thursday21
Thursday21
Nile
Friday22
Great Society Mind DestroyersHoyle BrothersJoan of Arc Don’t Mind Control Variety ShowFreedy JohnstonTommie Sunshine
Saturday23
The AssemblyHoyle BrothersTenement
Sunday24
Between the Buried and Me, Devin Townsend ProjectFrode Gjerstad
Monday25
Rempis Percussion Quartet
Tuesday26
Behemoth
Wednesday27
Raise the Red LanternRempis Percussion Quartet
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HOYLE BROTHERS Though an open-ended weekly gig is good steady work, it makes it easy for audiences to take a band for granted. Chicago’s Hoyle Brothers have been slinging no-nonsense old-school honky-tonk 52 times a year (or close to it) since 2002—first at the Hideout and then at the Empty Bottle, where for a spell they played not just every Friday but every Sunday—but sometimes I wish it were harder to see them, if only so more people might treat them like something special. Last spring they put out their third self-released album, Don’t Leave Yet, a collection of sturdy original tunes (and a cover of Waylon Jennings’s “Anita, You’re Dreaming”) whose crisp, twangy grooves are embellished by liquid pedal steel and woozy Dobro. Their sound reminds me a bit of the early output of Nashville’s BR549, from before their headlong lunge at the mainstream, and though the Hoyles’ own material would be DOA in Music City, it does just fine as the soundtrack for a happy hour at the end of the work week. See also Saturday. 5:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600. —Peter Margasak
JOAN OF ARC DON’T MIND CONTROL VARIETY SHOW Tim Kinsella is well into his second decade as master and commander of Joan of Arc, which was born a band but grew into an art-rock enigma—one that goes from celebrated to reviled seemingly from one release to the next. While many of Kinsella’s old friends and peers from his Cap’n Jazz days in the early 90s went the way of the emo cash grab, he released a torrent of uneven but brilliant albums brimming with fuck-you conceptual-art gestures that seemed meant to be misunderstood. All the while Joan of Arc’s membership has been in constant rotation, creating quite a sizable community of alumni, and Don’t Mind Control (Polyvinyl), the latest release under the JOA banner, compiles tracks from the current projects of almost everyone who’s ever done time in the band—among them Disappears, Owen, the Cairo Gang, Euphone, and a lot of folks you’d recognize from the Rainbo calendar. Tonight’s 14-act bill likewise includes Disappears and Owen, plus a whole bunch more of those alumni: Kinsella, of course, as well as Josh Abrams, A Tundra, Birthmark, Jeremy Boyle, Litesalive, Pillars & Tongues, the Zoo Wheel, Vacations, Slick Conditions, and Matt Clark of White/Light (who’s also my fiance). Each will play at most 15 minutes; some will re-create their contributions to Don’t Mind Control, some will do cover songs, and some will roll out one-off collaborations with other artists on the roster. They’ll be grouped into sets of three, separated by short breaks during which Danny’s regular Naomi Walker will DJ. The identity of the “surprise special guests” referred to on the Bottle’s schedule is being kept tightly under wraps, but my guess is that this show will be the public consummation of the rumored Cap’n Jazz reunion. 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $10. —Jessica Hopper
saturday23
Canadian guitarist, vocalist, and producer Devin Townsend is best known for masterminding the omni-metal wall of sound that was Strapping Young Lad, but his wildly varied output could fill three musicians’ resumés. Though his 2007 concept album, Ziltoid the Omniscient, is nominally about an alien searching for the ultimate cup of coffee, it might as well be about Townsend himself—he’s so restlessly productive that he seems to have access to a kind of caffeine unknown on earth. He dissolved his old bands before the birth of his first son in 2006 and has since reinvented himself yet again, shaving off his famous skullet and getting clean and sober. He’s always approached metal warily—his heavier stuff oftens feels like a love letter and a lurid parody at once—and with the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT he’s making his ambivalence about it more explicit than ever. He’s halfway through four albums with the DTP, all on his own HevyDevy label, and so far he’s flouted the unwritten laws of underground metal with detours into quiet beauty and cheesy Euro-pop bombast; last spring’s Ki (taut, meditative) and this fall’s Addicted (stomping, stupid-fun) will form a tetralogy with the forthcoming Deconstruction (dark, chaotic) and Ghost (eerie, ambient). The final two records are scheduled to drop in May, at which point all four will be available as a set.
