Thursday, March 10
Basia Bulat w/ The Weather Station @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
As a general rule, break-up albums tend to sound lonely, but Basia Bulat’s heartbreak-minded latest album Good Advice finds her in good company. For her fourth record, the Canadian singer-songwriter drove down to Louisville to record with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, who produced in addition to playing guitars, bass, synths and saxophone. The result is Bulat’s snappiest record yet, filled with bright pop songs and nostalgic nods to the girl-group soul music of the early 1960s. This show will mark Bulat’s first time playing the Prospect Avenue Colectivo Café’s Back Room venue.
The Big Pink w/ The Heirs @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
One of the more worthwhile products of Britain’s sometimes overzealous, NME-driven hype machine, The Big Pink parlayed the buzz around their early singles into one of the most glowingly reviewed debut albums of 2009, A Brief History of Love. Seven years later, that record’s large-scale fusion of beefy guitars, shoegazey ambiance and beat-heavy production still holds up, as does that album’s equally grandiose follow-up, 2012’s Future This. The band has been teasing a third album for years, but lately there have been signs of actual progress. This month they released a new EP, Empire Underground.
Friday, March 11
Carly Rae Jepsen w/ Fairground Saints @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 8 p.m.
You could be forgiven for pegging Carly Rae Jepsen as a one-hit wonder. The Canadian pop singer, a runner-up on Canada’s answer to “American Idol,” released one of the biggest songs of 2012, the fizzy sugar-rush “Call Me Maybe,” but no other single from her major-label debut album Kiss had nearly the same reach. So rather than trying to recreate the mass-appeal pop of Kiss, Jepsen attempted something a little riskier for her follow-up E•MO•TION, assembling an elite lineup of indie-minded collaborators, including Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij and producer Ariel Rechtshaid. Collectively, they created one of last year’s best pop albums, an effervescent tribute to the soulful dance-pop of the 1980s. It might not have sold as many records as its predecessor, but it won Jepsen a whole new audience.
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Bob Saget @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
For decades, Bob Saget’s filthy mouth has been one of comedy’s worst-kept secrets. In appearances in movies like Half Baked and The Aristocrats, the former “America’s Funniest Home Videos” host played off of the shock value of seeing the good-natured dad from “Full House” say some of the dirtiest things imaginable. All things come full circle, though, and this year Saget reprised his role as the wholesome father Danny Tanner in Netflix’s “Full House” revival “Fuller House.” (Read our interview with Bob Saget at shepherdexpress.com.)
Saturday, March 12
Leon Bridges w/ Son Little @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
Texas soul singer Leon Bridges prefers his soul the old-fashioned way—the really, really old-fashioned way. On his debut single “Coming Home,” Bridges channeled the swooning early ’60s soul of artists like Sam Cooke, nailing all the period details, from the doo-wop vocals to the dusty guitar licks. And that’s pretty much the template for Bridges’ slick, debut album of the same name. It’s just 10 songs and a half-hour long, but every track hits its mark. So far that nostalgic sound has earned the 26-year-old a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album, an invite to perform on “Saturday Night Live,” and a guest spot on the latest Macklemore album, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made.
Paula Poundstone @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
With her gentle observations on children, cats and the absurdities of everyday life, Paula Poundstone was one of the more visible comedians of the ’90s, appearing regularly on HBO, “The Tonight Show” and “Hollywood Squares” until tabloid-flagging charges of child endangerment after a drunken-driving arrest in 2001 sidelined her career. The frequent “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” panelist has since addressed her struggles with alcohol in her recent stand-up material and her 2006 memoir, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say, which includes ruminations on her career and motherhood.
Sunday, March 13
Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage @ The Riverside Theater, 8 p.m.
Though it’s been overshadowed somewhat by John Williams’ rousing Star Wars score, the Star Trek franchise has its own rich musical history. Over the last half century, composers like James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage have created dramatic scores for the films and TV shows, many of which will be performed by a full symphony orchestra at this grand concert. The orchestra will be accompanied by a 40-foot screen displaying footage from the Star Trek films and TV shows.
Tuesday, March 15
David Cross @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
David Cross was one of the leading figures of the 1990s alternative comedy scene and, along with Bob Odenkirk, the co-host of one of its defining institutions, “Mr. Show with Bob and David,” the HBO sketch-comedy program that featured many of the leading comedians of the era. Like so many staples of that scene, he’s appeared on screen constantly ever since, with dozens of film and TV roles, most notably on “Arrested Development” and “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” This year Cross reunited with Odenkirk for a spiritual sequel to “Mr. Show,” Netflix’s “W/ Bob & David,” which may have made him nostalgic for his old standup days, because he’s now undertaking his first standup tour in more than seven years.
David Cook w/ Tony Lucca @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
Bo Bice and Chris Daughtry introduced “American Idol” to rock music, and fabulously flamboyant rocker Adam Lambert became perhaps the show’s last real star, but so far the only rock singer to actually win Fox’s top-rated competition was David Cook, the soft-spoken boy-next-door whose vision of rock is more Lifehouse and Our Lady Peace than Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. Since winning the show’s seventh season, Cook has faded a good deal from the public consciousness, but he’s still recording. Last year he released his first album since splitting with RCA Records, Digital Vein, which traffics in the kind of soft-edged arena rock that was all the rage during “Idol’s” mid-’00s heyday.
