Red Bull Big Tune Beat Battle: Elzhi, Black Milk
(Neumos) This year, Big Tune is even bigger than Big Tune—the hometown edition of this now-national, head-to-head producer battle also features some heavy-caliber hiphop performances. Black Milk and Elzhi (he of Slum Village) are both Detroiters who benefited from the late, great Dilla, and two of the most buzz-heavy talents coming up—Milk as a hotly sought-after producer and Elz as simply one of the very best cats touching a mic right now. While this event is dedicated to the beatsmith, the producer, it can’t hurt to have an MC—one who could so easily eat Kanye’s, Game’s, or Lil Wayne’s lunch without even offering them so much as a bite—gracing the stage. LARRY MIZELL JR.

Rancid, Less Than Jake, the Bloodclots
(Showbox Sodo) It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve been able to publicly declare I like Less Than Jake without receiving scorn from my music-snob peers. For a while, the Gainesville, Florida, ska band lost their way—they ditched their horns, they lost their sense of humor, and they polished their records to a ridiculously clean degree. Sigh. Even they didn’t seem to like their songs, live shows were performed with a “going through the motions” slackness. Sigh again. But things might be looking up! The dudes have returned to the sound and the songs when they seemed happiest—their latest album GNV FLA is packed with horns, addictive choruses, humor, and lots of that chika-chika guitar playing that was all over Pezcore. I still might get shit for saying so, but whatever—I fuckin’ like Less Than Jake. Again. MEGAN SELING

Old Time Relijun, the Lights, the Whore Moans
(Comet) Doomsday cults and fire-and-brimstone preachers have been a part of American pop culture ever since England got rid of the Puritans. But few apocalyptically minded ranters are as much unhinged fun as Old Time Relijun. Band leader Arrington de Dionyso and his mates are firmly of the fiddling-while-Rome-burns tradition. On albums like 2012 and Catharsis in Crisis, the band turn the terminal mess of the modern world into a freaked-out, primordial funk racket, a toxic swamp boogie full of dancing demons, wicked witches, and feral fauna. Live, OTR are marked by wobbling upright bass, steady rhythms, bleating saxophone, stabs of guitar, and de Dionyso’s wild-eyed, devilish howling. If the world is going to end, Old Time Relijun at least want you to have one last ecstatic dance. ERIC GRANDY

The Abodox, Patrol
(Jules Maes) It seemed like a waste for jazz-metal mathletes the Abodox to get a second guitarist. Even if it was Blaine Patnode from mythic shredders Swarming Hordes, it just seemed unnecessary. But then they started playing live. Maybe it was coincidental, or maybe because two-thirds of the trio had been sharpening their horns with the psychedelic doomscapes of Lesbian, but when the Abodox became a quartet, their tightly packed shitstorm of epic grind and schizo rock finally made perfect sense. The band is a blood-soaked Trojan horse with time changes and genre shifts that are often baffling but never contrived, with the precision of four dead-eyed snipers. For nearly 10 years, the Abodox have been tweaking and polishing their sound. They knew what they were able to sound like; now everyone else has the chance. SHANE MEHLING

George Duke, Anthony Hamilton
(McCaw Hall) Though this evening’s concert is listed by local smooth-jazz station KWJZ as the “smooth summer finale,” both of the featured artists are capable of a great deal more vitality than that may suggest. There will likely be some real musical merit underneath the wind chimes and cowbells. Keyboardist George Duke transitioned from soul-jazz beginnings alongside Les McCann to full-bore jazz rock with Frank Zappa and Jean-Luc Ponty to virtuosic funk with Stanley Clarke, though the last few decades have found him in an often mawkishly mellow tone. Singer Anthony Hamilton has made some good music in his career but is an always unusual and exquisite singer, most recently evinced on his work in the film American Gangster and as vocal foil to Al Green on Lay It Down. SAM MICKENS

Watch George Duke perform “Sweet Baby.”

Also, in this week’s Data Breaker, Dave Segal suggests the A1 Bassline show at Nectar:

Rough-house/garish-garage auteur A1 Bassline is an ideal Shameless/Naha Army booking for their Balls Out! monthly at Re-bar. The London producer’s elastic, low-end party igniters can dislocate hips and their raucous bon temps aura will have even security staff tapping toes.

You can see everything else that’s happening here.