Friday 6
–Peter Margasak
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NINE INCH NAILS, DRESDEN DOLLS On the surface this bill makes sense–after all, both bands’ fan bases include a large contingent of pale white kids dressed in black. But the longer you think about it, the less natural the pairing seems: Trent Reznor’s grim, tense postindustrial defoliant alongside the sensual, harrowing goth cabaret of up-and-coming Boston duo the Dresden Dolls, who seem cheerfully determined to turn their every gesture into a glammy, hyperliterate neo-Weimar genderfuck. (Roadrunner has reissued the band’s self-titled 2003 debut just in time for this tour.) All the same, I give Reznor major props for the choice. I don’t expect his music to surprise me anymore, and he never needs another hit record as long as he lives (though he’ll probably have several–starting with the single “The Hand That Feeds,” from the brand-new With Teeth). But if you judge a man by the company he keeps, he’s starting to look like a lot more fun. See also Saturday. 7:30 PM, Congress Theater, 2135 N. Milwaukee, 312-559-1212, sold out. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
DUHKS These five young Winnipeggers sound like they’ve indiscriminately mished and mashed every bit of contemporary folk you’ve heard on NPR in the last five years. The 14 tracks on their self-titled Sugar Hill debut bounce around like bumper cars named “gospel blues,” “Appalachian string band,” “cinematic Irish,” “French-Canadian-Cajun dance music”–and, oh yeah, “folk pop.” They’re more than technically skilled enough to pull it off, but part of me wants them to commit to something beyond their gift for synthesis. Even if it’s pop covers: unsurprisingly, Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows,” which they give a barroom feel, works better than their take on Sting’s “Love Is the Seventh Wave.” 10 PM, FitzGerald’s SideBar, 6615 Roosevelt, Berwyn, 708-788-2118 or 312-559-1212, $10. –Monica Kendrick
AACM 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION See Saturday. A full slate of events begins at 2 PM with a panel discussion, followed at 4 PM with a performance by students of the AACM School; both events are free and all-ages. The evening concert features seven groups, including 8 Bold Souls with Fred Anderson, Nicole Mitchell’s superb Black Earth Ensemble with guest flutist James Newton and vocalist Dee Alexander, and a first-time duo of vocalist Ann Ward and the brilliant trombonist George Lewis, whose widely anticipated AACM history is slated for publication next year. The evening closes with a set by the Great Black Music Ensemble, an orchestra drawing together many of the participants in this series of celebrations, featuring Joseph Jarman of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and saxophonist Oliver Lake. A full rundown of festivities is at www.aacmchicago.org. a 7:30 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-397-4010 or 312-922-1900, $16-$20. All ages. –Peter Margasak
BLOOD BROTHERS, THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER Listening to Crimes (V2), the Blood Brothers’ fourth album, is like leaping back and forth naked between a sauna and a snowbank. The Seattle quintet is as aggressive and restless as ever, but it’s tempered its screechy, caffeinated aural vengeance with some not-jazz, a little grim romance, and just enough dark pop to be even more gloriously sadistic. Yet somehow, the record has soul. Playing second is the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower (who surely top the list of bands that should never play on a bill with I Am the World Trade Center). On its latest album, Love in the Fascist Brothel (Revelation), the San Diego quartet continues its flirtation with Nazi kitsch on the tracks “Reich Stag Rock” and “Lipstick SS.” Songs like those, combined with the band’s affinity for wearing black shirts and red armbands onstage, have unnerved folks in Europe; around here such imagery takes on a little more resonance with each passing day, which is part of the band’s point. These issues aside, their sax-driven sound is ambitious, rich, and fearsome. Big Business opens. 6:30 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, $9 in advance, $11 at the door. All ages. –Monica Kendrick
ERIC HOFBAUER American Vanity (CNM Productions), the first solo CD by guitarist Eric Hofbauer, could’ve been a fine album of jazz standards. His renditions of tunes by Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus are by turns eloquent and earthy, and the tart tone he plucks from his effects-free hollow-bodied acoustic Guild is thoroughly in the jazz tradition. But the Boston-based musician had something else in mind in making the record: he wanted to confront and embrace the hubris and hollowness he sees at the core of America’s national character. He vents his spleen about Yankee consumerism by playing two Christmas tunes in two keys at the same time on “Ode to Little Drummer Joy” and imparts a complex blend of cheeriness and dread by juxtaposing dancing harmonics and a foreboding bass line on “Coke (for Our Addicts).” But he also finds some pleasure in the heart of darkness: there’s a lot of soul in his version of the Dukes of Hazzard theme. The Dan Phillips Trio opens. 9:30 PM, 3030, 3030 W. Cortland, 773-862-3616, $5-$10 suggested donation. All ages. –Bill Meyer
