Weekend Ideas: October 2, 2015

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Kurt Vile heightened his profile with the slow-burning glide of Wakin on a Pretty Daze, one of 2013’s best albums. On followup b’lieve I’m goin down, the laconic singer/guitarist strips back the textural guitar rock to muse a bit more on the folky side with banjo and piano. But one might still expect Vile and his band the Violators to stretch out on the guitars at the Paradise Rock Club on Friday.

Friday’s busy as well, starting with the surprisingly sympathetic pop collaboration of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks in the band FFS, which launches a U.S. tour at the Orpheum Theatre. If you’re not familiar with the cheeky humor of FFS, you can “Piss Off” with this live clip or click here to jump to my recent interviews with the band’s dual singers. House of Blues kicks in the same night with the rootsy Railroad Earth, who just toured with Warren Haynes (who brings his own new Ashes & Dust band with drummer Jeff Sipe and ChessBoxer to the Orpheum on Tuesday). Other Friday picks would be Maine-bred Americana singer/songwriter Patty Griffin at the Somerville Theatre, Dispatch’s Pete Francis with the fiddle-powered Nemes at new Union Square club Thunder Road, or poll-topping jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant recasting vintage nuggets at Scullers Jazz Club.

Back to Union Square on Saturday, Bull McCabe’s hosts its 5th annual Roots to Reggae Outdoor Music Festival in its parking lot from 3 to 9:45 p.m. with groups including regulars Dub Apocalypse, the Silks and the Tim Gearan Band. Saturday night’s main event comes in the rare return of Kraftwerk, the ’70s-born German electronic music pioneers, who perform a 3-D concert at the Citi Wang Theatre. That means techie, eye-popping visuals on a large screen behind the four men (including sole remaining co-founder Ralf Hutter) at their synthesizer posts. Next door at the Wilbur Theatre the same night, veteran indie-rockers Yo La Tengo (pictured above) support their new album Stuff Like That There, sort of sequel to 1990’s Fakebook that features covers performed in a largely acoustic four-piece format.  Shoegaze trendsetters Ride also rev up their guitars at the Paradise while rapper Talib Kweli rocks the Middle East Downstairs to top a busy Saturday night.

Sunday sports another seminal rock outfit with guitars in Television. New York’s CGBG’s-era band, featuring guitarists Tom Verlaine and newcomer Jimmy Rip as well as original drummer Billy Ficca and bassist Fred Smith, will showcase its 1977 debut Marquee Moon. Chameleons Vox, fronted by Chameleons UK singer/bassist Mark Burgess, also rolls into the Middle East Downstairs that night to play the UK group’s entire 1983 debut Script of the Bridge on a purported farewell tour. Burgess is a showman with a great voice, but I’d personally prefer the whole original band performing Chameleons UK’s 1986 gem Strange Times.


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