Friday 15
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MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. Critics were already comparing Jason Molina to Will Oldham before Molina started playing under a bunch of different names. In March 2003 his group Songs: Ohia put out an excellent and atypically rocking album called Magnolia Electric Co. (Secretly Canadian), and he’s since appropriated its title as the name of his full-blown rock band. (He also released an album earlier this year under his own name called Pyramid Electric Co., but let’s not get into that.) Whatever you alphabetize it under, the Magnolia record is his most transfixing work, giving his often excruciatingly insular moodiness some breathing room. Molina clearly thinks well of the approach, as a live Magnolia Electric Co. album is slated to come out next year; copies will be available at this show, along with vinyl rereleases of early Songs: Ohia discs. Palliard and Viza-Noir open. 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $10. –Mark Athitakis
CRAIG TABORN Craig Taborn is one of the few keyboardists on the New York scene who can play it both straight-ahead and abstract. On his recent Junk Magic (Thirsty Ear) he uses acoustic piano, synth, programmed textures, samples, and live processing to create rich, constantly changing sound environments that tenor saxophonist Aaron Alexander and violist Mat Maneri populate with spooky unison lines and harmonically ambiguous counterpoint; drummer David King of the Bad Plus supplies funky backbeats for the leader to cut up and recombine. At the opening night of the Hungry Brain’s fourth annual Phrenology Festival, he’ll play with Detroit drummer Gerald Cleaver in a trio led by Danish saxophonist Lotte Anker. Rolldown plays first, followed by the Ron Perrillo Trio. For a complete festival lineup see the venue’s listing in Jazz Clubs. 9 PM, Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, 773-935-2118, donation requested. –Peter Margasak
DEARS This Montreal pomp-pop collective has been systematically upping the ante since its audacious 2000 debut, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story. With the group’s brand-new album, No Cities Left (SpinArt), self-styled musical auteur Murray Lightburn (he’s credited as the album’s writer, director, and producer) has shaped his own widescreen epic–a surging apocalyptic saga loaded with enough electric moments to power a small cineplex. Despite a sometimes distracting fixation with Britpoppers like Morrissey and Blur, Lightburn knows when to leaven his downcast Anglophilia with shots of Gallic warmth, summoning the louche spirit of Serge Gainsbourg at the drop of a filterless Gitane. Airiel headlines; Magnus and the Arks open. 9 PM, Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-3160 or 312-559-1212, $5. –Bob Mehr
Thursday 21
