Friday 13
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MERCURY REV The Doves headline this show, but Mercury Rev is going to be the big deal for some fans–they’re touring the U.S. for the first time in four years. This upstate New York band has flatlined more often than a Star Trek redshirt, but keeps coming back in a new and slightly refined form. The new The Secret Migration (V2) is an elaborate swirl of dreamy psych-pop crooning and suggestion that’s both sad and seductive. “Black Forest (Lorelei)” aims for a nightmarish Teutonic landscape but instead conjures a rainy fairyland, and “Vermillion” conceals little indelible melodic flourishes under what sounds like a veil of bird sounds. In other words, it’s what the Flaming Lips might sound like if they read more Romantic poets and fewer dadaist ones. 8 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield, 773-472-0449 or 312-559-1212, 18+, sold out. –Monica Kendrick
Saturday 14
Sunday 15
THEIVERY CORPORATION On its new album, The Cosmic Game (Eighteenth Street Lounge), this D.C. electronic duo takes the “and friends” route: guest stars David Byrne, Perry Farrell, and the Flaming Lips all get billing on the sticker. They acquit themselves just fine, but vocals have never been the point with these chill-out-meisters. Their metier is a nexus of languid trip-hop, romantic dance pop, and watery dub, but they’re at their most wide-awake when they go Brazilian–if the berimbau is the new didgeridoo, it’s about damn time. The really valuable guest stars on the record are Poi Dog Pondering’s Frank Orrall and John Nelson, who play percussion. Those two will also play here, joining a horn section and guitarist-sitarist Rob Myers. 8 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield, 773-472-0449 or 312-559-1212, $32.50, 18+. –Monica Kendrick
NEW YORK DOLLS Apparently David Johansen and Buster Poindexter really were two different people, because Buster claimed he’d never play a Dolls reunion show. Or maybe times have changed enough that the check-in/cash-in/peel-out game is no longer taboo, even for once aggressively outsider rockers. Besides any leftover scruples, the biggest obstacle to the New York Dolls’ reappearance on the reunion circuit would seem to be that so many former members have gone on to the Great Makeup Counter in the Sky–four all told, most recently bassist Arthur Kane, who died only weeks after the group first re-formed at Morrissey’s invitation for the Meltdown Festival in London last summer. That leaves just Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain, who are now touring with guitarist Steve Conte (of Company of Wolves), bassist Sam Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks), drummer Brian Delaney, and some new material. The Living Blue opens. 7 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203 or 312-559-1212, $31. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
Thursday 19
