list.in.to.chicago this week: 10.29.2012

Not sure if any of these bands are routed from the East Coast, so you may want to call first.

Pick of the week
Standouts include the Wood Brothers on Thursday at Lincoln Hall and Kaki King on Friday at City Winery.

list.in.to.COZ
Saturday may be my last full band show of the year, with Andrew Fraker & Sons at Subterranean. You wouldn't want to miss that, now would you?

Recap
I really dig how the Afghan Whigs manage to use three electric guitars on stage without anybody really stepping on anyone's toes, sonically. And it's always impressive when a band can overcome my vast unfamiliarity with their catalog and still draw me in. It helped that I kept coming back to the now-obvious influence on some of the stuff we did with URT ten years ago.

10.29   monday
Rural Alberta Advantage with Dan Mangan (Schubas)
Not to be confused with Alberta Cross. I guess it was inevitable that after all the indie bands named after animals, we'd move on to where the animals live.

10.30   tuesday
Open Jam (Vaughan's)   COZ SINGS!
Rarely do we get such a gift-wrapped theme for song choices. Apparently, Bruce Springsteen has a song called "Sandy." I'm going to take a wild guess and say Andrew will probably play it. As for me, I'm leaning towards "Rock You Like a Hurricane" or "Riders on the Storm."

AC Newman with Mynabirds (Empty Bottle)
I haven't been as big a fan of his solo work as I have of his work fronting the New Pornographers, but I like the New Pornographers a lot, so that's almost to be assumed. It's still really hook-laden indie-pop, just with less Neko Case, who does in fact appear on his new record. I think.

Elements of Style with Welcome, Daemon Familiar, Sam Vicari (Subterranean)   FRIENDS OF COZ!
Eventually I will see these guys a second time.

10.31   wednesday
Gov't Mule (Riviera Theatre)
Warren Haynes and crew are certainly a jam band, but I don't know that they wear the jamming as a badge the way some other bands do. That's a good thing.

Mucca Pazza with J. Davis Trio, Al Scorch's Country Soul Ensemble (Double Door)
Pretty sure this is being billed as a Halloween show, although separate from the "costumed" bands of the weekend. If Mucca Pazza was to try that, I'm pretty sure their choices would be limited to the Polyphonic Spree or the Rebirth Brass Band.

11.01   thursday
Wood Brothers with Lera Lynn (Lincoln Hall)
There's folk and there's pop in here, but I wouldn't lump them in with what's being called folk-pop these days. More like really good, acoustic songwriting.

Shiny Toy Guns with MNDR, Colourmusic (Subterranean)
I last saw this electro-pop trio at Beat Kitchen, many moons ago. At the time, I suspected the drummer was more or less just miming along with prerecorded tracks.

11.02   friday
Kaki King with Lady Lamb the Beekeeper (City Winery)
The new album is instrumental, and a bit of a return to the Michael Hedges-esque guitar chops that got her noticed in the first place. With a fair amount of orchestration behind it, I don't know what kind of band she might have to support both the new material and her more conventional songs from the last couple of albums, or if she's just stripped it all down to solo guitar.

Ben Gibbard with Advance Base (Athenaeum Theatre)
If you've been to Starbucks lately, you probably grabbed on of those free iTunes download cards with a song from the Death Cab for Cutie frontman's latest solo album. If you're like me, you haven't actually downloaded it yet.

The Wallflowers with Trapper Schoepp & the Shades (Park West)
Apparently, Jakob Dylan's band was on "hiatus" from 2007 through 2010, and reunited last year. I know, I didn't notice it, either.

Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie, and Dave Holland (Symphony Center)
A trio of jazz heavyweights, and once again I will lament not ever going to these big Symphony Center shows. Something about the venue and the six-month lead time just turns me off for some reason, like I'm not the target audience somehow.

Charlie Hunter & Scott Amendola (SPACE, Evanston)
So, apparently the Charlie Hunter Trio was just getting too crowded, and now it's just down to Hunter's seven-string guitar and Scott Amendola on drums.

Milo Greene with Bahamas (Lincoln Hall)
Once again, I'm playing the "I think I've heard of them" card. Although Wikipedia is not ringing a bell: "Milo Greene is [an indie-folk] quintet, with four lead singers, none of whom are named Milo."

Ian Anderson (Chicago Theatre)
Maybe I'm selling his audience short, but this seems like a really big venue for the former Jethro Tull frontman.

11.03   saturday
Andrew Fraker & Sons with Murley Shertz, DBP, Aryk Crowder, April Henry (Subterranean)   SEE COZ LIVE!
Would you believe that I have never played at Subterranean before? That all changes tonight, and we're putting some finishing touches on a couple of new songs for the occasion that continue the trend of staking out new sonic territory for us as a band.

Snow Patrol with Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (The Venue, Hammond, IN)
I'm not sure if shows like this legitimize the venue as being for more than just nostalgia acts, or delegitimize the bands. I know Weezer got shellacked for appearing there earlier this year.

The Tragically Hip (Riviera Theatre)
Did you know that the Canadian band took their name from a skit in the Michael Nesmith movie Elephant Parts? Or that they've won 14 Juno Awards? Or that Peter Margasak from the Reader once pissed off pretty much all of Canada by ripping on them?

Rusted Root with Lauren Mann & the Fairly Odd Folk (Cubby Bear)
Always sorta pegged these guys more on the frat-friendly side of the jam band spectrum, so this seems like a perfect venue for them.

11.04   sunday
Sleigh Bells with Jel, Sumsun (Metro)
One of those bands lots of people make a lot of noise about that I just don't get. I believe they're also hitting my old stomping grounds over the weekend with a Mandel Hall show on the University of Chicago campus.

Cypress Hill with Action Bronson (Double Door)
"Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra? Come on people, somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra... possibly while high. Cypress Hill, I'm looking in your general direction." They've been booking a bunch of hip-hop lately down here, haven't they?