photo by Chrissy Piper

Live Music

Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Finger on the Pulse DJs, Greeley Estates, Jack

Most everyone I talk to about Does It Offend You, Yeah? says that, to varying degrees, yeah, the Reading, England, dance-punk quartet actually does offend them. Something to do with the stomach-churning synthesizers, or the fact that they gleefully rip off everyone from LCD Soundsystem to !!! to Daft Punk (oh, those robot vocals), or that they have a single called “Let’s Make Out.” The sold-out crowd at the TLA a few weeks ago seemed fairly offended, too, when DIOYY? opened for Bloc Party. I don’t really get the hate. I suppose one might need an appreciation for noisy, super distorted electronics to fully dig their addictive grooves, but I suspect tonight’s more appropriate pairing with Nine Inch Nails will go over much better. (Michael Alan Goldberg)

Calling Kinky Friedman a one-of-a-kind is like calling the pope religious. He’s written humorous essays, a popular series of detective novels starring himself and he’s run for governor of Texas, but he’s best known for his cockeyed ’70s country music. Friedman’s satirical irreverence ranges from a hilariously nonjudgmental take on Texas tower shooter Charles Whitman and the chauvinistic bluegrass of “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” to the pointed “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” in which Friedman laments the absence of “carpenters who know what nails are for.” This show is part of a tour celebrating Friedman’s new book What Would Kinky Do?. (Chris Parker)

Finger on the Pulse DJs

Get your party on this weekend with twin brothers Terry Diabolik and DJ Never Forget, the two totally rad halves of Brooklyn’s funky Finger on the Pulse crew. They’ll be spinning a fresh assortment of indie dance and electro tunes with some old soul and R&B thrown into the mix. It’s all taking place at “Live Forever,” the electric dance party thrown by resident DJs JHN RDN and Designer Drugs. If you’re fond of wild, sweaty crowds of pretty Philly natives, then get gussied up for a hedonistic night of pulse-racing debauchery. Living forever may not be an option, but tonight you can at least pretend. (Carolyn Brennan)

Scanning the back of their new CD Go West Young Man, Let the Evil Go East and coming across the tune “Desperate Times Call for Desperate Housewives,” I thought to myself, “Wow. Greeley Estates’ song titles are just as passe as their screamo.” And then I listened to the new disc, and was pleasantly surprised to hear more heaviness and complexity in their spazzy, sometimes melodic attack. Quite possibly it has something to do with the Phoenix quintet’s major lineup overhaul this past year, but singer Ryan Zimmerman (not the Washington Nationals’ third baseman) is still around to shriek and howl like his hair’s on fire while he’s being disemboweled by zombies. (M.A.G.)

Jack Wright

For decades saxophonist Jack Wright has generated a personal approach to open improvisation— sparse and oddly intimate, in the spirit of free jazz but often without its rancor and volume. Playing alone or in small-scale group settings, he tells us a story in split-tones, breath and vocal effects, extensive use of space and glancing references to melodic pitch. Wright is now a lodestar of Philadelphia’s experimental scene, owner of the communal musicians’ dwelling Spring Garden House (spring gardenmusic.com) and proprietor of the philosophically minded blog Shakey Ground. This week he mixes it up with the irrepressible Toshi Makihara, who’s been known to beat the drums with stuffed animals. (David R. Adler)

Just as Ray Davies once sought a distant shore where he could live like an “apeman,” multitasking musician Michael Johnson finds pleasant diversion in his project Ape School. That said, aesthetically it’s less an escape than a woozy communion of his memorable roles in other bands, spanning Holopaw’s vaporous folk, the Lilys’ droning psych and even Daedelus’ squishy glitch. Preparing to at long last succeed his 2004 solo album Nonsense Goes Mudslide with a self-titled Ape School entry in October—you can hear three happily disparate tunes from it via his MySpace—Johnson is poised to make a splash on a colorful bill anchored by Lansing-Dreiden spin-off Violens. (Doug Wallen)

It’s hard keeping up with an artist who cranks out nearly a half-dozen records a year, but it’s worth trying. The pianist-composer hops between New York and Japan to lead trios, quartets and four different big bands, writing dense yet open-ended music in the language of avant-garde jazz, warped electric funk and the folkloric sources of Europe and the East. Turning 50 in October, she celebrates with yet more CDs, including the trio offerings Trace a River and Cloudy Then Sunny. Her new Japanese acoustic quartet, ma-do, arrives in Philly on the heels of Heat Wave, which careens from gripping aural onslaughts to textural abstraction and lyrical calm. (D.R.A.)