Seawhores tonight at Turf Club

Crash bang boom-- Gay Witch Abortion.

If you've breezed through the Turf Club doors on a Friday or Saturday any time in the last half decade, if you've ever been panning for a Friday night show for your Chicago friends on tour to the west coast, if you've ever rooted around on your hands and knees to find the cell phone and keys you lost while dancing to Skoal Kodiak, odds are you've been booked by, served by, or asked to leave by Ryan O'R****e (let's allow the man a shred of his privacy).

He's a dynamo to be sure-- a Rockefeller in a Pabst hat, responsible for more drunken nights and ringing ears than just about anyone on his side of the Mississip. And in honor of his birthday, some of the Cities' most treasured rock acts have filed out for a 21 gun salute.

Seawhores headline. They've been mainstay of intrepid, challenging music since you were adjusting your mortarboard and trying to pick which college had the best music theory courses. Loud and protean, and ever willing to change their sound and image, a Seawhores show always manages to pack a familiar stage with unfamiliar sights and sounds.

As for Gay Witch Abortion, please refer to their stellar 2008 album Maverick, or its release show at a seedy Northeast strip club, or their performances outside 2007's Doomtree Blow Out, or... It's pointless to go on. Both engines falling off a 747 at once. A comet disintegrating upon entry into our atmosphere. Breaking rebar. It's hard not to get hyperbolous and heady when attempting to approximate their sound. Loud. Good. Fast. Precise. Take your pick. Hell, take them all.

In the end, the guy's been sliding pints your way since you were sneaking into Malachi Constant shows through the back door. Tonight, it's time you pressed a shot of Jameson into HIS unsteady hand and gave him a consolatory pat on the back.

21+. 9:00 P.M. $6.00. With Charles De Gaulle, Chibalo (ex Song of Zarathustra). Turf Club, 1601 University Ave. West, 55104; 651.647.0486.