[Friday show added to the originally scheduled Saturday show due to Hurricane Harvey. Saturday's show may be canceled. Check Hotel Vegas' Facebook page for updates.]: “Normally, we’re very storyteller-esque.”: Andrew Cashen, the lank-haired guitarist and singer who, alongside dynamic frontwoman Sabrina Ellis, comprises the creative core behind both neo-New Wave local sensations Sweet Spirit and glam/punk heroes A Giant Dog, is warming to the subject of the songs on Toy, A Giant Dog’s second LP for Merge Records (see “Texas Platters,” p.56).: “I have a problem with Katy Perry songs that are just ‘I/Me/My.’ Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it,” he chuckles.: Toy’s second song, slacker anthem “Fake Plastic Trees,” blares in the first person, as does “Photograph” six songs later, possibly the least sexy song about sex, with its talk of wanting to smooch a one-night stand partner “when your teeth are brown.” When Cashen/Ellis employ a cliche, they subvert it. On AGD’s fourth long-player in nine years, they swapped longtime producer Mike McCarthy for Austin’s Stuart Sikes.: “Stuart’s repertoire of bands [White Stripes, Reigning Sound, Modest Mouse] is pretty heavy,” offers Cashen. “He broke a lotta bands in the early 2000s. They had a couple of records come out, then they’d work with him and they’d shoot into stardom.”: Cashen and Ellis continue redefining both their bands. Sweet Spirit’s recent St. Mojo, a Sikes co-production with Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, absorbs more of A Giant Dog’s punk energy, while Toy folds in Sweet Spirit’s broad gestures.: “A Giant Dog’s been a band since 2008,” asserts Cashen. “This is our fourth record. Sweet Spirit’s only done two. We’re still trying to figure out what Sweet Spirit is as a band.: “But A Giant Dog has had time to germinate. You can’t write the same record over and over again. So we went into the studio with the idea of pushing what we sound like and still have our core values in there.”
Sat., Aug. 26, 8pm