Wednesday 6/1

Adele, Wanda Jackson

(Paramount, This show has been postponed due to illness.) The worldwide triumph of Adele's 21—the British singer-songwriter's sophomore-slump-obliterating, Grammy-best-new-artist-curse-busting second record—can only be celebrated. A gorgeous young woman smart enough to know that her songwriting skills aren't on par with her supernatural voice, Adele sidesteps the vocal vulgarity that's stained so many big-voiced young women, opting for life-size emotions and music that puts her voice in its place. And she seems voraciously impressionable: "Adele's interest in soul was deepened with a visit to the HMV store on London's Oxford Street," reads her Wikipedia bio, which credits the change in sound on 21 to "her bus driver playing contemporary Nashville music when she was touring the American South." Turning tonight's show into a history lesson in ballsy women: show opener/party starter/rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson. DAVID SCHMADER

KEN Mode, Deafheaven, Into the Storm, Cascabel

(Funhouse) Beware kvlt lords of the black-metal underworld: Deafheaven are not trve. To everyone else who couldn't care less about corpse paint and spiked gauntlets: Go to this show. You can call them melodic black metal, emo metal, screamo black metal, melodic hardcore, or even hipster black metal—it wouldn't be the first time any of these genre definitions/barriers have been hurled at the band. It's been only a year since Kerry McKoy and George Clarke laid the foundation for what would later become one of the most e-hyped demos of the year, a rough five-song "hello" that's caked with dense layers of atmospheric shoegaze bliss and blast-beat-fueled black-metal fury. Roads to Judah, the band's recent four-song Deathwish Inc. EP, packs a similar punch, while allowing them to shine through the crisp, clean recording produced by Jack Shirley at one of the Bay Area's many screamo, hardcore, and metal meeting grounds, the Atomic Garden Studios. Black metal with crisp, clean recording? What?! Give 'em a break, I warned you it wasn't for you. KEVIN DIERS

Thursday 6/2

Seapony, 14 Iced Bears, Ghost Animal

(Vera) In the realm of surprising comebacks, 14 Iced Bears' ranks very high. The English pop group flourished in the late 1980s and early '90s under Sarah Records' tweer-than-thou auspices. A tiny circle of US Anglophiles worshiped the group, but after 14 Iced Bears folded in 1992, obscurity swallowed them up; I liked 'em, but I've rarely thought about the band in the last 19 years. Turns out, 14 Iced Bears have more fans—and musical acolytes—than some suspected. Now young'uns have a chance to experience firsthand their tender, heart-on-frayed-sleeve jangle/fuzz pop that evokes a paradoxical mood of euphoric despondency. DAVE SEGAL See also preview and Underage.

Grudge Rock: Billy the Fridge and Ronald McFondle vs. Noel Austin's Phreaks

(Re-bar) Shit's gonna get weird at tonight's edition of Grudge Rock, where Billy the Fridge and Ronald McFondle will take on Noel Austin's Phreaks. The two motley crews will battle each other in a Family Feud–style game show, with live performances during intermission and afterward. Why is that weird? Well, last month, Billy the Fridge and Ronald McFondle visited The Stranger's offices, hoping to get a copy of their CD into music editor Grant Brissey's hands. Grant wasn't here, but they left their gift for him, along with (according to Kelly O, who witnessed the visit) "sticky black hair, fake blood, and fingernails." Like I said: Shit will get weird. (In other Grudge Rock news, they're raising money via Kickstarter to make their own TV show! Go to www.kickstarter.com and search for Grudge Rock for more information.) MEGAN SELING

Deadkill, Android Hero, the Quitters

(Funhouse) The good news: The Quitters, Android Hero, and Deadkill will definitely shake you up with their combined forces of metal and punk. Be prepared to get sweaty, maybe even bloody, during Deadkill, a newish band made up of current and former members of Book of Black Earth, Absolute Monarchs, and Himsa. At some point, a crazed fan will probably try to draw either a mustache or a dirty word somewhere on your person with a Sharpie. You will have fun. The bad news: Prison—one of the local bands I've been meaning to see forever because of their Intelligence-meets-Black-Sabbath-ish sound, and who were scheduled to play tonight—are not just canceling, but calling it quits. "Sadly, Prison has officially disbanded," says the band's Facebook page. "Kris is now in the Swedish mountains playing black metal, Zack is now the proud singer of a Harajuku band in Tokyo, and Gwen has gone to Brazil to study bossa nova. Thanks and good-bye." KELLY O

Friday 6/3

DUG: David James, Christian Science, Jon François Stone, Greasy

(Lo-Fi) See Data Breaker.

The Billy Nayer Show

(Columbia City Theater) The Billy Nayer Show are the supremely talented (and supremely fun) band and filmmaking project that gave us the cowboy space musicals The American Astronaut and Stingray Sam. Cory McAbee, a 50-year-old Californian who lives in New York, heads both the film and music wings of the Billy Nayer Show. Last time I saw him, he was a shortish man with slicked-back hair, big sideburns, and the tough, slightly squinty face of a frontiersman. His imagination is populated by cowboys, sailors, spaceships, mad scientists, smugglers, and noble loners who save little kids. (That's an odd theme in his work.) The Billy Nayer Show play rock 'n' roll instruments, but their songs are all over the place, from ukulele-based lullabies to instrumental rock with deep grooves. There's nothing else quite like them. BRENDAN KILEY

Saturday 6/4

Pica Beats, Charles Leo Gebhardt IV, Alicia Amiri

(Rendezvous) See Stranger Suggests.

