Music Hometown keytar heroes Freezepop have returned from touring the world (okay, Florida, and the Rust Belt) to once again rock Cambridge, with the help of the The Information, The Main Drag, and Michael Hensley. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $14. Beer Harpoon will hold its St. Patrick's Festival at the brewery on 306 Northern Avenue. Wear galoshes because the floor may well be slick with beer. Harpoon Brewery, 5:30 to 11:00 pm,......

Just before midnight on Saturday, Bostonist was surprised to see Annie Clark flanked by people with musical instruments. Marry Me, her first album as the pseudonymous St. Vincent, gave us the impression that she led a cheerful army of synthesizer-wielding robots, but there she was, in the non-synthetic flesh, with a bassist and a drummer and other humans. Her songs about augury and landmines retained that spooky, clear-eyed quality and, when she wasn't singing......

Music Annie Clark went to Berklee, paid her indie-cred dues in Sufjan Stevens' touring band and the Polyphonic Spree, and named her solo project St. Vincent after a church where which she fell in love and the hospital where Dylan Thomas died. Her songs are chamber pop clad in synthesizers and charm. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $12. Carnal Carnival Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys know how to throw a......

Manchildren Founder of K Records and former member of Beat Happening, Calvin Johnson mastered precious naivete decades before it became the default indie mode. His off-kilter baritone is what sold it, and he's bringing his voice and an acoustic guitar to Cambridge tonight. Teenbeat Records founder Mark Robinson also performs as Cotton Candy. Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square, 7:00pm, $10. Men With Children Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers is returning to......

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' Hometown Throwdown, which concludes tonight at the Middle East, is already going viral. YouTube user ">trebmal007 managed to get some cell-phone video. The sound is terrible, but the following video gives a sense of how packed the Middle East Downstairs was: Miss MP also has a description of the evening (via Universal Hub). Miss MP writes, "Everyone danced. Everyone sang along. Everyone threw their hands up at the right times--even my......

BARONESS Friday, November 30th Middle East Downstairs Cambridge, MA w/ Witchcraft, Radio Moscow 18+ / $10 ADV / $12 DOS MySpace: Baroness The debut EP First by Savannah's Baroness was a bit of al ife-changer. More of a life-reinvigorator. Produced by Phillip Cope of Kylesa, the three tracks harnessed much that had been missing from the blend of technical metal with a heavy dose of stoner meticulousity. To call the Southeast band "metal" is......

Juliette and the Licks Scissors for Lefty, Suffrajett Middle East Downstairs Tonight, 8 p.m., $15 (18+) MySpace She's a J. Lewis making a name for herself in music after an acting career, the frontwoman of an otherwise all-male band, someone known for keeping audiences guessing about how she's going to look, what she's going to wear, what she's going to do. But whereas Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis takes the demure route (as much as one......

British Sea Power with Stardeath & White Dwarfs and Taxpayer Middle East Downstairs Sunday, October 21, 8:00 p.m. 18+, $12 No, they're not Styx, but they're still pretty awesome. British Sea Power are a British (imagine that!) band composed of characters with fanciful monikers like Yan, Noble, Hamilton, and Wood. A boy named Wood? It's too amazing not to love. In addition to calling each other amusing names, British Sea Power craft melodic guitar rock......

Last night Seattle based rockers Minus the Bear played the second of their sold out Boston shows at the Middle East Downstairs. The show proved to be an eclectic mix that pleased the enthusiastic crowd. Ela (pronounced ee-lah) opened the show with a set of straight forward indie rock. Their sound was minimalist and down tempo with a moody edge. Considering they played two hours before the headliner, the turnout was strong and band......

There's something so intoxicating about when a band sells out a show well in advance - all of a sudden, you don't just want tickets, you need them. Your general happiness depends on them. You're willing to do whatever it takes - you just need the tickets in hand so you can skip happily off to the show and walk past everyone else who couldn't get them. Those who weren't willing to sacrifice. The latest......

The Apples in Stereo will be at the Middle East Downstairs tonight at 8:00 pm. It's hard not to smile when you hear the music of the Apples in Stereo. The band's music is relentlessly sunny and irony-free. Yet Robert Schneider and company have managed to win over skeptical hipsters with sheer joy. The Apples in Stereo are already stars in the Ist-a-Verse - check out SFist's interview with bassist Eric Allen and DCist's concert......

The Porn Debate will be at the Middle East Downstairs, Friday, August 10, at 8:00 pm. Visit the official website for details. And, yes, the site plays that skanky seventies porno music. Porn star and reality-television presence Ron Jeremy will debate porn anywhere. He raised a ruckus at Simmons and spoke at Northeastern, and now he's taking his show to the Middle East. Apparently there is money to be made in debating porn. Or just......

Paris is in jail, the Red Sox are on their way to California, Mitt is still running for president, but we're bringing it back to the clubs. Well, the clubs and urban outfitters. Some folks that seem like they've been around forever (dinosaur jr.) and those who legitimately have been around forever (Lee "scratch" Perry) come and visit the nontraditional and traditional venues, respectively, as part of this weeks music picks. Tuesday 6/5 The......

