THURSDAY NOV 21
Bad Boys Jam: 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Birthday Massacre/Emilie Autumn: 7 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. Agora Ballroom.
Lee Brice: 8 p.m., $26. House of Blues.
Freddy Cole: 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $20-$30. Nighttown.
Every Time I Die/Letlive/Code Orange Kids: 8 p.m., $15. Now That's Class.
Five Iron Frenzy/House of Heroes: 7 p.m., $25. Musica.
Chris Hatton (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Hillbilly Idol/Matt Harmon/Christian Lee Huston: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Jam Night with Tower City Blues: 8:30 p.m. Grillers Pub.
Mono, Mick Turner: Patience is indeed a virtue, and Japan-based Mono is one virtuous, if otherwise totally badass, band. Some claim they're among the best post-rock bands performing these days, and some may be right. But Mono proffers a special breed of post-rock — one that differs greatly from the hallmarks of the genre (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Slint, etc.). There's an overall orchestral vibe throughout most of the band's stuff. Often enough, that's quite literal: 2009's Hymn to the Immortal Wind features a 28-piece orchestra. The result is frequently beautiful, though one music critic used the word "suffocating" (in a positive light) to describe some of Mono's music. We'd largely agree with that, but it's worth noting that suffocation in beauty has its disadvantages too (like, uh, outright suffocation). Watch out for that and enjoy. 8:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $14 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. (Eric Sandy)
Residency Night with Mike Uva & Friends (in the Locker Room): 9 p.m., free. Mahall's 20 Lanes.
Royal Bangs/Relaxer/Wild Boy of Averyon: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog.
Twiddle/the Mucklebuck/Gypsydaze: Combining the jam band sensibility with a focus on groovy, almost lounge-like song structures, Vermont's Twiddle sets itself apart from the pack of contemporaries. Frontman Mihali Savoulidis channels the ghost of Blind Lemon's Shannon Hoon (listen to "The Box," in particular), accenting the dynamic music of the band with remarkable emotion and care. Check out 2011's Somewhere on the Mountain, which covers a hell of a lot of ground. Cuts like "Doinkinbonk!!!" and "Second Wind" showcase the band members working their way through intricate arrangements and uplifting melodies. The latter bears terrific work from keys man Ryan Dempsey. And, hey, album opener "Daydream Farmer" boasts one of the coolest track titles we've seen in a long, long time. 8:30 p.m., $8. Beachland Tavern. (Sandy)
***
FRIDAY NOV 22
The Dream Syndicate: The Dream Syndicate singer-guitarist Steve Wynn discovered punk rock and garage rock when he was in college. So when he came back home to Los Angeles, he decided to form a band that would combine those two loves. "I had this music in my head that no one else was doing, which was this mixture of punk and garage rock and drone," he says. "I always said if someone would have been making the music I wanted to hear, I wouldn't have formed the band. We filled the void for our own amusement." Sounding like a cross between the Velvet Underground and Television, the band's 1982 debut, Days of Wine and Roses, resonated with rock critics and fanatics alike. The band would eventually sign with a major label before calling it quits in 1988. "When the band broke up in the first place, it wasn't because I didn't like the people or didn't like the music or didn't like what we had done," he says. "It was just because I wanted to do other things." Wynn says he put the band back together so that those who are too young to have heard it in the first place will have a chance to experience it. "When the band was around the first time, we began with a very specific type of music," he says. "We wanted to grow and evolve and reach new people and see how far we could stretch things. The great thing now is that we don't need to do any of that. We are a museum piece. We don't need to be anything but the Dream Syndicate. Every song we play is from 1982 to 1988, and it's great to do it that way. It gives us great focus and we can use that narrow idea and just blow it apart every night." 8:30 p.m., $22 ADV, $25 DOS. Beachland Ballroom.
Eternal Legacy/Lick the Blade: 9 p.m., $5. Now That's Class.
