May 8, 2008

wednesday7

LOCAL H It’s not often fans of any band get a treat like this. Starting tonight, Chicago-based aggro-snark duo Local H settle in for a seven-night stand: each night they’ll perform an album in its entirety, starting with their 1995 debut, Ham Fisted (on Island—ah, those heady days of major labels stalking our streets), and continuing on through a B-sides-and-rarities special on the sixth night, all to whet the appetite for the premiere of the new 12 Angry Months (Shout! Factory) on the seventh. This is a concept album about the multiple miserable dimensions of a protracted breakup, and it hits with all the cathartic power of beating your head against a brick wall—you know, the thing you do because it feels so good when you stop. The band’s shows are usually Lord of the Flies-like endurance tests, and anyone making it through a week of them will have earned some serious bragging rights. Fig Dish opens tonight’s show; all seven are sold out.  6:45 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-281-4444, sold out. —Monica Kendrick

MOBIUS BAND Over the span of three early self-released EPs, Mobius Band tinkered with their sound in search of a perfectly balanced fusion of expansive IDM timbres and indie-rock melodicism and drive. They finally found it, making a quantum leap with 2005’s City vs. Country EP (released by prominent electronica label Ghostly International): each of its five tracks was as infectious as the hantavirus. While the Brooklyn trio’s still wrestling heroically with the man-versus-machine question on its second full-length, Heaven (released last fall on Misra), it’s hard not to find the results a bit wanting compared to the concise, engaging, memorable tunes that came before. That said, the Mobiuses remain catchier than the average electronica act, and considerably groovier than most household-strength indie-pop concerns. Cut Copy headlines, Black Kids play second, and Mobius Band opens.  10 PM, Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace, 773-478-4408, sold out, 18+. —J. Niimi

ROBYN The last time Robyn was a name (of sorts) on these shores was a decade ago, circa her hit “Show Me Love”—a bit of R & B-icized pop pep from a Nordic teen princess. What made her compelling then, as now, is that both her music and her public persona are marked by lightness and playfulness, rather than by the heavy lacquer of porno gloss that’s the default setting for any American female singer older than Hannah Montana. Robyn’s long overdue comeback has been all her own effort: after her former label displayed little interest in her retooled electro sound, she started Konichiwa Records and put out a self-titled album in 2005; it’s been a big Euro-deal since its release and finally came out in the States last week. The single, “Who’s That Girl,” is a post-Gwen Stefani update on the Slits’ “Typical Girls” in which Robyn explains in her baby voice exactly what kind of girl she is—and isn’t.  7:30 PM, Park West, 322 W. Armitage, 773-929-5959 or 312-559-1212, $15. —Jessica Hopper

Black Hollies Empty Bottle, 9 PM

Costa Music Sonotheque, 9 PM

Cut Copy, Black Kids Abbey Pub, 6:30 PM

Film School, Airiel, Urbanites Schubas, 9 PM

Rue Royale, Cedarwell, JP05 Subterranean, 8:30 PM

thursday8

AMENRA This quintet from Belgium is making its first U.S. appearances in support of the new Mass IV (Hypertension), which is absolutely worth checking out for the sheer magnitude of its slow-boil gothic-metal anthems. Inside every one of Amenra’s repetitive, cycling riffs is the furious energy of a dozen breakneck hardcore songs, trapped as if in amber, and the touch of Sonic Youth-style controlled anarchy helps build up a deliciously unbearable level of tension before each bricks-on-your-head climax. The lineup, top to bottom: Minsk, Amenra, Battlefields, Bongripper.  8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, 312-949-0121 or 866-468-3401, $8, $6 in advance, 17+. —Monica Kendrick
Amenra's MySpace page

BLACK GHOSTS The British indie band Simian didn’t contribute much to rock during its lifetime, but its demise has turned out to be a great thing for dance music. After Justice overhauled Simian’s “Never Be Alone” to make the floor-filling “We Are Your Friends,” the band’s former members started pumping out surprisingly good electronic tracks of their own. The two who became Simian Mobile Disco were the first to drop a full-length, but the Black Ghosts—aka DJ Touche and Simian front man Simon Lord—are the better band. (They’ve got a few singles and online releases out already, plus a self-titled full-length due on Iamsound in July.) They’ve retained Simian’s pop sensibilities, creating songs with more structure, deeper hooks, and relatively sophisticated melodies. The music is dark and brittle, with dry, snappy electro beats and a detached cool in the vocal delivery, but the keyboard sounds are often downright playful—a lot of them are so dinky and cheesy they could pass for samples from the soundtrack to Super Contra. Thunderheist, Lazer Crystal, DJ Willy Joy, and Capcom open; the show’s free, but you have to RSVP at viceland.com/talesofcolt45.  9 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433. —Miles Raymer
The Black Ghosts' MySpace page

