Let The Black Lips off their leashes, set them on an unsuspecting audience and witness the confluence of public nudity, various bodily fluids, remote control car races, indoor fireworks, animal parts and blazing instruments (literally) and turn up their guitars and amps to a concussive, eardrum-shattering level. That’s entertainment.  

It's been 26 years since the Nintendo Entertainment System came to North America, accomplishing the kind of colossal feats that few products do. In another example of how profound the Nintendo's impact was, a thriving subculture is still dedicated to tapping into the machine’s rudimentary sonic palette to make new Electronic music compositions. Chiptune (aka Chip Music) existed before the NES, but today the genre is predominantly associated with that console.  

Young and smartly romantic Australian musician Darren Hanlon will be accompanied at his latest stop at the Southgate House by Shelley Short (who provides harmonies and sings duets with him on I Will Love You At All) and Australian drummer Stephanie Hughes. Short, from Portland, will open the show and sing from her own recordings, with Hanlon and Hughes accompanying her.  

The Winter Blues Fest — created as a cold-weather sister event to the Cincy Blues Society’s massive summertime Cincy Blues Fest — returns to the Southgate House this Friday and Saturday. The event is the main fund-raiser for the Blues in the Schools program, which sends professional local Blues performers into area schools to educate students on the music’s rich history and encourage young musicians to play Blues. The Blues in the Schools Band, featuring some of those young musicians, will kick off both nights of the Winter Blues Fest at 6 p.m.  

Twenty four-year-old composer/performer Ólafur Arnalds has released two albums and three EPs since 2007 and toured with Sigur Ros. His music is infused with the kind of awe for nature one might expect of someone from a nation as beautiful, but cold, as Iceland.  

Patience has not been a particular concern for the Pomegranates since they assembled a mere four years ago. After all, this is the band that wrote its first song at its first practice, self-released a debut EP six months later and signed with Lujo Records two weeks after that. But with 'One of Us,' the band's debut for Afternoon Records, the Poms were clearly ready to let their material brew a little bit longer.  

What if the sweet pretzel-logic Americana of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco was irresistibly informed by an almost obsessive love of Ray Davies and The Kinks? That could be as good a place as any to begin with The Morning Benders, who offer up an intriguing blend of Baroque Pop and Indie Rock that bubbles with a singular energy even as it references a sonic tradition that's comfortably familiar.  

For nearly 10 years, the duo of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, known collectively as The Books, has pursued a singular and almost unclassifiable musical direction. Combining Brian Eno’s Ambient sound, found-sound elements and warped Indie Rock sensibilities, The Books’ discography is a sonic collage of skewed beauty and intelligence.  

Long-term nostalgia for a time one has never actually seen is a remarkable phenomenon, and Big Sandy (aka Robert Williams) knows all about it. Since 1988, he and His Fly-Rite Boys have practiced old-school American music that would have been out of vogue around the time that Williams was born, if not earlier.  

Local instrumental rockers The Flux Capacitors host a bittersweet EP release party Friday at the Southgate House. The show (with guests Enlou, Weakness and The Sleeping Sea) is to be the band's last, following the relocation of bassist Sean Victory to Chicago. They'll be distributing copies of the new six-track 'Human Error' EP and their grand 2007 debut album, 'John Q. Brains For Arms.'