UPDATE: The show is canceled, according to this blog post on Less Than Jake's MySpace.

Definitive Jux rapper Cage plays the Showbox at the Market, opening for Less Than Jake (huh?). I'm not really feeling his latest album, the more rap-rock-centric Depart From Me, but 2005's Hell's Winter contains some of the most harrowing lyrics of the '00s and excellent productions by El-P, DJ Shadow, Blockhead, Camu Tao, and RJD2. Let's hope Cage performs a fair number of tracks from that work.

Cold Cave, Former Ghosts

(Vera) What do you do when your self-destructive hardcore band finally exhausts itself? Furthermore, what do you do when one of the most embarrassingly popular modern pop-rock acts—Fall Out Boy—plagiarizes large chunks of your lyrics and attempts to pass them off as their own? Well, you take legal action against said pop band, claim a sizable chunk of cash, and begin crafting brooding bedroom electro pop for your own amusement. Such is the story for Cold Cave, the solo project of former Give Up the Ghost/Some Girls vocalist Wesley Eisold. Any hardcore kids looking for vestiges of Eisold's gritty and venomous tirades will be disappointed to hear Cold Cave's fragile and somber numbers. But anyone craving the morose electronic sounds of the early '80s will rejoice to hear this sound resurrected. BRIAN COOK See also Stranger Suggests.

Simian Mobile Disco, JDH, Dave P

(Neumos) Simian Mobile Disco's sophomore album, Temporary Pleasure, takes an approach not uncommon for marquee electronic acts—namely, calling up what seems like nearly every vocalist they've ever remixed or produced for a guest appearance. As often happens with this scenario, the results can feel uneven and cobbled together more out of expediency than out of any kind of grand plan for an album. What works: the gauzy, falsetto motorik-lite of "Cream Dream"; the corny "Audacity of Huge"; the Beth Ditto—led neon disco ballad "Cruel Intentions"; the satisfyingly sour, Hot Chip—assisted "Bad Blood"; as well as steam-building instrumentals like "10000 Horses Can't Be Wrong" and "Ambulance" and the minimally vocal "Synthesise." What fails: hip-house track "Turn Up the Dial"; "Off the Map," which criminally squanders weirdo soul singer Jamie Lidell; and the Telepathe-featuring "Pinball." What never fails: the duo's eyeball-searing, ass-moving, always incredible live sets. ERIC GRANDY

And there's always more in our complete music calendar listings.

Max Tundra, Deastro, U.S.F.

(Nectar) Both Max Tundra and Deastro are prodigious, precious one-man electro-pop bands. But where Max Tundra is hyperactive (playing all parts himself, jumping from one of many instruments to another live) and arch (odd songs about internet romance, references to Kevin Blechdom and Maya Deren, a love song for his favorite synthesizer), Deastro is mellow (playing with a live band to flesh out his compositions) and earnest, singing more straightforwardly emotive songs. His productions are precise and pleasurable, though—busy, frequently beautiful things that take just slightly less careening turns than do Tundra's. Opening are Seattle chillwave duo U.S.F., whose ambient, tropical tones will be an easy warm-up for the show and a welcome contrast to the seasonal cold. ERIC GRANDY

The Lashes, Thee Emergency, Curtains for You

(Crocodile) Back before the haters and anonymous commentators set their sights on Mad Rad, the Lashes were the foremost targets of passive-aggressive lament in the Seattle music scene. But as Salvador Dalí said, "The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents." Success for the Lashes was brief—they released one album of bratty power pop, the John Goodmanson—produced Get It, on Columbia Records. Shortly thereafter, the label summarily dropped them when guitarist Eric Howk suffered a tragic fall that left him in a wheelchair for life. Tonight is billed as a "one-time reunion show" and will no doubt be attended by a sizable Seattle fan base. The haters will presumably be at home, firmly lodged behind their keyboards, spewing bile at anyone having more fun than they are. See the rest of you at the show! GRANT BRISSEY

The Moondoggies, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter, Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs

(Showbox at the Market) All pretenses of creating innovative, 21st-century music drop with the Moondoggies; rather, they focus on writing memorable, sing-along-worthy songs that move in expected laid-back, 'bama-ambling ways (save for the tear-ass bluegrass of "Ol' Blackbird" and the burly chug of "Changing"). The Moondoggies' debut album, Don't Be a Stranger, eased its way into the pleasure centers of many people who like country-rock that doesn't suck. The new Moondoggies songs that have surfaced on YouTube via live on-air performances for KEXP suggest a redoubled reiteration of country-folk verities, with melodies rich and resonant enough to make Fleet Foxes shift nervously on their thrones. DAVE SEGAL

Doctor Doctor, Red Dress

(High Dive) Red Dress are a tiny local legend, one of those bands that should've made it but never did and whose members drifted off to other projects and have now drifted back together again. (You'll recognize some of them from the Moisture Festival house band and other vaudeville groups.) In the mid-'90s, nothing sounded quite like Red Dress and nothing still does. They're both jagged and melodic with some Talking Heads running through their songs and a little zydeco rhythm and flash hiding beneath it all—clearly the result of an original musical vision. Singer Gary Minkler squeaks and croons about awkward teenage pterodactyls, eating mice ("mousies"), and a dude who is actually a robot. They're not pretty young things anymore, but they still know how to jerk and groove. BRENDAN KILEY

Sex Panther, Luxury A.K., Taybot, Three Ninjas

(Skylark) Yo, so I've been getting hit up by a local group called Sex Panther (originally hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan) for a little while now. I wasn't sure it was gonna be my bag of schwag, especially when I saw that they sold branded thong underwear on their MySpace page. But upon further review, I can fuck with this. Infer-know and Action Jackson are kind of bro-gimmicky (see thong), but the beats are solid and the rhymes funny and well spit. Plus they have a yen for funny movie samples—there's the Army of Darkness—sampling "Boomstick" and the Old School jawn "Scorpion Woman" (incorporating a yelling Bruce Campbell or Will Ferrell into your hook is a plus in my book). If you're out in the West and want to see if they really do work every time (60 percent of the time), they're playing the Skylark (known to many West Side shitbags as the former Legends) on November 28 with Luxury A.K., Taybot, and Three Ninjas. LARRY MIZELL JR.