JOHNNY & THE LIMELITES You gotta love these guys. No, seriously, you gotta, or they might show up at your house in their 70s-prom duds and bounce up and down on your bed until you agree that you really, really do. Admittedly their heart-of-gold-foil schlockabilly is pretty lovable: Take the single “Pizza Party,” which is like Black Flag’s “TV Party” if that song had been backhandedly sincere instead of just backhanded. The Last Slice, their new EP, includes “Summer of Fun,” which sounds like Iggy meets Jan & Dean, and the goofy romance “Come Into the Hot Tub With Me.” The Limelites also do covers. And weddings. Alleged singer Johnny Agatucci hasn’t made a single gig so far—I’m starting to doubt he exists—but Brian Costello (who also hosts his own live-action talk show) is doing fine filling in. The Black Bear Combo headlines tonight’s show, billed as the Hidden Mitten’s First Annual Spring Sock Hop; Johnny & the Limelites, the Hidden Mitten, Cameron McGill & What Army, and Big Science open.  8 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $8. —Monica Kendrick
Johnny & the Limelites' MySpace page

MESHUGGAH This venerable Swedish band begins with the components of thrash metal but assembles them into what are pretty clearly coded messages to a merciless alien army of superintelligent insects. To execute their favorite encryption technique, they pack an asymmetrical pattern—four bars of 25/16 and one of 28/16, for instance—into a long hypermeasure delineated by straightforward cymbal-and-snare four-counts, slicing up the knotty strands of the music’s inhuman DNA with a familiar rock pulse and creating a headache-inducing tension between the two metered layers. But even as he lays out that 4/4 grid, drummer Tomas Haake punches home the careening, unbalanced riffs, rendered in smoky titanium gray by custom-built eight-string guitars, with rapid-fire accents on his kick drum—that is, he somehow plays both layers at once. (I expect he’s due for a Scooby-Doo moment—the kids will tug off his mask, but instead of the amusement park owner under there it’ll be like bam! Mandibles!) Meshuggah recently released Obzen (Nuclear Blast), their sixth full-length, and in keeping with the language they’ve evolved, almost everything on it is brutally monochromatic, especially Jens Kidman’s one-note howl—but Fredrik Thordendal’s demented, whirring guitar solos, which float in the upper register like stainless-steel hummingbirds, add a vivid streak of WTF. Ministry headlines and Hemlock opens; see also Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (the only show with tickets still available at press time).  8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, 18+, sold out. —Philip Montoro
Meshuggah's MySpace page

ZARBANG Iranian drummers Behnam Samani, Morteza Ayan, and Siavash Yazdanifar founded Zarbang in 1996 to introduce their homeland’s family of percussion instruments to the world. Only Samani is still aboard, but the group’s lineup has expanded to around half a dozen and now features the brilliant Pejman Hadadi of the Dastan Ensemble, a specialist in the goblet-shaped tombak and a frame drum called the daf. The scope of the music has likewise broadened to include sounds from Afghanistan and Kurdistan as well as Latin American drums like congas and cajon. Though there are occasional vocal chants or exclamations, plus added color from a handful of melodic instruments—santoor, the oboelike zurna, a kind of bagpipe called the ney anban—Zarbang remains all about the drums. The players are undeniably masters, and the pieces never dig themselves into ruts like drum-circle jams, but the almost exclusive emphasis on rhythm can get a bit tiring.  7 PM, Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, 312-744-6630. F A —Peter Margasak
Zarbang's MySpace page

Cool Kids The Underground, 9 PM

Local H Beat Kitchen, 6:45 PM, sold out

Lords, Millions, Qualms Subterranean, 8:30 PM

Mirah & Spectratone International Vittum Theater, 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM, sold out