KEXP Audioasis: My Goodness, Nazca Lines, the Heavy Hearts

(Sunset) There's no dearth of beefed-up, bassless, howling white-indie-boy blues out there; just look to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's hypersexual sleaze, the White Stripes' austere strut, and Black Keys' Jimi-Hendrix-by-way-of-Mississippi-Delta fluidity for prime examples of the formula's popularity. You gotta have a certain charisma and command of the instrument to make so few components so compelling. Seattle duo My Goodness are bold men to throw their hat into that well-trod ring, but they're brash and ballsy enough to pull off an enticing swagger and stomp. Nazca Lines and the Heavy Hearts aren't nearly as interested in dragging Muddy Waters and Memphis Minnie into the 21st century, opting instead to bash out brawny post-hardcore and volcanic scuzz rock, respectively. BRIAN COOK

U2, Lenny Kravitz

(Qwest Field) U2 are really about their first four studio albums, which were made from 1980 to 1984: Boy, October, War, and The Unforgettable Fire. The first album in this set of the best, Boy, is the rawest; the last, Fire, produced by Brian Eno, is the most polished and sonically brilliant. Fire's opening track, "A Sort of Homecoming," stands as Bono's most successful fusion of poetry and rock. The wild poetry in this tune, unlike the wild poetry in almost every tune on The Joshua Tree (U2's fifth studio album), doesn't overflow and maddeningly, ridiculously foam, froth, and spew all over the place. The closing line of "Homecoming" is actually quite beautiful: "Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep/For tonight, at last/I am coming home." CHARLES MUDEDE

Sunday 6/5

Gruff Rhys, Y Niwl

(Tractor) Gruff Rhys leads Super Furry Animals, a Welsh psych-rock band that sounds somewhere between Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Dungen—meaning, they could swerve from skipping-through-a-meadow whimsy to stormy weirdness at a moment's notice. Also, not unlike the Beta Band, SFA periodically have shown proclivities toward electronic experimentation over their nine albums. On his own, Rhys has released three full-lengths. His latest, Hotel Shampoo, proves that his ability to write skewed yet pulchritudinous melodies hasn't run dry. Welsh tourmates Y Niwl play vocal-free surf rock with tight arrangements, immediate hooks, and punchy rhythms, in the reverent, revivalist vein of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. It's nothing new, of course, but Y Niwl do it with verve. DAVE SEGAL

Monday 6/6

Moe Bar Mondays: DJ TigerBeat

(Moe Bar) See Data Breaker.

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Architecture in Helsinki, Hooray for Earth

(Neumos) Architecture in Helsinki bring you shiny-happy-people music from Australia, not the hoped-for grim, abstract soundscapes from Finland that their name portends. 'Tis a pity, but the down under quintet are adequate at what they do—primary-colored dance pop for life's lighter moments. The use of glockenspiel, sax, clarinet, recorder, tuba, trombone, trumpet, and analog synths lends AIH's music an orchestral luxuriousness that separates them from most of their peers. New York City's Hooray for Earth write similarly densely layered, melodious songs that go for a cavernous, uplifting effect. Contentment ensues. DAVE SEGAL

Tuesday 6/7

Young Widows, Helms Alee, My Disco, Brickbats

(Comet) See Stranger Suggests.

Detroit Cobras, Girl in a Coma, the Fucking Eagles

(Neumos) Detroit Cobras took a hiatus from recording their garage-soul songs after 2007's Tied & True, but rumor has it they're in the studio recording new material. San Antonio's Girl in a Coma—two sisters and a longtime friend—trade in radio-friendly pop rock and are signed to Joan Jett's Blackheart label. GRANT BRISSEY

Woodsman, Tape Deck Mountain, iji, Secret Colors

(Funhouse) Larry Fitzmaurice's Pitchfork review of Woodsman's latest record, Rare Forms, chided the Denver psych jammers for sounding a little too much like Animal Collective circa Feels (the remarkable 2005 LP recorded in Seattle). I think that is in no way a bad thing, but it's a touch reductive all the same: Rare Forms is its own snarling, sun-baked, multilimbed beast, and as much as I love Animal Collective, I don't see them busting out something as intoxicatingly riff-driven and nakedly psychedelic as "Inside/Outside," a track that instantly registers as the perfect mood music for your forthcoming backyard barbecue/acid party/"happening." The first time I saw these guys rip it up live, it was dusk in East Austin, the wind was kicking up waves of powdery dirt, and pink stage lights glistened off the shuddering twin drum kits. It was one of the most epic things I've ever seen or heard. JASON BAXTER

Timber Timbre, Marissa Nadler

(Sunset) Timber Timbre's Taylor Kirk has one of those voices that cut through the 21st century's folk-rock clutter. He's striving for an old-school sort of romantic timbre (ho), but his instrument's a bit too inelegant to pull it off. Nevertheless, Kirk's earnest stiltedness and forthright gravity lend his band's stripped-down yet lush music a kind of wounded grace. Timber Timbre's new album, Creep on Creepin' On, takes things down hitherto weirder paths, trudging at odd angles and radiating a subdued drama. Something about this Canadian trio seems to be just slightly off, like a bar band you'd see playing in a David Lynch film. Boston's Marissa Nadler imbues folk music with sheer swathes of dream-pop production techniques. Fans of Mazzy Star and Mojave 3 should swoon to her stately, diaphanously beautiful songs. DAVE SEGAL

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., EMA

(Tractor) After the dissolution of her and partners Corey Fogel and Ezra Buchla's Gowns project, Erika Anderson has returned with a shadowy and lovely collection of songs under the name EMA (her initials). Anderson surveys a number of musical styles throughout Past Life Martyred Saints, all to chilling and engrossing effect. Synth loops smoke like dry ice while guitars wind around her defiant and wounded voice. Make no mistake—this is no party vibe. Sample lyrics: I've got the same feeling inside of me/Nothin' nothin' nothin'" and "Fuck California/You made me boring." GRANT BRISSEY