FLOWERS TO HIDE: ALL UP IN THIS BUCKET OF CHICKEN

Flowers to Hide is a wicked hard band to write about. We suspect that more than a little of that has to do with the fact that TSN’s Publisher and Chief Executive was once in a band with guitarist Mike San Luis. When you rock that closely with someone and spend hours on a shabby little couch in continuous utter awe of what they write and how they play it, the tendency is to quickly crash and burn into a zone of Bruce Dickenson-esque hyperbolics that manifests in phrases like “he doesn’t play guitar, he plays gold records” and “you call it a mustache, we call it a hit machine.”

But no, Flowers to Hide does not have a hit, let alone a machine full of them. And likewise, they don’t have a gold record (actually, they don’t have any record). We agree with Donewaiting’s assessment that there isn’t really any other band in Houston that sounds like this right now – and haven’t really, as they have been doing this thing for years. And this is odd, because it seems like somehow this shouldn’t be the case, given the rising prominence of whatever label you want to throw on the bucket of chicken that includes acts like Serena Maneesh, The Warlocks, stellastar*, Longwave and the Black Angels – all band’s they’ve played with.

As Brooklyn starts to burp out more and more vans containing more and more copies of Catherine Wheel and Afghan Wigs cassettes in their center consoles, it’s not hard to wonder if this year’s expected release of their long-overdue recordings isn’t expertly timed. In spite of their long tenure in this city, they haven’t stood still musically, and it’s certainly not by default that they’ll be opening up again for the Black Angels tonight (this time in the significantly larger Warehouse Live setting - and with VFW fashion raiders VietNam). Don’t have the scratch? Well, they’ll also be on the Numbers Outside Stage at 2:30 for the Westheimer Block Party Saturday. GET LUCKED!