Dolly Parton Chicago Theatre, 8 PM

friday9

CLOUDLAND CANYON On their new Lie in Light (Kranky), the American/German duo of Kip Uhlhorn (ex-Panthers) and Simon Wojan waste no time trying to disprove any charges of Krautrock fetishism that might be leveled against them: the opening track is a pure motorik groove titled “Krautwerk.” From there they don’t exactly move on, but they do open their ears a bit wider, mixing in some less Teutonic-sounding textures and melodic shards. Heavily treated guitars and synthesizers waver and seethe, tightly coiled rhythms alternate with ambient drift, and electronically disfigured vocals bob up here and there; the overall effect, though, is always hypnosis. Singer headlines, Detholz! plays second, and Cloudland Canyon opens.  10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $12. —Peter Margasak
Cloudland Canyon's MySpace page

KILLS, TELEPATHE There’s something about the nakedly simple drum-machine-powered garage rock on the KILLS’ new Midnight Boom (Domino) that makes me think of computer geeks taking apart an ancient PC just to put it back together again—despite their greasy cool, singer VV and guitarist Hotel seem to have the nerd’s love for repetitive, all-absorbing mechanical tasks. Their glassy-eyed, affectless grooves feel like they could go on for half an hour each—this is the sound invented by the Velvets and Suicide and stolen by the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Black Angels, boiled down to a bare skeleton. Sometimes the songs sit on a groove that isn’t quite right, but when they really shake their bones you wonder why all those other bands thought they needed flesh and blood. —Monica Kendrick
The Kills' MySpace page

Brooklyn weirdos TELEPATHE (pronounced “telepathy”) are like the one supercute but kinda badly dressed girl at every party who’s clearly enjoying dancing by herself even though she totally doesn’t know what to do with her arms. Their sentimental dream-sequence music awkwardly balances sweet but slightly fucky vocal harmonies and dense clouds of airy keyboard with watery yoga-studio hip-hop. A fragile tremor infects their teen-witch cauldron murmurs and towering, puffed-up synth meringues, which seem right on the edge of collapse, and surrounding it all are halos of golden light muted by a layer of dirty gray, like you see in Prada ads or downtown LA. There’s melodrama in this paradise, but sucker-punch drums and punk-dub bass—not to mention outbursts of pared-down gangsta bounce draped with party-popper streamers of ghaotic keyboard—keep the songs from feeling self-serious or histrionic. “Chromes on It” has been making the rounds of the online hype circuit for much of 2008, and Dance Mother—Telepathe’s forthcoming full-length debut, recorded by TVOTR’s Dave Sitek—has built up a lot of buzz even without a release date. —Liz Armstrong
Telepathe's MySpace page

The Kills headline and Telepathe opens. Members of Telepathe (along with Million Dollar Mano and others) spin at an M.I.A./Kills afterparty hosted by M.I.A., Jillian Valentino, and Scott Cramer at Debonair Social Club; Hollywood Holt performs live.  9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203, $15, 18+.

MESHUGGAH See Thursday. Ministry headlines, Hemlock opens.  8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, 18+, sold out.

Tatsu Aoki’s Miyumi Project Steppenwolf Theatre, 7:30 PM

Belladonna, Rival Reggie’s Rock Club, 8 PM

Chicago Opera Theater performs Don Giovanni Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 7:30 PM

Shemekia Copeland Buddy Guy’s Legends, 9 PM

Joey DeFrancesco McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 8 PM

Devotchka, Basia Bulat The Vic, 7:30 PM

Radney Foster, Robbie Fulks Joe’s, 10 PM

Funkadesi Park West, 8 PM

Engelbert Humperdinck Star Plaza Theatre, 8 PM

The Heavy, Rocktapussy Darkroom, 9 PM

Kingston Trio Rialto Square Theatre, 7:30 PM

Local H, Fun Club Beat Kitchen, 7:45 PM, sold out

M.I.A., Holy Fuck Aragon Ballroom, 7:30 PM

Mirah & Spectratone International Vittum Theater, 7:30 PM

Mother Hips, New Monsoon Schubas, 9 PM

Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet Randolph Cafe, Chicago Cultural Center, 12:15 PM , Green Mill, 9 PM

