Singer Rachel Ries, whose voice has been compared with Maria Muldaur, Billie Holliday and Sarah Harmer, is coming to town in support of her recently released album Without a Bird. The multi-instrumentalist and independent recording artist has foregone the digital process by recording and mixing the album analog, creating an intimate effect which will be continued at her performance, to be held at a private home here in Buffalo. Ries will be joined by Ariel Bolles on upright bass and backing vocals, and by local songwriter Brian Wheat, who will open the show as well as join Ries and Bolles throughout the night. The concert, on Friday (Sept. 14) at 8pm, is open to the public. Please call 207-0317 for futher information.

“Rotten Jack’s Creep Show” hits Club Infinity this weekend, on Saturday (Sept. 15) starting at 6pm. Steve Gonsalves from the Sci-Fi Channel hit TV show “Ghost Hunters” is the evening’s featured star, but there’s also a growing list of special guests. Bands including the Rabies (pictured), As Summer Dies, Amnesty Box, Single Grave Ticket and the Lower Town Trio will provide continuous music, vendors with merchandise geared towards horror/Halloween will be on hand, a “Best Horror Scream” contest (just try to beat “Scream Queen” Melinda Blackmore) and appearances by local indie horror directors Greg Lamberson and Jimmyo Burril, artist Tony Mauro, the Queen City Roller Girls and members of WNY Paranormal round out the event. This is Rotten Jack’s Creep Shack’s first annual horror festival, so come on out so the tradition is sure to continue.

Cleveland trio Mystery of Two has often been compared to their hometown forefathers Pere Ubu, and with the release of the band’s debut album, 2007’s Arrows Are All You Know (Exit Stencil), it is clear why. The tension and urgency of the music, the tumultuous lyrics and passionate guitar/bass duels and the gritty realism of the album may be due to a scrappy existence spent in a struggling, mid-sized city (as we Buffalonians know all too well), or simply to a deep and intellectual vision that is all too rare. Either way, Pere Ubu’s influence—as well as that of fIREHOSE, Talking Heads and Television—is keenly felt. In-between new post-rock psychedlia and classic avant-garde, the anguished vocals of Ryan Weitzel meet well with drummer Nick Riley’s rythms and Lonn Schubert’s bass lines, creating a synergy within the weirdness. Mystery of Two comes to Merlin’s on Saturday (Sept. 15) night, with the Rockstar Suicides and Tiger Cried Beef.

One of the pioneering bands of the death-metal genre, Tampa’s Obituary has taken the movement easily into the 21st Century. The seminal 1990 release Cause of Death (Roadrunner Records) really landed this band a place in metal history, and the group continues to produce, most recently signing with Candlelight Records to release 2007’s Xecutioner’s Return, a nod to their roots (the band originally formed in 1985 under the name Xecutioner). Obituary comes to Buffalo as part of Fight Fest 4, which also features Alabama Thunderpussy, Full Blown Chaos, Hemlock, Skinbound, Avulsion, Boss Tribal, Seige of Darkness, Blast and Victim of Sunday. That’s ten bands on two stages at Club Infinity on Sunday (Sept. 16). Doors open at 4pm.

Beloved by Zappa fans as the “Indian of the group,” Jimmy Carl Black provided “drums, vocals, and poverty” for the first eight Mothers of Invention albums and also acted in the cult film 200 Motels. After Zappa disbanded the band, Black participated in a wide variety of blues-based, Zappa-esque, exploratory projects, including the Jack and Jim Show, a duo with avant-weirdo Eugene Chadbourne. Known as an in demand improviser, maverick interpreter of pieces by free jazz and avant-classical composers and absurdist protest-singer with a unique love for American rural music, Chadbourne’s irreverent, Dadaist sense of humor and nimble skill with guitar, banjo and electric rake made the union particularly thrilling (most notably on their second album, Pachuco Cadaver, A Tribute to Captain Beefheart.) Catch the Jack and Jim Show at Soundlab next Thursday (Sept. 20) at 9pm. Performing an opening set— and likely joining Black and Chadbourne for a few pieces—is cellist, vocalist and performance artist Audrey Chen.