Show of the Week

Jay Reatard, Feb. 22, 10 p.m. at Reggie’s Rock Club

Personal experience time: I’ve been to a Jay Reatard concert, and I can attest it’s a brutal affair. The Memphis-born act pummels you with loud waves of sloppy distortion and guitar squeals, all while still creating suprisingly poppy-albeit-violent songs. At the show I went to, the crowd responded to the thrashing sound by slamming into one-another, no regard for well-being on anybody’s mind. Some of you readers may find this notion appalling, downright vile, seeing the human race treat one-another like cattle while a wall of sound pounded over us. I’d say it was a great time, and expect a repeat performance this Friday. Tickets cost $12.

Best of the Rest

Holy Fuck and A Place to Bury Strangers, Feb. 17, 8 p.m. at Schubas

What an un-wholesome week for the live Chicago music scene. First, a band playing music inciting violence named after the mentally challenged, and now a band that doesn’t even try to hide its naughty name. Holy Fuck create music akin to their name: weird electronic-tinged mayhem that somehow gels together to form pretty songs. Holy fuck, how did they do that? Meanwhile, A Place to Bury Strangers just play fucking loud. The New York group, compared to heavy-hitters My Bloody Valentine, have been known to be shut down by the cops before. What happened to values, people. Tickets cost a not so-evil $12 to $14.

Haymarket Riot, Feb. 22, 10:15 p.m. at Beat Kitchen

Bands named after famous Chicago historical events got to be good, and Haymarket Riot live up to their tragic-but-cool moniker. Like hardcore stuff? You’ll like these local guys. Tickets cost $8.

St. Vincent, Feb. 23, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. at Schubas

OK random NU kid who doesn’t already know who St. Vincenet is. You don’t like indie music, and indie music probably doesn’t like you. But guess what St. Vincenet named her 2007 debut album? Marry Me. This is a reference to….Arrested Development, which every college kid in America has to like by law, or else face ridicule by their peers. Don’t be uncool, go see an artist who named an LP after a line Maebe spouted a lot. Its good music too! Oh sold out. Well, I’m sure you can find someone to take a chubby for you and get you in (oh shoot! Two references).

Avoid at all Costs

Jonas Brothers, Feb. 22, 7 p.m. at the very pit of hell (Allstate Arena)

Three types of people go to a Jonas Brothers show: tweenage girls, their poor parents and college girls. The first two folks make sense – the folks behind Jonas Brothers (the fine folks at Disney who have turned to churning out musical abortions as of late) fine-tuned these three heartthrobs for the tweenie crowd, making them looked like malnourished Hot Topic employees who sing about all sorts of tweenage tools like Instant Messenger and text messaging and emo-ness. The parents – well, they probably had the misfortune of getting custody this week while their ex-wife goes off to shag with the cable guy with an accent. But the last group has no absolutely no excuse for going out to shows like this, and should be promptly punished. I suggest being set on fire.

I kid about the human inferno, but seriously girls, why do you dig this stuff? And please don’t argue this – I’ve seen plenty a member of the fairer sex go bannanas over these mop-headed nimrods and their Disney Channel ilk (Zac Efron, whose assortment of shirtless photos available via Google Image Search have doomed any non-Frat-dude/dick’s chances of scoring at NU in the next twenty years). And why? What about them is remotely interesting? Sure, go for the classic debate-stopper “people like different types of music” card, fair enough, it’s true and is a much better thing to say than “I sure like bland discussions where no opinions come out!” But some music is for certain age groups, and anyone over the age of 15 (some people take a long time to grow up) shouldn’t even watch the Disney Channel, let alone know the words to “S.O.S.” N’SYNC and Backstreet Boys, I’ll give you gals them, you grew up with them and they make you nostalgic for a time when dates involved holding hands outside the local Wendy’s. But you have no reason to dig Jonas Brothers – they were designed for a new generation of girls who will fantasize about them in ten years when they are inhailing vodka at The Deuce come Thursday. But circa 2008, NU ladies who like these guys or any other Disney acts (or TV shows, I’m looking at you Suite Life of Zack and Cody) need to do some growing up and at least tune into Jack Johnson or something else slightly more grown-up.

Tickets? You really want to know how much tickets are after I spent 45 minutes on a Sunday morning moaning about children’s entertainment acts? Well…$30 to $50. Another good reason to stay inside.