Friday

• An Evening w/ King Sunny Ade & his African Beats. 9:30 club. $25. All ages.
• The Paulverizers, Idle Americans. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Oleta Adams. Birchmere. $39.50.
• Novalima, Pistolera. Black Cat. $18/$22. All ages.
• Lovvers, Small Doses, Cigarbox Planetarium. Comet Ping Pong. All ages.
• John Legend, India.Arie. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $36–$109.
• Hello Society, Marbin, Lucky Dub. The Red & The Black. $8. +21.
• Stellastarr, Wild Light, The Postmarks. Rock and Roll Hotel. $12/$14. All ages.
• BLDGS, Screen Vinyl Image, Cobalt & the Hired Guns, The Water. Velvet Lounge. $8. +21.
• Danny Harris (Fatback DC): Mashed Potatoes. Cafe Saint Ex.
• Eastern Music Festival Piano Program. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
• Friday Nights Out Back w/ Chopteeth. Strathmore. $10.
• Aural Tapestry: An Evening w/ All Our Noise, feat. Seas, Typefighter, John & Paul Thornley (of US Royalty). Fort Fringe. $10. See Fringe & Purge for WCP’s take on the best and worst of CapFringe thus far.

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Modest Mouse: “Satellite Skin”
The less sense that Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock makes, the more sincere he sounds. For example, the non-sequitur riddled “Heart Cooks Brain,” far more affecting than linear drivel like “Fire It Up.” “Satellite Skin,” a long-delayed Record Store Day exclusive, falls into the first category, with Brock opening up the hick-psych flood gates and delivering four-minutes of mystic-junkyard-bullshit in his trademark lisp. As a result, it’s among the better, or at least most characteristic, tunes that band has written in the last several years. “If you break these mothwing feelings/ powdering dust on your fingers/ well no we’re not praying we’re kneeling,” sings Brock. You said it, man.

Tortoise: “Prepare Your Coffin”
A few years ago, one would needed to have attended a jazz-studies graduate program in order to hum a Tortoise tune. But “Prepare Your Coffin,” from the band’s forthcoming LP Beacons of Ancestorship has a hook, really, many hooks, that rises above the vintage synths, the vibraphones, and the rhodes pianos guaranteeing that even five minutes after the song is over, you’ll remember how it went.

Foreign Born: “Early Warnings”
With “Early Warnings” Los Angelinos The Foreign Born have inadvertently provided the Center For Disease Control with some helpful information. To be specific, the band has proven that it only took one year for the Vampire Weekend-virus, the one that drives young fashionistas to apply afro-pop guitar hooks to pseudo-sophisticated pop, to spread from its Brooklyn-based patient-zero all the way to the Atlantic. Other than that, there’s not too much value here.

Hopewell: “Island”
You know, there was some pretty good psych-rock made during the early ’90s. And not just the token shoegaze stuff, but the darker and more arena-ready weirdness of bands like Flaming Lips or Jane’s Addiction. These are the bands that Brooklyn’s Hopewell reach for, in terms of influences, and on “Islands,” they really hit the bullseye. For those who have long wondered what Nothing’s Shocking might have sounded like sans Dave Novarro, this is probably as close as you’re going to get.

Peter Margasak at our sister paper the Chicago Reader brings the news that the Black Cat will be hosting a pre-Inauguration Day concert on Jan. 19. The Big Shoulders Ball, as the name suggests, is a Chicago-oriented event. It was coordinated by Tim Tuten, co-owner of a great Chicago venue, the Hideout, and the lineup includes some of the city’s best acts: among those on the bill are Tortoise, the Waco Brothers, Eleventh Dream Day, the Mekons’ Jon Langford & Sally Timms, and Ken Vandermark. Tickets are $50, with proceeds going to various charities, including the D.C.-based Future of Music Coalition; they go on sale at 5 p.m. today through the Black Cat’s Web site. (Or at the Hideout if you’re reading this in Chicago—in which case, why aren’t you reading Margasak’s blog?)

According to Margasak’s post, the Hideout is corralling a few charter buses to bring fans to the festivities. Hope they’ve figured out where to park them.