Thursday 3/26

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Pillars and Tongues

(Moore) Veteran musician Will Oldham's latest release under his Bonnie "Prince" Billy moniker, Beware, is, like Lie Down in the Light before it, a relatively lush and bright record (especially compared to Oldham's remarkably stark breakthrough, the haunted, minimalist Americana of I See a Darkness). Fourteen musicians are credited on the album, and they provide not only pedal steel, mandolin, organ, accordion, flute, and more instrumentation, but also a dim chorus of voices that fades in and out of Oldham's songs, reinforcing and then countering his own singing voice, which has sounded weary yet steadfast for over 15 years. Videos from this tour show him performing backed by far fewer musicians on drums, stand-up bass, and violin; whatever the arrangements, though, Oldham's voice remains the powerful focus. ERIC GRANDY

The Bismarck, Zion Curtain

(Funhouse) The Bismarck are a rock-and-roll band, plain and simple. They've got blistering riffs, powerful and quick drumming, fist-pump-worthy choruses, aggressive gang vocals, and, most importantly, a sense of humor. Live, they're exciting and a little sloppy, and songs like "Thank You for Not Dancing" and "Curt Flood" (from their full-length Blood of Patriots) drill through your skull even faster and harder than on record. MEGAN SELING

Alice Russell, Big World Breaks

(Nectar) This decade has seen Great Britain produce a fair number of good-to-great white female soul singers: Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Alice Russell, etc. While Russell won't be jostling Aretha Franklin off the throne as Queen of Soul, she does sport a striking tone redolent of sass and carnal knowledge. Her bandmates adhere to the soul tradition that's been winning hearts and minds for over 40 years. Don't expect novel twists on the old formula; do expect reverent replications of it executed with panache, as Russell and crew support her new, fourth album, Pot of Gold (Six Degrees). DAVE SEGAL

Friday 3/27

Black Mountain, the Sadies

(Neumos) See preview.

Wintersleep, An Horse

(Vera) See Underage.

Pigeon John, Rootbeer, Who Cares

(Nectar) Without the domination of gangsta rap, L.A. would not have one of the most fertile underground-hiphop scenes in America. Everything that defined gangsta rap (gun violence, unremitting misogyny, bling-bling) was rejected by the underground, which was loyal to hiphop's origins, staunchly opposed to black-on-black violence, obsessed with capturing the most ordinary details of life, and rarely (if ever) used the word "bitch." Pigeon John is a product of that reaction to gangsta rap. Since the early '90s, he's built a solid career on the stuff of daily, working-class life. If gangsta rap is all about the spectacle of the drive-by shooting, then Pigeon John is all about the humor of sweeping the street in front of a grocery. But the biggest difference between Pigeon John and the gangsta rapper is that John doesn't take himself so seriously. CHARLES MUDEDE

Roxy Epoxy and the Rebound, the Action Design, Veritas, Feverclub, Goodbye Gadget

(El Corazón) Portland's Roxy Epoxy made her name as the heavily eyelinered frontwoman of the now-defunct punk/new-wave outfit the Epoxies. The Epoxies' shows were always a flurry of smoke, lasers, and lights, and their songs would've been appropriate as the soundtrack to an "aliens landing at a house party" scene in a 1980s sci-fi flick. But despite the Epoxies' onslaught of sensory overload, Epoxy still managed to captivate the crowd with her unique low, dark voice and outfits made of zippers and electrical tape. She's doing much of the same now, without the Epoxies. In fact, she's bounced back from that breakup and found a new place with the appropriately named Roxy Epoxy and the Rebound, who released their debut, Bandaids on Bullet Holes, earlier this year. MEGAN SELING

Saturday 3/28

U.S.E

(Crocodile) See Stranger Suggests.

