Wednesday

The Toasters — Saying The Toasters, the band formed in 1982 by British expat Rob “Bucket” Hingley, are responsible for bringing ska stateside isn’t much of an overstatement. Much of the credit (or blame — your call) for ska’s momentary ubiquity in the ’90s belongs to the long-running band and its brass-and-organ accented take on the genre. Indeed, the band owes a heavy debt to forbears The Specials and The English Beat — to say nothing of their Jamaican forbears — but The Toasters effectively imported the two-tone sound and aesthetic, opening the doors for a legion of followers. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7:30 p.m., $10; 791-4413, newbrooklandtavern.com.

Thursday

 

MURS

MURS — Finally, the good guys are winning. From the presidential election to the hip-hop world, it seems that the people that need to be heard are getting greater opportunities. Maybe that’s why underground rap hero MURS titled his latest full-length release Murs For President.



The West Coast rapper, most notable for his three albums’s worth of work with uberproducer 9th Wonder of Little Brother fame, has crafted an album that both pleases the masses and his core underground fanbase. Songs such as “Love And Appreciate” and “You Think You Know Me” displays a bipartisan hybrid of West Coast cadence and East Coast production that is catchy as hell. And that’s not even mentioning MURS getting a co-sign from the infamous blue-Chuck-Taylor-wearing Snoop Dogg on “Time is Now” and getting production assistance from Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, giving high hopes for independent artists looking to ante up the star power while staying true to their sound.

Now, with Warner Bros. helping distribute the project, MURS will be hitting the road as founder of his Paid Dues Tour, which will stops by New Brookland Tavern. True hip-hop coming to Columbia: Now that’s change we can believe in. Kidz in the Hall, Big Pooh and Isaiah open. P. Jacobs
New Brookland Tavern: 8 p.m., $10; 791-4413, newbrooklandtavern.com.

Shawn McDonald — With Contemporary Christian music, there’s always a tendency to follow current trends to reach more people with the music’s message. Oregonian Shawn McDonald is firmly in the CCM camp — indeed, he’s even married to the sister of CCM hitmaker Bethany Dillon — but his music follows its own funky folk-soul muse on Roots, his latest album for Sparrow Records. The new disc includes collaborations with Switchfoot’s John Foreman, among others, and McDonald’s experiences on mission trips to Zimbabwe have inspired a planned book of photographs and stories to benefit international relief organization World Vision. Jake Smith opens this show. K. Oliver
The Watershed: 8:30 p.m., $15 ($12 advance); 957-1887, watershedbooks.net.

The Western Civilization — Houston’s The Western Civilization brings with it a metronomic hypnosis born of steady drum loops and simply constructed arrangements that open plenty of space for two- and three-part vocal counterpoints. The young quartet’s chamber-charm holds water, but the songs don’t vary much in structure or dynamic. Still, the band’s sound is full enough to allow for interesting lines to emerge with gracious subtlety. It’s enough to keep the songs moving fluidly, avoiding tedium and evolving an earnest appeal in the band’s few-frills approach to acoustic-based indie rock. B. Reed
The Whig: 7 p.m., free; 931-8852, thewhig.org.

Friday

Loch Ness Johnny — With all the fuss about that other band that Loch Ness Johnny frontman Donald Merckle and drummer Andrew Hoose are in, American Gun, it might be easy to forget that their preceding group has been going strong for over a decade. Loch Ness Johnny play high-energy Celtic music with an attitude, similar to better-known groups Flogging Molly or The Waterboys. The presence of fiddler Phil Hurd and banjo player Chris Lawther, however, keeps Loch Ness Johnny more traditionally rooted than most of the rest of the Celtic rockers out there. K. Oliver
Hunter-Gatherer: 11 p.m., $5; 798-0540.

