Tue Sep 7 at Neumos - Kali and Descend!
Peijman Kouretchianthe magnificent drummer for the defunct Girth and Secret Chiefs 3has organized a night of Indian classical music and homegrown psychedelia called Kali, Descend! The local percussionistwho's been studying tabla over the last few yearshas enlisted guitarist Bill Horist, violinist Timba Harris, and bassist Jim Davis to accompany Hindustani vocalist Sumitra Guha and tabla master Aniruddha Mukherjee for a night dedicated to the goddess Kali's sinister side. The two ragas on Guha's MySpace page are beautiful East-West fusions that put both Indian-classical and out-rock tendencies into flattering lights. In addition to the aforementioned collab, Guha and a special guest to be announced will perform an acoustic set of traditional Indian classical music and Kouretchian and Mukherjee will jam on drum set and tabla. DAVE SEGAL
Tue Sep 7 at Sunset Tavern - Little Gold, The Lovey Dovies and Ambulance
"Took away my chainsaw/Now you're using it on me," Little Gold's Christian DeRoeck sings on "Chainsaw," and the accompanying music sounds nothing like the death-metal gorefest you're imagining. DeRoeck crafts tuneful songs brushed with country, pop, and psychedelia influences, along with disparate elements culled, apparently, from wherever he finds his attention wandering to that particular day ("Chainsaw" features an exquisite hand-clap breakdown). "Completely Fucked," a single off the band's debut LP, is a raucous little bit of pop that rocks back and forth on its own call-and-response hook before launching into a few harmony-laden adventures. It's all good clean funwith cussing and chainsaws. PAUL CONSTANT
Tue Sep 7 at Town Hall - Mark Kozelek and Tiny Vipers
Mark Kozelek and Tiny Vipers at Town Hall will be intimate and lucid. Kozelek is the man behind Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters, and an album of Modest Mouse covers called Tiny Cities. In remaking Modest Mouse's songs, he makes them his own, singing impossible harmonies from the bottom of an old, darkened heart. His songs drift and converse with themselves in a language of daguerreotype refrains. Kozelek looks out from the scenes of old photos and lives through vicarious souls. It's 1883 and a man named Hank is building the Brooklyn Bridge. Hank suffers from the bends due to long hours working in the squalid depths of the East River and breathing in the diseased compressed air. It puts food on the family's table. During the weeks leading up to Hank's death, he hears sounds in his head. Those sounds are the sounds of Mark Kozelek singing his song "Salvador Sanchez." The song walks Hank hopefully to heaven. TRENT MOORMAN
Wed Sep 8 at Neumos - Man Man, Let's Wrestle and Steel Tigers of Death
Wed Sep 8 at Comet - The Dark, Sex Robots, Creem City and Why Wiseau
Wed Sep 8 at Crocodile - The Crocodile Presents:
The Bellrays, Gravelroad and The Young Evils
Rocking with MC5-like intensity and density while a Tina Turneresque/Betty Davislike powerhouse soul diva belts out passionate metaphors about romance and social injustice? What's not to love? The BellRays have been doing this extraordinary thing for 20 years with little variation, but that's just fine. Some bands can harness so much vital energy and whip up so much libidinal juice that the monolithic form in which they come rushing at you is no handicap. We don't want BellRays ballads or rural-blues laments or multipart prog epics. We just want the hard, loud, and fast stuff, delivered as if their eternal destinies depended on it. Don't ever change, BellRays. DAVE SEGAL
Wed Sep 8 at High Dive - Watch it Sparkle, NighTrain, White Jazz and Mopper
There ain't nothing new about what the local trio Watch It Sparkle have to offertambourine-heavy, sloppy garage rock with heavy bass and spastic, howling vocalsbut if the sound ain't broke, why fix it? Their song "My Baby Has a Red Tooth" has a little Murder City Devils vibe, but I think that's mostly the organ talking, because the vocals are more crazy werewolf than Spencer Moody. Regardless, they'll be a spectacle to watch. There's one more reason to check out the show: opening band White Jazz, a project featuring members of Akimbo and Bloodhag, which means it will be loud. And maybe literary. But mostly loud. MEGAN SELING
Wed Sep 8 at Showbox at the Market - the Walkmen and Helio Sequence
For me, the Walkmen always come down to one single, spectacular song: their 2004 growler "The Rat." No fault of the Walkmenthey keep making reliably fine recordsbut damn if that song doesn't say more in its volley of bitter recriminations and its wistful reflection than the band has expressed in its entire career since. Setting aside this unparalleled achievement, let's look at their forthcoming sixth album (including that redo of Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats), Lisbon. As usual, the band ranges from drunk swaying melancholyas on "Stranded," whose woozy brass band evokes something like passing out at a Fourth of July paradeto an explosive kind of exhaustion, as on the wide-open, hoarse choruses of "Angela Surf City." It's almost enough to make me take "The Rat" off repeat. ERIC GRANDY
Wed Sep 8 at Tractor Tavern - Shonen Knife, The Pharmacy and The Purrs
The Shonen Knife formula hasn't changed at all since the days when Kurt Cobain brought them around to the United States, claiming they were a huge influence on Nirvana's sound: They still pound out adorable slivers of cutesy, English-mangling punk-pop, and, to my knowledge, they still don't have a song that's over four minutes long. This kind of thing is backlash-proof: Shonen Knife's career is kind of like when Andy Kaufman would take a joke and drive it into the ground, pick it back up, dust it off, and then drive it into the ground again. You just can't deny that kind of dedication. They have a song that is just a list of berry names; I defy you to try to criticize that and not look like an asshole. PAUL CONSTANT
Wed Sep 8 at Vera Project - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists and Past Lives
Thu Sep 9 at Del Rey - Corgi Love:
Sam Rousso Soundsystem and Breelah
Thu Sep 9 at Studio Seven - A Wilhelm Scream, Death By Stereo, Heiress and Crutches
Fri Sep 10 at Showbox at the Market - Menomena, Say Hi! and Suckers!
Fri Sep 10 at Vera Project - Tera Melos and Guests
Fri Sep 10 at Neumos - Cold Cave, Sleepy Eyes of Death and Absolute Monarchs
Fri Sep 10 at Tractor Tavern - AA Bondy, JBM and Joseph Giant
Fri Sep 10 at Black Lodge - Absolute Monarchs, Crimewave and Breaker Breaker
Fri Sep 10 at Showbox Sodo - Smashing Pumpkins and Bad City
Fri Sep 10 at Columbia City Theater - Hounds of the Wild Hunt, Hobosexual and Baltic Cousins
Sun Sep 12 at Sonic Boom Records - Head Like a Kite, Ghost of Kyle Bradford and New Roman Times
Sun Sep 12 at Funhouse - Maklak, Gladiators Eat Fire and Hellocharger
Mon Sep 13 at Crocodile - Monqui Presents:
Marina & the Diamonds and Young the Giant
Tue Sep 14 at Tractor Tavern - Sam Amidon, Johnny Whitney and Mike Giacolino
Wed Sep 15 at Showbox at the Market - Helmet and Bison B.C.
Fri Sep 17 at Showbox at the Market - Screeching Weasel and Scotty Harris
Fri Sep 24 at Fusion Cafe - Black Breath, Get the Most, Heiress, Damages and Devotion