Friday 14
BUZZCOCKS A half decade back the Buzzcocks’ legacy was being cheapened everywhere, and for critics the job was simple and depressing: just explain how the current strain of pop punk was dumber, clumsier, and frattier than the original. Well, times have changed: All is now emo, and weren’t those the days? As for Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle’s long-running franchise, it’s fittingly slowed and wizened on the recent Flat-Pack Philosophy (Cooking Vinyl). The guitars prickle as effectively as they once chugged, and petulant sentiments like “Wish I Never Loved You” have accumulated resonance with age. “Sell You Everything” and “Credit” might be shallow, not to mention callow, forays into social criticism, but at 51 Shelley’s old enough to realize that growing up ain’t all it’s advertised to be. Blink-182 was never so wise. The Adored and the Strays open. 9:30 PM, Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-3160 or 312-559-1212, $20. –Keith Harris
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AWESOME SNAKES The Awesome Snakes are Annie Holoien and Danny Henry, both members of Minneapolis punk band the Soviettes, and their debut, Venom (Crustacean), is crunchy, limpid electro-garage pop that’s sublimely, ridiculously simple. And the lyrics are indeed about “snakes and things that are awesome,” as the PR promises. The God Damn Doo Wop Band opens. 9 PM, the Note, 1565 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-0011, $8. –Monica Kendrick
Tuesday 18
JUNIOR BROWN, TIJUANA HERCULES Local junkyard-blues mutants TIJUANA HERCULES have just followed up last year’s self-titled full-length with a seven-inch of two more twisted death rattles, “The Undertaker Cancelled” and “Fighting Off the Evil Eye,” on their own Black Pisces label. The group is now down to a duo–guitarist-singer John Forbes and percussionist Zak Piper–though live they’re often joined by a stand-up bassist and a small horn section. A split LP with Velcro Lewis & His 100 Proof Band is scheduled for release later this summer. Tonight’s headliner, Texas guit-steel whiz JUNIOR BROWN, is still touring behind last year’s incendiary concert album, Live at the Continental Club: The Austin Experience (Telarc), and once he wraps up the current series of club dates he’ll be opening for Bob Dylan on a tour of minor-league ballparks. 9 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, 773-281-4444 or 866-468-3401, $18 in advance, $20 at the door, 18+. –Bob Mehr
