Poppy and PVRIS with Pom Pom Squad @ First Avenue—Poppy's brand of cyborg pop, equal parts cute and venomous, is a hard schtick to maintain, and her latest single, "Knockoff" has me concerned. On it, Poppy sings about wanting "that real shit, real authentic," whatever that could mean. So I'm happy to hear her sing the more in-character "Life is a commercial for death/And you're hypnotized by the advertisement" on her other new single, "Church Outfit." Openers Pom Pom Squad have been opening for several big-name acts on the strength of 2021's Death of a Cheerleader, and I'm looking forward to how head cheerleader Mia Berrin follows it up.

Dinner Jazz @ Icehouse

The Dregs @ Jazz Central

Dirty Lowdown Fools @ Minnesota Music Cafe

"Knockturnal" with Greenery @ Palmer's

Second Annual Tribute to Big Star @ Parkway—Alex Chilton's band was essentially the Velvet Underground of power-pop, providing a blueprint of chiming, rerouted riffs for college rockers and other weirdos in the '80s to recreate guitar rock. (One group of 'em even wrote a pretty good song about Alex.) Tonight, a bunch of esteemed local rockers will give them their due.

Alley Mattress @ Pilllar

DRUM CLUB: Beab, Kema, m.yaeger @ ROK Music Lounge

Pretenders @ 7th St Entry—Yes, those Pretenders. Yes, that Entry. And yes, if you're just now finding out about this rare small-club show, it's way too late—this sold out almost immediately. Congrats to anyone who gets to see Chrissie Hynde and the guys up close.

Northeast Invitational @ 331 Club

birdhole, The Briefly Gorgeous, Allergen, and Linus @ Turf Club

Do Not Crush, Modern Wildlife, The Envies, BB Machine @ White Squirrel

Friday, September 8

Two Girls, One Ghost @ Amsterdam

Bleek & Grimm with Jerry Lefkowitz @ Aster Cafe

R Factor @ Bunkers

Ear Coffee VI with Early Eyes, Anita Velveeta, 12th House Sun, and Psylo @ Cedar Cultural Center—Racket made a big deal outta turning two last month, but the folks over at Ear Coffee have been doing their thing for six years now, which is, I believe, about three times as long. Born as a music blog, later branching into the world of podcasts and performances, they’ve got a great local lineup that’s just the thing to perk (coffee term) you up. Headliners Early Eyes took their zippy indie funk/pop to new heights on Look Alive!. Anita Velveeta’s neo-grunge is just the right mix of catchy and frantic, and her ‘tween-song banter is just as entertaining. 12th House Sun proudly call themselves emo-shoegaze. (I remember when bands who clearly played either of those wouldn’t fess up!) And Psylo is all over the place stylistically in a way that’s exhilarating rather than messy—except when they want to be messy, which we all do sometimes.

Kate Beahen and Friends @ Crooners

Charanga Tropical @ Crooners

Joyann Parker Band (Album Release) @ Crooners

Maggie's Afterglow: Dorothy Doring and Rick Carlson @ Crooners

Janiva Magness with Annie Mack @ Dakota

Lodge @ Driftwood

Pibon @ Driftwood

Steve Clarke and the Working Stiffs @ Eagles 34

Heartbreak Affair, Pleasure Horse @ Eagles 34

Harry's House @ Fine Line

La Clave Orchestra @ Granada

Frederick the First with Beemer and Katie Henry @ Green Room

The Hook & Ladder’s 7th Anniversary: Ngange & Themasses,The Sex Rays @ Hook and Ladder

Kings of Cole @ Icehouse

Fresh Takes @ Icehouse

Kenne Thomas @ Jazz Central

JoJo Green @ KJ's Hideaway

Clay Fulton and the Lost Forty @ KJ's Hideaway

Tape B @ The Loft

In a Funk Band @ Minnesota Music Cafe

What Tyrants @ Mortimer's

Ice Climber, McVicker, Boy Dirt Car, and Lavender Daughter @ Palmer's

Sidedoors, Green, and Squirm @ Palmer's

Rock the Voices feat. the Crown Jewels: A Tribute to Queen @ Parkway

Street Lee Chevert, Jackie Kean, Garden Street @ Pilllar

Trumpet Band, Anni XO, Bryan Murray @ ROK Music Lounge

Dan Rodriguez @ 7th St Entry

Ween @ Surly Brewing Festival Field—It really is a tale of two concerts in early September at Surly. On one hand, you’ve got the rock ‘n’ roll mad scientists of Ween, whose outrageous career has been spent flipping off any notion of genre confinement. And, on the other, you’ve got soul-rock schmaltzers Train playing on 9/11 three days later. But we’re here to talk about Ween, who rock. Formed in 1984 by junior high buddies Gene and Dean Ween (not their legal names), the Pennsylvania group graduated from the lo-fi punk of their early years on Minneapolis’s own Twin/Tone Records to grand, bizarre, and always catchy artistic statements like 1997’s The Mollusk on major labels. Ween split in 2012, reunited in 2015, and played sporadic comeback shows, including a '16 one at St. Paul’s Roy Wilkins Auditorium, before Covid shut things down. This run of shows is being billed as their very major reunion tour, which is surely sweet news for their Deadhead-level devotees.

