Touch and Go built its reputation on a stable of razor-edged indie bands (The Jesus Lizard, Slint, Rodan, Girls vs. Boys), but two shows this weekend emphasize the real breadth of the label’s indie commitment. Kepone will be playing with Pegboy early Saturday, and Seam will headline late the same night, both at the Metro.
Apart from the unique one-record project known as Rachel’s “Handwriting,” Seam is possibly Touch and Go’s most intriguing act. Seam goes far beyond the “power pop” label, swathing the listener in guitar raptures and dense washes of strings.
If Gin Blossoms is focused pop artifice, Seam is a dreamy excursion, the wistful thoughts and mental music of a schoolboy lying in grass and watching the clouds roll by.
An expression of refinement that Kepone crushes with a boot heel and a sneer. Kepone’s first album, “Ugly Dance,” proffered syncopated steel-edged guitars, bluesy undertones and often hyper beats.
Capped by screaming vocalist Tim Harriss and now-lax-now-frenetic percussion, the band seemed at the time little more than a Jesus Lizard template. But “Skin,” released last month on Quarter-Stick/Touch and Go, broadens Kepone’s sound, introducing some decent harmonies between Harriss and bassist Michael Bishop and a new drummer, Ed Trask.
Pegboy, opening for Kepone on Saturday, has had quite a few years to sort out its punk-bred rock and has hit on an ideal mix with the latest release, “Earwig.” It pours in some of the feel of Seam in lead singer Larry Damore’s wistful lyrics, hardened behind a big three-chord grind from ex-Naked Raygun guitarist John Haggerty.
J. Mascis, Friday at the Lounge Ax: Next to reclusive singer/songwriter J. Mascis, Dinosaur Jr.’s members have always seemed superfluous. Mascis writes the songs and plays the monstrous and distorted guitar pieces for which the band is known, and it’s his creaking, unsure-of-himself-and-the-world voice over the often-mournful musical tableaux.
– C.H.
David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Sunday at the New World Music Theatre: Mighty morphin’ power rocker David Bowie has hitched himself to the star of Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails’ angry young man) to woo the “cool” vote. Considering the alternative-rock-as-mainstream atmosphere that Bowie’s relaunching himself into (even the title of his latest, “Outside,” makes an appeal to some unknown community of pensive outcasts, the ones that make Q101 one of our most listened-to radio stations), he couldn’t have picked a better partner with whom to legitimize himself.
– C.H.
Cesaria Evora, Monday at the Park West: Known as the “barefoot diva” in France and on her island home in Sao Vincente (near Senegal), Evora sings sad, bluesy tales in a Portuguese creole, whose soft accents and pouting words lend themselves beautifully to the sexy and the melancholic.
– C.H.
Earl King, Saturday at Buddy Guy’s Legends: Guitarist Earl King has been an R&B force in New Orleans for more than four decades. His singular compositions have been recorded by everyone from Lee Dorsey to Jimi Hendrix, who souped up King’s “Come On (Let The Good Times Roll).” But King remains a vital, lively performer, as his recent albums for Black Top Records show. King’s slashing, Guitar Slim-influenced fretwork and wry, understated vocals blend most engagingly with the second-line rhythms that the Crescent City cooks up organically.
– Bill Dahl
Mike Watt, Friday at Metro: Among the now-dwindling ranks of early ’80s Southern California punk rockers, Mike Watt stands apart. First, there’s his pedigree as bassist for genre-defining bands the Minutemen and fIREHOSE and as part of a two-bass outfit called DOS with wife, Kira Roessler, once of Black Flag. Second, there’s the enduring strength and originality of his modern performances, showcased on his first solo album, “Ball-Hog or Tugboat?” On that release, representatives of alternative music’s old guard such as Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and Pat Smear (of the Germs and now Foo Fighters) bump screeching guitar strings with newbies such as Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl. The last three played live with Watt during his last Chicago appearance at the Metro. Foreshadowing tonight’s show? Find out. Six-Finger Satellite opens.
– C.H.
Dick Dale, Saturday at the Cubby Bear: Dick Dale’s talents go beyond his legend as the surf guitar king. Far from trapped by a genre that he invented, Dale has earned a new generation of adherents by retooling himself with two ace albums, 1993’s “Tribal Thunder” and 1994’s “Unknown Territory,” both of which emphasize his bewildering, reverb-ed, almost rockabilly style of frenetic guitar-playing. A double-picked attack from the business end of a Stratocaster never felt so good.
– C.H.
Reeves Gabrels, Saturday at the New World Music Theater: David Bowie’s Tin Machine guitarist recruits Bowie, Charlie Sexton and former Pixies frontman Frank Black (nee Black Francis) on his first solo album, “The Sacred Squall of Now,” but that doesn’t keep it from being a self-satisfying, look-what-I-can-do-with-a-guitar trip. Those who were in any way impressed with the Tin Machine band (was anyone?) might find this interesting.
– C.H.
Blur, Tuesday at the Metro: Ever so appropriately named, Blur is a Manchester scene holdover (remember the Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and the Soup Dragons?), a shoe-gazing outfit whose live shows–as much because of frontman Damon Albarn’s detached English demeanor as for his lame attempts at spontaneous outbursts of stage presence–are as much an expression of blandness as the its studio releases.
– C.H.
Charlatans, Wednesday at the Metro: The Charlatans are the one act from Manchester’s much-hyped scene of years past that managed to outgrow its pigeonhole. Once known for the requisite organs and lilting Brit vocals of the Manchester sound, the group’s last three albums have each expanded on a rock-friendly platform, incorporating psychedelia and some strong dance floor elements into a well-rounded schtick. Menswear opens.
– C.H.
