Weekend Music Preview: Aasim’s Birthday Party 2010 [The Mohawk / Friday]
Photographer and local music connoisseur Aasim Syed has curated some solid shindigs over the course of the last few years. Whether it’s his annual holiday party, his SXSW week bash, or his birthday celebration, the lineups at Syed’s events normally feature a number of promising contemporary bands as well as choice legendary acts from the yesteryear.
So how exactly did a photographer with a day job in the technology industry start booking bad-ass shows? According to Syed, “I’d always wanted to put on shows, music-related or otherwise, for years. I’d been a spectator for a long time and didn’t put serious thought into doing my own shows. I’d had many house parties with my roommates in years past with bands playing in our living room. I guess one thing that moved me towards just putting on a show at a real venue was I hated the mess those parties made in my house.”
“But the actual trigger to put on a real show was a conversation I had with Graham Williams (Transmission Entertainment) a while back. It was really late after some show and I was being a fan-nerd talking about how cool it would be to have a holiday season show with a certain lineup, etc. He casually mentioned that I should just do it and that was that. So I put together the Aasim Holiday Party in December of 2008 with eight amazing bands. It was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had and I knew I wanted to keep doing more stuff like that.”
The 2010 edition of his birthday party takes place this Friday at The Mohawk. As always, Syed has handpicked quite a few top-notch artists. We’re especially excited for Glorium, an esteemed local outfit that rocked campus Co-ops and club crowds up and down I-10 regularly back in the '90s. Much to our delight, they reemerged in the last decade to deliver their inventive brand of post-punk to a new generation, albeit on a sporadic basis. Glorium will be headlining tonight’s extravaganza, rightfully so, we reckon. “They toured with Fugazi, ” adds Syed. “That may have been the clincher. No, the clincher was imagining Glorium and me spazzing out. Yeah, that was it.”
The evening also marks the return of A Tiger Named Lovesick, now known as Pistol Pistol & The Crystal Fawn. The band’s dark, mesmerizing sound was pure euphony to our ears back in the early aughts. We’ll admit we’re pretty intrigued to discover what this new incarnation may offer up in concert on Friday night. As for the current crop, we recommend belligerent noise-brokers Shitty Carwash and garage-psych melody makers The Golden Boys, but really, all the bands on the bill should leave a positive impression on the audience. Syed’s stellar selections haven’t let us down yet.
[Glorium MySpace]
[Manikin MySpace]
[The Golden Boys MySpace]
[Shitty Carwash MySpace]
[Follow That Bird MySpace]
[Royal Butchers MySpace]
[Pistol Pistol & The Crystal Fawn Do512]
[DJ Butcher Bear MySpace]
