Friday 20
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HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE This local quintet, which features members of Rise Against, Shai Hulud, the Hope Conspiracy, the Killing Tree, etc, etc, is so posthardcore it’s like hardcore never happened. The chugging songs on last year’s Lost in Landscapes EP (HeWhoCorrupts Inc.) have an angular grandeur and an unpunk kind of priggishness–the music’s crisply recorded and almost coldly perfect–but front woman Emily Schambra defiantly commands the top of the mix with her humanizing wail. There are only a few wobbly moments where I thought I was listening to At the Drive-In fronted by Pat Benatar covering “Kashmir.” The band’s working on a full-length. Ryan’s Hope, the Skyriter, and 2*Sweet open. 6:30 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203 or 312-559-1212, $9. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
PAPER AIRPLANE PILOTS These locals have been slow to grind out new material, but I don’t think it’s cost them: the ostentatiously flawless power pop on their 2003 debut, The History of Flying (Spade Kitty), produced such an eruption of glee among critics that the band could bounce on top of the geyser jets for a while. The songs on their just-released follow-up, Western Automatic Music (Spade Kitty), are supposed to sound boyishly exuberant, but each painstakingly designed layer is the product of an almost legalistic attention to every candied harmony and chinging guitar flourish. “Big Disappointment” sounds a bit like reconstituted Lloyd Cole, and on “Damn City Lights” they undercut the song’s anthemic, Bob Seger-esque chords by shifting into GBV mode. This show is a release party. Cracklin Moth and the Poison Control Center open. 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $8. –Monica Kendrick
CHRIS THILE & MIKE MARSHALL Chris Thile of Nickel Creek is the celebrity in this pair, but fellow mandolinist Mike Marshall is the veteran with the interesting backstory: since joining the David Grisman Quintet in 1979, his passion for acoustic music has taken him from Lincoln Center (in a chamber trio with Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer) to the backwoods of Brazil (where he studied choro, a rough equivalent to bluegrass). I’m more likely to enjoy his records on, say, Sugar Hill than his ones on, say, Windham Hill, but Marshall himself doesn’t seem to fuss much about genre distinctions. This duo tackled jazz, Bach, and bluegrass on 2003’s Into the Cauldron; the forthcoming Live Duets (both Sugar Hill) captures some of their blistering performances in support of that record. 7 and 10 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, 773-728-6000, $25, $21 seniors & kids. The 7 PM show is sold out. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
Tuesday 24
SAY HI TO YOUR MOM It seems not that long ago that “one-man bedroom band” meant no-budget production values: crummy Radio Shack condenser mikes, pie-tin percussion, and reruns of Barney Miller faintly playing in the background. Now, thanks to cheap PC peripherals and great drum machines, bedroom bands are virtually indistinguishable from “real” bands. But Ferocious Mopes (Euphobia), the third and latest full-length by Brooklynite Eric Elbogen (aka Say Hi to Your Mom), still displays some of the genre’s timeless defining qualities: the insular, airless feel of the recordings; an instensely inward lyrical focus reminiscent of asocial entities like My Dad Is Dead and Sentridoh; and of course the self-released aesthetic (Euphobia is Elbogen’s home imprint). If you can get past the terminally flat singing, SHTYM has some fine tunes lurking amid the tangled mike cables and empty pizza boxes. Though he writes and records alone, Elbogen is accompanied by a full band on this tour; whether he drives to the shows by himself is another question. The Ladies and Gentlemen and Magnus open. 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508, $8. –J. Niimi