Get On Up: 9:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Hawkeye/Teddy Boys: Drawing on rock 'n' roll traditions and injecting the modern flair of EDM tenets, Cleveland's own Hawkeye have garnered a pretty dedicated following here in town. When the band dropped
Ruthless earlier this year, the fever-pitch fanbase only deepened. The album features plenty of killer hooks, with "We Are The Future" leading the fray. Similarly, the catchy energy in tunes like "Punch Drunk" and "Killin' Em" sets Hawkeye apart from its contemporaries, whether in the vein of pure rock or more electronic leanings. It's time to get your fix; the band hasn't played since mid-October. Tonight, Hawkeye guarantees a relentless dance party at the westside's most badass bowling alley, revving up the crowd before Teddy Boys' set begins. 9 p.m. Mahall's 20 Lanes. (Sandy)
Jeff Lorber/Jimmy Haslip/Eric Marienthal/Poogie Bell: 8 p.m., $30. Nighttown.
Martini Five-O/Flipside/George Foley & Friends: 5:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Jake Miller/Action Item/Air Dubai: 7 p.m., $25 ADV, $27 DOS. House of Blues.
The Pop Tarts: 8:30 p.m. Peppermill Pub and Grill.
Residency Night with Istvan Medgyesi & Friends: 9 p.m., free. Mahall's 20 Lanes.
Jeff Sherman (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Signals Midwest CD Release/Annabel/Worship This!: 9 p.m., $8. Grog Shop.
Ultraviolet Hippopotamus/Dead Ahead: Earlier this summer, we wrote about how UV Hippo's three-track Broomhilda Suite shows just how expansive the band's sound has become since Songs for the Reaper dropped a scant five years ago. Now, we've gotta add an effusive "Good Lord Almighty!" as we dig into the band's latest LP, Translate. Tightening the melodic screws ever more, the guys really seem like they're coming into their own on this one. Each song is a full-bodied representation of UV Hippo's diligence on the composition front. Tunes like "La Marea" (complete with kaleidoscopic guitar work) and "Tugboat" weave through so many different moods and environments, lending the album a "more than the sum of its parts" feel. 9 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. (Sandy)
Wish You Were Here recreates Pink Floyd's historic 1972 Akron Civic Theatre Concert: 8 p.m., $10-$50. Akron Civic Theatre.
WJCU's Blizzard Bash: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog.
***
SATURDAY NOV23
65daysofstatic/Caspian/The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die: "No one knows what is happening. There is a lot of danger out there," the first two lines of 65daysofstatic's latest album, Wild Light, suggest something both intense and calming. And that's like much of what follows: This is a band that revels in such juxtaposition. Tapping into the more ethereal realms of post-rock, Wild Light distills the chaos and freneticism of past albums; while tunes like "The Undertow" might have been inundated with layers of sound in previous iterations, they now succeed on the merits of stripped-down compositions. 9 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. (Sandy)
Agrimonia/T.O.A.D./Brighter Arrows/Locktender/Plagiarist: We're fairly certain you can put any adjective in front of "metal" and make a new heavy metal genre. There's sludge metal, doom metal and death metal. Agrimonia refers to itself as the sludge variant. Like sludge, the music it plays is slow and thick. Unlike sludge, it's loud and terrifying. It's also super-dense and distorted. Their recently released Rites of Separation is a full-frontal assault. You can just imagine this music playing in Valhalla during the Feast of 1,000 Pig Carcasses. It's that heavy and brutal. And we mean that as a compliment. 9 p.m., $10. Now That's Class. (Patrick Stoops)
An Aliver-Delic Danksgiving featuring Aliver Hall/Tropidelic/Jahman Brahman/Blue Moon Soup/Drunken Sunday: 8 p.m., $8-$10. The Kent Stage.
A Band Named Ashes/Mark Leach/The Angie Haze Project: 9 p.m., $8. Musica.
Blonde Boy Grunt & the Groans/Cuyuga: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
David Allen Coe: 9 p.m., $35-$45. Tangier Cabaret.
The Dan Band: 9 p.m., $22.50 ADV, $25 DOS. House of Blues.
Paul Ferguson Big Band featuring Bill Dobbins & Evelyn Wright: 8:30 p.m., $20. Nighttown.
Festivus: 9:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Herzog/Kitschy/Flannel Response: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog.
Mephiskapheles/Inspecter 7/The OldoneTwo: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop.
Misfits/The Attack: 7 p.m., $20 ADV, $24 DOS. Agora Ballroom.
