Rock, Pop, Etc Search – Recommended
312-733-9463Johnny Young, Michael Vallera, MT Coast, Double Morris
Tue., Jan. 22, 9:30 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
In the duo Cleared, multi-instrumentalist Michael Vallera launches surges of jagged guitar chords and looming electronic fog banks against Steven Hess’s unyielding drumbeats. In solo settings Vallera sticks to an electric guitar and pedals, but his music hardly sounds limited; without another player to establish a rhythm or set boundaries, he stirs up masses of sound that feel as big as weather systems. Tone and texture can vary drastically from one set to the next; I’ve heard him drone like a squadron of WW II bombers and swirl like he was auditioning for the Cocteau Twins, and on the upcoming EP Dead Suns (Nihilist) he lets fly with some shredding that sounds like someone fed steel girders into a lumber mill. —Bill Meyer Johnny Young headlines; Michael Vallera, MT Coast, and Double Morris open.
$8, free with RSVP at rsvp@emptybottle.com
Cross Record, Great Life, Nat Brooke
Thu., Jan. 24, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
As Cross Record, Chicagoan Emily Cross tiptoes along the line between experimental ambient drone and soft-spoken acoustic indie folk—assuming there’s a line there in the first place. Though the south Florida transplant has a delicate, soulful voice that most singer-songwriters would sell their Martin guitars for, her ambition makes her much more than just another ignorable cafe strummer: she often contorts and layers her singing to create a dark, tense atmosphere that’s more likely to elicit a chill down the spine than a gentle sway of the hips. On last year’s Be Good (Lay Flat), she seamlessly shifts from the fluttering, mostly acoustic “Maybe I’m Crazy” to the gloomy, trudging “Dirt Nap,” a goth-touched epic that would turn Michael Gira’s head. The album’s nine haunting songs are more expansive than much of her earlier work, perhaps because she recruited a host of other players to help build her labyrinths of hard-to-identify creaks and galunks. Whatever comes next is going to be good, I promise. Cross performs with a backing band tonight. —Kevin Warwick Great Life and Nat Brooke open.
$6
Circuit des Yeux, Rabid Rabbit, These Wonderful Evils, Nad Navillus
Fri., Jan. 25, 8 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
When Robert Fripp broke up King Crimson in 1974 (for neither the first nor the last time), he explained that he didn’t want to work in an unwieldy, dinosaur-dimensioned formation but rather operate as a “small, mobile, independent, and intelligent unit.” Fripp may not have foreseen what four decades would do to the price of gas (and thus the feasibility of touring in a group with a big pile of gear), but he looks like a soothsayer when you consider the current wave of performers who take the stage with just one instrument and some electronic augmentation. These Wonderful Evils is Zak Boerger, an artist from Bloomington, Illinois, who like Chris Forsyth and Steve Gunn plays solo guitar music informed by eclectic influences and a rock ’n’ roll mind-set. The inexorable flow and slow-burn drone of the long pieces on his most recent LP, Little Church (Sparrows & Wires/Horror Bag), make them sound like what would’ve happened if Pete Cosey had traded licks with Davey Graham over a beat laid down by one of Brian Eno’s drum machines; on a live recording from last month that’s available on his Bandcamp page, a loop pedal provides an undulating foundation for Boerger’s lyrical fingerpicking and thoughtful, fuzz-coated extrapolations. This concert is part of a series of benefits (here and in Barcelona, Madrid, and New York City) to help musicians and artists Dan and Letha Rodman Melchior pay for Letha’s cancer treatment. —Bill Meyer Circuit des Yeux headlines; Rabid Rabbit, These Wonderful Evils, and Nad Navillus open.
$10 donation requested
Erin McKeown, Jenn Grant
Fri., Jan. 25, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Erin McKeown shows off the malleability of the songs on the new Manifestra (TVP) by including a bonus disc that acknowledges her coffeehouse roots with ten acoustic-guitar versions of the polished full-band tracks on the album proper. McKeown has always seemed to me like a pop polymath trapped in the body of a protest singer, but here she approaches politics with a heavy-handedness she’s previously kept in check. “The Politician” helpfully points out that corruption is bad, and “The Jailer” notes that current border policies are fucked-up. “Baghdad to the Bayou,” which channels the swamp-rock grooves of CCR and ties the war in Iraq to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, was cowritten via text message with Rachel Maddow. I’m down with what McKeown is saying, but I’d personally prefer to find such opining on the op-ed page. Thankfully her delivery—with the exception of the horrible rapping on the title track—redeems these lapses in judgment. Like the proverbial spoonful of sugar, her effortless singing and charming melodies help even bitterest lyric medicine go down. McKeown is joined here by Marc Dalio on drums and Matt Douglas on horns. —Peter Margasak Jenn Grant opens.
