(Central Saloon) Local label Green Monkey recently performed a great humanitarian service by issuing 20 songs that the Queen Annes cut during this region’s pre-grunge days. Titled Something Quick 1980-1985, the collection reveals a group steeped in the vital psych-garage-mod mode that vibrated from 1965 to 1967; think the Who, the Yardbirds, and the Byrds. One could view the Queen Annes as Northwestern counterparts to California’s concurrent Paisley Underground: smart record-collector types reviving a style of rock that has an indestructible aura of cool, while putting their own artful and infectious melodic touches on it. The Queen Annes’ biting guitar textures, indelible hooks, and exciting song structures just keep on giving chills, with nary a letup. Let’s hope they’ve still got it 30 years later. With White City Graves and Thrashers Corner. DAVE SEGAL
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(Barboza) Do you like meat-and-potatoes rock from the Midwest? Do you get amped when listening to mid-’70s Thin Lizzy or mid-’80s Replacements? Do you derive enjoyment from groups who flex both punk aggression and classic pop-rock hooks? Does a white guy singing with a raw, hurt Paul Westerberg–ian tone pluck your heartstrings? Yes? You will love Minneapolis’s Howler. Their second album, World of Joy, sounds like something that would place in the top 10 of the Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop critics poll—in 1986. But in 2014, making a straight-ahead trad-rock record with no concessions to trendy production techniques and relying on the sheer strength of your songwriting and playing is a pretty rare thing. Howler just plain earn your respect through the basics. DAVE SEGAL
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Are we done waiting for a signature sound from Bleeding Rainbow, after four albums, each one more different from the last? Like Dylan Baldi and Cloud Nothings, this Philly band has deftly evolved from lo-fi noise pop toward louder, better-produced, and more ferocious material. On their newest release, this year's Interrupt, Bleeding Rainbow pull their shoegaze influences taut, finding a chaotic middle ground between My Bloody Valentine and Superchunk, with shouted vocals and compact bursts of oozing guitars. With Wimps and So Pitted. Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $8 adv. JACKSON HATHORN
If you're in need of some new and local punk rock that can bore a hole in your brain, look no further than the Beach Boy. Their debut, Burners, is a 17-minute-long alienated romp that's available for free on Bandcamp. If you're fixated on the band's name, any thoughts of surfing, woodies, and harmless teenage fun will be quickly eviscerated upon your first listen. A mess of short-circuiting guitars, muddied vocals, and dumpster-thrashing drums, Burners is caustic, sardonic, and deranged. But somehow, all of this ruckus goes down smooth, like a molten pizza that burns your tongue off, leaves you half-mute, and compels you to grab another slice. Landlines' basement pop takes on many forms. It's often complex and muscular, with songs exploding at once and sounding like a lo-fi take on Television's guitar masterpiece Marquee Moon. Other times, the band's musical tilt-a-whirl slows down to a languid crawl so you can better parse the wry, Stephen Malkmus–inspired wordplay. At the other end of the bill, Mega Bog's weirdo yacht rock circles above the rims of slowly spewing underwater volcanoes. Their songs sizzle and plume, with saxophones steadily rocking back against the waves, content to chase the sun at their own pace. Like a dog-eared postcard from Nico in the South Pacific, Mega Bog is a band you want to cherish and hold close to your heart. Cairo, 8 pm, $7. JACKSON HATHORN
And here's all our recommended music events—tonight, tomorrow, this weekend, and beyond!