Dolly Parton Chicago Theatre, 8 PM

Presidents of the United States of America, M.O.T.O. Abbey Pub, 9 PM

Soulja Boy, Lloyd, Hurricane Chris Arie Crown Theater, 7:30 PM Canceled

Sybris (see Sharp Darts, page 53) Subterranean, 9:30 PM

Jim White, Orso Old Town School of Folk Music, 8 PM

saturday10

M.A.N.D.Y., DJ HEIDI Headlining the Get Physical North America Tour is the German DJ team of Philipp David Jung and Patrick Bodmer (aka Phil D. Young and DJ Pat Bo); as M.A.N.D.Y., they’re among the most prolific and well-traveled electronica acts going in Europe these days. Known for their decidedly maximal techno-house style (and innumerable vinyl collaborations with Booka Shade, who are also on the tour but not scheduled to appear tonight), the duo are responsible for an ass-ton of remix releases over the past couple years alone: these include 2006’s Get Physical Vol. 2 label mix and their own At the Controls double LP, as well as last year’s Ibiza ’07 and Fabric 38 DJ mixes and the Get Physical mix comp 12 Great Remixes for 11 Great Artists 2001-2007.
M.A.N.D.Y.'s MySpace page

They’ll be joined by DJ HEIDI, aka Heidi van den Amstel, a Londoner originally from Windsor, Ontario—she cut her teeth across the river in the late-90s Detroit techno scene. Her work has appeared on the 5 Years Get Physical anniversary comp, and she collaborated with Riton (British DJ Henry Smithson) on the 2006 12-inch “Vejer.”
DJ Heidi's MySpace page

M.A.N.D.Y., Audiofly (the Anglo-Italian team of Anthony Middleton and Luca Saporito), DJ Heidi, and DJ Wahi & DJ Hac Le spin in the main room; DJ Tony P, DJ Xposur, DJ Kontor, and DJ Row spin in the penthouse; DJ Spin & DJ Mach 1 spin in the dome.  10 PM, Vision, 632 N. Dearborn, 312-266-3333, $15. —J. Niimi

MESHUGGAH See Thursday. Ministry headlines, Hemlock opens.  8 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, 18+, sold out.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES Instrumental rock on the edge of prog and metal made by brainy guys with nimble wrists can sometimes come off sexless and dour, but man, does it sound like this local trio—guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncrantz, and new bassist Brian Cook of Botch and These Arms Are Snakes—is having fun on Station (Suicide Squeeze). What I’m hearing in these dune-shifting tracks is a visceral joy in constructing graceful automated machines from old junk, as if every scrap of metal had the soul of a Transformer. Station is more crisp and balanced than the band’s well-received 2006 debut, Enter—tracks like “Verses” even have a radiant grace—but the boys make up for the lost wildness with some tight aural gymnastics. This is a release party; Tight Phantomz and Call Me Lightning open. 9 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W. North, 773-278-6600 or 866-468-3401, $12, 17+. —Monica Kendrick
Russian Circles' MySpace page

