Thursday15
Samantha CrainHoleOrchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Friday16
Candy Claws
Saturday17
Candy ClawsCap’n JazzE.T. HabitTom PettyTesco Vee’s Hate Police
Sunday18
Cap’n JazzKenge Kenge
Monday19
Konono No. 1
Tuesday20
Darren JohnstonKonono No. 1Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
Wednesday21
Good for CowsLisandro Meza
HOLE Of the many roles Courtney Love has played, in rock and out of it, her most recent incarnation is her most rock ‘n’ roll yet. She’s going where no female rock star has gone before: the latter-day Jim Morrison zone. Love is a nouveau Lizard Queen for the queens and the real bitches, with a little showbiz-weary, end-of-the-road Judy Garland grand dame thrown in for good measure. Her new band and record can’t hold a candle to Hole in its grunge prime, but there is something genuinely satisfying in seeing her soldier on, defying her haters and the burden assigned her as widow of the dead genius. Foxy Shazam opens. The same bill also performs at the same venue Wed 7/14. 8 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield, 773-472-0449 or 866-448-7849, $35, 18+. —Jessica Hopper
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ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU Formed in 1968 and an institution in their native Benin for decades, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou existed for most of that time outside the world-music circuit, their music and reputation largely confined to Africa. But since 2003 that’s been changing, thanks to astonishing reissues of their vintage work like last year’s excellent Echos Hypnotiques (Analog Africa), which collects tracks from 1969 through ’79. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo’s mastery of a broad range of styles popular in West Africa—Afrobeat, Congolese rumba, even a kind of mutant funk based on Beninese vodoun rhythms like sakpata and sato—is so confident and complete that it can sometimes sound like you’re listening to four or five different bands. And no matter what its flavor, the music bursts with ferocious rhythms, soulful singing (both frenzied call-and-response chants and sculpted melodies indebted to American R & B), and some of the fieriest psychedelic guitar playing ever recorded on the continent. Most of the songs have astringent, crosscutting horn charts and inventive counterpoint on organ or analog synth—the group’s lineup has often tipped the scales at more than a dozen—but they’re just icing on the cake given the unearthly things Orchestre Poly-Rythmo can do with guitars and drums. They began their first proper tour of Europe last year, and now they’re finally hitting the States. Only four original members remain, including lead singer Vincent Ahehehinnou and the group’s founder, guitarist and saxophonist Melomé Clement, but I’ve been privileged enough to hear some new as-yet-unreleased recordings and I can say with confidence that the current ten-piece version of the band hasn’t lost a step. There’s no show this year I’ve looked forward to more. La-33 opens. 6:30 PM, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Randolph and Michigan, 312-742-1168. —Peter Margasak
CANDY CLAWS In a world where the Rentals’ second record got the audience it deserved, a capsule description of this Colorado group—a duo plus six touring members—could simply say their music is like Seven More Minutes drenched in post-Animal Collective mushroom psych and be done with it, and people would just know that that was a great sound. But we don’t live in that world, so I suppose I should add that the group’s approach to synth-heavy pop finds the beating heart within their oscillators, that their boy-girl vocals summon a very specific kind of complicated bittersweet feeling without any noticeable effort, and that “Snowflake Eel Wish” (from last year’s Indiecater LP In the Dream of the Sea Life) is the type of thing you’d put on a mix tape for someone hoping it would be the one song they’d really fall for. Aras & the Volodkas, Brother George, and Brutal Beatings open. See also Saturday. 9 PM, the Cave, Serbian Cultural & Arts Center, 448 W. Barry, 773-549-9690 or 866-468-3401, $8. —Miles Raymer
CAP’N JAZZ Even when it appeared they’d never reassemble, no subsequent project—not even Joan of Arc—could ever quite outrun the shadow of the good Cap’n. That’s the cross you bear when your troubled-teen band was the Fugazi of the western suburbs, midwestern emo’s alpha and omega. After a decade-plus of goading, the boys—now grads and dads—are back, and if the surprise show I saw at the Empty Bottle this spring is any indication, they’re as mercurial as they ever were. They blazed through those basement hits with the old hardcore fury and adulthood’s new precision, with front man Tim Kinsella keen and punk petulant, screaming like a kid again. Gauge and Plague Bringer open. See also Sunday. 9 PM, Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake, 312-666-6775 or 866-468-3401, sold out, 17+. —Jessica Hopper
