Kristy CameronVisqueenVisqueen at Easy Street Records (Queen Anne), 7 p.m., free, all agesWhether I run into her at a bar or see her onstage with Visqueen, Rachel Flotard always makes me feel good about myself and life overall. I believe she has this effect on everyone and I don’t know how she does it. Writing in the Village Voice, Everett True called her a “big-hearted woman”, which I think gets to the, um, heart of it. And the new Visqueen record, Message To Garcia, is the first album of hers to fully burst at seams with that big-heartedness. The tools Visqueen employs on Garcia are familiar: Pogo-stick pop rhythms (think: Fastbacks), buzzing power chords (think: Buzzcocks and Cheap Trick), and a voice that is full-throated, husky, and soothingly feminine (think: Joan Jett and Ann Wilson of Heart). But the fact that Garcia shimmers with Flotard’s off-stage personality is likely due to it being a tribute to her late-father, George (Flotard lived with and cared for her dad as he battled prostate cancer). Fitting then, that the album is being released on Flotard’s own Local 638 label, named for the NYC steamfitter’s union of which her father was a dues-paying member. BRIAN J. BARRGoldfinch, These United States, Dewi Saint, Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps at High Dive, 9:30 p.m., $10Goldfinch’s live performances have a perfect, tranquil quality to them. It’s like watching a well-oiled machine of melancholy, where harmonized vocals play with themes of forgiveness and loss while floating above tinkling music. The Tacoma band is essentially just Grace Sullivan and Aaron Stevens, but when they play live, their respective keyboards and guitar are backed by a drumset, cello, violin, and bass. That live music is a strong sonic earful, crescending when Sullivan and Stevens sing the chorus on “Go Easy On Me,” an emotionally charged apology for running away. “Go Easy On Me” is also the only song that sounds just as good on the band’s self-titled, self-released LP as it does live. The rest of the tracks sound flatter when recorded, and Stevens’ deep, low voice has a tendency to overpower both the instrumentals and Sullivan’s singing. It’s an unexpected reversal, that Goldfinch’s live performance has more power than the album. Maybe it’s because seeing this band feels like being enveloped in emotions, and that’s something stereo speakers or headphones just can’treplicate. PAIGE RICHMONDMason Jennings, Crash Kings at SHowbox at the Market, 8 p.m., $18, all agesMinneapolis-based Mason Jennings escaped into solitude with his electric guitar and emerged with Blood of Man, his second album on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label and his eighth total. Although Johnson and Jennings are often considered to be nearly synonymous–they both are soft-singing folky acoustic bearded men with roots in surf culture–Jennings’ work has an acute lyricism and spiritual gravity that sets him apart from the all-too-digestible Johnson. Blood Of Man is a reverb-tinged, intimate offering that meditates on those good old themes of death, God, and childhood, but with an eerie honesty that bears attention. HOLLIS WONG-WEAR