Tricky

(Showbox at the Market) Tricky, the street name for Adrian Thaws, a Bristol-born rapper, programmer, and producer, is one of the main figures of the triphop movement that surged in the mid '90s and receded in the early '00s. Though his level of fame is now nowhere near where it used to be in 1995, Tricky never really cracked the mainstream of American popular culture. His most celebrated album, Maxinquaye, only sold 70,000 copies in the U.S., and his name has far more currency among music critics than music consumers. Tricky has worked with Björk ("Enjoy"—which has a beat that can only be described as hyper-dancehall), PJ Harvey ("Broken Homes"—a strange ode to Biggie Smalls), and Gravediggaz's RZA ("Tonight Is a Special Night"—this is what you get when two geniuses are stuck in an elevator going down to hell). Tricky's most recent album, Knowle West Boy, was, like much of his work, warmly received by the critics and ignored by consumers. CHARLES MUDEDE See also preview.

Dark Meat, Grampall Jookabox, Long Legged Woman

(Comet) A psyched-out hippie cooperative based out of Athens, Georgia, Dark Meat boast ties to both that city's revered Elephant 6 collective and to NYC's decidedly less quaint Vice Records. If the former affiliation gives you some idea of what to expect from the band's face-painted freak scene, the latter suggests the band's ambitious scale—anywhere from a dozen to over 20 people, on instruments ranging from standard guitar and drums to horns and strings to a confetti cannon (it's totally an instrument). Together, they make one awesome hallucinogenic racket—train-wrecking rock 'n' roll, primal rhythmic pulse, woozy brass-band excess, and deranged howling—and a fairly mind-blowing freedom-ritual spectacle. (Dave Segal would like to add: Grampall Jookabox [aka multi-instrumentalist David Adamson] comes across like a Sly Stone from the sticks, a soul man with a skewed sense of funk and a knack for damnably catchy tunes.) ERIC GRANDY

OK Go, Jaguar Love, IO Echo

(Chop Suey) Consisting of two former Blood Brothers (Cody Votolato and Johnny Whitney) and one former grave-making Pretty Girl (Jay Clark), Jaguar Love lit up last year with their self-titled EP and full-length debut, Take Me to the Sea, both packed with some of the hookiest, prog-damaged alterna-rock ever made. Now, Jaguar Love are touring as a two-piece, with the departed Clark replaced by a drum machine and a set list featuring only three previously released songs. According to (amazing) singer Whitney, who shared details of the band's transformation last month on their MySpace page, the old songs sound like new remixes, while the new songs are "kind of Daft Punk meets New Order meets Black Flag." With treadmill geniuses OK Go. DAVID SCHMADER

Pig Destroyer, Skarp, Iron Lung

(El Corazón) Dude, do your parents know that you're into the Virginia deathgrind band Pig Destroyer? How do you think that makes them feel? All the care and love they poured into your being, and you reward them with your fanatical interest in the ultraviolent, hateful spectacle of deathgrind? What kind of monster did your nice folks raise, Pig Destroyer fan? At which point in their upbringing of you did you snap and decide that you simply had to plunge headfirst into deathgrind's apocalyptic nihilism and unholy cacophony—and did you really need to get that Pig Destroyer tattoo? Insult to injury, bro. Explain yourself, please, young man. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 3/29

Ratatat

(Showbox Sodo) I've long held that the best thing about Ratatat is the discrepancy between their gargantuan, arena-sized synth guitar riffs and their relatively small stature onstage. When I first saw the band perform, at El Corazón, the room's intimate size perfectly suited that sleight of sound—like the band was playing to some imaginary cheap seats way in the back. Now that the duo (which expands slightly to a trio for live shows) are playing something more like actual arenas, that delightful dissonance is gone. But what remains—blunted, hiphop-inspired beats; stoned Guitar Hero riffs; deep bass and judicious keyboard touches all bound together by air-tight production—is still plenty satisfying. ERIC GRANDY

