The week ahead will have its mundane moments. That's just a part of life. However, as per usual, we here at DC9 have more than a few ways to spice it up for you with some live music suggestions. There's the biting satire of Lily Allen, Justin Nozuka's soulful folk, and some free tunes at Sammons Park supplied by the Boxcar Bandits. Without much further adieu, your picks:
Lily Allen With MR Little Jeans, 8 p.m., Monday, September 15, at House of Blues, 2200 N. Lamar St., 214-978-2583 or houseofblues.com/dallas, $38-$59 After a four-year hiatus from music, Lily Allen returned this year with Sheezus, a synth-driven pop record as bubbly as it is sarcastic. If you remember the pint-sized, outspoken Allen for her sunny ska and reggae-colored tunes like 2006's "Smile," a lot has changed in eight years since. In fact, her songs sound a lot closer to Lorde's now. That might strike you as something of a me-too through line in her career's evolution, but what's engaging about Sheezus is that while Allen's beats and melodies want to hang with the Rihannas and Katy Perrys of the world, it's still weird to lump her in with them because she just sounds smarter. Indeed, the interval between records has only seemed to sharpen Allen inimitable sense for satire. Steve Steward
Coheed and Cambria With Thank You Scientist, 7 p.m. Monday, September 15, 2014, at South Side Music Hall, 1135 S. Lamar St., 214-421-2021 or gilleysdallas.com, $30/$35 at the door To celebrate a reissue of Coheed and Cambria's commercial breakthrough, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, the band will perform the 2003 record in its entirety. A number of concert staples come from this album, like "Blood Red Summer" and "A Favor House Atlantic," so it might not seem like a drastically different set than a regular Coheed show from a distance. But, this show is definitely for the hardcore fans, as many of them fell in love with the band with this record - the kind of people that have spent significant time reading the comic books based on the albums and have inked their bodies with artwork. But if you don't go for that degree of fandom, it will still be an enjoyable show. The band has consistently and successfully channeled late-'90s post-hardcore filtered through Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, and Jane's Addiction over seven albums. This is certainly a good way to cure a case of the Mondays. Eric Grubbs
Kopecky Family Band With COIN and Margot Dunn, 8 p.m., Tuesday, September 16, at Club Dada, 2720 Elm St., dadadallas.com, $12-$15 At first glance you might assume that indie rockers Kopecky Family Band are something like a real life version of The Partridge Family. What we have on our hands is not an instance of a bloodline that's so musically inclined they decided to throw together a band. Other than the lead singer, Kelsey, the Kopecky Family Band doesn't bear that last name and none of the members are are related. Rather, the "family [is] bound by the miles on their odometer and by the songs they have crafted over the years." If only all of us could choose our families this way. H. Drew Blackburn
Earth With King Dude and True Widow, 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, September 17, at Club Dada, 2720 Elm St., dadadallas.com, $13 The only list that can rival the amount of former Earth band members is Wilt Chamberlin's list of 20,000 lovers. I kid. I kid. But, the Washington based drone metal band has had a revolving door of members since they were founded in 1989 and the man who's stuck with it all these years is the frontman Dylan Carlson. Carlson has diverted from Earth's original mantra ever so slightly over the course of the band's eight albums. The music isn't as heavy as it once was, but a cloud of impeding doom is still swirling above before thunder strikes. To support their latest, and most accessible record, Primitive and Deadly, Earth will swing by Dada and to provide and a night of bowel shaking bass. HDB
Prom Date With Brave Young Lion and Birds of Night, 9:00 p.m., Wednesday September 17, Hailey's Club, 122 W. Mulberry St. Denton, TX, 940-323-1160, http://www.haileysclub.com, $5-$10 When it comes to taste in music, we go through a certain stage--all of us. At one point, we're under this assumption that the 1980s was filled to the brim with shitty, shitty music. Save for Michael Jackson or Prince, we think the decade was ten years of lackluster music. There are those of us that aren't fortunate enough to leave leave this train of thought, which is a little sad. New wave and synthpop are quite frankly two of the greatest genres to have ever been pumped through a stereo. Thank the heavens when a group of folks decide to revive those genres, like the New Orleans based synth pop quartet, Prom Date. The group's music is chock-full of bright and deep synths, which is enough to make you want