Mdou Moctar, with Patrick Shiroishi
What happens when an internationally acclaimed electric guitar virtuoso who has been hailed as “the Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara” sheds his band for a tour? We will find Saturday when Niger’s Mdou Moctar performs a solo set here at Soda Bar.
A left-handed guitarist who also sings, Moctar portrayed Prince in a Muslim film adaptation of “Purple Rain” titled “Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai.” (That translates as “Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It,” because there is no word for purple in Moctar’s native language.)
His 2024 album, “Funeral for Justice,” is a marvel of assouf, the Tuareg style of music that has become known as desert blues.
Moctar sings in Tamasheq, a language in danger of fading away. His pointed lyrics tackle such topics as ignorance, oppression, failed government policies in his homeland, wanton terrorism, the lasting ravages of French colonialism (which only ended in Niger in 2023), the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources and other timely topics.
On stage with his band, Moctar mixes rock, psychedelia, blues and traditional styles from Niger on songs that often feature his extended guitar solos. He is now on a solo tour to promote his new album, the largely acoustic “Tears of Injustice,” which showcases his impassioned vocals and features new acoustic arrangements of the songs from last year’s “Funeral For Justice” album.
Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi will open the show.
8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., City Heights. $29.87 (must be 21 or older to attend). sodabarmusic.com
The Grass Valley duo Two Runner will debut at the Casbah on Wednesday. (Casbah)
Two Runner
Singer, guitarist and banjo-player Paige Anderson was only 9 years old when she began performing with her parents and three siblings in the aptly named Anderson Family Bluegrass.
She’s 30 now and has been performing in Two Runner for the past three years with violinist and singer Emilie Rose, a 2020 Berklee College of Music graduate.
This talented duo is steeped in bluegrass, country, Appalachian mountain music and other earthy folk-music traditions that are showcased on their absorbing 2023 debut album, “Modern Cowboy.”
Anderson is an accomplished tunesmith whose well-crafted, fuss-free songs are delivered with earthy conviction and carefully calibrated understatement. She and Rose have a natural rapport that should be even more effective in concert than on record.
Here’s hoping the audience at the Casbah will accord Two Runner’s spare, stripped-down music the attentive listening it deserves.
8:30 p.m. next Wednesday, Dec. 3, Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Middletown. $22.68 (must be 21 or older to attend). casbahmusic.com
Jonathan Richman will perform (Drew A. Kelley)
Jonathan Richman & Tommy Larkins
An early progenitor of punk-rock-turned-acoustic-troubadour, Jonathan Richman remains a singular artist who seems to live in another, much simpler time.
The Chico-based troubadour doesn’t have a cellphone or a computer. When not making music, he runs Arcane Masonry, a homegrown company that makes bread and pizza ovens, which may have inspired the title of his six-song 2022 recording, “Cold Pizza and Other Hot Stuff.”
Richman’s best songs are marked by a wide-eyed sense of wonder and innocence that one might expect to find in a child, not a 74-year-old man whose only brush with mainstream success came when he was featured as a musical Greek chorus in the hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary.”
A Boston native, Richman has an unusually broad frame of inspiration for his work, as evidenced by such song titles as “Pablo Picasso,” “Abominable Snowman in the Market,” “No One Was Like Vermeer,” “Little Black Bat,” “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar,” “I’m Straight,” “Our Dog is Getting Older Now,” “Velvet Underground,” “David & Goliath” and “Here Come The Martian Martians.”
On his 18th studio album, this year’s “Only Frozen Sky Anyway,” Richman gracefully confronts issues of mortality. He also transforms The Bee Gees’ 1977 disco hit, “Night Fever,” into an acoustic campfire jamboree, which is no small feat. You can expect to hear it when he performs here next Thursday with his longtime drummer, Tommy Larkins.
Next Thursday, December 4. Belly Up, 143 South Cedros Avenue., Solana Beach. $30-$53 (must be 21 or older to attend). bellyup.com
Also recommended
Saturday, Nov. 29: The Mars Volta, Soma
Sunday, Nov. 30: The Paladins, The Tighten-Ups, Belly Up
Wednesday, Dec. 3: Almost Monday, Music Box