(Neptune) Whaaaaaaat’s uuuuup, early 2000s? Anyone else have a weird time with the Faint in high school or whatever you were doing around then? You may have listened to this band while under the influence of a weird boyfriend? The Faint seemed like the highly danceable gothy-electronic music that felt reasonable if you were a Hot Topic-curious indie kid who found NIN a little too aggro. After some dormancy, the Faint reunited in 2012, and, oddly enough, just released a new album, Doom Abuse, that sounds similar to the old albums. If I still appreciated this kind of music, I’d say their updates are pretty reasonable. It’s still guilty pleasure-y with massive amounts of synth hooks and eye-rolly disaffected/political lyrics. Yeah, yeah, “evil voices” or whatever, shhhhh let’s just dance and drink Zima. EMILY NOKES
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(KeyArena) We know that the critic Stanley Crouch is grumpity grump. We also know he loves nothing but trad jazz. We also know he is a provocative writer. This is what he wrote about the singer and ’80s pop icon Lionel Ritchie in his 1985 essay "Considering Genius": “…A rail-tailed Negro named Michael Jackson sold more copies of a single album than any singer or instrumentalist in recorded history…a blind Negro named Stevie Wonder has earned more dollars than the most popular composers and instrumentalists in both jazz and European concert music…a horse-faced Negro from the South named Lionel Ritchie pulls down millions for songs that contain so little melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic character that even the most imaginative jazz musicians haven't tried to use them as bridges to a larger audience in the way they could when the best of Tin Pan Alley was in flower.” Yes, he really called Lionel Ritchie a horse-faced Negro. CHARLES MUDEDE
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(Cairo) The seventh annual Debacle Fest kicks off tonight with a deep lineup of interesting music-makers. Headliner Danny Paul Grody—a founding member of San Francisco postrock groups Tarentel and the Drift—writes acoustic-guitar-based compositions of exceptional beauty and emotional heft in the mystic-folk vein, with feints toward Robert Fripp’s ambient works. Spectrum Control (Eternal Tapestry guitarist Dewey Mahood, aka Plankton Wat) can be counted on for guitar jams that stretch pastoral-folk roots into spacey excursions of Garcia-esque fluidity and radiance—albeit now with subtle drum-machine accompaniment. The reclusive Dialing In (Seattle musician Reita Piecuch) offers enigmatic, sample-heavy drone lamentations that seem to be decaying before your ears, accruing a caustic poignancy in the process. Brain Fruit synth sorcerer Chris Davis’s corrugated techno and A Story of Rats/Dull Knife keyboardist Garek Druss’s arboreal drones round out this strong bill. DAVE SEGAL
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(Lo-Fi) This is the first tour for Seattle skinny-tie punks the Briefs in over seven years. It also marks the 15th anniversary for the group—who now have members scattered all over the West Coast and as far away as Berlin. Their 2000 debut album, recorded when Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton was still president, Hit After Hit, has one of the catchiest, ’77-style pop-punk anthems ever written—a little ditty about being “Poor and Weird.” I expect the band will still be poor. And weird. And bottle-bleach-blondes. And you can bet your mother’s bathroom slippers they’re still as rowdy as all hell—they were always the next best thing to traveling back in time to see the Adverts or the Buzzcocks. With the Blue Ribbon Boys, the Murmers and Bad Future. KELLY O
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Who is MØ and why has she sold out the Crocodile? She's a Danish electronic-pop diva/producer who released a debut album, No Mythologies to Follow, earlier this year that's full of youthful brio, instantly catchy synth melodies, and assertive coquettishness. Imagine a Scandinavian Grimes and you're close to grasping what's going on here. It's safe to assume MØ is massively popular with the 16 to 24 demographic. I'm not saying you have to be in that age range to enjoy her slick, slinky, sugary pop, but it probably helps. With Erik Hassle. Crocodile, 8 pm, $12 adv, all ages. DAVE SEGAL
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And here's all our recommended music events—tonight, tomorrow, and beyond!