Crowded House, Don McGlashan The Vic, 7:30 PM

Richie Havens, Lucy Wainwright Roche Old Town School of Folk Music, 4 and 7 PM

Colin Hay, Blue Print Music Lakeshore Theater, 7 PM

Kingston Trio Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, 6 and 9 PM

Local H, Tossers Beat Kitchen, 7:45 PM, sold out

Lowen & Navarro, Stone Honey Park West, 7:30 PM

Makoto Lava, 10 PM

Maze featuring Frankie Beverly Star Plaza Theatre, 8 PM

James McMurtry, Dedringers Martyrs’, 10 PM

Mirah & Spectratone International Vittum Theater, 10:30 PM

Mother Hips, New Monsoon Schubas, 10 PM

Jeff Newell’s New-Trad Octet Green Mill, 8 PM

Police, Elvis Costello & the Imposters Allstate Arena, 7:30 PM

Reckless Kelly, Roger Creager Joe’s, 10 PM

Jenni Rivera Aragon Ballroom, 7 PM

Tantric, Framing Hanley Durty Nellie’s, 10 PM

Timbiriche Congress Theater, 9 PM

The Ultimate Doo-Wop Show Chicago Theatre, 7 PM

VHS or Beta, Tigercity Empty Bottle, 10 PM

Was (Not Was), Todd Snider Abbey Pub, 8 PM

sunday11

KLAPA GRDELIN The elegant form of a cappella singing known as klapa (the word translates roughly to “group of people”) is probably Croatia’s greatest homegrown musical tradition. Klapa emerged on the Dalmatian coast in the mid-19th century, and despite its clearly audible roots in liturgical choral music it remains widely popular today, not merely the province of revivalists or curators—it’s not unusual to hear young people singing it on the streets during a night out. The genre’s mass appeal has led to some hilariously strange juxtapositions: the men in Zagreb’s Klapa Grdelin (female groups are a relatively modern development) make music of great precision and solemn, otherworldly beauty, but in the liner notes of their wonderful 2006 album Parvi (Aquarius) they’re pictured boy-band style, flexing their muscles in tiny swimsuits. One singer usually takes the lead—the melodies tend to be passionate and sentimental, with a somewhat rustic feel—as groupings of tenor, baritone, and bass voices support him with elaborate harmonies, nonchalantly soaring from tender murmurs to booming, vibrato-rich chords.  6 PM, Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, 312-744-6630. F A —Peter Margasak
A page of Klapa Grdelin videos at YouTube

MESHUGGAH See Thursday. Min­istry headlines, Hemlock opens.  5:30 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, $41.50-$43.50.

JON MUELLER In recent years Milwaukee percussionist Jon Mueller has earned a reputation for sonic abstraction, developing radically new uses for drums in his focus on pure color and rarefied interaction with other players. The forthcoming Topography (Xeric), a duet album with fellow percussionist Jason Kahn, is a series of extended soundscapes, beatless and resonant, that can feel meditative or apocalyptic depending on your mood. While he does bang out angular rhythms in his instrumental rock band Collections of Colonies of Bees, this work didn’t prepare me for the astonishing force of his recent solo album Metals (Table of the Elements)—it’s a metal album without a guitar in sight. “Trace Essential” serves as a kind of preamble, as harrowing bowed-cymbal drones and huge hammered-out beats areset miles apart; its ominous promise is quickly fulfilled with “Homeostatic,” a punishing, relentless thrash barrage in which Mueller seems to summon the power of some immense manufacturing plant. In “Mineral Balance” there’s more space: a steady cymbal pulse is punctured by staccato bombs, creating something like a dry strain of funk. Megafaun headlines; the Paulina Hollers open.  9:30 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433 or 866-468-3401, $8. —Peter Margasak
Audio/video page at Jon Mueller's site

JASON STEIN’S LOCKSMITH ISIDORE Since making a splash in the quartet Bridge 61 with Ken Vandermark, Jason Stein has become a steady presence on the local improvised-music scene. While many important reedists have found distinctive voices on the bass clarinet—Eric Dolphy and David Murray among them—Stein is one of the few to play the instrument exclusively, and on A Calculus of Loss (Clean Feed), the new six-track album by his trio Locksmith Isidore, he refuses to accept its limitations. “That’s Not a Closet” moves from tiptoed pointillism to bluesy swing to turbulent free jazz—with Stein’s ax sounding as much like a tenor saxophone as the unwieldy thing can. On the texture-oriented “Caroline and Sam,” his control of the instrument’s upper register combined with cellist Kevin Davis’s harmonic bowing and Mike Pride’s undulating vibraphone creates a gorgeously restrained atmosphere that reminds me of the great Swedish trio Gul 3. For this and other upcoming performances bassist Jason Roebke replaces Davis.  10 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, 773-935-2118, donation requested. —Peter Margasak

Chicago Opera Theater performs Don Giovanni Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 3 PM

Crowded House, Don McGlashan The Vic, 7:30 PM

Jaheim, Joe, Ginuwine University of Illinois at Chicago Forum, 7 PM

Local H, Josh Caterer Beat Kitchen, 6:45 PM, sold out

Madball, M.O.D. Reggie’s Rock Club, 5 PM

James McMurtry, Dedringers Martyrs’, 8 PM

Scream Club, Filf Dos Ronny’s, 9 PM

monday12

CLINIC I’ve never understood why so many people complain that all Clinic’s records sound the same. It’s like they think that art-damaged dudes in smocks and surgical masks applying avant-garde perversity and tons of melodica to Nuggets-style garage rock is a formula that could actually be improved upon somehow. The group’s new fifth full-length, Do It! (Domino), is only slightly different from my personal favorite Clinic album, 2002’s Walking With Thee—it’s a little less hectic, a little more chill, but at the same time slightly rougher and rawer, with a pleasantly unmanicured production style. And though some of the songs do sound an awful lot like songs on older Clinic records, they sound like my favorite songs on those records, which is not a thing I personally have a problem with. Shearwater opens both shows.  7 and 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $15. —Miles Raymer
Clinic's Web site
The page for Clinic's Do It! at the Domino site

