San Diego Reader

Thursday 25
“Touch Me  I’m Going to Scream.” Gig to get to this week is one of this  summer’s supergroups.  Louisville’s My Morning Jacket heats up  SDSU’s Open Air Theatre tonight. MMJ are riding a wave of press and chart success behind this  year’s Evil Urges, their best-selling record to date if a bitter pill to early fans of their reverb-heavy, Southern-fried rock-n-soul. Jim James has pop tendencies, hinted at on major-label debut It Still Moves and drawn carefully on sophomore smash Z. Recommend a dip into those waters and double-live CD/DVD Okonokos for the  rawkin’ longhairs’ live sizzle and grit.... Out of your price range? Check out the trick triple bill at Casbah, featuring Latin lounge cat Federico Aubele. The Argentinean guitarist/singer is out to tout his latest, Panamericana, a title that aptly describes  Aubele’s dance-y blend of bolero and dub.  He’s on tour with South American ambient Natalia Clavier. And local acousticat Joel P. West sets the stage. Recommend checking out  West’s Dust Jacket disc. Get to dustjacketproject.com and earn a free burn of the up-and-comer’s catchy collection.... Indie kids Exfriends and Paddle Boat drift into Beauty Bar. Give a listen to  Exfriends’ SDMA best-pop nominee Joy of Life for a taste.... Or check your head against Adam  Gimbel’s “pop quiz” Musical Pursuit at Whistle Stop. Bring a team. Ante up. Winners take  all.

Friday 26
Pall  Jenkins’s Black Heart Procession brings the saw, the blinking corazón, and dark pop to Casbah Friday night and the Adams Ave. Street Fair on Saturday night. Not a lot from the Black Heart camp since ‘06’s The Spell spun out, but Jenkins has kept creeping ‘round the edges with garage-dub group Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects. Glad the hometown  hits’ve resurfaced. Looks as if the  band’s next booking is  December’s ATP in the U.K. Casbah’s destined-for-sellout date includes opening acts John Meeks and Little White Teeth, with Nothingful in the Atari Lounge. (Or catch Black Heart free at 33rd Street Saturday night at 8p.)... House of Blues goes old-school Texas blues with the  Smokin’ Joe Kubek Band, featuring the badass vox of Bnois King. Blues hothouse Alligator Records signed the team for this  year’s blues-chart topper Blood Brothers. Spin it. That  gig’s upstairs on the side stage, while comic Joe Rogan (Fear Factor, Ultimate Fighting Championship) yuks it up down on the floor. Seems upside-down.... Anyway, round town: the Urinals cake Bar Pink with “punk haiku.” The L.A.  trio’s been round and round since the day punk broke. Never as much a recording group as a touring group, the Urinals claim to have played the first punk-rock show in China in Beijing in 2005.... Speaking of communist states — sorry, socialist republics — Czech chick Anna K. dials in at Radio Room. The  lady’s alt-rock Space takes are heavy. Prague rock?  It’s her first U.S. tour and, yeah, she sings in Czechoslovakian. Los Angelino Janet Robin opens. In English.... Ché Café kicks off this  year’s Disorientation Party with a freebie Friday night, featuring Plan-It-X artists Paul Baribeau and Good Luck.... Sublime tribute 40 Oz. to Freedom spill it at Belly Up.... Memphis crunks Three 6 Mafia roll up on 4th&B with their latest raps, Last 2 Walk.... And Whistle  Stop’s got yer Southern-gothic pop, staging Vision of a Dying World and Tobyn Clark and the Tender Faeries.

