Listening to Obits will make you feel more American. It won’t make you feel like a better American—I Blame You, the Brooklyn-based quartet’s debut LP won’t inspire you to join the National Guard, pay your taxes, or bail-out GM–that’s Alan Jackson’s territory. Just more American; gritty and rebellious, kind of like Paul Newman in Hud.

This is because Obits is a good rock and roll band, in the classic sense, only louder–sort of like Creedence Clearwater Revival on punk rock steroids and they’re playing this Sunday, at Black Cat, with The Points. Worth checking out, for sure.

–Obits/The Points @ Black Cat, Sunday, April 5, 9 pm. $10

Also, Italian singer/songwriter Bob Corn, also known as Tizio Sgarbi, will be performing Saturday night at Haydees in Mt. Pleasant. Once, a long time ago, I went on tour in Europe and Tizio made my band what I now believe to be the best spaghetti of my life. There was this crazy pepper-sauce…I can’t make you understand. So in a way, I feel like, because of that spaghetti, I owe it to him to tell you to go see him play music. Then again, his music–I’ve posted a clip below–should sell itself. Gestures, Sean McCardle, and Mike Andre (formerly of Antelope) will also be performing.

–Bob Corn/Sean McArdle/Gestures/Mike Andre @ Haydees, Saturday, April 4, 9 p.m. $5.

3102 Mount Pleasant St NW

If Tim Rutili’s doesn’t have the most harmonious singing voice, but it’s certainly one of the most distinctive, or just the flat-out weirderst. On his records with Califone and the long defunct Red Red Meat his words are always slurred, as if he’s somehow singing them backwards and forwards at the same time. I had assumed that some degree of studio trickery was involved in producing this effect–maybe running the tapes in reverse and then patching the mix through a worn out catchers mitt?–, but no, apparently it’s all natural.

When Red Red Meat reunited last night to perform at Subpop’s SXSW showcase all Rutili had to do to get that strange, nasal, warble was to simply push air through his lungs. Anything else that’s involved remains a mystery. That voice really drives the music, though. Without him Red Red Meat’s rusty, lo-fi, folk-rock might just sound like pretty-ok grunge.

More, plus photos below
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