Lykke Li, Anna Ternheim With the arrival of her debut, Youth Novel (LL Recordings), LYKKE LI is officially Swedish import of the year. (Robyn doesn’t count, since her “new” record is actually three years old.) Like Robyn, Li baby-voices big-girl concerns—she’s lost, she can’t help you with your problems, she’s shaking her hips, she spreads her legs for you—only with soft, minimal accompaniment and zero punch lines. If she didn’t sound so seductive, you’d think she was 11. (And if she didn’t pronounce dance “donse,” you wouldn’t know she was Swedish.) While Youth Novel is lacking in weight, the weird lo-fi arrangements give Li’s helium-high voice an organic anchor, even if you can’t divine the origin of many of the sounds. Is that a theremin or a saw with reverb? Did they mike a snowfall? Is that beat someone clapping out erasers? I have no idea, but the shit’s kinda genius. —Jessica Hopper
Lykke Li's MySpace page

I don’t know what it is about the Scandinavian ladies that lets them escape the post-Lilith Fair affect that afflicts so many women with acoustic guitars, but Sweden’s ANNA TERNHEIM is a case in point. Her third album, Halfway to Fivepoints (Decca), features pretty melodies, gentle arrangements—and none of the banshee vibrato, anodyne glissando, or adenoidal trill that make her overseas peers so irritating. Sort of a less eccentric Emiliana Torrini (another Scandi whose music is distinguished by a lean yet cinematic beauty), Ternheim shapes her songs with a refreshing faith in the power of clarity. —Peter Margasak
Anna Ternheim's MySpace page

Anna Ternheim opens, Lykke Li plays second, and El Perro del Mar headlines. Ternheim also opens for El Perro del Mar at a free in-store at Borders (150 N. State) at 12:30 this afternoon.  8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $15, 18+.

Baby Alright featuring Bobby Albright & the Boogie Band Sonotheque, 10 PM

Chicago Sinfonietta with John Primer and Leon Bates Symphony Center, 7:30 PM

Local H, Pegboy Beat Kitchen, 6:45 PM, sold out

tuesday13

DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH? I don’t necessarily mean it as a compliment when I say that this British four-piece could be the first dance-punk band to find real mainstream success. The Rapture, too abrasive and too early, had to spend their capital getting the ball rolling underground, and Klaxons stubbornly refuse to meet listeners halfway—a couple big singles excepted, their songs are actually pretty weird. But that harshness and strangeness are what I like most about them. Does It Offend You, Yeah? feels like a copy of a copy, without even the inspiration necessary to be derivative in an interesting way. “Let’s Make Out,” the catchy dance-pop single from their new debut full-length, You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into (Almost Gold), wouldn’t stand out in MTV’s after-school rotation. Yo Majesty headlines.  8 PM, the Mansion, 2408 N. Kedzie, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $13. —Miles Raymer
The MySpace page for Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Augustana, Wild Sweet Orange Metro, 7 PM

Dream Theater, Opeth Rosemont Theatre, 6:30 PM

Menudo, NLT, V-Factory House of Blues, 6 PM

Mt. St. Helens, Interiors Empty Bottle, 9 PM

Local H Beat Kitchen, 6:45 PM, sold out

Marty Willson-Piper Martyrs’, 8 PM

Liars, Ssion Reggie’s Rock Club, 8 PM

Ssion Funky Buddha Lounge, 10 PM

Victims, Trash Talk Ronny’s, 6 PM

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Avett Brothers House of Blues, 8:30 PM

The Big Sleep Empty Bottle, 9 PM

Duran Duran Rosemont Theatre, 7:30 PM

Dying Fetus, Sworn Enemy Pearl Room, 6 PM

Flight of the Conchords Chicago Theatre, 7:30 PM, sold out

Robert “Dancin’” Perkins Old Town School of Folk Music, 8:30 PM

Teitur, Jessie Baylin, Helgi Schubas, 6 PM

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