Live Music Tonight: Raul Midon, Ships, Ghosts & Liars

Raul Midon

Raul Midon, Courtney Jones
Triple Door Mainstage, $25, 8 p.m.
Only idiots hate it when their favorite musical discovery gets popular, especially when that artist does so by becoming more pop. Pop, of course, doesn’t mean bad. Thankfully, fans of singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Raul Midon don’t have to stress about that; he’s been steeped in universal appeal since Jump Street. His second album, last fall’s World Within a World, continues that all-embracing aesthetic by combining jazz with soul, folk with Latin, all of which is sprinkled with a poppy bounce you never feel guilty—or cheated—for enjoying. (He plays the mouth trumpet, for chrissakes!) It’s a sonic landscape designed by his influences, from Miles Davis to Paul Simon, but which follows Midon’s own blueprints and is as accessible as it is compatible with human experience. Dude may be blind, but he sees. With Courtney Jones.
-- KEVIN CAPP

Ships, Drug Rug, Corridor, Ghosts & Liars
Comet Tavern, $6, 8 p.m.
Inner-band coupledom is a tenuous peril. Even though it can occasionally work out (look at Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore), it’s just not a very good idea. As we all know, when it goes wrong, it can go really, really wrong; that’s why it’s better to just not talk about your relationship. Then, just in case you break up, you’ll spare yourselves the horrific “Don’t Speak” breakup song and never have to make up some ridiculous cover story like, oh, I don’t know, your ex-wife is your sister, maybe? That being said, the two founding members of Drug Rug are a loud-and-proud couple. And though their music is full of sunshine and good-vibe harmonies, they themselves don’t appear to be as flower-power as their name implies. With Ships, Corridor, and Ghosts & Liars.
-- MA’CHELL DUMA LAVASSAR