friday17
cbert jansch, steve mackay & the radon ensemble It’s tempting to think of BERT JANSCH’s new disc, The Black Swan (Drag City), as a comeback, but the veteran British folkie never retired from playing live or making albums–he’s just recording for a hipper, more high-profile label (which also happens to be the first in the U.S. to sign him). Jansch’s 60s and 70s work–as a solo artist, with the influential folk-rock-jazz group Pentangle, or in duets with fellow Pentangle guitarist John Renbourn–has become a touchstone for younger musicians, and on the new album he’s practically annexed by the freak-folk crowd: he’s joined by Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, David Roback, and others, and coproducer Noah Georgeson has worked with Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Still, Jansch sounds very much himself on this casual outing. He was one of the first of the 60s British folk artists to eschew traditional songs and write his own, and he still does that, singing in a comfortable, lived-in warble and playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar that’s unfussy but technically sharp and colorful. –Peter Margasak
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cANDY PRATT This singer-songwriter-pianist scored a minor hit in 1973 with “Avenging Annie,” a rambunctious yarn about Annie Oakley and Pretty Boy Floyd that was later covered by Roger Daltrey. Since then he’s stayed below the radar: though he never stopped recording and performing, his 1979 conversion to Christianity (and overtly Christian music, at least for a while) and his subsequent move to Europe pretty much sealed his fate as a cultish obscurity. But that doesn’t seem to bother Pratt one bit. On Live at the Village Underground (itsaboutmusic.com), a 2003 concert recording, his angelic, impish voice is in fine form, and he plays his unique sort of white-soulful folk-glam with high-spirited zeal–imagine Nick Drake with a backbone or Donovan with testicles. Pratt returned to his native Boston a few years ago and in 2005 reissued his entire catalog online; a self-published memoir, Shiver in the Night, is forthcoming. For this show he’s backed by three locals: guitarist Michael Lyons (Clyde Federal), bassist Greg MacAyeal, and drummer Geoff Greenberg (Mr. Rudy Day). Frisbie headlines. a 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $10. –Monica Kendrick
saturday18
ckali z. fasteau See Friday. a 9 PM, Velvet Lounge, 67 E. Cermak, 312-791-9050, $15.
Portastatic headlines and Benjy Ferree opens. a 10 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $12.
Talk Talk cover designer James Marsh did the artwork for Unwed Sailor’s 2006 releases, Circles and The White Ox (both on Burnt Toast Vinyl), and it evokes prog’s pop-surrealist ambitions: think a combination of Allan Holdsworth’s 70s albums and that Dali poster at least six people you knew in college had in their dorm rooms. But Jonathan Ford, Unwed Sailor’s lone constant, isn’t obsessed with noodly structures. His mostly instrumental music plays out like a murky, airy sound track, which sometimes it actually is: 2004’s For Jonathan was the score to a seven-minute short film of the same name, and 2003’s The Marionette and the Music Box has since been turned into a ballet. –Monica Kendrick