Monday 3/30

Leslie & the LY's, Stereo Total

(Neumos) Stereo Total's shtick—the duo are like lovers at the barricades of Paris in 1968, with all that era's awesome post–Marxist Situationist politics, mod fashion sense, sexual revolutionizing, and ye ye rock 'n' roll—just kills me. The German/French husband-and-wife duo of Brezel Göring and Françoise Cactus have updated all the best things of that time for today's postmodern discotheques, and the result, especially on most recent album, Paris-Berlin, is spectacular fun. (Favorite Stereo Total song at this moment: the sensual, seductive solidarity of "Baby Revolution.") Leslie & the LY's shtick, though—sweaters! ZOMG, she's funny looking!?—just makes me want to kill. Hers is an already-stale novelty that treats human ears like toilets. Don't skip this show, but do yourself a favor and leave early. ERIC GRANDY

Beep Beep, the Show Is the Rainbow

(Sunset) The Show Is the Rainbow (Lincoln, Nebraska's Darren Keen) purveys electronic pop that can be as cutesy as his moniker, but with unexpected spazzy dynamic shifts and quirky vocal arrangements occasionally surfacing. His new album, Wet Fist (Retard Disco), follows in the lineage of early Beck and eels: DIY bedroom auteurs whose winsome weirdness will attract misfits from all over. Omaha duo Beep Beep's Enchanted Islands (Saddle Creek) is more conventionally pretty than Wet Fist, but it also bears some jaggedly angled tunes and frayed guitar textures that suggest they hold Captain Beefheart's Magic Band close to their bosom. Beep Beep, therefore, are Saddle Creek's most interesting artist. DAVE SEGAL

Tuesday 3/31

Stop Biting: eR DoN, WD4D, EarDrumz & Sentric, Showbot & MacrOS

(Lo-Fi) See Data Breaker.

Pelican, Wolves in the Throne Room, Tombs

(Neumos) Olympia quartet Wolves in the Throne Room live a green lifestyle, but play their metal black—and spacious. Their third album, Black Cascade (recorded by Seattle producer extraordinaire Randall Dunn), is an aptly titled foray into metal's more anguished chambers. Nathan Weaver's tormented vocals, brother Aaron Weaver's pummeling, speed-bag beats, and the group's beautifully gnarled melodies cohere into an exhilarating expression of doom. (Bonus: WITTR made me learn about Ahriman.) Chicago-based Pelican soften metal's abrasiveness and bombast with more aerated guitar riffs and atmospheres. Their brand of the genre is light on its feet and unafraid of disarmingly pretty passages, betraying their fondness for shoegaze (shhhh). DAVE SEGAL

Wednesday 4/1

Beyoncé

(KeyArena) Fact #1: We will spend the rest of our lives looking at Beyoncé, a self-made superstar of the first (or at least second) order. Fact #2: The video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"—black-and-white, dance-packed, meticulously delivered—may stand forever as the woman's greatest work. From the flowing back and forth between Broadway dazzle and sex-drenched street moves to the gloriously odd off-key buzzing that swells under what would otherwise be a mercilessly repetitive chorus, the song-and-video combo makes for an endlessly watchable classic. Underlying everything—the shocking bursts of athleticism, the gold-star precision of the execution—is the fact that Beyoncé is a glamorous zillionaire who never needs to lift a leg again if she doesn't want to. But as a self-made superstar of the first (or at least second) order, she lives to please and dazzle and thrill us, and she'll do all three tonight at KeyArena. DAVID SCHMADER

Eugene Mirman, John Wesley Harding

(Tractor) Eugene Mirman, the funniest Eeyore in New York, is coming to town to shill his new book, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life. Either before or afterward, English singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding will play some folky rock songs or rocky folk songs. Depending on what stratum you're slicing from Harding's career, he can be funny like Jonathan Coulton, rollicking like the Mekons, or even sparkly like Bowie. Between Mirman and Harding, it should be a highly entertaining evening. BRENDAN KILEY