John Perry (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Pink: Madonna's probably to blame for making every pop diva think she must put on a highly choreographed show when she tours. Still touring in support of 2012's The Truth About Love, Pink has put together a stage show that features Cirque du Soleil-like choreography. Unlike Madonna, though, Pink can really sing, making us question the need for such an excessive production that essentially turns Pink into a trapeze artist. A tough skater chick, Pink worked her way through the Philly clubs before making a splash with her 2000 debut Can't Take Me Home. She's gradually traded in her R&B and hip-hop sensibilities for the more dance and pop-oriented music on last year's The Truth about Love, but her powerhouse voice is still unparalleled in the pop world. 7:30 p.m., $39.50-$99.50. Quicken Loans Arena. (Niesel)
Strange Brew: 8:30 p.m. Peppermill Pub and Grill.
Toxic Holocaust/Ramming Speed/In Defence/Vindicator/Vulgar Devils: 7 p.m., $12. The Foundry.
Gino Washington/Wesley Bright & the Hi-Lites: 9 p.m., $15. Beachland Tavern.
***
SUNDAY NOV 24
Alestorm/Trollfest/Gypsyhawk: 7 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom.
Cults/SACCO/Mood Rings: Adopting highly stylized forms of songwriting and production is a dangerous game. Setting yourself against an existing backdrop welcomes comparative (and often negative) criticism. Lucky for Cults, they're great at what they do. The reverb-heavy, polished vocals alongside punchy beats give Cults their unique, adopted sound: almost a modern take on Motown. Their 2011 debut record first released on Bandcamp rocketed them into the indie music world. Full of singable, dream-pop hits like "Bumper" or the Apple-commercial-worthy "Go Outside," Cults placed them in the sweetest part of our hearts. On their recently released follow-up album Static, they maintain their atmospheric background of synths, strings and droning guitars but take the sweetness down a notch. Moving away from the blissful happiness of their first record, Static is subtle and sneaky like a Dirty Harry film; still grungy and punchy but not so obvious. Positioning themselves as a mainstay in the indie-pop arena beside contemporaries Vampire Weekend and Sleigh Bells, the duo demands repeat listens of their catchy, partly sunny songs. 8:30 p.m., $15 ADV, $17 DOS. Grog Shop. (Stoops)
Jah Messengers: 9 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Kill It With Fire/Palaces: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog.
Steve Kortyka (in the Wine Bar): 6 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
The Lone Bellow/Aoife O'Donovan: 8 p.m., $15. Beachland Ballroom.
Matuto/Ahi-Nama: 8 p.m., $12. Beachland Tavern.
Silk: 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $45-$90. Tangier Cabaret.
Third Eye Blind/Hydra Melody: 8 p.m., $36-$46. House of Blues.
***
MONDAY NOV 25
DJ Stroke Presents "Thanks," the Concert for the "Trill Tape"/NuID Band: 8 p.m., $10. Grog Shop.
Metric/Battleme: 8 p.m., $24 ADV, $26 DOS. House of Blues.
Mojo Big Band: 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Neighborhood Night with MoKo BoVo/The Tuna Band: 7:30 p.m., free. Beachland Tavern.
The Matt Skitzki Trio/Rockin' Johnny: 8:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
***
TUESDAY NOV 26
August Burns Red/Blessthefall/Defeater/Beartooth: The guys in the Christian metalcore band August Burns Red were the catalyst that turned Lancaster, Penn., into a hardcore hotbed. "We were extremely active in the local hardcore and metal scene," says singer JB Brubaker. "We used to book shows at the local American Legion hall. We would throw our band onto to the opener slot." Whatever money the band earned, it put toward buying gear for its group. The scene isn't as strong now, but August Burns has taken on a life of its own and became a national act years ago. The band had a big breakthrough with 2007's Messengers and hasn't looked back. Its new album, Rescue & Restore, features complex time changes, string arrangements and intricate guitar solos. It's a true tour de force that pushes metalcore boundaries. Even if the band has gone in a new musical direction, it hasn't alienated its longtime fans."We like trying to incorporate unorthodox elements into our music," Brubaker says. "This album has gotten the best response since Messengers. I'm happy people have been happy with it since we kind of went out on a limb." 7:30 p.m., $22 ADV, $24 DOS. House of Blues. (Niesel)
Church Shoes/Kid Tested: Thank god for bands like Church Shoes. While it's truly wonderful that genres such as electro-rap, dub-wave, and jazz core exist, bands like Church Shoes ground us. They shouldn't be confused with some sort of nostalgia-rock outfit; they come to rock, drink and, in their words, "die high and naked." And while, no, they're not doing anything groundbreaking, there's a lot to be said for those that go out and deliver solid roc 'kn' roll; it's harder than it looks. The solid songwriting mixed with Americana-by-way-of-garage-rock guitars on songs such as "Yea Right" and "Fort Wayne Woman" reflect their roots. 10 p.m., free. Now That's Class. (Stoops)
Open Mic Night with Will Cheshier: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Three of Clubs Tour featuring The Royal Concept/American Authors/Misterwives: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. House of Blues Cambridge Room.
