Death & Taxes & Good Music

Jokes about taxes usually bring on forced coughs of laughter not unlike the hollow barks that Bill O’Reilly’s fans muster when he tries to be funny and almost always fails. (He’s particularly cringe-inducing when trying out routines while sitting right next to someone who’s actually funny.)

So, if I need a tax-related theme for this week’s Roundup, here’s something: none of these shows will make your wallet all that much thinner than it is already because of, uh, accountacy, money, Uncle Sam, socialism, America, the IRS, and Islam.

Onward.

Zucchero at Turner Hall Ballroom

Adelmo Fornaciari is a pretty cool name, but for the simplicity of pop stardom Zucchero (a nickname meaning “Sugar”) is probably better for this Italian dude, who has been mixing European pop and American blues and soul since he was a teenager.

He’s not quite hit the big time stateside despite having supportive and famous fans ranging from Eric Clapton and Sheryl Crow to producer Don Was, who produced the recent La Sesión Cubana, on which Zucchero connects fraternally with some of the finest players in Havana.

Get yourself some “Sugar,” baby:

Thursday, April 17

Beats Antique at Turner Hall Ballroom

The term “world music” doesn’t call up quite so many negative connotations as “root canal,” but it’s rarely followed by the phrase “awesome super naked dance party” either. That’s why a collective like Beats Antique is worth checking out at least once.

Formed to make music for dancing (belly dancing, specifically) in the mid-2000s, BA has since become its own performance art, capable of siphoning multiple cultural streams at once and of making its work—including A Thousand Faces, a two-disc concept record based on mythologist Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”—by turns elegant and intense, but never boring.

BA will bring the dance party; the naked part is up to you.

Thursday, April 17

Schoolboy Q at the Rave

Even the best rap acts and their best albums can severely test the patience of clear-eared fans, not to mention the “skip” button on CD players and iPods. Quincey Hanley, the West Coast MC known as Schoolboy Q, is just one of the latest testers.

Like most 21^st-century rappers, Q’s reputation rides just as much on his mixtapes as his “official” releases, but he teased this year’s Oxymoron with the advance single “Collard Greens” and a guest list that includes Tyler the Creator and Pharrell Williams…then delivered a full-length journey into his dark heart and mind. Yet it’s hard not to respect the guy for making this queasy trip his opening shot on a major label; just remember that there’s no “skip” button for the live gig.

Friday, April 18

Drivin’ N Cryin’ at Shank Hall

You can’t stop me if you already know this, but Kevn Kinney, the frontman for Drivin’ N Cryin’ is, despite the band’s usual classification as “Southern rock,” from Milwaukee. He’s never kept it secret, either, what with his willingness to come back and play here.

DNC has had a curious career, from its punk-style beginnings in the late 1980s to a flirtation with alternative rock in the 1990s and its current series of raggedly righteous EPs, including Songs For the Turntable. Kinney also recently participated in a soundtrack for the animated spy-series parody “Archer,” so he might be open to playing some of that stuff for the hometown crowd.

Saturday, April 19

Lost in the Trees at Cactus Club

Lost in the Trees might itself have gotten lost had its founder, Ari Picker, not heard enough potential in the group’s 2007 EP, Time Taunts Me, to come back to both the group and his hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, after he graduated from the Berklee College of Music.

That schoolwork was useful to the return: 2012’s A Church That Fits Our Own Needs (a tribute to Picker’s mother, who killed herself in 2009) had the kind of controlled bombast that trained musicians are prepared for, while Past Life, which came out in February, somehow manages to be flowery and restrained at the same time. Picker has found indie pop that is neither too indie nor too pop.