Gary Clark Jr.
Hey, welcome to Tuesday. Tuesday, from the Old English Tiwesdæg, which apparently means "god of the sky," or something like that. Plenty of good shows this evening, so let's run down some of the best.
Wandering neo-bluesman Gary Clark Jr. will play Marathon Music Works tonight, and contributor Andrew Clayman wrote a feature on that one for us. Here's a little excerpt:
As a laid-back, bearded, sometimes knit-cap-wearing "blues fusion" guitar player from Austin, Clark would at first appear to be the very antithesis of unique. But if you don't believe the 29-year-old's own brash pronouncements of greatness on his breakout 2012 LP Blak and Blu, he's got a fairly ridiculous list of A-list celebrity endorsers ready to back him up. Jay-Z? Check. Eric Clapton? Check. The Stones? Yeah, already jammed with them. Alicia Keys apparently said Clark "reminds me of Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye." And then there's the president. Not the president of Warner Bros., but the actual POTUS, Barack Obama, who watched Clark perform at a White House event and proclaimed — in what would arguably become the easiest PR banner quote in history — "he's the future."The show
starts at 8 p.m. and costs $28. Now, speaking of Jay-Z, on to the next one ...
So, remember when chillwave was a happenin' thing? Turns out a couple of the artists lumped in with that whole scene — namely Washed Out and Toro y Moi — had some serious staying power. Toro will play Exit/In this evening, and contributor Ryan Burleson penned a little something for us on that one:
Thanks to the hazy, ’80s-indebted lite-funk he and contemporaries Washed Out and Neon Indian were making in the late-Aughts, South Carolina native Chaz Bundick’s Toro y Moi initially arrived on the national stage as part of a trend story about chillwave, a blogger-generated genre even The Wall Street Journal couldn’t resist writing about. Bundick’s made good on the early hype, proving to be an adventurous tinkerer who taps into the recent past — add ’70s dream disco and ’90s R&B to his palette at this point — with more aplomb than most of his peers. L.A. production team Classixx opens. —Ryan Burleson
That one starts at 8 p.m., and it'll cost you $23.
Now, something a little more grounded, for fans of the electric guitar. Hanni El Khatib — whose recent Head in the Dirt was recorded with Dan Auerbach — will play Mercy with Mississippi's fine Bass Drum of Death and Music City's own Bad Cop. Stephen "Goose" Trageser picked that one for us. Take it away, Goose:
One of the things that makes the garage-rock revival so universally appealing is its democratic nature: Attitude and showmanship can all but make up for ratty gear or an outright lack of skill. L.A.’s Hanni El Khatib shows that pluralism also extends to those who are a little more polished. El Khatib recorded his sophomore release, Head in the Dirt, with Dan Auerbach in Nashville, availing himself of the high-fidelity grit that marks The Black Keys’ most recent work, but without sanding off any of the sharp edges that made his 2011 debut stand out. Oxford, Miss., duo Bass Drum of Death comes across a little closer to the genre’s bang-it-out roots, sounding kind of like a mixtape of all your favorite garage ancestors. Locals Bad Cop round out the bill. —Stephen Trageser
Starts at 8 p.m., costs $15.
And finally, Franz Ferdinand is still a band, and they'll be playing downstairs from Hanni. Matt Fox picked Franz's Cannery Ballroom show for us, and this is how that one goes:
When Heraclitus claimed that change is life’s only constant, he failed to predict the selling power of a strong artistic brand —and he didn’t factor in Franz Ferdinand’s stellar uniformity. Ever since “Take Me Out” pushed the band’s self-titled debut up the charts back in 2004, Franz Ferdinand has mindfully developed a stylized identity that helped cultivate the potential one-hit wonder into a burgeoning evergreen career. The songwriting of super-couple Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy yields a foolproof dance-rock formula garnished with pop confections and heavy attention to aesthetic detail. Their viselike grip on the tangible and sonic elements of the creative process has previously spawned three strong releases, and August’s Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions is further affirmation of their gifts. —Matt Fox
That one starts at 7:30 p.m., and it costs $31.50. Unless, of course, you win
our caption contest— we're picking our winner shortly.
If you're looking for something a little lower-profile, locals Gnarwhal and Caleb Gregory will play a show at The Owl Farm with Germany's Nicoffeine, Brooklyn's Child Abuse and Norway's Staer.
