Friday 12
The New York band Varnaline never cracked the same A-list of indiedom, despite some great moments of roiling Crazy Horse energy. Former front man Anders Parker can’t muster anything like that intensity on his first solo album, Tell It to the Dust (Baryon); he piles up layers of electric guitar and studio gloss like it’s really, really heavy lifting, and other than “Doornail (Hats Off to Buster Keaton),” the songs are doleful but rather undistinguished.
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Farrar headlines, John Doe plays second, Parker opens. 9 PM, FitzGerald’s, 6615 Roosevelt, Berwyn, 708-788-2118 or 312-559-1212, $16. Parker also plays the Hideout on Monday; see separate entry for complete info. –Monica Kendrick
AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB See Friday. Will Johnson opens. 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $14.
DAVE LIEBMAN BIG BAND See Friday. 8 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552, $15.
ARIEL PINK The music on Ariel Pink’s The Doldrums (Paw Tracks) sounds like it was recorded on a reel-to-reel tape in 1981 and promptly buried in somebody’s backyard. Originally issued as a CD-R last year (its rerelease is Paw Tracks’ first non-Animal Collective-related album), the record’s thick lo-fi haze coats zigzagging bass lines, synthetic string washes, and woozy pop melodies that borrow the glibness of early AOR. Pink sings soft-rock lyrical verities with the lugubriousness of Scott Walker, occasionally breaking into a blue-eyed soul falsetto; reportedly all the drum sounds on the album were vocally generated. I have no idea how this multitracked melange will play out live, but it’s certainly one of the strangest albums I’ve heard all year. Greg Davis and Signer headline. 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600, $8. –Peter Margasak
Thursday 18
