Tonight’s Pick: Mostly Bears at the Red & the Black

The sixth man ever to set foot on the Moon, Edgar Mitchell isn’t shy about his claim that extraterrestrials are known by the government to have frequented our planet. If Mitchell’s conviction that aliens visited Earth before he visited space is a burden he bears mostly alone, he’s at least struck a chord with Arizona indie-rock act Mostly Bears. The band’s debut full-length, The Ed Mitchell Clinic, pays tribute to the country’s foremost explorer of real-life X Files, and though its content isn’t extra-terrestrially experimental, it is ornate, darkly dramatic rock that connects the arid American Southwest and the airless atmosphere of the dark side of the moon. Given how the music yelps, howls, and chimes through spacious sonic territory, it’s no surprise that the trio is so enchanted with outsider attitudes about life in space—even if they come from a guy who’s been there. MOSTLY BEARS PERFORMS WITH BAD PANDA AT 9 P.M. AT THE RED & THE BLACK, 1212 H ST. NE. $8. (202) 399-3201. —Matthew A. Stern