Friday19
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DAR WILLIAMS Dar Williams is possibly the best songwriter among the big names currently on the below-the-radar modern folk circuit, and she ought to know it–her fan base won’t stop telling her so. But she made a gutsy move on last fall’s My Better Self (Razor & Tie), stopping the album dead in its tracks to do loving versions of Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” (featuring Ani DiFranco). The latter in particular raises such serious goose bumps you don’t even care how much it outclasses her original material. 7:30 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, sold out. –Monica Kendrick
JOSH WINK To anyone wondering what the point of going to raves was, I recommend Josh Wink’s “Higher State of Consciousness.” The song’s first few minutes aren’t much more than a house beat and a 303 squawking out a tweaky synth-bass line, but then it all goes supernova–the beat stutters itself into the background as the synth explodes slow-motion into wild, jacked-up oscillations that lose all their musicality and become pure sonic force. When sufficiently amplified and fed into a properly chemically imbalanced brain, it is immense, inhuman, and almost beyond comprehension, like getting punched in the face by God. On Wink’s new double mix CD, Profound Sounds Volume 3 (Thrive), he deals in a more mannered, chilled-out strain of house, which could work equally well in a warehouse or the reception area of a boutique hotel. Ian Pooley and Brad Owen open. 10 PM, Smart Bar, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-4140 or 312-559-1212, $10 before midnight, $15 after. –Miles Raymer
ETERNALS For years I liked the idea of the Eternals more than their actual music–on paper, a guitarless rhythm machine that tapped into punk, dub, hip-hop, and abstract electronic music sounded great, but in practice it was often strangely lifeless. That changed with the band’s most recent full-length, 2004’s Rawar Style. New drummer Tim Mulvenna, formerly of the Vandermark 5, has energized the group, his brisk playing meshing with programmed loops to create a funky and surprisingly airy matrix of polyrhythms. Wayne Montana’s zigzagging bass lines glide through that thicket of beats like a snake, both anchoring the music and giving it a deep melodic undercurrent, and front man Damon Locks declaims with a new confidence that totally transforms the music: his hectoring vocals add a ferocious bite to the paranoid feel of “High Anxiety,” and on the lulling “Silhouette” his hovering incantation sounds like a magic spell. The recent High Anxiety EP (Aesthetics) includes some terrific remixes of material from Rawar Style, but the best tracks are the radical reworkings of old tunes, like the spooky, propulsive new version of “By This Time Today.” Expect plenty of new stuff at this show too–the next Eternals album is due this fall. Mandarin Movie headlines. 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $7. –Peter Margasak
Thursday 25
This show is part of the final Horizontal Action Blackout; see page 38 for a complete schedule and Section 1 for Brian Costello’s festival retrospective. 8 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, sold out.
