Thursday 22
Dark prince pronoun HIM will conjure His Infernal Majesty with metal riffage at House of Blues tonight. The Finnish five-piece just released their seventh studio set for Sire called — set a spell — Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice, Chapters 1–13. I may go just to get a “heartogram” tee. I love a good logo.... Ché Café’s got a tempting triple bill with raw-punk locals Lewd Acts getting set to hit the road behind debut Black Eye Blues. With Ché faves Weatherbox and Blessure Grave setting the stage, this one’s sure to pack the campus club to the rafters.... L.A.’s garage-pop quartet Killola joins Minnesota she-punks Sick of Sarah at Bar Pink.... And “folkabilly” Grammy winner Nanci Griffith graces the stage at Belly Up.

Friday 23
Check your hipster at the door when hard-bop saxophonist Benny Golson brings his thing to Anthology tonight 'round the dinner hour. Golson’s shared studio and stage with ‘Trane, Dizzy, and Blakey, just to namedrop a few. He’s touring in support of last year’s New Time, New ‘tet, reffing his ripping new jazztet. Check him out. Dude’s 80. The supper club’s sonic appertif’ll be ax-slinging bluesman Joe Louis Walker. From a listen to his latest, Between a Rock and the Blues, this Bay Area bad boy’s 60 going on 16. Those are Friday night’s sets to get to by a country mile. Unfortunately, it looks like two different tix at the Little Italy supper club.... Else: Italian techno duo Bloody Beetroots plug in at House of Blues with the equally electric All Leather, Shark Attack, and Deth Hertz...and sticking around downtown, you got the U.S. Air Guitar intramurals going on at Casbah.... Uptown, “pop goes the Whistle,” as Whistle Stop stages indie kids Secret Apollo and Alpha Channel...the Seventh Day Buskers join Joey Harris and the Mentals for one beery barroom blowout at Bar Pink...and Jersey sons Shat drop in on Ruby Room with our own Homeless Sexuals for your daily dose of damaged art-punk.

Saturday 24
Nine-piece “anti-orchestra” Mount Righteous, of Grapevine, Texas, returns to town to set up at Soda Bar with MC JRE, Eteam, Boyscout, and Ugly Winner for the OMG gig to get to Saturday night. Mount Righteous is out to tout their sophomore set, Open Your Mouth, produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Polyphonic Spree, Modest Mouse) — “...a punk pep rally that would warm the cockles of any black-hearted hipster,” says Paste.... There’s a couple of funions at Casbah, too, as the Middletown bar books earlies by Eddie Argos’s (Art Brut) Everybody Was in the French Resistance...Now! (I know, right?) and our own kitty-krazy electropop duo Lion Cut and then laties by SD fuzz-pop hits Crocodiles, with Blank Dogs and Cosmetics.... Best of the rest: if you’re looking for dance jams from glitch-pop to jungle, the Polish Ambassador (Berkeley), Kamele, and Hannibal Selector roll that show into Ruby Room...party-rock riot Sprung Monkey swings into 4th&B...and precious piano popster Norah Jones will tinkle the ivories downtown at Spreckels.

Sunday 25
Loudness looms in Middletown Sunday night, as Oaktown stoner-metal trio High on Fire rages into Casbah behind Black Cobra, Bison, Abrupt, and Archons. High on Fire’s 2010 set Snakes for the Divine was some adept technical sludge, garnering raves across the blogosphere. Read what our heavy-metal yogi Michael Caldwell had to say about it at sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/mar/28/snakes-divine/.... Pittsburgh’s Mob Figaz MC the Jacka rolls his new solo joint The Dre Area Volume 2 at 4th&B. The straight-rapping Jacka has enjoyed some crossover chart success tapping into the R&B side of things with last year’s Tear Gas.... Radio Room welcomes back psych-pop five-piece Children of Nova, who were on a whirlwind month-long U.S. run. Their new single “Complexity of Light” is up on iTunes now. SD Best Rock nominees A Scribe Amidst the Lions go first.... And up at Belly Up, it’ll be bluesy roots rockers Steve Kimock Crazy Engine revving with Hammond heavyweight Melvin Seals.

Monday 26
Soda Bar sets up eclectic sets Monday night by noisy post punks Scales, prog-y experimentalists Oh Air Night, grunge-rocking one-man band Sam Luke (aka samhears), and everyone’s favorite acoustidelic dude Nothingful.

Tuesday 27
Oakland indie artist Zach Rogue and his five-man band Rogue Wave roll into Belly Up behind this year’s Brushfire offering Permalight, a collection that trades Rogue’s summer-bummer pop in for something brighter...what one Spin scribe described as “Depeche Mode on happy pills.” And who on God’s green Earth wants that? Man/Miracle and JBM set the Solana Beach stage.... Black Heart Procession processes into Casbah with the Grids and Street of Little Girls. Dorian caught up with Pall Jenkins as BHP readies for the road behind Six. Check it out in this week’s Blurt.... Olympia pop punks RVIVR dial in at Radio Room with Breaker Breaker One Niner. Boy-girl band RVIVR’s rocking a bit on the Replacements tip. Check ‘em out: myspace.com/rvivr.

Wednesday 28
Blues players John Mayall, Robin Henkel, and Nathan James join forces at Solana Beach mainstay Belly Up for one terrific triple bill, blues fan. Multi-instrumentalist Mayall, at 76, is still walking the walk like the title of his latest, last year’s Tough.... Comic rockers Steel Panther tear into House of Blues for a very recent return engagement. Hear tell last month’s show lifted the lid off the place.... Swedish indie-pop act the Mary Onettes (get it?) set up at Soda Bar behind like-minded locals Hotel St. George, Long Live Logos, and Moonbeams.... And Brooklyn mope-pop trio the Antlers play Casbah with fellow Yawkers Phantogram. I often wonder if I didn’t give Hospice enough of a chance... No, I don’t.
— Barnaby Monk