Saturday

Cravin’ Melon — The 1990s were good years to be in a South Carolina band, and Cravin’ Melon was one of the most popular this side of Hootie. From 1994 until 2001, the Upstate quartet rode a surge in popularity to a two-disc Mercury Records deal and such Carolina pop-rock classics as “Sweet Tea” and “Come Undone.” Singer Doug Jones released a solo album last year, produced by Hootie’s Mark Bryan, and now the whole band is back and touring all over again. Charleston roots-rockers Crowfield open. 
K. Oliver
Five Points Pub: 10 p.m., $10; 253-7888, 
myspace.com/5pointspub.

Magnetic Flowers — Magnetic Flowers singer-slash-guitarist Jared Pyritz once described his band (in the pages of Free Times, no less) as “If Neil Young had sex with Allen Ginsberg”; we couldn’t have put the fivesome’s penchant for literary folk-rock any better. Also notable: Debuting at this show is brand spanking new Columbia trio From the Land. What we know: From the Land features Steven Walters (ex-From Safety to Where), Brett Lee (ex-Erector Set) and David Robbins (Rockefeller Horsecollar, ex-Shirley Temple of Doom). What we hear: The trio treads in raw, emotionally charged and unnerving instrumental post-punk. Color us excited. Valerie+6 opens. P. Wall
Art Bar: 9 p.m., free; 929-0198, artbarsc.com.

Garry Segal — After 20 years fronting a band, Asheville’s Garry Segal took it down a few notches with his first solo release, Taking Notes. It’s a low-key affair that’s still very blues-oriented, with Segal’s John Hiatt-like vocals and some solid harmonica work front-and-center on songs such as “Cartwheels.” He’s been around long enough to have lots of friends, like Jeff Pevar (Phil Lesh, Ray Charles, CSNY), Phil Rosenthal (Seldom Scene, and Collin Tilton (Van Morrison), but that same level of experience means that they’re just some added flavor to his already potent musical stew of bluesy Americana. Call for directions and reservations. K. Oliver
The Opulent Possum: 6:30 p.m., $15; 776-4849.

Sunday

Trans-Siberian Orchestra — It’s hard to imagine that NBC Symphony Orchestra conductor Peter Wilhousky thought that “Carol of the Bells” — an adaptation of Ukrainian composer Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych’s 1916 piece “Shchedryk” — needed some additional sturm und drang upon composing the Christmas carol in 1936. But some half-century later, an American rock producer did. And thus was born the hardest-rocking group of Christmas carolers of all time.

When Paul O’Neill — producer of Aerosmith, AC/DC and Ted Nugent, among others — formed Trans-Siberian Orchestra with musicians Jon Oliva and Robert Kinkel in 1996, their goal was clear: Make Christmas music kick ass. The idea was to blend the traditional reverent carol with the edge of heavy metal; a melding of the Romantic-era melodies of Mozart and Strauss and the ostentatious theatrics of Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy. The result: Only the most popular touring show of its kind, and one of the highest-grossing acts in the world.

And it’s one hell of a touring show — Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s touring band includes 14 vocalists, 14 musicians and two narrators, and the show itself is divided into two halves, incorporating its revved-up Christmas carols with its own original works.

So sure, it might be a little hokey. But the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is the sum of its parts, hokey in the way that all Christmas songs and rock musicals are hokey — in the end, it’s all good fun, and it’s a good show.

And, if nothing else, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has tons of lasers. And lasers f#!king rule. P. Wall

Colonial Life Arena: 3 and 7 p.m., $20-$55.50; 1-866-447-8499, thecolonialcenter.com.

MC Chris — Lumped somewhat unfairly in the wave of nerd-core rappers, Brooklyn’s MC Chris turned small-scale notoriety (as a voice on Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force) into a cache of singles, including the Star Wars-referencing “Fette’s Vette” — hence the nerd-core associations. Mostly, though, MC Chris is a comic emcee, slinging his upper-register voice through a minefield of rhyming one-liners and energized beats. He’s funny, for sure, but he’s also a force to be reckoned with behind the mic, flowing with ease and geek-chic confidence as he covers topics as wide-ranging as sex-acts and cough-syrup inebriation. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7:30 p.m., $12 ($10 advance); 791-4413, newbrooklandtavern.com.