$12
Ultraista, Prefuse 73
Fri., Jan. 25, 10 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Between them British producer Nigel Godrich and American drummer Joey Waronker have been intimately involved with some of the most popular and influential music of the past couple decades: Godrich has worked with Radiohead, Pavement, and the Flaming Lips, among others, while Waronker has played with Beck, Nelly Furtado, R.E.M., and a zillion more. But they’re finally calling their own shots in Ultraista, a trio rounded out by unremarkable British singer Laura Bettinson. Unfortunately, though their self-titled debut for Temporary Residence shows off many of their trademarks—densely percolating polyrhythms, overlapping synths playing terse licks and colorful washes, and metronomic bass lines, here by Gus Seyffert—too much of it feels unfinished. Bettinson tries to caress the modest melodies, but she lacks the charisma and range to bring the songs’ skeletal blueprints to life. And because Godrich and Waronker are both members of Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace—who release their first album on Tuesday and will likely follow that with loads of touring—I’m thinking it’s unlikely we’ll ever hear Ultraista evolve their approach to the point that they’re writing real songs. —Peter Margasak Prefuse 73 opens.
$18
Sera Cahoone, Ryan Jeffrey
Sat., Jan. 26, 7 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Sera Cahoone named her recent third solo album, Deer Creek Canyon (Sub Pop), after a park near where she grew up in Colorado; in the mid-90s she moved to Seattle, where she still lives, and played drums in Carissa’s Wierd, Band of Horses, and other groups. Almost every song on Deer Creek Canyon expresses a longing for home, familiarity, and companionship, whether she’s literally yearning for a place (on the title track) or struggling with the pull of romantic nostalgia (on “Rumpshaker” she sings, “But now that I’m here I don’t know why I came at all”). As with her previous records, Cahoone’s sometimes wispy, sometimes twangy folk-rock flirts dangerously with ethereal fluff a la Sarah McLachlan, but she saves her songs with the directness of her writing and the leanness of the arrangements. —Peter Margasak Ryan Jeffrey opens.
$10
Casket Lottery, Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, Jar'd Loose
Sat., Jan. 26, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
If you’re a forlorn thirtysomething susceptible to nostalgia and still partial to early-aughts emocore—the kind that’s heavy on thick, twangy bass and doleful, out-of-key vocals with syllables drawn out like thiiiiiiiiisss!—the past five years have been pretty kind. Midwestern staples such as Small Brown Bike, Braid, and the Get Up Kids have re-formed and released new material, and just last year Kansas City’s Casket Lottery (who broke up in 2006) did the same, reintroducing their relatively proggy brand of emo with last fall’s Real Fear (No Sleep)—piano and second guitar now included. Having evolved into their present shape from that of a metalcore pillar a la Coalesce (who also exist again), Casket Lottery have a knack for playing potent, intricate guitar licks and getting as tough as the raspy vocal harmonies of Nathan Ellis and Stacy Hilt allow. Their 2000 release Moving Mountains stands toe-to-toe with anything from that era, and despite 2013’s expanded lineup and the visible gray hair on the heads of the band’s front men, the mature and thoughtful Real Fear can match the spirit of the best material in Casket Lottery’s catalog—aches and pains and all. —Kevin Warwick Maps for Travelers, Sweet Cobra, and Jar’d Loose open.
$10
Ital, Chrissy Murderbot, Hieroglyphic Being
Sun., Jan. 27, 9 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
According to a Village Voice profile by Michaelangelo Matos, San Francisco postrocker turned Brooklyn dance-music producer Daniel Martin-McCormick considers Malcolm X his primary fashion inspiration and says that he tries “to exclusively wear Bob Marley shirts”—in other words, he’s either a completely radical guy or the worst kind of obnoxious smirking ironist. But I don’t care which—Dream On, the 2012 album he released under the pseudonym Ital on incredible British label Planet Mu, is so good that I’d forgive behavior more egregious than fake Marley fandom. Martin-McCormick also plays in noisy experimental group Mi Ami, where his work has grown increasingly electronics-based, but nothing he’s done there has suggested that he was developing into what Dream On has revealed him to be: a full-blown techno producer with one foot in the form’s Detroit roots and one in its wiggy, art-damaged fringe. The album is full of odd sounds and challenging ideas, but more crucially it’s also the sort of thing that can get a crowd moving. —Miles Raymer Chrissy Murderbot and Hieroglyphic Being open.
$8
Ellie Goulding
Tue., Jan. 29, 7 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
British singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding first released the song “Lights” near the end of 2009, but it wasn’t till last year that it found its proper audience—and in the process exploded unexpectedly into a global hit that reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. “Lights” is a big, generous anthem with a tasteful but ecstatic techno bump and a massively epic chorus that almost demands to be screamed along to on a dance floor by drunk girls. But Goulding isn’t afraid to challenge her listeners. Last year’s Halcyon—which she released while its predecessor, Lights, was still charting—has some genuinely aggressive sounds and a nice spooky vibe that recalls Kate Bush and Tori Amos in equal measure, but it doesn’t sacrifice the mega hooks that rope in casual fans. She’s toured with Katy Perry and with Grimes, proving that she works just as well with a pop idol as she does with a more experimental musician. And the way her own musical ambition has paid off has probably helped close the gap between the two. —Miles Raymer St. Lucia opens.
