[COUNTRY ROCK] + THURS, MAY 16

A Buddhist friend once told me she found great peace by sitting in a comfortable place, shutting her eyes and paying attention to nothing. She said it was like a TV screen with no picture. She'd watch whatever popped up, then watch it disappear. On a recent evening, after days of vexation over the smallest things, I followed her instructions. Some time passed before a figure came into focus: John Fox, bassist with The Twang Junkies during the group's recent show at The Swiss. Having grown up on the local music scene - Blue Baboons, Running With Scissors, Voodoo Ranch, Last Chance Romeos and whatever he and Phil Wood, god rest his soul, could dream up, Fox fits The Twang Junkies perfect - the traditionalist and the rebel, on the surface, may seem like natural enemies. But they often can be friends, and sometimes they're even one and the same. I watched Fox roll with this rockin' country band - from the Hank, Cash, Haggard end to the Stones, Beatles and Bowie side and back. He has incredible rhythm and bottom end. {RON SWARNER}

THE TWANG JUNKIES, 9 p.m., The Swiss, 1904 Jefferson Ave., Tacoma, 253.572.2821

[ROCK] + FRIDAY, MAY 17

I once wrote that Horse Bodies is the kind of band that gives you chills. Perhaps that wasn't the most accurate description. It's deeper than that - a kind of dueling-guitar, gritty-voiced, party-down kind of chill that saturates your being until you are fully engaged in the music. After releasing an impressive new music video, "Back Alley," and climbing their way in Hard Rock Rising, the band is back to rocking their hometown. Hawk Foxman, vocalist and guitarist for Horse Bodies, had this to say about their upcoming show at the 4th Ave Tavern in Oly: "Olympia let me hear you scream and shout! The Horse Bodies are gonna shake, rattle and rock 'n' roll, so don't forget your dancing shoes cause this show is gonna get rowdy!" {Nikki McCoy}

HORSE BODIES, w/C-Leb & The Kettle Black, Nine 50 Nine, 9 p.m., 4th Ave Tav, 210 Fourth Ave., Olympia, $5, 360.786.1444

[PYCH-POP] + SAT, MAY 18

A few years ago, I wrote about a band called Mr. Frederick - a band that I called "indescribable." It was a project from a guy called Justin Stimson and it blended seemingly incompatible elements like rap-rock, folk, prog and chamber pop. It was a complex soup, and it inexplicably actually worked. Stimson's back with a project that somehow manages to be even loopier: mARMITs. There's a full, complicated backstory of the band, involving an "inter-dimensional long shoreman/neon harvester named Wildcat," of which the mARMITs are captives. The rest of the narrative I'll leave for them to describe, but what I will mention is the music, which is once again a delirious concoction that calls to mind other insane innovators like Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, with a distinctively populist bent (music-wise) in search of artistic abstraction. Yeah, I know. Best go out and witness this crazy s---. {REV. ADAM MCCKINNEY}

MARMITS, w/ Vanguard, Simon the Leper, 10 p.m., Le Voyeur, 404 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia, no cover, 360.943.5710

[TROPICAL PUNK] + TUES, MAY 21

Week of Wonders describe their music as "tropical punk," which I suppose is as good a place to start as anywhere. What do they mean when they say this? Upon first listening, the lo-fi guitars and reverb-laden vocals call to mind any of many psychedelic pop revivalists, but then that percussion begins to seep into the fore. The sprightlier the percussion becomes, the easier it is to be whisked away by Week of Wonders to warmer climates, where the murkiness of the humidity starts to soak your brain and encourage flights of fancy and hallucinatory revelry. It's unabashedly cheery music, which is a helpful quality under the near-constant low-hanging clouds of their native home of Seattle. Now that the clouds have begun to break, however, the music of Week of Wonders has nowhere to go but bigger and brighter, unencumbered by perpetual gloom. {REV. AM}

WEEK OF WONDERS, w/ Humble Cub, Shogun Barbie, 8 p.m., Tahoma Tea & Co., 1932 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, cover charge, 253.572.2477