The Dwarves, ZEKE, the Insurgence, the Hollowpoints, Marginal Way
(El Corazón) Much ink has been spilled about the shock tactics and crass (read: boring) irony with which longtime San Francisco-by—way-of-Chicago punks the Dwarves dispense their particular brand of rock. Reportedly, though, the live-show component of said shock tactics has been in decline for years. Fair enough, dudes are getting old. Thing is, once you strip away the publicity-stunt mentality (the band were dumped by Sub Pop in the mid-'90s when they issued a fake press release claiming their guitarist had died), all we have left is a whole lot of really short, fast, rudimentary punk songs, replete with clichéd joke lyrics that are less funny now than they were when you were 15. The Dwarves Must Die, their latest album, is now five years old and it has a rap song. GRANT BRISSEY

Luke McKeehan, Sol Calderon, Matt Wood
(Re-bar) Owner of the respected Vancouver label Nordic Trax, McKeehan is touring behind the release of his Many Shades of House Vol. 2 mix. He's been DJing for over 23 years, so you can expect McKeehan to build a well-appointed house set full of luxury fixtures (i.e., congenial, uplifting tracks). He'll be appearing at Uniting Souls's Somethin About House biweekly. DAVE SEGAL

And oh hey, look, Glasvegas are at Chop Suey tonight! Eric Grandy reviewed two of the band's releases in this week's paper—Glasvegas and A Snowflake Fell (and It Felt Like a Kiss). An excerpt:

I have to admit that I don't pay as much attention to the British music tabloids as some folks, so I'm often somewhat blindsided by bands that are already sensations in the UK. So it is with Glasvegas, a Glasgow quartet that combine alternately lugubrious and lusty Scots-accented singing with Spector-via-the Jesus and Mary Chain walls of reverb and feedback, all in the service of big, melodramatic rock ballads (and who have placed on the 2008 Top 10 lists of just about every British publication out there). They are the kind of band (led by ex-footballer James Allan on vocals/rhythm guitar and cousin Rab Allan on lead guitar) that can credibly stretch the well-worn phrase "my baby" into seven or eight syllables and imbue it with some fresh-sounding pathos, then in the coda of the very same song splay the chorus of "You Are My Sunshine" over a wash of shoegaze static guitars and really sell the fuck out of it. And that's just the first song of this highly satisfying self-titled debut.

Read the rest of his thoughts here, then find even more options for tonight in our online calendar.