Rock Picks

Conjoined quadruplets Lovelikefire

Charley Horse: The bodies are piling up. (Courtesy Acetate Records)

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More About

• Mr. T
• John Vanderslice
• Annie Clark
• Jimmy Tamborello
• Modest Mouse

THURSDAY, MAY 10St. Vincent, John Vanderslice at Largo

Annie Clark comes from a mob background. As a member of two sprawling collectives (Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band), she’s been a lone voice amid large ensemble casts. But when Clark transforms into St. Vincent, she sheds the multicolored robes and cheerleader outfits of those other acts to step forward and reveal her own lovely persona, and it’s quite a sight to behold. Her debut, Marry Me (on Beggars Banquet, due in July), is rife with gorgeous arrangements that invoke similarly expansive artists such as Kate Bush and Tori Amos at their most inspired, all performed with an uplifting, childlike glee. She supports John Vanderslice, late of ’90s alt-rockers MK Ultra, who has forged a stellar live rep with his clever troubadour tendencies, four-tracked daydreams and wry wordplay. Bill Gates, beware... (Scott T. Sterling)

Peachfuzz at the Echo

Remember when the radio used to play power-pop songs that would stick in your head all summer as you went driving around in your convertible? Yeah, me neither. But if such a thing were possible, L.A.’s Peachfuzz would be the perfect soundtrack for late-night cruising, drinking chocolate shakes, making out and falling in love. The nostalgic rocker “Hero of Nineteen Eighty Three,” from Peachfuzz’s new CD, Catch Your Snap (Teenacide Records), is already getting pre-release airplay on Little Steven’s nationally syndicated radio program, Underground Garage, and the rest of the album’s packed with similarly hook-filled tunes. “Change Her Mind” rides along on a compulsively hypnotic descending riff, frosted with the sugary icing of yearning Big Star–style harmonies, while the dusty, slide-guitar-wallowing ballad “L.A. Is Where I Belong” comes off like a folksy answer to the Kinks’ “This Is Where I Belong.” Singer-guitarist Andrew Chojnacki’s lyrics are silly and sarcastic — and more memorable than you might expect from song titles like “The Devil’s Underwear.” Eat a peach. (Falling James)

Also playing Thursday:

CHEATIN’ KIND at Alex’s Bar; THE RAVE-UPS at Blue Cafe; CAREY FOSSE, MARCOS FERNANDES & EMILY HAY at Il Corral; THE CAT EMPIRE at Key Club; GOLDFINGER at Knitting Factory; STARLITE DESPERATION at Spaceland; MATT SKIBA, CHUCK RAGAN at the Troubadour.

FRIDAY, MAY 11Lavender Diamond, Jimmy Tamborello at Amoeba Music

First feted — and rightfully so — in this very paper, Becky Stark’s Lavender Diamond (featuring Steve Gregoropoulos of W.A.C.O. on piano, graphic blandisher Ron RegĂ© Jr. on drums and Jeffrey Rosenberg on guitar) has unsurprisingly gone on to great things. She delivers her shimmering version of pop Xanadu in support of the new album Imagine Our Love (Matador), bringing an unearthly level of calm to a store with more sensory overload than 20 Internet personality tests bukkake-ing you at once. Her voice is such that it’ll sound beautiful even on that crappy camera-phone with which you’re recording their set to upload to YouTube. And, if that weren’t enough, an hour later there’s a whole other level of unrelated cognitive dissonance giving you a baggie for your teeth when Jimmy “Dntel” Tamborello of the Postal Service gently caresses those wheels of steel to promote his latest release, Dumb Luck, on Sub Pop, a twinkling five-inch platter of friendship, trip-hop and sentimentality aplenty. Lavender Diamond at 7 p.m., Tamborello at 8 p.m.; free. (David Cotner)

Lovelikefire at El Cid

If this were the U.K, the British press would be argy-bargying one another for bragging rights for discovering this irresistible foursome from San Francisco. Let’s ignore the fact that they sound a hell of a lot like the Cranberries, because that might be a turn-off to some of you, though one cannot overlook the overactive larynx of lead singer Ann Yu, who is simply startling and gorgeous. The band — David Farrell, Ted Parker, Jesse Hayes — provide the surge to songs that engulf and heave you like a raging ocean. Pick hit: every damn, thrilling track off their Bed of Gold EP. They’re playing at El Cid every Friday in May. (Libby Molyneaux)

Dinosaur Jr. at the Troubadour

The original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. likely titled Beyond, their first album together in nearly 20 years, as a nod to personal differences overcome for the sake of trio-powered electricity and reunion-gig paydays. Reverting to the quasi-deco logo of the band’s early SST releases, Beyond almost literally picks up where witch-haired, distortion maestro J Mascis left off in ’88. But Mascis hasn’t exactly devolved from the exceedingly expansive, bong-water-dappled arrangements he pursued as Dinosaur Jr. into the mid-’90s. He’s just galvanized by the return of Lou Barlow’s jagged thickets of gnarly bass and the muscular drum-kit rollick of Murph. The three resume that singular whirl (blisteringly loud, it should be noted, so spring for earplugs) where classic-rock heroism is tattered and sandblasted, its crumbled chunks dolloped at the sloppy speed of punk and laced with the white-hot scrawl of Mascis’ sunburst solos and his barely-audible mellifluous croak. Thru Sun. (Bernardo Rondeau)

Clorox Girls at Pehrspace

Back in 1980, when Redd Kross were still spelling their name as “Red Cross,” they released a bratty ode to bleached-blonde punkettes called “Clorox Girls.” Fast-forward a couple decades to 2003 in Oakland, where a trio of guys named their new band in honor of the old Red Cross anthem. Now based in Portland, Clorox Girls just released their third album, J’aime les Filles (BYO Records), a 14-song collection of short-&-fast rants whose flippant lyrics and giddy melodies have more in common with such early L.A. punk bands as Rhino 39, Urinals, the Dickies and Angry Samoans than they do with the slick metallic roar of modern corporate-punk outfits. The CD combines silly original tunes like “Total Babe” and “Flowers of Evil” with a zippy cover of Lio’s ’70s French-pop hit “Le Banana Split.” The Girls have a good ear for catchy hooks on “Looking at You” (not the MC5 song), the Rutlesque pure-pop mania of “Stuck in a Hole” and the aptly titled “Nothing’s Too Deep.” Think of them as Oregon’s answer to the Fratellis. Fun, fun, fun. (Falling James)