to dance yourself clean. And maybe even enough to make you partake in some retro style, which is what the 80s was actually really terrible at. HDB Drive by Truckers With Lucero, 8 p.m., Thursday, September 18, at South Side Ballroom, 1135 S. Lamar, 214-421-2021 or southsideballroomdallas.com, $19.32 It doesn't require a terribly passionate argument to suggest that Athens, Georgia-based Drive by Truckers are perhaps the greatest of all touring Southern rock groups on the road these days. The group, led by native Alabamans Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, have been soaking the U.S. freeways with Jack Daniels for almost two decades now with gritty, country-inflected tales of despair, murder and the darkest sides of Southern living. In what should be considered an impressive feat, the Truckers' latest album, the excellent English Oceans, is the band's tightest collection to date. Their eight previous studio albums have all had an admirable ambition to them that sometimes fell short. Some featured three or more songwriters and lead singers, while others got convoluted by stylistic shifts or were simply too long. But English Oceans features tight narratives and an efficient cohesiveness thanks to all the songs being written and sung only by Hood and Cooley. Oh, and Memphis-based soul rock band Lucero is opening the show, which makes this one of the best alt-country bills of the year in Dallas. Kelly Dearmore
Rakim With DJ Spinderella, -topic, Team from Nowhere, Buffalo Black, Grey Matter, Wild Bill, ThatKidCam, DJ A1, Jay Clipp and MC Leo J, 8 p.m., Thursday, September 18, at Club Dada, 2720 Elm St., dadadallas.com, $20-$25 One funny thing that happens at house parties is watching people stream into the living room one by one because there are two or three dudes in the kitchen (and admit it, it's almost always dudes who do this) who won't shut up about the annals and minutiae of popular music. If you're one of those people, consider driving people away with this question: What would Wu-Tang sound like if Rakim had never rapped? Rakim, along with rhyming partner Eric B., is a game-changer, a rapper whose hypnotically contemplative flow directed hip-hop's parameters in the 1980s from bombastic, simplistic rhyme schemes into the realm of jazz. He's a godfather of the East Coast flow and even now, over 25 years since he and Eric B. dropped the hip-hop cornerstone Paid in Full on the world, his influence is evident in just about anyone who ever rhymed something in the middle of a line or used a sample. SS
Boxcar Bandits 6:30 p.m., Thursday, September 18, at Sammons Park, 2403 Flora St, 214-954-9925, http://www.attpac.org/, FREE Patio Sessions at Sammons Park, which is actually sponsored by this very blog, happens every Thursday evening. The goal is to bring Dallasites in for a nice night of art, food, and free local music. This week the Denton based Americana folk five piece, Boxcar Bandits are stopping by to play a set. The group only has two records: 2008's Smells Like Grass and a live album from 2011 called Live at Dan's Silver Leaf. They're currently at work on a follow up called A Tribute to Doc Watson. You should expect some down home tunes that go well with whiskey or an iced cold tea for the kids and has been aptly dubbed "North Texas Skunkgrass." HDB
Justin Nozuka With David Ryan Harris 7 p.m. Thursday, September 18, at Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave, granadatheater.com, $24-$45 Fun fact: other than being from Canada, Drake and fellow Canadian singer, Justin Nozuka have something in common. That is, they were both on the wonderful teen soap drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation. Granted, Nozuka was only a guest star and Drake a full blown cast member, but small world, eh? A decade later and they're both pretty popular musicians in the US. Nozuka first broke out with his 2007 hit, After Tonight , which is the type of song that is rightfully and perennially played on VH1. Nozuka hasn't crossed over into being a huge mainstream sensation, but his soulful acoustic rock has earned him a dedicated group of fans throughout the Americas. HDB
Donnie McClurkin With Fred Hammond 7 p.m. Thursday, September 18, at Verizon Theatre, 1001 Performance Place Grand Prarie, 3524 Greenville Ave, http://www.verizontheatre.com/, $27.50-$47.50 Gospel music has a huge following, but if you're interested in this, I'm probably preaching to the choir right now. Donnie McClurkin is a minister as well as a three time Grammy award winner with six studio albums under his belt. Over the course of Fred Hammond's 27 year career he's sold over 7 million albums as a solo artist and as a member of the group Commissioned. Hammond has also been the maestro behind numerous records as a producer. The two have joined forces to bring their tour, Festival of Praise to Grand Prairie. HDB