Weekly Music Picks: Rocking Past the Rain

Coming into a Monday after a long weekend feels so wrong. Friday's off are usually arranged through vacation time or, cough, a sick day. Last week the veterans made us do it. But it's back to work and it's raining buckets with no sun in sight for the first part of the week. Luckily we've got some great music to keep us going this week. From enduring jazz superstars to indie rockers you might never be able to forget to those guys who rock a treadmill like no other. Take in some shows this week, before Seasonal Affective Disorder sets in.

Tuesday 11/14
Joanna Newsom
The Lillian-Gish-on-smack indie-harper was just at the MFA last month; tomorrow night she returns with a new album and Drag City labelmate P.G. Six in tow. It'll take you a couple songs to get over her voice and then a couple weeks to get over the show.
Somerville Theatre, 8 pm, $17.50
Joanna Newsom: web site | The Sprout & the Bean (music video) | Sadie (live)
P.G. Six: web site | myspace

Wednesday 11/15
Amy Millan
Montreal chanteuse returns to the Paradise sans co-Stars or Social Scene.
Paradise Rock Club, 18+, 7 pm, $12
Amy Millan: web site | myspace | Your Ex Lover Is Dead (with sans co-Stars) .mp3 | Major Label Debut (music video, with Broken Social Scene) | Baby I (music video)

Lupe Fiasco
Has Lupe been overhyped? (Has Borat?) Hell yeah. Does that mean Lupe (or Sacha) is not worthy? Hell no! Lupe's Food & Liquor will find a place on many a year end best of list. And we haven't been able to stop spinning the Neptunes produced "I Gotcha" and "Daydreaming" (feat. Jill Scott and an I Monster sample) for weeks-on-end. With Boston's Prone2 (CD release party), J.Rize, and Soular Prominence.
Middle East Downstairs, 18+, $20 adv / $25 dos, 9pm
Lupe Fiasco: website | myspace | daydreaming feat. Jill Scott.mp3 (clip)
Prone2: myspace | J.Rize: website

Annuals and Evangelicals
So many good things have been said about each of these acts individually. They've been on again off again stage mates. See them together tonight.
T.T. the Bear's Place, $9, 9 pm
Annuals: Myspace | Complete or Completing.mp3
Evangelicals: Myspace | Hello Jenn, I'm a Mess.mp3

Thursday 11/16
The Lot Six, Mittens, Age Rings, etc.
Say farewell. We've heard rumors that Mittens were talking about disbanding – but this week we're sure of a sad fact: The Lot Six play their final show ever, anywhere this week. Friends join them on the bill for a knockout set of local music.
Middle East Downstairs, 18+, 6pm doors, $12
The Lot Six: Myspace | PureVolume
Mittens: Myspace

OK Go
Power-pop quartet OK Go is responsible for some of the most creative low-budget music videos in recent memory, including one for "Here It Goes Again" that takes white-boy choreography to new levels. They'rejoined by Glasglow-based The Cinematics.
Avalon, all ages, 8 pm doors
OK Go: website | YouTube
The Cinematics: website | myspace

Jamie Lidell and Kid Koala
Jamie's Multiply moves away from "Warped" electro and mutant funk to focus on his blue eyed soul vocals, "real" songs, and live instruments. The result is a delicious soul funk groove. Like someone dumped a bunch digital equipment into the old Stax studios and invited Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Otis Reading over to play. With Kid Koala, "Your Mom's Favorite DJ," (and certainly one of Bostonist's).
Paradise Rock Club, 18+, 8pm doors, $15
Jamie Lidell: website | myspace | purchase
Kid Koala: website | myspace | scurvy.mp3

Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood
The jam band hordes are dancing with glee and soul jazz fans of every stripe are smiling because MMW have teamed up again with guitarist John Scofield. MSMW's new groove laden album, Out Louder, is chock full of "music not of this world, yet rooted in the earth tones of jazz, funk, and blues."
Berklee Performance Center, 7:30pm, $25, SOLD OUT
MMW: website | myspace | purchase
John Scofield: website | myspace | purchase
MSMW: tequila & chocolate.mp3 (clip) | down the tube.mp3 (clip)

Friday 11/17
Thunderdome
Thunderdome is 2 floors, 2 live acts, 7 DJ's, and "utter insanity, featuring some of the rowdiest talent New England has coughed up from its post-industrial, pre-condo lungs." With San Serac, Triangle Forest, Redd Foxx, Mistaker, Baltimoroder, David Day, and friends.
Elks Lodge, 55 Bishop Allen Rd, Central Square, Cambridge, 9pm, $7
Thunderdome: myspace | sQuare Productions: website

Saturday 11/18
Sia
Australian pop singer Sia Furler has done vocals for Zero 7 and has seen a few singles emerge as underground club hits, but she's probably most famous at the moment for her song "Breathe Me," which accompanies the heart-rending final scene in the series finale of Six Feet Under.
Paradise Rock Club, 18+, $15, 9 pm
Sia: website | myspace

The Detroit Cobras
Bostonist's hands-down favorite old school, gut bustin' rock 'n' soul bad girls, the Detroit Cobras (Rachel Nagy & Mary Ramirez), have been described thus: "If Iggy Pop, Berry Gordy, and Jackie DeShannon fornicated in the back seat of a '63 Thunderbird, the drunken, swaggering Detroit Cobras would slither from the orgiastic rendezvous." Need we say more? With Taylor Hollingsworth & the Spidereaters and the Downbeat 5.
TT the Bear's, 18+, $12, 9:30pm
Detroit Cobras: website | myspace | purchase | i wanna holler (but the town's too small).mp3 | he did it.mp3

Matt Durutti, Adrienne Aldredge, and C. Fernsebner contributed to this week's picks