Wotta Country

PLUS: Image Bulletin rides the tubeway to another green world at Detroit.?

TUESDAY Man, the rock & rule just does not stop this week: hope you have room left in your little red notebook to study down for Sweden’s (International) Noise Conspiracy, who survived an illegal tour of China and production work by Rick Rubin to bring you the most socialistic riff on the Sonics there has ever been: this seems like a Kim Fowley idea (“We’ll get some garage band, get matching outfits and have them be communists!”—actually, that was a Malcolm McLaren idea, and the band was the New York Dolls, and it ruined them forever), but the (I)NC are an actual thing who crank it up real high live with coffeehouse wit (“Capitalism Stole My Virginity”) and a cabaret wardrobe—there used to be a band called Nation of Ulysses who were like unto the primalest elder gods compared to (I)NC, but unlucky for them they got too into jazz and it killed their record sales. Mixing pop and politics—you ask me what the use is? Three shows a week plus merch sales in the back. Wotta country, wotta Chain Reaction.

WEDNESDAY Lo-fi psych-rap space brains in Three 6 Mafia melted Memphis from the edges back in when they first started dropping tapes: this was Black Sabbath devil worship and Geto Boys hard living, circulated cassette to cassette in beat-up Tennessee junior highs—the music city of the South reborn, and way better than the No Limit conspicuous consumption. Three 6’s outré tastes—you can’t go wrong with music that loves abusing Robitussin, or “sippin s[iz-]yrup,” as the Mafia loved to put it—and dirty-cheap beats got them huge, and then the money sucked away all the fun that bad drugs and homegrown insanity had once cultivated. Same thing happened to Black Sabbath, actually. But pay respect anyway at the Vault.

AND: Shooter Jennings fires up the Coach House, and Panic! At the Disco sedates Chain.

THURSDAY, DEC. 8 West Coast connection man Mack 10 drops off at the HOB, and Matt Costasets up at Detroit; musique for many moderne moods.

See Calendar listings for club locations. ?Also: be smart; call ahead.