Friday 5
WARLOCKS This fantastic psychedelic rock band, which spent its early years sharing members with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and touring with the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, turned a lot of heads with last year’s Phoenix (Mute/Birdman). My head had already been turned by their 2000 self-titled debut EP, though, and I expect their next album, forthcoming in 2005, to rock me like a candy-colored hurricane. The trippy Dead Meadow joins the Warlocks on the bill, and you can expect a moment of loudness from each band in honor of their early boosters, Greg Shaw and John Peel, both of whom died last month. Shaw, the founder and helmsman of Bomp Records, released the first two Warlocks albums, and Dead Meadow recorded a Peel Session with the legendary British DJ and tastemaker in 2002. Out Crowd opens. 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 800-594-8499, $12. –Monica Kendrick
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UNCLE WOODY SULLENDER, OLIVIA BLOCK Aside from occasional excursions by guitarists like Eugene Chadbourne and Ivar Grydeland, the banjo has rarely been heard in free improvisation, but Chicagoan Uncle Woody Sullender uses that ax exclusively on his terrific new album, Nothing Is Certain but Death (Dead CEO). Electronics mangle the sound of his picking on a few tracks and nobody will confuse his playing with Earl Scruggs’s, but you mostly hear the banjo in all its brittle, twangy glory. Several songs recall John Fahey’s lyrical finger-style guitar, while others are delightfully jagged and emphasize the instrument’s dry snap; throughout are duets with cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, vocalist Carol Genetti, and Jason Soliday, who conjures up an electronic tsunami on one track. According to Sullender, for this gig he’ll perform “a composition for string trio and stereo speakers [that] examines different forms of listening and consciousness” with violist Amy Cimini, cellist Kevin Davis, and double bassist Brian Dibblee. Also performing is sound artist and composer Olivia Block in a rare live appearance. In her words, “Heaving To” promises “whipping wind, creaking wood, falling and swirling pieces of amorphous aural debris, violins scattering and horns and winds sounding, all embedded within a storm at sea.” A quintet of live musicians will augment Block’s meticulous electronic ‘scapes. 9 PM, 3030, 3030 W. Cortland, 773-862-3616, $5-$10 suggested donation. All ages. –Peter Margasak
Tuesday 9
Thursday 11