Like just about anyone who thought their love of music was aptly captured onscreen by John Cusack in "High Fidelity," the folks over at Paste Magazine are fond of The Music List. So we weren't terribly surprised to see (via Stereogum) that the mag created a list of the nation's best music venues, broken down into regions. The criteria, as Paste spells it out in their June issue (Parkey Posey on the cover!): We weighed......

After a weekend of rain where all we heard was disgruntled Bostonians complaining, because that's what we do best, about the weather we rock into the week. Miraculously the Red Sox managed to play all their games this past weekend making us furiously check the forecast for WBOS' 14th annual EarthFest coming up this weekend. For us it marks the first of many outdoor events that will happen this summer, and it's Memorial Day......

On the brink of the Summer music scene, two weeks from EarthFest 2007 music doesn’t stop in Boston. Good shows are still to be had on the cheap before the summer festival season is truly upon us. Take a gander at this week's picks and keep on rocking. Wednesday 5/16 The Blow With the release of their latest record, Paper Television, Portland, Oregon's The Blow have finally hit their mark. Earlier recordings were scattered......

This Sunday Project Bread's Walk for Hunger takes over the streets of Boston, Newton, Watertown…oh, you get the picture. The walk starts in the morning and thousands of people will be walking to raise money to support food banks, soup kitchens, and other initiatives across the Commonwealth. There are lots of good shows going on this week – and it's capped off with a weekend extravaganza that includes both Arts First and Harvard Square's......

This week JazzBoston pulls together Jazz Week. More than 150 events, including concerts and lectures are held across the city. Jazz Week shines a light on the diverse and vibrant local jazz scene. It all wraps up with concerts on Sunday. A full line-up as available from the event website. Wednesday, 4/25 Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice Churning out strange, occasionally nostalgic, and frequently psychedelic Americana, James Toth distinguishes himself in the increasingly......

If you look past the fact that the Sox are back at home for their first few games at Fenway this season you'll be able to hear a greater beat on the street. As is often the case there is more good live music going on in town this week than any one person could possibly listen to. Time to clone yourself so you can scoop up a standing room ticket to watch Dice-K......

Cold War Kids played the area twice last weekend, Friday night at the Middle East Downstairs, and Saturday at Northampton’s Pearl Street Nightclub. Both shows sharply contrasted with the California-based indie rockers’ gig at Great Scott last fall, most notably in terms of the crowd. The Great Scott show felt like a house party, complete with technical glitches that the small-but-dedicated crowd, most of whom probably read about the band on an MP3 blog, or......

April Fool's Day is on the Horizon, but we ain't foolin this week. A solid line up of shows – starting with the Tourfilter DJ Night at River Gods – is ahead. It's mid-week heavy this time around so kick it like a rock star and be thankful you can sleep in on Saturday. Monday, 3/26 TourFilter Mixtape Tourfilter founder Chris Marstall will be at River Gods in Cambridge equipped with an evening full......

Since daylight savings time kicked it's been hard to get a good nights sleep. Up too late, and up again the next day too early. This week promises to keep us in that very same groove with a list of great music coming to Boston. Who needs sleep anyway? Don't forget to give your support to Exploit Boston Radio, they've got their fingers crossed that Congress and their favor of big label music will......

After the total lunar eclipse spiced up the night sky this past weekend we've got enough of the visuals. This week we're committed not to go see live music but to go hear live music. This week we're welcoming a few new contributors to the list, have a listen, will ya? Monday 3/5 Badly Drawn Boy It's okay to admit to liking British singer-songwriter Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy. He may write lyrics......

The state of the sidewalks around Boston kept us on our asses this weekend. Not so much of the figurative kind where we sat at home and skipped a show because it was too hard to get around. No, more the literal kind where we kept falling down because of that damn 2" layer of ice that was pretty much everywhere. This week they tell us that the temperature is rising by week's end.......

Frigid temps all week. Hot shows all week. Put them together and you've got a warm soul. Brave the cold and make it out this week, it will totally be worth it. Looking for a little inspiration while you're sitting at your desk this week? Plug in the headphones and pop on over to tourfilter to check out the HypeMachine powered mixtape. Look in the upper right corner and click mixtape, sort it by......

All of a sudden we've got winter. The bonus prize is that it came late enough that when we leave work at 5 o'clock there's still natural light – soon enough it will still be light when we reemerge from the commute home underground on the T. Until the next few weeks pass and we can taste the summer concert and festival season in the spring air we'll continue to keep jamming through the......

Just turning 1 1/2 years old, local power trio The Vital Might are releasing their debut album on their own Let’s Get Awesome label. Obsidian is heavy-laden with guitars and forceful percussion, plus a smattering of psychedelia and dance-rock. Lyrical imagery ranges from black birds over black oceans to mundane T rides into town, delivered in modern-rock vocals and staccato choruses. Morphine's Dana Colley plays saxophone on one of the more contemplative tracks. The band......

Breaking into December and we've finally seen snow. It was brief. If you slept in this morning you likely missed it. Since the cold weather seems like it might finally be upon us we're looking for a way to stay warm. A sure fire way to keep the blood running warm through your veins is to check out a packed rock show with a couple hundred of your closest friends. The local show pick......

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......