Reverb Presents: Zoe Muth, Easy Street Records, 7 p.m., free, all agesFrom

Published 8:00 am Friday, January 29, 2010

Reverb Presents: Zoe Muth, Easy Street Records, 7 p.m., free, all agesFrom this week’s Short List:Though Zoe Muth’s debut album is nothing less than superb, even unabashed superfans must admit that the songs themselves are quite simple. But as songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams once proved, it’s not technical complexity that makes a country song great: it’s the feeling with which it is performed. And feeling is something Zoe Muth’s always had in spades. But after hearing her perform a few new songs at the Blue Moon two weeks ago, it’s become clear that Ms. Muth’s songs are maturing. This girl has really got something; I’ll be downright shocked if Bloodshot Records and New West haven’t started a bidding war over her before the year’s out. SARA BRICKNERALSO TONIGHT:

Kool Keith, Neumos, 8 p.m., $15, 21+Dismaying as it may be, America still prefers its black entertainers to be goofy and depraved. The elephant in the room about figures like Blowfly, Wesley Willis and Kool Keith is that their extravagant strangeness ultimately reassures white listeners of their superiority. But musically speaking it’s unfair to put him in the same category as the more despicably obscene Blowfly or the genuinely schizophrenic, one-trick Willis. Bona-fide artistic inspiration runs deep throughout Keith’s body of work and, however much he plays up his own peculiarities, his delivery remains one of the most distinctive in all of rap. In the end, his awkward, almost anti-rhythmic flow makes its own warped kind of sense. SABY REYES-KULKARNI