Thursday13
Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Yo-Yo MaClem SnideGaslamp KillerJulieta Venegas
Friday14
Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Yo-Yo MaLocal NativesJean-Michel PilcSonoiTorche
Saturday15
Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Yo-Yo MaJean-Michel PilcPlants and Animals
Sunday16
Steve Dawson
Tuesday18
Fuck the FactsThem Crooked Vultures
Wednesday19
Georgia Anne MuldrowShuttle
CLEM SNIDE After five albums of witty, quirky art-country, Clem Snide fell apart in the mid-aughts without releasing what was apparently going to be their final record. But last year front man Eef Barzelay, the band’s one remaining original member, reconvened Brendan Fitzpatrick and Ben Martin from the most recent Clem Snide lineup to release and tour behind the lost LP, Hungry Bird. This winter the same lineup released The Meat of Life (429 Records) to mixed reviews; some folks complained that the band now sounds too laid-back, with too much violin, or that Barzelay’s rapier wit has softened into gentle irony. But Clem Snide’s percussion-optional strumming has always moved back and forth between sweetly soft and agitated, and Barzelay has never tried to sell himself as a cowpunk—even Evelyn Waugh eventually learned that you can tickle a fellow to death instead of stabbing him. To my ears the band’s restraint makes the spurts of intensity more satisfying: on the lead track, “Walmart Parking Lot,” the freshly dumped protagonist drives around all night feeling “punched in the heart, in the throat, in the kneecaps too,” but when the sun rises over the ugly big box it’s so beautiful that he bursts into a swift-swelling ahh-ahh chorus despite himself. The irony is aesthetic, and makes nothing of the potential sociopolitical significance of Walmart—which means it’s just fine for a lost-love song. The Heligoats open. 9 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, 773-525-2501, $14. —Ann Sterzinger
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GASLAMP KILLER Gaslamp Killer‘s DJ sets don’t so much juxtapose different musical genres as laugh at the very concept of dividing music by such reductive criteria as genre. In his world, acid rock and alt-rock are shelved next to eight-bit electro and Dirty South rap as “music that can get a crowd to wild out,” while Hindi pop ballads, dubstep cuts, and 70s jazz-flute jams go together because they’re all good for getting a head-nodding stoner groove on. It’s an extreme case of anything-goes-ness, even for a member of the LA post-hip-hop crew Brainfeeders. His live sets have a rep for getting nuts—he acts as his own hype man—but if you’re in a more introspective mood check out his pair of 2007 mix tapes, It’s a Rocky Road, which survey a period in the 70s when jazz and funk got together to see how many different instruments could be improved by liberal application of the wah-wah. Caural + K-Kruz, DJ Solo, and Chris Widman open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-4140, $10, $8 before midnight. —Miles Raymer
TORCHE By the time Chapter Ahead Being Fake, a split ten-inch by Miami-based doom-pop stompers Torche and Japanese heavy-rock subversives Boris, comes out in the States on June 29 via Hydra Head, it will have been out in Japan for nearly a year. Did someone think it would take us that long to prepare? Torche have been learning to get by as a trio since second guitarist Juan Montoya left in late 2008, eating up miles of road with tourmates as diverse as Harvey Milk and Coheed & Cambria, and their track on the Boris split, “King Beef,” is the first recording they’ve released without him. It’s a hell of a teaser for the next full-length: a drawn-out session of sweet and syrupy down-tuned riffing and thunking, thundering tribal drums, it’s huge and infectious, like a Slade hit dosed with the same gamma rays that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk. The heroic vocal hooks that made Torche’s Meanderthal so great are absent, but it’s hard to miss them while you’re getting pounded into your component particles by a barrage of pure id. Coheed & Cambria headline; Circa Survive and Torche open. In related news, Torche front man Steve Brooks will play the Empty Bottle on June 22 as part of the reunited Floor. 7 PM, Congress Theater, 2135 N. Milwaukee, 888-512-7469, $27.50-$29. —Monica Kendrick
JEAN-MICHEL PILC TRIO See Friday. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552, $12.