BoOm, Siera McGregor, Glassreel @ Terminal Bar

The Sparks, The Del-Viles, Frances Gumm @ 331 Club

Plague of Stars with Mithya, Cobra Czar and Intrinsic @ Turf Club

PLASMA @ Uptown VFW

Barbie Rave: A Barbie-Inspired Rave @ Varsity

Briefcase with Jarad Miles & The Ancient Waves, Is This Thing On? @ White Squirrel

Saturday, September 9

Makeup and Vanity Set, Sferro @ Amsterdam

Billy Johnson & the Hillcats @ Aster Cafe

International Reggae Allstars @ Bunkers

Minneapolis Afrobeats Dance Party @ Cedar Cultural Center

The Birthday Club hosted by Dan Chouinard Featuring T. Mychael Rambo @ Crooners

Lamont Cranston @ Crooners

Patty Peterson Presents: Jazz Women All Stars with Charmin Michelle @ Crooners

Maggie's Afterglow: Dorothy Doring and Rick Carlson @ Crooners

The Spirit of Whitney feat. Kathleen Johnson @ Dakota

Fab Hackmasters @ Driftwood

Tiny Traces @ Driftwood

Spit Takes, Neo Neos, and Blood Cookie @ Dusty's

Toad the Wet Sprocket @ Fillmore

Mae Simpson (Album Release) with Nur-D and The Get Together @ Fine Line

80s vs 90s with DJ Dave Paul and DJ Marco @ First Avenue

Black Market Brass (Album Release) @ Green Room

Grrrl Scout: Queer '90s Dance Party @ Hook and Ladder

Gypsy Mania Hot Club @ Icehouse

All Terrain Vehicle @ Icehouse

DJ Shannon Blowtorch Presents Y2K @ Icehouse

Reid Kennedy @ Jazz Central

Jazicality with Lisa D @ KJ's Hideaway

Ahmed & the Creators @ KJ's Hideaway

Samplifire @ The Loft

The Good, the Bad & the Funky @ Minnesota Music Cafe

City Country Fest @ Palmer's—City Country Collective heads to Palmer’s this weekend for the first-annual City Country Fest, with a 10-band showcase of local country, rock, and Americana. The fun starts on the outside stage, where Goatroper will set things off at 3 and Turn Turn Turn winds down the outdoor activities at 9. But the night is young: This is just when things move inside for James Eugene Russle, The Right Here, and, finally, Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band.

Night Jobs @ Pilllar

Martin Dosh & John C.S. Keston @ ROK Music Lounge

Selby Ave Jazz Fest @ Selby at Milton—Since 2002, this beautiful celebration of music and community has shut down Selby for a day of great live jazz. Among this year’s performers: the Selby Avenue Brass Band, students and staff from Walker|West Music Academy, the enormous Brio Brass collective, trumpeter/bandleader Solomon J. Parham's Urban Legends of Jazz, uplifting duo Pippi & Daniel and, as headliner, New York City’s smooth jazz saxophone/flute ace Najee. As always, the block will be lined with arts and food vendors, the latter of which will include Taste the Real Nawlins, West Indies Soul Food Truck, and Logan’s Catfish.

The Astronomers with Jady @ 7th St Entry

Uada @ Studio B

STARDUST, Bones, Untied Shoes @ Terminal Bar

Voltage Controller @ 331 Club

Shawty Ensemble, Luddgang, Dog Gamn @ 331 Club

Zeppo with Jailbreak! @ Turf Club

Jai Wolf @ Uptown Theater

Malamanya @ Uptown VFW

LIl Tracy @ Varsity

Zorn @ 70 @ Walker Art Center—You only turn 70 once, even if you’re John Zorn. The genre-smashing experimentalist has amassed a colossal body of work over the years, rooted in classical music but boldly improvisational, taking on rock, jazz, traditional Jewish music, and whatever else has come his way. He’s the kind of figure who practically demands an excessive celebration, and with 12 hours of performance, in various locales, Minneapolis is giving him one. From noon to 4:30, several Zorn ensembles will perform acoustic concerts in the Walker galleries. L’affair de Zorn continues at the Walker’s McGuire Theater that evening with three separate performances. First, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, and Gyan Riley perform Zorn compositions on acoustic guitars. Then John Medeski, Matt Hollenberg, Kenny Grohowski, and Brian Marsella will pay tribute to Zorn’s more cacophonous side. The birthday boy himself will lead his New Masada Quartet (Julian Lage, Jorge Roeder, and Kenny Wollesen) after that. Finally—because far from being Zorned out by the day’s events you are going to be totally in the Zorn Zone—cross the bridge over Lyndale and Hennepin to hear Zorn perform Hermetic Organ at midnight on the Basilica’s organ. I’m 17 years shy of 70 myself and I sure hope John finds time for a nap before that.

