Friday 3
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
KIERAN KANE & KEVIN WELCH WITH FATS KAPLIN Plenty of country hit makers have been handed walking papers by Music Row major labels in the past decade, but that’s actually been a boon for listeners–90s stars like David Ball, Radney Foster, and Mark Chesnutt made some of their best, most interesting records only after they wound up on indies. Kevin Welch and Kieran Kane, who started their mainstream country careers in the late 70s, are trailblazers in this regard: in 1995 the two teamed up with fellow outcasts Mike Henderson, Tammy Rogers, and Harry Stinson to launch Dead Reckoning, a label that’s served as a sort of refuge for their ilk. Kane and Welch’s most recent album, 2004’s You Can’t Save Everybody (Compass), has a spare, folksy sound that emphasizes camaraderie and front-porch intimacy; joined only by Fats Kaplin on fiddle, banjo, and accordion, the two deliver bluesy originals with lyrics that usually ruminate on contemporary rural life and more existential matters. But my favorite tune, the unabashedly topical “Everybody’s Working for the Man Again . . . ,” is a scathing attack on broadening corporate influence: “The broadcasters bought off the FCC / Big oil’s got the EPA / Halliburton Halliburton Halliburton Halliburton / What else do you have to say?” The two will be joined by Kaplin at this show. 9:30 PM, FitzGerald’s, 6615 Roosevelt, Berwyn, 708-788-2118 or 312-559-1212, $12 in advance, $15 at the door. –Peter Margasak
Saturday 4
Monday 6
Wednesday 8
HAIR POLICE No disrespect to Hair Police, but they haven’t been the same since they caught their big break and toured with Sonic Youth. Yeah, they’re still cranking out the car-crash noise, but where it used to come off as a pure expression of young male rowdiness onstage, now it’s humorless and somehow slick–it’s like they think they’re shooting a hardcore video. But this show’s still worth seeing for the all-star midwestern bill, even if it is something of a noise-nerd circle jerk. Hair Police headline the five-band lineup, and Burning Graveyards (featuring Spencer Yeh from Burning Star Core and John Olson from Wolf Eyes) play fourth; also opening are Lambsbread, local power-electronics group Bloodyminded, and the re-renamed Reluctant Sseepage (a “hardcore” band with Brent Gutzeit from TV Pow and Blake Edwards from Vertonen). 9:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $8. –Liz Armstrong
