Weekend Picks: Howlies, Oneida

Friday:

Whether the world needs another garage-rock band is debatable, but Atlanta’s Howlies manage to pick some meat from a pretty dry bone. Deploying a spitfire rhythm section and wall o’ jangle, the quartet wildly careens through tunes that sound like a juvie-hall sock hop. It’s increasingly difficult for skinny boys with guitars to make three-minute ditties sound dangerous, but the Howlies come close, which could be why they caught the attention of producer/über-cad Kim Fowley, ex-manager of teen leatherettes the Runaways. (Fowley shepherded Howlies through their debut, Trippin’ With Howlies, which comes out this fall.) Even without that influence, the band would still have teeth. Howlies supposedly formed after wolves attacked members during a group camping trip, which, if olden legends are to be believed, can produce hairy results. THE HOWLIES PERFORM WITH FOREVERALWAYS, THE BARBERRIES, AND THE DAISY CUTTERS AT 9 P.M. AT THE RED AND THE BLACK, 1212 H ST. NE. $8. (202) 399-3201. —Casey Rae-Hunter

Sunday:

If the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the Of Mice and Men of psych-rock songs—a concise and to-the-point classic—then Oneida’s Preteen Weaponry is head music’s War and Peace. On its new album, Oneida piles on the krautrock noodling, synth wobbles, and ponderous medieval melodies as if its members were getting paid by the amount of disk space their composition was taking up. The result is a single song that clocks in at a nerve-frazzling 39 minutes. But the Brooklyn-based band puts all of that invested time to good use. “Preteen Weaponry” evolves into a rich and textured epic jam that draws inspiration from across the weirdo-music timeline. The album sounds like a microcosm of the psych fan’s lifespan—listening to it is like watching an entire family of stoners grow up, get married, slowly drift apart, and die. ONEIDA PERFORMS WITH APES AND DIRTY FACES AT 8 P.M. AT THE BLACK CAT BACKSTAGE, 1811 14TH ST. NW. $12. (202) 667-4490. —Aaron Leitko