Monday

25talife — Given that frontman Rick Ta Life (real name: Rick Healy) was a former roadie for Agnostic Front, it should come as no surprise that the band that bears his pseudonymous surname treads in true New-York-F#!king-City-style hardcore. What that means, reader, is tough, slamming, take-no-prisoners street-level hardcore — though 25talife slips more than occasionally into thickheaded, tough-guy metalcore — that delivers a positive message, as evidenced on 1999’s Friendship Loyalty Commitment and the forthcoming Strength Integrity Brotherhood. P. Wall
Headliners: 8 p.m., $11 ($8 advance); 796-2333, headlinerscolumbia.com.

Robert Earl Keen — I almost felt bad for Robert Earl Keen the couple of times I saw him and his band play in local watering holes back in the late ‘90s. The crowd was large and boisterous — clearly fans, but oblivious to the more nuanced parts of Keen’s songwriting, instead choosing to bellow “The Road Goes On Forever” at the top of their lungs all night to the point of drowning out the band. Chances are the audience in Newberry won’t be quite that unruly, so maybe they’ll get to hear how good the Texan’s other songs are. K. Oliver
Newberry Opera House: 8 p.m., $37.50; 276-6264, newberryoperahouse.com.

Bentz Kirby & Friends — When you’re talking about a local music impresario such as Bentz Kirby, the “And Friends” part of this show could be just about anyone, as he’s hosted, helped or otherwise connected to a good chunk of the town’s musicians. For this particular night, Kirby will be bringing his own band, Alien Carnival, which features Mike Fore on harmonica; James Ervin of Analog Moon, who’ll do an acoustic set; and The Dirty Lowdown, which is in the middle of trying to get a decent recording of some of its own energetic rock ‘n’ roll. K. Oliver
Five Points Pub: 9 p.m., $5; 253-7888, 
myspace.com/5pointspub.

Jeffrey Lewis

Jeffrey Lewis — Given the surge that Juno gave Kimya Dawson and Moldy Peaches — and, by extension, the anti-folk genre — it’s hard to fathom how some of Dawson’s New York City anti-folk peers haven’t received the same boost in recognition. Case in point: Jeffrey Lewis, perhaps the finest of all of anti-folk’s unpolished gems.

Lewis got his start at the same New York City Sidewalk Café and anti-folk festivals as Kimya Dawson, Lach and Diane Cluck; indeed, Lewis has performed, collaborated or drawn comics — yes, Lewis is also a comic artist — for each of them. And while he’s musically hard to separate from his anti-folk peers, it’s the subtle, mostly lyrical differences where Lewis shines.

Lewis’ literate, aching tunes are more akin to the poetic storytelling of Leonard Cohen or the fragile, homespun directness of Daniel Johnston than the silly and oft-scatological songs of Dawson or the stand-up-comedy-put-to-song of Lach. Yes, Lewis can be funny (as on “The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane”) and even macabre (“If You Shoot the Head You Kill the Ghoul”), but it’s when he’s spinning lonely, autobiographical tunes that he’s at his best and most magical. Whereas so many of his peers rely solely on shtick, Lewis creates genuine empathy and radiates earnest honesty. If you listen to “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song” and aren’t immediately touched, then you, dear reader, have no soul. The Choir Quit opens. P. Wall
The Whig: 8 p.m., free; 931-8852, thewhig.org.

Tuesday

The Pink Spiders — “Little Razorblade,” from The Pink Spiders’ 2006 album, Teenage Graffiti — produced by The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, no less — is still the best example of the Nashville band’s occasionally brilliant blend of early-’80s power-pop and post-millennial pop-punk. Ascendant synths, mildly snotty vocals and thick walls of guitar, all soldered together with sudden vamps and effervescent energy, make the song a near-perfect chunk of bubblegum. Elsewhere, these elements don’t always seem to mesh as consistently, but at the moments when they do, The Pink Spiders pose like they could be the heir to The Cars throne. 
B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7:30 p.m., $12 ($10 advance); 791-4413, newbrooklandtavern.com.