thursday3
Thursday3
Chatham County Line
Friday4
The Girl of the Golden WestDavid JDisappears
Jason Moran, Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, and Nasheet WaitsWye OakYo La Tengo, William Tyler
Saturday5
Eighth BlackbirdJason Moran, Jeff Parker, Ken Vandermark, and Nasheet Waits
Sunday6
Joan of Arc Lightbox Orchestra
Tuesday8
Wavves,No Joy
Wednesday9
The Girl of the Golden WestScott Kelly & Scott “Wino” WeinrichWavves,No Joy
DAVID J Though he looks much the same as he did in the early 80s, former Bauhaus/Jazz Butcher/Love and Rockets bassist David J has never sat still for long. He’s not just a prolific recording artist, with a discography that includes such fascinating oddities as a macabre 1981 recording with poet Rene Halkett of the original Bauhaus (the school, not the band) and an album of Crowleyite ritual music with comics writer Alan Moore—he’s also a visual artist and playwright. Between his nonmusical creative outlets and the successful Bauhaus reunion of the mid-aughts, David J hasn’t gifted us with hardly any of his own wry, sardonic, sinister, and sexy solo work in nearly eight years. That’s finally changing, though—he’s got a brand-new, partially fan-funded album, Not Long for This World, where he meditates on mortality (long one of his favorite topics), and he’s already warmed up his fans with a Web-only single, “Hank Williams to the Angel of Death,” and a seven-inch, “Tidal Wave of Blood” b/w “Blood Sucker Blues.” DJs Scary Lady Sarah and William Faith (aka the Pirate Twins) spin. On Saturday, February 5, David J signs copies of Not Long for This World at Late Bar, 3534 W. Belmont; the event begins at 9 PM, and it’s free, though there’s allegedly a one-drink minimum. 10 PM, Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, 312-666-6775 or 866-468-3401, $10, 17+. —Monica Kendrick
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YO LA TENGO, WILLIAM TYLER Few things protect market share like consistency, but few things erode a band’s greatness like going on automatic pilot—is there anything more soul killing than hearing your favorite song played by robots? YO LA TENGO have gone from strength to strength for more than a quarter century, and changing things up has kept the band sharp. The New Jersey-based trio are quite capable of playing a balanced mix of oldies and new tracks, like a typical band, but in recent years they’ve performed an entire set of unreleased material at the Pitchfork Music Festival, masqueraded as a garage combo called the Condo Fucks, and taken audience questions and requests during largely acoustic evenings they call “The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo.” The element of chance is made explicit on this tour: each night the spin of a game-show-style wheel will determine the format of the show’s first half. Possibilities include a Condo Fucks set, a selection of songs starting with the letter S, a nonmusical performance of a sitcom episode, or excerpts from the score that the band composed to accompany screenings of Jean Painlevé’s marine-wildlife documentaries. The second half could be anything else. —Bill Meyer
JASON MORAN, JEFF PARKER, KEN VANDERMARK, AND NASHEET WAITS See Friday. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552, $12.
Montreal combo NO JOY, fronted by guitarists Jasmine White-Gluz and Laura Lloyd, revisit the roaring pop noise of shoegaze on their impressive debut, Ghost Blonde (Mexican Summer). They sound a bit like a blown-out, scuffed-up Lush, with their wan but pretty vocal melodies and reverbed drums submerged even further by tidal waves of six-string distortion and feedback. Tense punk riffs and huge, sweeping washes of sound—a combo reminiscent of early-90s Sonic Youth—rattle through their simple song structures like thunderstorms. Of course, no record can match the hair-raising rush of all-enveloping volume bands like this usually go for onstage—but from what I’ve read, No Joy can bring the pain live. —Peter Margasak
SCOTT KELLY & SCOTT “WINO” WEINRICH Most metal partakes of what you might call, in Black Sabbath’s phrase, “technical ecstasy”—fans are almost as likely to fetishize a band’s arsenal of effects pedals and amps as they are the skill of the musicians. So naturally it’s a daunting challenge for a heavy guitarist to play relatively naked and at least mostly unplugged. SCOTT “WINO” WEINRICH, best known from his time in the Obsessed and Saint Vitus and more recently a member of doom-metal supergroup Shrinebuilder, recently released his second solo album, Adrift (Exile on Mainstream), a moody, atmospheric, mostly acoustic affair. It digs down to metal’s oft-forgotten roots, buried deep in the blues, and taps a wellspring of terror and daydreaming and subtle wit—I especially appreciate what he does to Motorhead’s “Iron Horse.” SCOTT KELLY of Neurosis, one of Weinrich’s bandmates in Shrinebuilder, is likewise no stranger to the acoustic realm—his side project Blood and Time translates the cerebral grace and simmering vulcanism of Neurosis into the freak-folk medium with no loss of meaning or power. When it comes right down to it, it’s not the size of the Marshall stack, it’s whose fingers are on the fretboard, and Kelly and Weinrich are two of the best. They’ve recorded a split seven-inch for Volcom, and if all goes according to plan, copies will be available at tonight’s show. Earthen Grave (playing an acoustic set) and Dolan Wayward (an alter-ego of Sweet Cobra’s Tim Remis, aka Botchy Vasquez) open. 8:30 PM, Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace, 773-463-5808 or 877-435-9849, $15. —Monica Kendrick
