Central Track Staff
Set My Soul Alight.
Seeing as how two-thirds of the shows we've chosen to highlight tonight are from English bands, we thought we'd let you in on a little secret. It's, like, really expensive for international bands to come play here.
One recent article estimated that it takes at least $15,000 for overseas bands to get here just to play for us. After that, taxes between the U.S. and their home countries take an estimated 40 percent of their earnings from every show. None of that, of course, includes the hassles of securing visas and tour managers, flying with gear, navigating a foreign country, etc. At the end of the day, most of these bands wind up playing for free or, worse, at a loss just for exposure or in hopes of landing a U.S. record deal.
Anyway, alls we're saying is don't take these things for granted. — Cory Graves
Muse at American Airlines Center
For its latest release, this summer's Drones, proggy English rock outfit Muse stripped away much of the electronics and other extraneous elements it experimented with on its last few records in favor of a big, back-to-the-basics arena rock record, which it recorded in a Canadian warehouse last year with super producer Mutt Lange. Right on. — CG
Darwin Deez at Three Links
Nevermind that Darwin Deez looks like a character Fred Armisen would dream up for a Portlandia sketch. His music is loud, noisy, catchy and a little cutesy, making it fully capable of bringing down most any house. Charly Bliss opens. — H. Drew Blackburn
Tesseract at Trees
As far as superfluous subgenres go, it doesn't get much more excessive than in metal. Not content with just being called an English progressive metal, Tesseract helped pioneer the djent subgenre. It's fast, noodly, heavy and is usually made on instruments with a few extra strings tacked on for good measure. Like we said, superfluous. The Contortionist, Tesseract side project Skyharbor, and Erra open. — CG
To find out what else is going on today, this week and beyond, check out our events page.
