Dax Riggs may have ditched his devilish psych-metal band, Acid Bath, but the hellhounds are still very much on his trail. Riggs’ solo work evokes the shattered spookiness of Roky Erickson with a crossroads-crazed sound that’s appropriately anguished. One look at the dude’s MySpace page reveals where his head’s at: Riggs’ top friends include long-deceased occultists Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare, as well as still-living shrieker Diamanda Galas. His latest release, We Sing of Only Blood or Love, is the kind of record Marilyn Manson wishes he could create, full of curdled swagger and melodic muscle. And there aren’t even any stolen New Wave riffs. But Riggs is hardly a Hot Topic goth, and it’s tough to imagine his music taking off among the Misfits lunchbox set. Tattooed oldsters, on the other hand, may find him to be exactly their cup o’ blood. Riggs performs with My Life on Hold at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2, at DC9, 1940 9th St. NW. $12. (202) 483-5000. —Casey Rae-Hunter

On Animal Collective’s latest album, Strawberry Jam, it sounds as if the members of the band have swapped their Incredible String Band LPs for ­minimal-house singles and their acoustic guitars for samplers. But just because the band has gone electronic doesn’t mean that it’s given up on the major earmarks of its folky past—particularly, ­jamming. Animal Collective has never been big on meticulously reconstructing its hit songs on stage; instead, the band’s shows have a tendency toward tangents and improvisation. Not that the band will be pictured on the cover of Relix any time soon: Animal Collective’s explorations are more about delay pedals, yodeling, and tribal rhythms than mandolin-fueled grandstanding. Sure, the same could be said about Rusted Root, but in that case it wouldn’t be a compliment. Animal Collective performs at 10 p.m. at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $12. (202) 393-0930. —Aaron Leitko

When long-form journalist and de facto pop anthropologist Mike Sager writes about Mike Sager, he’ll usually mention how he ditched Georgetown law to work his way up from Washington Post night copy boy to Esquire writer-at-large. Sager’s career trajectory is equal parts journalistic dues paid and badass book jacket bio. Along the way, he received a thorough education in the journalistic tradition of New Journalist founder Tom Wolfe and gonzo king Hunter S. Thompson. Now, Sager’s the one schooling aspiring muckrakers. “Treat everyone the same,” he tells them. “Get an imagination.” “Items you buy for work are tax deductible.” Sager’s allowed: He’s the only journalist around who can manage to write a full 1,000 words about erstwhile Playmate Brooke Burke before even mentioning her name. In fact, he might be the only journalist who can get you to read 1,000 words about Brooke Burke ­period. In his second collection of essays gleaned from his magazine work, Revenge of the Donut Boys: True Stories of Lust, Fame, Survival, and Multiple Personality, Sager turns his signature journalistic eye on Rosanne Barr’s dissociative identity disorder, Mike Ditka’s gambling debts, and the pants-pissing love life of an average nonagenarian Arizonan. Sager is equally at home contextualizing celebrities as he is exposing small-time personalities—including his own. In the book’s capping essay, “Mike Sager by Mike Sager,” the writer gives his treatment to 39 other guys named Mike Sager, breaking one of his own rules: “Don’t put yourself in your story unless absolutely necessary.” Sager discusses and signs copies of his work at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, at Olsson’s Books & Records, 1307 19th St. NW. Free. (202) 785-1133. —Amanda Hess

“As I’ve always told you, son, you must follow your heart,” insists Seymour Bloom, a Jewish immigrant with mob ties, Broadway dreams, and a central role in Jennifer Gilmore’s Golden Country. His son’s reply—“You’ve never told me that”—is the ambivalent fallout of the American Dream that drives Gilmore’s debut novel. With its three interlocking stories of Jewish immigrants, Golden Country isn’t altogether the “reinvention of the Jewish-American novel” that it claims to be; ­writers have been exploring the disillusionment of Jewish immigrants in New York since, well, Jewish immigrants arrived in New York. Still, Gilmore succeeds with a voice that is both touching and refreshingly funny. In a story that stretches from the 1920s to the 1960s, Gilmore hits on the highs of Irving Berlin’s Broadway, the lows of Jewish organized crime, and the bittersweet results of an American Dream revised. Gilmore discusses and signs copies of her work at 7 p.m. at Olsson’s Books & Records, 1307 19th St. NW. Free. (202) 785-1133. —Amanda Hess

With all of Do Make Say Think’s open-ended instrumental noodling, loose song structures, and liberal employment of improvisation, it’s surprising the multimember collective doesn’t suffer more comparisons to jam bands. In fact, the awkwardly named collective artfully avoids a lot of undue pigeonholing: Though their jazz and psych influences are tailored for those who are ready to postrock, they’re also spacey without drifting off into atmospheric, ethereal territory where it can be pleasantly ignored. The sporadic bursts of melody keep Do Make Say Think from committing the all too common instrumental pratfall of flexing impressive technical muscle without actually being interesting. Sometimes, making complex music that isn’t, at best, difficult to grasp and, at worst, a joyless endeavor is an elusive balance. Leave it to a bunch of Canadians to make striking it seem so effortless. Do Make Say Think performs at 8 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $12. (202) 667-7960. —Maggie Serota