A+E

A-town #1
To a certain group of avant-garde rock fans — do you count yourself among them? — Dead Rider and Free Salamander Exhibit are legend.

Dead Rider pulls off loopy time signatures, seemingly random distortion and oddball bits of sound here and there, all while maintaining a sound hypnotic enough you can't turn away. Reminds me of driving down a highway late at night, so tired the familiar becomes unrecognizable — trees branches melting into waving arms, etc. — and you wonder if you're tripping or the world is, so you open your eyes wide and sit up straighter, but the weirdness never stops. This is much safer.

Free Salamander Exhibit brings a harder, more proggy edge and ups the art factor visually, at least judging by the videos I watched. Experience the experimental at the Jambalaya, 9 p.m., $8 cover, 21-and-over. Humboldt's Neighbors open. 


A-town #2
Ask Sophie brings the folk punk down from Washington state to the Alibi but you know what? Although they are labeled "folk punk," that's just a fancy name for "Kinda old-style like say, perhaps, Devil Makes Three, with a certain amount of twang and an endearing attitude." The band's new album is titled Drinkin', Cussin', Dyin' and the tour is determined to "Taint the Wild West," so I think we can all agree on what's going on here, yes? Featuring Humboldt native William Coleman, the music gets going at 10 p.m. or so.

Cover's $5, show is 21-and-over.


Blue Lake
In other names of influence, David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights play the Logger Bar starting at 9 p.m. Mmmmm, the opening bars of the band's "Christopher Columbus" sold me. Gentle and enticing, I immediately wanted more. Unsurprising given Kilgour's lineage — he founded The Clean, one of New Zealand's most lauded bands and typically regarded as making the music that turned NZ on to homegrown indie rock. Fellow NZers The Shifting Sands open the show.

Free, 21-and-over.


As for the rest of the weekend... here!