Victory, Ponx Attax, Empire Down, Bullshit Detector, Virgin Whores, Hallux @ White Rock Lounge

Trevor McSpadden, Marc Delgado, Jackie Rae Daniels @ White Squirrel

Todd Albright @ White Squirrel

Room 3 with Cyrus, Jada Lynn @ White Squirrel

Old Dominion @ Xcel Energy Center

Sunday, September 10

Conway the Machine with Sauce Walka & Jae Skeese @ Amsterdam

Swing Brunch with Patty & the Buttons @ Aster Cafe

Tough Old Bird @ Aster Cafe

Dr. Mambo’s Combo @ Bunkers

Our Voices, Our Choices, Our Children: Presented by Lori Dokken @ Crooners

Lush Country @ Crooners

Aja Parham Sings the Songs of Sarah Vaughan @ Crooners

The Big '60s Singalong @ Crooners

Julian Lage @ Dakota

Phine Friends, Shotgun Ragtime @ Driftwood

Craig Baumann and the Story, Dingus, Circle of Heat @ Eagles 34

Tailspin @ Eagles 34

Rogue Tango @ Eagles 34

Twin Cities Country Dancers @ Eagles 34

Karaoke with Reina Starr @ Eagles 34

Sada Baby @ Fine Line

Stephen Marley @ First Avenue

Black Hearts + Blowtorch @ Hook and Ladder

Red Hot Django Peppers @ Icehouse

Charange Tropical @ Icehouse

Summoner's Circle, Eshtadur, Synopsis, Better Broken @ Minnesota Music Cafe

Jayafest 23 @ Mortimer's

Church of Cornbread: Cornbread Harris and His Band @ Palmer's

Mystery House with Chris Hepola and The Real Chuck Norad @ Palmer's

Do Re #MeToo: Sexist Songs Reclaimed by Righteous Feminists @ Parkway Theater—In 1971, rock critic Ellen Willis set out to prove that Cat Stevens's "Wild World" was more sexist than the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" with this One Weird Trick: Ask yourself if you could imagine a woman singing that song to a man. If you couldn’t, that song was sexist. (Or sexist-er, I guess. It’s also entirely possible that Stones die hard Willis was just looking for a way to defend her boys against her most doctrinaire feminist friends.) Well, tonight we'll find out how well Willis’s exercise works as a bunch of the Twin Cities’ most powerful female vocalists tear into some of the nastiest classic songs about women, backed by a band of all women as well. (There are too many big names to list without leaving someone out, but just look!) It’s a benefit for the Abortion Access Front, which could certainly use the help at a moment when women face far greater enemies than even Cat Stevens. (I really do hope they don't play "Wild World.” “Under My Thumb” would rock though.)

King Swank with SoulFlower, Absent Markey and Jack Bentley @ 7th St Entry

Woodzen @ 331 Club

The Young Dubliners with Wild Colonial Bhoys @ Turf Club

St. Paul Songwriter Rounds @ White Squirrel

Monday, September 11

Janelle Monáe @ Armory—Janelle Monáe is feeling her femme side these days, as demonstrated by any number of giddy and topless appearances in the rollout for her latest, flagrantly sex-positive album, The Age of Pleasure. The new album isn’t exactly hotter than its 2018 predecessor, Dirty Computer, but damn is it hornier, with a very pent-up post-pandemic feel. Monáe is sexed up rather than seductive here, and that sure can have its attractions, especially if you’re similarly primed. This is brassy music (she’s horny in more ways than one) with a pan-African rhythm, ranging from electro-trap to the Afrobeat (note the singular form) of Seun Kuti with a recurrent, lithe reggae grooves holding this all together. Gonna be a party live. I wonder if she had a say in the rather, uh, nice GA price of $69.

Tango Desperados Practilonga @ Eagles 34

Other Country Ensemble @ Eagles 34

Twin Cities Queer Contra Dancing @ Eagles 34

Youth Lagoon with urika's bedroom @ Fine Line

Black Country, New Road with Daneshevskaya @ First Avenue

LA Buckner (September Residency) with White Boy Summer, Jada Lynn, and J. Webb @ Icehouse

Auto-Tune Karaoke @ Mortimer’s

Cowaoke with Ben Moooker @ Palmer's

Unattractive Giant Monster, Dreams of 3rd Street, Wish Wash @ Pilllar

Gilda House with Sun Bear @ 7th St Entry