Crisco Disco

Thursday 4
Breathy British band the Clientele is touring the world behind late-last-year’s crit hit Bonfire on the Heath, their most pop-defined collection yet. Bonfire steps out of the fuzz, into cleaner, chiming tones. Though front chap Alasdair MacLean is still tits with the canny English surrealism in his imagistic lyrics. (Wha...?) Openers the Wooden Birds are that tripped and talented trio from Austin built by AmAnSet’s Andrew Kenny. They’re out to tout very recommended debut Magnolia. With local indie kids Tropical Depression, who are touring the West Coast in support of their first, a Pall Jenkins–produced LP, these are your sets to get to tonight.... Miss the door in Middletown, shake it up to Bar Pink, where Brian Karscig’s (Convoy, Louis) new t’do the Nervous Wreckords will rock the spot.... Cali-reggae’s Rebelution shines the Bright Side of Life, their third long-player, on House of Blues for two nights starting tonight. Soja and Zion-I are also in the House.... And Tom Petty tribbers Full Moon Fever will take the Tiki tonight. Hear tell fans of the man should check ‘em out.

Friday 5
“Line the pan with Crisco when I dance this disco.” The first and only GarageBand success story that I’m aware of, Leslie & the Lys, will tell it like it isn’t at Casbah Friday night. Leslie Hall (aka Mother Gem) and her Junior Gems will be slinging the cheese off of their latest, this year’s Back2Back Palz. Sneak a peek: atom.com/funny_videos/leslie_beat_dazzler/. The ladies are sharing the van with fellow Iowan and kitschy piano man Christopher the Conquered. Like-minded locals Lion Cut open the show with the cat-centric croons off of their debut.... Locals-via-Buffalo the Bloody Hollies are gonna spill rust-belt rock-roll all over Europe starting next week. But first the Bloods’ll drop their new disc Fire at Will at Ruby Room in Hillcrest, with Fkenal, Dead Ghost, and Knives! in support. Yowza!... Ché Café stages a foursome of emergent noise-pop acts, including Lilith Velkor, Scales, Preteens, and Beatless. Five bucks, college kids. Step away from the keg and go to a show.... Radio Room dials in country punks the Screamin YeeHaws, who got a bit o’ press in "Blurt" this week. “Hard” bands rocking the same greezy vein, the Hard Money Saints and Hard Fall Hearts, go first.... Acousticat Ellis Paul strums and hums from his new folk-pop collection, The Day After Everything Changed, at AcousticMusicSanDiego.

Saturday 6
Once-upon-a-Minuteman Mike Watt and his Missingmen turn up at Casbah, headlining a hot-shit bill that includes Tokyo’s proggy alt-rockers Lite, soulful locals Hot Moon, and anything-goes Rats Eyes and Nothingful.... Need a dash of class? Up the street at Anthology, jazz and pop singer Dianne Schuur will grace the stage for two shows Saturday night. The lady’s latest, Some Other Time, is a set of standards from her parents’ generation.... Birds & Batteries and Beaters fill a Rumble:SD bill at Bar Pink. Birds & Batteries is an experimental SanFran band that leans on keys and synthy voxtronica or whatever. The ex-Sess Beaters play super-blown noise pop informed by punk’d R&B. Dandy of a double bill.... The alter egos of the Lennon brothers’ Venice Beach vocal group Venice, the Pine Mountain Logs, will heat up Belly Up when they play a cord of covers behind local opener Matt Commerce. “Dancing Days!”

Sunday 7
House of Blues and 94/9 host the Big Rawk Show Sunday night, as Atlanta band Manchester Orchestra headlines sets by Biffy Clyro, the Features, and Oh! Brother. Manchester Orchestra is touring in support of last year’s indie breakthrough, the Billboard riser Mean Everything and Nothing. And they’ve got a new EP out called I Could Be the Only One. Strongly suggest you go to their Space for a taste test: myspace.com/manchesterorchestra.... Bar Pink has Portland’s “other-music” act, Happy Prescriptions, a loud psych-pop affair that can be heard here: myspace.com/happyprescriptions. I rather liked “Eyeball Sunset”.... Otherwise, Sunday-nighters, melodic metal biggies Alesano are at Soma with a Skylit Drive, Of Mice and Men, Word Alive, and We Came as Romans...Grammy-winning gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama find their way to Belly Up...and folk-rocking friends Rocky Votolato and Adam Stephens (Two Gallants) split a bill at Casbah.

Monday 8
Roots musician and consummate showman Robin Henkel will hold forth at Humphrey’s Backstage. The local luminary’s latest is last year’s Steel Guitar Lounge, a rich dish of horns and Henkel’s unmistakable steel strings. This should be a good’n by the bay.... Folk poet Laura Veirs & the Hall of Flames heat up the Anti-Monday meet-up at Casbah this week. Seattle songstress Veirs is out to tout her seventh and some (Colin Meloy) say best yet, July Flame. With Old Believers and Cataldo, this is a tasty triple bill, Americana fan.... And Brooklynite Jarrod Gorbel of Honorary Title hit the road solo this year behind his debut EP Ten Years Older. The singer-songwriter will preview material from upcoming full-length Devil’s Made a New Friend at the Loft at UCSD.

Tuesday 9
More Brooklyn? Howzabout indie hits the So So Glos at Casbah. They’ll be joined by our own Lights On, appropriately enough, and Sunday Times, for one taunting Tuesday-nighter.... Belly Up has Athens, GA’s party-rock supergroup Stockholm Syndrome, which features members of Widespread Panic, Jackmorons, and Gov’t Mule. You do the math. These United States goes first and describes itself thusly: “cumulonimbus word pop for the jangly railyard dreamer.” We’ve heard that before.

Wednesday 10
Chicagoland garage-punk band the LustKillers take it to Bar Pink hump night. The quintet’s on a five-week West-Coast-to-Canada run behind Black Sugar Sessions, a “vampire-rock” set that smacks of main man Adam Becvare’s former front, Lords of the New Church.... Else: Eighties alt-pop hits Toad the Wet Sprocket (“Walk on the Ocean,” “All I Want”) checks in at Anthology for two shows...NorCal quartet Dawes brings the lilting sounds of North Hills to the Loft...Casbah cages a couple local lions, as calliope-rockers Silent Comedy join anthem-poppers Transfer at the Middletown mainstay for two — count ‘em, two — nights...brassy rock ‘n’ soul revue Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue rolls through Belly Up...and uptown’s got hip-hop comic Rob Deez doing his thing at U-31...while this Rocky Horror–sounding West Hollywood band’s Shitting Glitter at Radio Room. Seriously?
— Barnaby Monk