Music Picks: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Esperanza Spalding, Jack White

Michael Landau, Dusty Meadows

THE BAKED POTATO

Jack White. See Monday.

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• Esperanza Spalding
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Michael Landau is one of the most respected guitarists in the world. When he isn't off touring with James Taylor, Seal or Renegade Creation with Robben Ford, Landau plays with his own band, drawing guitarists by the fistful to hear the "God of Tone." Landau also nurtures talented young area musicians, including guitarist Dustin Boyer. Boyer's main gig is with the Velvet Underground's John Cale, and on occasion offering his own solo material through the Dusty Meadows Band. Boyer's own songs include "Crack Rock Girl" (sample line: "Her teeth were missing but I loved to kiss her/She smells like a Dumpster damn do I miss her"), and cover tunes can include anything from Prince to death metal. Baked Potato owner Justin Randi calls Boyer's new CD (free at the show) "brilliant" and "deeply disturbed." —Tom Meek

Also playing:

WUNDERBAUM, TOUKI DELPHINE at REDCAT; ENTHRALLER at Cobalt Cafe; DUSTBOWL REVIVAL, DJ BOSS HARMONY at Del Monte Speakeasy; MOTHERS OF GUT, HABITS at Pehrspace; COLIN STETSON at Dilettante.

sun 4/29

Baaba with Masters of Polish Animation

CINEFAMILY

Co-presented by the Polish Cultural Institute New York and the Unsound New York Festival, here is the great Cinefamily's Animation Breakdown part 2, a super-choice batch of short films from Poland circa the 1950s and '60s. Infused with the devilish irony that typifies the work of postwar Polish artists in the ruptured reality of their ruined homeland, directors including Jan Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk and Zbigniew Rybczynski conceived films that stitched together idiosyncratically avant design and graphic art with surrealist theater and puppetry in mind-blowing displays of absurdist allegory and fractured narrative lines. Tonight's sampling is screened from cleaned-up, very rare 35mm prints; Warsaw-based prog-jazz stars Baaba reinterpret the films live with aptly eclectic mutations of jazz, rock and electronic sounds. —John Payne

Also playing:

ANGRY SAMOANS at the Redwood Bar & Grill.

mon 4/30

Jack White

MAYAN

Don't let the killer freak-metal single "Sixteen Saltines" fool you: On Blunderbuss, his just-released solo debut, former White Stripes frontman Jack White gets back to the old-timey roots-music biz he's mostly neglected of late with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. Whether or not that's a good thing depends, of course, on your appetite for mournful folk laments ("I Guess I Should Go to Sleep"), shuffling country-soul ditties ("Love Interruption") and ramshackle blues jams in which White hilariously pronounces "nervous" as "noy-vus" ("I'm Shakin," by Rudy Toombs). Last month on Saturday Night Live White performed one tune with an all-lady band and one with an all-dude band. His rep says he travels with both, FYI, and won't decide until Monday morning which one he'll bring to the Mayan. —Mikael Wood

The Crystelles

LOS GLOBOS

The Crystelles are a blues band in the same way that a demolition derby is a pleasant Sunday drive in the country. Singer Gitane Demone doesn't howl as if she's got hellhounds on her trail. Instead, she sings from the point of view of the hellhound. She's a besieged creature, a feral witch survivor, clawing back while conjuring incantations of real magic and shadowy weirdness. "They think I'm a whore," she rails in cheery ditties like "Outcast of Society." Demone has had a lot of experience trading in mystery, getting her start in the 1980s with goth iconoclasts Christian Death. Keeping the circle unbroken with her drummer-daughter Zara Kand in the Crystelles, Demone alternates between primitive, primal garage-blues rumbles like "Black Water" and such unexpectedly pretty cabaret ballads as "Golden Age." —Falling James

Gangi

BOOTLEG BAR

"Experimental" doesn't quite cut it when you're attempting to describe certain, uh, "indie" bands. Matt Gangi and Eric Chramosta make a lot of sounds that melt down via guitar/drums/synths/samples into an aural collage that seems aimed at warping any expectations you might have about ... what to expect. We won't discuss their "influences," either, just note that their genuinely psychedelic music is fully laden with obscure pop-culture referential stuff that has a way of making you nod your head like a cool guy or girl, like you "get" it. It rocks in significant ways, in other words, like, you could dance to it if you felt so inclined. Gangi have a new album called Gesture Is coming out imminently. —John Payne

Also playing:

JOHN CARPENTER at Los Globos; EVE 6 at Troubadour.

tue 5/1

Curren$y

FONDA THEATER

Last time the NoLA rapper rolled into town, he was nursing a broken ankle and set up the stage like his living room. But if you were under the impression that the hardest-working pothead in the game would use the injury (which happened after he hopped offstage at Rock the Bells to greet his fans) as an excuse to relax in a La-Z-Boy, forget it. For such a stoner, the dude's an incredible showman. At times, he almost flew off the couch by sheer force of will. Being incredibly prolific can result in putting out a few dud records, and Curren$y has released a couple less-than-stellar EPs this year. But no matter — those were just for fun, and if anything, nonchalant raps about Ferrari dreams-come-true and a never-ending supply of sticky green makes for great background music when you're dipping into your own. —Rebecca Haithcoat