There’s been a lot of hardcore punk bands out on the road lately. NYC’s Cro-Mags are just one example, playing Austin’s Chaos In Tejas Festival at Emo’s Thursday night along with Portland indie rockers Ted Leo & The Pharmacists.

In 1988 there was a full-on renaissance afloat of literate, creative women’s rock, lead by Tracy Chapman, Toni Childs, Sinead O’Connor, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Michelle Shocked, Phranc, etc. The undisputed queens of this movement are undoubtedly The Indigo Girls , two unassuming lesbians from Athens, GA who reclaimed folk and the singer-songwriter confessional from its 10-year-long coma. It is easy to forget the power of their self-titled debut album. It was all over college radio and was a huge influence on the nascent indie rock as well as alt-country. 20+ years later the duo are still touring and recording new music. The ladies will play Stubb’s in Austin Thursday night and Verizon Wireless Theatre in Houston Friday night.

Earlier this decade I got waaaayyyyy deep into instrumental and experimental post-rock, not only as a player but as a listener. Tortoise was probably the first of the indie bands to go back and pick up prog and fusion as well as the hipster-approved kraut rock of the early ’70s. Pelican takes it one step further and fuses metal to it all. Afterall, Dickenson-era Iron Maiden is metal and prog at the same time, as was post-Kill ‘Em All Metallica. Pelican can be gentle, noodly, intricate and balls-to-the-wall metal all in the course of a single song. Pelican are playing The Meridian in Houston Thursday night, along with the post-metal punishment of Isis.

Yup, I pretty much agree. I thought Boston’s Letters To Cleo were a big-time commercial cash-in on Juliana Hatfield’s sound. I had the fortune of seeing them at my alma mater in 1994 and the best part of the show was another Massachussetts band, The Gravel Pit. Anyways, yeah, LTC. Playing live at House of Blues in Houston Thursday night and The Parish in Austin Friday night, both nights with Austin’s own LTC clone Cruiserweight opening.

It’s the evening of the Ex at Warehouse Live in Houston Thursday night with Ex-Smith Andy Rourke and Ex-Happy Monday Paul Ryder.

I can’t even begin to front. The very first brand-new CD I ever bought was Empire, an unassuming vaguely prog commercial metal album by Bellevue, WA’s Queensryche. By that point in their career the Ryche were more than happy to let their Rush influences shine through their screechy vaguely NWOBM metal. Then grunge happened and pretty much grounded that whole genre. But then a funny thing happened. Tool very happily followed in Queensryche’s path. Then Porcupine Tree emerged this decade. And prog-metal wasn’t a dirty word. A few years back Queensryche toured Operation Mindcrime in its entirety to sold-out shows. Here’s round two for them, playing at House of Blues in Houston Friday night.

Or you can get plenty of metal if you stay in Friday night at The Stafford in Bryan from the likes of Nocturnal Madness, Fleshook and Prey For Sleep.

It feels like we’ve been talking about LOUD!Fest 2 for many, many years now.  20 bands, 2 venues, $5.  Ringo Deathstarr, Texas Drag Queens, Valentine Failures, Born Liars, Street Pizza, The Dee Use, White Rhino, Something Fierce, Television City, Female Demand, Flawless Escape, The Hangouts, Original Glitch, Throne of Odin, Primal, Machine Meets Land, Convicted of Treason, Redmeadow, Nuklhed and The Ex-Optimists.  All day Saturday at both Revolution Cafe & Bar and The Stafford Main in downtown Bryan, starting at 3pm.  One $5 wristband gets you into both clubs.  First 25 through the door will receive a free LOUD!Fest 2 t-shirt and LOUD!Fest 2 2CD compilation.  The rest of you suckers can get the t-shirt/2CD package for $10.  You can preorder your wristband at http://myspace.com/sinkholetexas using Paypal and receive a limited edition signed lithograph of the show poster at your left.  Bands play on alternating stages 30 minutes apart so you can conceivably see every band between the two venues.

And while what’s going on Saturday at The Palace in Bryan isn’t really a LOUD!Fest 2 event, it might as well be.  Hand Me That Piano, Patchwork, Chad Perez Band, Ian Myers, Luca Andrew, Reagan Wilkins, Graham Carter, Sage Johnston, Smokey & The Bears and Fairview Avenue are all putting in appearances.  Just pay your cover and mingle between three really good shows Saturday in Bryan.

“The Way” was definitely one of my favorite radio hits of 1998, brought to us all courtesy of a fine Austin power-pop trio Fastball. Sadly, further chart success was to allude them. After another major label album the band were dropped and drifted back to indie label land where they continue to fluorish. Fastball will rock The Parish in Austin Saturday night.

Once upon Saxon were as on the forefront of cutting edge British metal, having inspired a legion of bands including Metallica. Then somehow were left behind to continue in Spinal Tap fashion to bash it out for fewer and fewer fans. Saxon has the last laugh, having a new song on the latest Grand Theft Auto and a major world tour. Saxon makes a stop at The Meridian in Houston Saturday night.

I maintain that the first A Flock of Seagulls is easily one of the finest post-punk records ever released. It’s amazing that somehow “I Ran” became a hit off of what was at essence a strange Bowie-esque synthpop concept album about aliens. And then years later singer Mike Love really can’t sing anymore and no one from the original band is still around, but hey, it is A Flock of Seagulls after all, and out on the road with them this time are a bunch of other ’80s castaways like When In Rome, Dramarama and Gene Loves Jezebel. If I wasn’t doing LOUD!Fest this weekend I would totally go to this show. All the above bands are at The Showgrounds at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston Saturday night.

I will admit that Bush is a guilty pleasure for me. The first of the Nirvana clones is still probably the best, being that there were all of the same age and influenced by the same bands. I suppose it’s only natural the band turned out the way it did. Still, in 1994 the first Bush album Sixteen Stone felt like a big ol’ ripoff, especially as it came out right on the heels of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. Their second album Razorblade Suitcase was produced by Steve Albini and we listened to that album every day at Disc Jockey Records in the mall where I worked the Christmas season of 1996. And I grew to like that record and the band. 13 years after that album Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale is now better known for being married to Gwen Stefani than for his music. He does have a solo career but I think, like Liz Phair before him, placating the commercial world has largely taken the fire out of his music. Gavin Rossdale plays House of Blues in Houston Sunday night.

The Meat Puppets’ second album Meat Puppets II is one of the most classic albums to have been released in the 1980′s, combining boogie rock, punk, country and psychedelia in one 30 minute platter. Many years later after breaking up, losing their original drummer and relocating to Austin, the band is back at it again. The Meat Puppets play a free in-store performance at Waterloo Records in Austin Monday afternoon.

Or you can stick around here Monday night at The Stafford in Bryan for a dose of local metal from the likes of Predominant Mortification, Nuklhed and Ride At Anchor.