl-guy rock group a la White Stripes and The Kills, and appearances on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations only confirmed their untouchable cool. But the band continued to produce same-sounding results, somewhat constrained by its distinct sound. They’ll look to break that jinx on their new album, the aptly-named Texis, and they can still bring the heat on-stage.

Tickets start at $30 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

CultureMap Show of the Month: Houston Artist Commissioning Project Live Part 1
Friday, October 15 and Saturday, October 16
Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana St.

Local artists get the spotlight as the Houston Artist Commissioning Project (HACP) unveil six live performance winners in the project's pilot year on the Jones Hall stage. The festivities will kickstart on Friday, October 15 with the world premiere performance, Becoming, a collaboration by indie duo Say Girl Say and Two Star Symphony Output in what they are calling a "musical and visual human experience."

They'll be followed by spoken word vet Patrick Dave with a poetic ensemble for Black, Blue, All Lives; OH MY! And Loop38 and the Houston Contemporary Dance Company will bring together two boundary-pushing music and dance groups to explore the frictions between opposing force with Body and Spirit (Corpórea y Espíritu)

Tickets start at $25 plus fees. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

Fat Tony with Cadence Weapon
Wednesday, October 13
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N Main St.

Local underground rapper made good, the Third Ward’s Fat Tony, plays a hometown show after a few years of unassailable success, including a spot on the Vice TV night show, Vice Live, a slew of appearances on tracks by other luminaries in the hip-hop world, and the release of 2020’s Exotica.

He’ll be joined by the live wire Canadian MC, Cadence Weapon, the former Edmonton poet laureate and Pitchfork contributor that just won one of Canada’s most prestigious music awards, the Polaris Prize, for his thrilling comeback album, Parallel World. For fans of forward-thinking, progressive rap, this is show is a must-attend event.

Tickets start at $30 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

H.E.R. with Tone Stith
Thursday, October 14
Smart Financial Center at Sugar Land, 18111 Lexington Blvd.

Modern R&B heads will be out in force to see the Grammy and Academy Award winning Bay Area artist, H.E.R., who has been pushing boundaries of the genre while racking up No. 1s on the R&B chart and becoming a strong voice for racial justice.

Singles “Focus,” “Could’ve Been,” and “Damage” all went platinum and she picked up the Oscar for her song “Fight For You,” her contribution to the film, Judas and the Black Messiah. She'll bring that star power to Sugar Land this month.

Tickets start at $69.50 plus fees. Show starts at 8 pm.

Dead & Company
Friday, October 15
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Dr.

The passing of Jerry Garcia was just another chapter in the story of three living members of the Grateful Dead, namely Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, who simply retooled as Dead & Company and added firepower in the form of revolving musicians to step in the role of the former lead guitarist.

That has included Phish noodler, Trey Anastasio, and popular pop-blues crooner, John Mayer. Like most jam bands, the actual songs aren’t the point, it’s the journey in how they are delivered, so get those free spirits ready to sway to the grooves.

Tickets start at $51.50 plus fees. Gates open at 6 pm.

Kane Brown with Jordan Davis, Chase Rice, and Restless Road
Friday, October 15, 1510 Polk St.

One of the winners of the 2019 edition of RodeoHouston, No. 1-selling Kane Brown returns to the city of one of his greatest triumphs, performing in front of 75,000 at NRG Stadium before the world went dark just as his career was launching into the stratosphere.

That's thanks in part to the 2018 album, Experiment, achieving crossover, mainstream success. He’ll dip his toes back into the water with a likely sold-out Toyota Center show, before we may see him back on the rodeo circuit.

Tickets start at $40.50 plus fees. Doors open at 6 pm.

CultureMap Recommends: Beach Fossils with Wild Nothing and Hannah Jadagu
Saturday, October 16
Satellite HTX, 6922 Harrisburg St.

One of the strongest under-the-radar indie line-ups this fall, Brooklyn's Beach Fossils roll into town having established themselves as one of the best indie acts doing the jangly, lo-fi, recorded in a trash can sound made popular by The Drums, Surfer Blood, and Wavves.

They've put out three fantastic albums that touch on melancholy sounds, much like co-headliner, Wild Nothing. A vehicle for Jack Tatum, Wild Nothing emerged as a bedroom pop project, drawing on sounds of The Smiths and even Beach House, before successively producing bigger sounding records, including 2016's Life of Pause and 2018's Indigo.

Tickets start at $25 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Jonas Brothers with Kelsea Ballerini
Friday, October 23
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Dr.

The Jonas Brothers (Joe, Nick, Kevin) are one of the rare instances when a band is more popular after reuniting than the first part of their career. But that's the feat they pulled off when, after two of the brothers married very famous actresses (Joe with Sophie Turner; Nick with Priyanka Chopra), the boys got the band back together after an extended hiatus for acting careers, solo music, and side projects.

They announced their return in 2019 with the hit song "Sucker," hitting No. 1 on the charts with the subsequent album, Happiness Begins, hitting No. 1 as well. Some guys have all the luck. They run through all the hits (maybe even the Disney years!) alongside country-pop star Kelsea Ballerini.

Tickets start at $39.95 plus fees. Gates open at 6 pm.

Jack Harlow with Babyface Ray and Mavi
Saturday, October 30
House of Blues, 1204 Caroline St.

A rising star on the rap scene, Louisville native, Jack Harlow is working his way up festival posters with increasing font sizes with his intimately personal lyrics that are a direct line by contemporaries such as Drake. But when you're pulling in stars like Lil Wayne, DaBaby, and Big Sean to guest on your records, stardom is inevitable.

His hugely received debut album, Thats What They All Say and a chart-topping song with Lil Nas X ("Industry") has him on a rocket ship not seen since perhaps Eminem. Check him out at the smaller House of Blues in Houston — he won't be playing venues this size for much longer. He's playing both weekends at ACL to much larger crowds which will soon be the norm.

Tickets start at $29.50 plus fees. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

Japanese Breakfast with Sasami
Saturday, October 30
White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N Main St.

Already established as a indie rock star to watch, Japanese Breakfast aka Michelle Zauner benefitted from the time off during the pandemic, writing her memoir and becoming a best-selling author with Crying in H Mart.

But the road is calling and so does the opportunity to promote one of the year's best albums with Jubilee, her most realized work to date that has been winning over crossover fans outside of the Pitchfork set. Not to be outdone, she recorded and released the soundtrack for video game, Sable, this year as well, making us all look lazy

Tickets start at $34.50 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Wild Nothing will be at Sattelite Houston on Saturday, October 16.

Cara Robbins

Wild Nothing will be at Sattelite Houston on Saturday, October 16.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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