ROCK AND POP

Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it’s advisable to call ahead to confirm engagements.

 

B. B. KING BLUES CLUB & GRILL

237 W. 42nd St. (212-997-4144)—Jan. 7: Project/Object is a quartet led by the Frank Zappa enthusiast Andre Cholmondeley which includes faculty from the School of Rock. The group, which pays tribute to the maestro and manages his complex rhythmic and harmonic changes with élan, has two special guests for this show, Ike Willis and Ray White. Two of Zappa’s greatest sidemen, the pair are playing together for the first time in twenty-five years. Willis, who played the lead in Zappa’s dark 1979 Orwellian opera, “Joe’s Garage,” played and recorded with the iconoclastic composer on and off until his last tour, in 1988. White started with Zappa in 1976 and accompanied him for eight years. Both men are excellent guitarists, and they had a notable vocal partnership when they toured together in Zappa’s band in 1980 and 1984. Jan. 11: The legendary guitarist and Texas-blues maestro Johnny Winter returns to New York City. He’ll be flanked by the Memphis soul man and Stax Records star William Bell and the guitarist G. E. Smith, who is most best known as the long-term music director of “Saturday Night Live” but is also a revered string-bender and session ace.

 

CITY WINERY

155 Varick St. (212-608-0555)—Jan. 8: The Sicily native Carmen Consoli, one of Italy’s top-selling singer-songwriters, has a beautiful voice and passionate songs that need no translation.

 

GLASSLANDS GALLERY

289 Kent Ave., between S. 1st and S. 2nd Sts., Brooklyn (No phone)—Jan. 6: The Brooklyn noise-pop princess Cassie Ramone (née Grzymkowski), of the much-hyped Vivian Girls, has recently teamed with Kevin Morby, of Woods, Nate Stark, of Stupid Party, and Bossy’s Justin Sullivan to form Babies, a scrappy group that slouches toward fuzz pop. With the Brooklyn acts Total Slacker and Beach Fossils on the bill, this show is a directory of the Brooklyn contingent of a sub-sub-genre with perhaps the most unfortunate appellation in music history: “shitgaze.”

 

HIRO BALLROOM

371 W. 16th St. (866-468-7619)—Jan. 9: Mondo Mundo, a booking agency with an international bent, showcases its take on world music with a festival featuring Ocote Soul Sounds, Toshi Reagon, Burkina Electric, and Abaji.

 

JOE’S PUB

425 Lafayette St. (212-539-8777)—Jan. 11: The composer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Hearst, of One Ring Zero, trots out a few numbers from his latest solo project, “Songs for Unusual Creatures.” The music is inspired by such animals as the cute Australian bilby and the Jules Verne-esque Magnapinna squid, and Hearst performs it in unusual company—his backing band includes robots. Jan. 12: The violist and composer Lev (Ljova) Zhurbin, who has collaborated with everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to Jay-Z, leads the ensemble Ljova and the Kontraband through a program of music with Argentinean influences. They’ll be joined on this journey by the Jofre Romarion New Tango Quartet.

 

“LET’S ZYDECO”

Typically, one would have to travel to Breaux Bridge or Lafayette, Louisiana, to find the Pine Leaf Boys, a rocking Cajun band led by Wilson Savoy (the son of the living Cajun-music legends and accordion manufacturers Marc and Ann Savoy) but on Jan. 9, they’ll be at Connolly’s, an Irish pub in midtown with a fine wooden dance floor. (121 W. 45th St. For more information, visit www.letszydeco.com.)

 

MERCURY LOUNGE

217 E. Houston St. (212-260-4700)—Jan. 9: The Rural Alberta Advantage, a Canada-based indie-rock group with lyrics that focus on life in central and northern Alberta, performs songs from “Hometowns,” its 2008 début record. The album was rereleased this past summer on Saddle Creek Records, the label founded by the Omaha ambassador (and Bright Eyes front man) Conor Oberst. Nils Edenloff’s syrupy-sweet and crackling voice strains in the upper register, reaching toward an earnestness born from crisp, cold nights on the open prairies. The group is joined by the beloved Brooklyn sextet the Loom, who have lately been guiding their chamber-folk sound to decidedly louder sonic territory. Jan. 10: The abrasive surf-punk of Agent Orange, West Coast underground stalwarts for the past thirty years. Jan. 11: Hazmat Modine, One Ring Zero, Las Rubias Del Norte, and the Wingdale Community Singers.

 

MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG

66 N. 6th St., Brooklyn (718-486-5400)—Jan. 9: The Descendents remain one of the most influential and lasting pop-punk acts of the past three decades, but their spin-off, All, is unfairly neglected by critics and listeners alike. All was formed in the late eighties, when the bespectacled Descendents front man, Milo Aukerman, left to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry and the remaining members decided to continue bringing their quirky music to the masses. Jan. 12: The Hot Rats, a self-proclaimed “psychedelic punk” band, features the vocalist and guitarist Gaz Coombes and the drummer Danny Goffey (who are two-thirds of the nineties Britpop stars Supergrass). They’ve been laboring under the tutelage of the producer Nigel Godrich (a revered studio helmsman who has worked with Radiohead, Beck, and Paul McCartney), and their forthcoming album will include spirited cover versions of tunes by the Velvet Underground, the Sex Pistols, the Beastie Boys, and other acts.

 

TERMINAL 5

610 W. 56th St. (212-582-6600)—Levon Helm, the legendary drummer for the Band who regularly hosts “Midnight Ramble,” a series of intimate concerts at his home and studio in Woodstock, heads into town on Jan. 7. A throat-cancer survivor, Helm lost his voice earlier this year, but he recently had a lesion removed from his vocal cords and he’s slowly been easing back into singing. With the folk-rock outfit Okkervil River.