Boris, On tour
It turns out that not all Borises are charming blond philanderers. This one, for instance, is a Japanese heavy psychedelic rock band. Named after a song by Washington State's grunge godfathers Melvins, Boris are renowned for occupying the extremes, juxtaposing a penchant for punishing Sabbath-style riffage with yearning melodies and deep, hypnotic drones. As if to demonstrate their range, they've just released two contrasting LPs: Heavy Rocks is a primal, howling, wounded beast of a record, featuring the Cult's Ian Astbury on backing vocals; while Attention Please is an album of ethereal post-punk, sung entirely by female guitarist Wata. Their live show is likely to lean more heavily on the former than the latter, so bring your earplugs ? Boris, unlike their mayoral namesake, are not a band prone to ineffectual bluster.
University Of London Union, WC1, Sun; Islington Mill, Salford, Mon; The Fleece, Bristol, Tue
Sam Richards
John Grant, On tour
John Grant was a surprise name in many critics' end-of-2010 polls, although the Denver singer-songwriter is far from an overnight sensation. He spent a decade toiling away as frontman for under- appreciated alt-rock band the Czars before finally gaining traction as a solo artist with last year's Queen Of Denmark, a collaboration with the band Midlake that rather outshone their own lacklustre recent album. It revealed Grant to be a man haunted by plentiful demons, channelled into elegant and colourfully cynical piano ballads in the manner of Mssrs Nilsson and Newman. A night of uneasy listing awaits.
Komedia, Bath, Wed; Assembly, Leamington Spa, Thu; Holy Trinity Church, Leeds, Fri
SR
The Sonics & Wire, London
The highlight of Ray Davies's Meltdown is this double bill featuring two of the most influential bands in rock history. The Sonics were the ultimate mid-60s garage-rock band, playing loud, fast and raw, and yelling dementedly about psychos, witches and strychnine while most of their peers were still trilling politely about holding hands and surfing. Their enduring influence on punk, psychobilly and any group of feral young men strapping on guitars for the first time resulted in the key original members reforming to play a couple of New York shows in 2007, and the remarkably sprightly unit has kept rocking ever since. They're joined by taciturn post-punk explorers Wire, who have incidentally just made their best album since the late 70s in the form of Red Barked Tree. The searing intensity of both bands' material should ensure that this is not an evening of cosy nostalgia but a celebration of renegade rock'n'roll kicks.
Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Sat
SR
Dr Lonnie Smith, Brighton & London
The turban-clad Dr Lonnie Smith has been preaching the earthy, infectiously bluesy and emphatically grooving gospel of the Hammond B3 organ for five decades, and on over 70 albums. Buffalo-born Smith emerged in the late-60s, a self-taught virtuoso who had been spotted by guitarist George Benson at Buffalo's Pine Grill club, after which he moved to New York as a sideman in Benson's band. Smith signed to Blue Note after playing on saxophonist Lou Donaldson's soul-jazz hit Alligator Boogaloo, and took off on a spectacular career that found him onstage or in studios with artists from Dizzy Gillespie and Joe Lovano to funk stars King Curtis and Grover Washington Jr. He's hailed as one of the architects of the acid jazz movement, and his playing has been widely sampled by DJs. These shows also feature fast-rising young New York guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and Texas drummer Jamire Williams.
The Basement, Brighton, Sat; Ronnie Scott's, W1, Mon, Tue
John Fordham
Two Boys, London
Nico Muhly is such a hot musical property that it's quite a coup for ENO to land the world premiere of his first opera. His connections with different musical worlds are multifarious: he's assisted Philip Glass, written a film score for Stephen Daldry and worked with Bj�rk, as well as producing his own gleefully eclectic music which already covers a huge range of genres. The opera Two Boys is based upon a true event where a 14-year-old schoolboy used the internet to persuade an older boy to stab him. Muhly describes it as a blend of Britten's The Turn Of The Screw and Prime Suspect; what might have happened if the children in Britten's opera had the internet at their disposal.
London Coliseum, WC2, Fri
Andrew Clements
Listen Here! Glasgow
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's long weekend of free concerts at Glasgow's City Halls has become an annual event. It's aimed at breaking down as many musical barriers as possible, and offering something for almost everyone. The four concerts this year certainly cater for a variety of tastes: as well as a chance to sing the choruses of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates Of Penzance with the BBC SSO and the BBC Singers, there's also a programme of love music from Mendelssohn to Francis Lai, together with two concerts that are a bit closer to the orchestra's usual fare. Conductor Andrew Manze and Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth are in residence for the weekend, which begins with a programme of Swedish music, all new to the UK. The following evening, Manze launches the BBC SSO's Vaughan Williams cycle with A London Symphony, while Helseth is the soloist in Iain Hamilton's Concerto for Jazz Trumpet.
City Halls, Fri to 26 Jun
AC
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/18/this-weeks-new-live-music
Paris Hilton Victoria Pratt Shakara Ledard Vanessa Marcil Rachel McAdams
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