FIST FITE, PIPSQUEAK, SKIES BELOW, PRINCESS
Day two of the heavy-music jamboree Choicefest (presented by, well, Ladies' Choice) offers Portland band Fist Fite's carnally aggressive tensewave, a tectonic-plate-shifting brand of dark rock that may also drag you into Mother Earth's core. Synths pulsate provocatively over deep riffs, mindfully wreaking havoc with spacey and mathematical precision. With Princess, Pipsqueak, and Skies Below. Black Lodge, 9 pm.
THE NARX, THE SHIVAS, THE FABULOUS DOWNEY BROTHERS,
I'm becoming wary of most things in the vein of "garage-rock revival," but the deliciously primal freak-outs by newish local punk band the Narx are difficult to resist. Featuring members of Ubu Roi, this hormonally charged rock band has released their first tape—and it's the soundtrack to skipping school and drooling cool. I first saw '60s rock/voodoo channelers the Shivas when I was actually underage, and was transported to a time when rock was at its most fresh and vital. The Vancouver, Washington, natives have since toured relentlessly and released cassettes on Gnar Tapes and Burger Records, and they will give you the primordial shivers with their upcoming first LP, White Out (K Records). Sentient beings the Fabulous Downey Brothers have been sent to abduct your earholes and sweep them into their interstellar vessel of '80s postwave and willful weirdness. You may mistake them for Teletubbies dressed as ants, or for the freak coalescence of Danny Elfman and Mark Mothersbaugh, but either way, you will be inescapably enchanted by their wonky, electronic post-punk. With Portland's finest, Hornet Leg, and Seattle fuzz punks So Pitted. Black Lodge, 8:30 pm.
THE MEN, CCR HEADCLEANER, DUDE YORK, BIG EYES
Brooklyn-based band the Men have a new album called New Moon (released March 5 on Sacred Bones), and it sees the band's strident noise attack lurch into a hazed and lazy Southern-rock sprawl. They began diverging into rootsier territory with last year's Open Your Heart, and continue to evolve here from snarling punk to sauntering, hook-heavy pop songs. Supporting band CCR Headcleaner's name was very successful at luring me into typing "Clockcleaner" repeatedly and thinking of German industrial music (Einstürzende Neubauten's "Headcleaner"), but that could just be my noise-rock demon creeping out. If Creedence Clearwater Revival were a lo-fi band in this post-everything age, it might hint at CCR Headcleaner's aesthetic. But other than the general '60s-rock feel, there's not much to reflect on their implied namesake in the sound, which is submerged in swirling, sugary noise. It comes across more like Bradford Cox–ian underwater-gurgle rock. With local indie-rock four-piece Dude York and power pop/punk trio Big Eyes. Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $11.