William Control/Davey Suicide/Fearless Vampire Killers: 7 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom.
***
WEDNESDAY NOV27
10 X 3 Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Joseph Arthur: 9 p.m., $20-$25. Tangier.
Broccoli Samurai/Tropidelic/Vibe & Direct: 9 p.m., $10. Grog Shop.
Cats on Holiday/Kenneth Bindas: 8:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
Cold Blue Steel: 8:30 p.m. Peppermill Pub and Grill.
The Floorwalkers/The Womack Family Band/Nick D. and the Believers: 9 p.m., $10. Beachland Ballroom.
Hey Champ: 9 p.m. Mahall's 20 Lanes.
Todd Isler/Jenny Hill Quartet: 7 p.m., $10. Nighttown.
The JiMiller Band: All Grateful Dead: 9 p.m., $10. The Winchester.
Peanuts All-Star Jam: 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
The Thanksgiving Jam with Ray Jr./Dub-O/LC Daghostrider/EZ Thee Ambassador: 7:30 p.m. Agora Ballroom.
Twenty One Pilots/ Small Pools/Sirah: An upbeat labyrinth of lyrics. That's both a poetic and grounded initial appraisal of Twenty One Pilots' sound. The band's eclectic electronic indie pop has stirred millions of fans across the country. They're huge right now. And, as it so happens, that's not without good reason. Vessel, the band's big-time release from last year, paints a colorful picture. At their simplest, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun just make really enjoyable music. And they've been garnering acclaim for their energetic live show, which arrives in Cleveland tonight. 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. House of Blues. (Sandy)
Umojah Nation: 9 p.m., $4.99. Musica.hospital. If that wasn't enough, financial issues later forced Marshall into bankruptcy. No longer able to afford touring with a large band, this year's tour consists of more intimate solo performances. In practice, this falls in line with Sun, which she recorded almost entirely by herself. A fairly large departure for her, the majority of Sun's interesting textures and heavier rhythms come from electronic sources. Tracks like "Ruin" and "Real Life" explore new territory by means of heavier drums and buzzing synths never heard before in a Cat Power album. With Marshall only using piano and guitar on this tour, the majority of the set will probably sound more like alternate takes than exact album reproductions, though replacing synthesizers and drums for an intimate emotional experience with an indie rock legend is more than enough compensation. 6:45 p.m. and 10 p.m., $25 ADV, $28 DOS. Grog Shop. (Stoops)
Freddie Cole: 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., $20-$30. Nighttown.
Crown Larks/Sails/Ma Halos/Swirly in the Fryer: 9 p.m., $5. Now That's Class.
Dangermuffin/Big Daddy Love: 8 p.m., $12. Beachland Tavern.
England in 1819/Chin Shoda/Blaka Watra/From Borealis: 8:30 p.m. Mahall's 20 Lanes.
Gary Hall/The Scenic Route: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
India Arie/Gramps Morgan: Grammy-winning and R&B favorite India.Arie returns from a self-imposed four-year break in her career with SongVersation, one of her strongest albums yet. Approaching her music from a more stripped down perspective, Arie encountered a spiritual awakening driving her songs to new internalized places. And so SongVersation shows this in moments of self-empowerment in tracks like "Just Do You" and in the smooth, tender imagery of "Cocoa Butter." Less complex than previous records, the direct approach of the album enables an honest conversation with the listener. Arie's whirlwind of a career went from being virtually unknown to double-platinum and seven Grammy nominations within the span of five years. The rebuilt Arie feels even more in touch with herself and spiritual devotion, and her songwriting is all the stronger for it. Opener Gramps Morgan appears on the reggae-influenced "Thy Will Be Done," an exciting track with catchy horn hooks. 8 p.m., $29 ADV, $39 DOS. House of Blues. (Stoops)