Saturday 27
Busy, busy bands Saturday night as Powerchords unplug from the Adams Ave. thing (do your own legwork on that one, adamsaveonline.com/StreetFair/) and hook up at Bar Pink with hot shits the Sess. Both SDMA nominees. The Powerchords are a Chula Juana–based pop-punk band celebrating a CD release for new one Think  I’m Gonna… Sounds like kid sweat.... Rafter headlines night number two at  Ché’s Disorientation Party.  Dude’s Asthmatic Kitty catalogue is a pop smorgasbord. Check out his new EP Sweaty Magic yet?  It’s a very un-Rafter-like dance disc. But, then, what is Rafter-like?... The Fist of God Tour (!?) comes to House of Blues, featuring electro punks MSTRKRFT and K Records guru Calvin Johnson.... Long Beach hardcore crew TSOL brings the sounds of liberty to Casbah. The Hollowpoints and Authentic Sellout in support.... And some mentionable itty-bitty ditties: the Widows and Braaiins! at the Ken... O ’Connells’ “Bands for Boobs” thing featuring Astra Kelly, Veronica May & the To Do List, Compass Rose, and Steph Johnson...Long and Short of It laying it out at Radio Room...and Walnut, Cali nu-math trio Trinitron Meets Mars People at all-ages Epicentre with Census,  Irwin’s Conspiracy, and HFICLSI.

Sunday 28
Gonna be a Ra Ra Riot at Casbah Sunday night as Syracuse,  NY’s indie-pop party band tours the Rhumb Line through town. Chicago dance-rock duo Walter Meego and Berkeley indie-pop quartet Morning Benders join the tour.... Rap royalty Talib Kweli, David Banner, and Little Brother hit the beach at Canes.... SoCal skate punks Agent Orange and Dr. Know make a house call at House of Blues.... Pop experimentalists Fantastic Magic do the trick to close out  Ché’s Disorientation Party.... Local blue-funk jam band thetightenups lash it down at Bar Pink.... While folkies Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey get all singer-songwriterly at Belly  Up.

Monday 29
Hey, man, nice shot. Filter and People in Planes land at  Casbah’s Anti-Monday melee. Cleveland industrial quartet Filter just dropped their fourth studio effort (in 15 years?), Anthems for the Damned. Eh. Welsh alt-rockers PiP are touring the world behind sophomore set Beyond the Horizon. Eh-eh.... Monday Night Football! (Baltimore at Pittsburgh.)

Tuesday 30
Blues-rock slinger, slider, singer Johnny Winter and local guit guy Bill Magee throw down at Belly Up Tuesday night.  Winter’s got a couple Grammy nods for work with other artists but enough industry cred to choke a Wikipedian. And for you completists, this year the Texas native dug deep to release three bootlegs from his ‘70s heyday.... Pattern Is Movement, the Cave Singers, and Swim Party will make a splash at Casbah with odd pop-n-roll. Philly duo PIM this year dropped critical curiosity All Together, a collection of operatic piano pop over free-style beats. Real interesting. Like pumped-up Grizzly Bear or shake-n-bake Radiohead. Check the Space takes before ordering.... In the ‘hood: Beauty Bar books a Big Sky Art Collective event featuring Charles Musket, the Illuminauts, and Old Palominos.... And, Holy Shiite, Radio Room fills a burly Tuesday bill with punk-rawk acts Dayglo Abortions (Vancouver, BC), the Accused, Basura, Titanarum, the Resentments, and Nuclear Tomorrow.

Wednesday 1
NYC Gypsy punks Gogol Bordello roll the caravan to 4th&B behind last  year’s Super Taranta, a 14-song pileup of Balkan beats, American punk, and frontman Eugene  Hütz’s “pleasant screams.” This eight-piece sideshow needs to be seen to be believed.... From the other end of the musical spectrum, Icelandic experimental ambients Sigur Rós take the stage at Copley, courting Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (to wit: With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly). “Gobbledigook” is the lead single, if yer interested.... Belly Up books psych-pop peeps the Dandy Warhols with A Place to Bury Strangers. Dig! indeed.... U.K. epic-song smithies Sian Alice Group will play Casbah. The sextet is out to tout Social Registry debut 59.59. Epic. Fantastic Magic sets the stage.... Santa  Barbara’s Fat Wreck Chords recorders Lagwagon spin the pit at House of Blues with pop-punk trio MxPx.... While Cleveland psych-rock couple Mr. Gnome gets a leg up on Bar  Pink’s stage to Deliver This Creature. - Barnaby Monk