Vile and the Violators

• Kurt Vile would be a great name for a punk rocker doing a clever twist on the name of the German cabaret composer.

That's not who Kurt Vile is. Not only is it his real name, his parents never even heard of Kurt Weill.

And it's a far cry from punk rock. The Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter, who stops at Howlers in Bloomfield Tuesday night, plays loopy lo-fi rock with a psychedelic swirl, sometimes sounding like a slightly warped Tom Petty, other times more Iggy Pop.

An avowed Pavement freak, he came along in 2008 with a homemade collection of songs he ironically called "Constant Hitmaker," as the furthest he was going to get with it was college radio. It did catch the attention of Pavement's prestigious indie label, Matador, which posted in its Matablog, "Subsequent exposure to Kurt's live shows in a variety of settings, both on his own and with crack ensemble The Violators, made it abundantly clear that we'd either have to sign this guy or find someone else who sounded exactly like him. Since the latter task proved impossible, here we are."

This fall Matador issued "Childish Prodigy," a more hi-fi second album with the same kind of magic he exhibited the first time around. Vile referred to it as his "Loveless," which prompted a question from Interview magazine.

"I said that mainly to hype it up," he told them, "because I was really anxious to get it out there -- so I had to say something. It was more involved than anything I had done and it was the first time I worked on something as a whole actual album, as a single piece. The other ones were compiled. It's not like shoegaze at all but at the same time it's definitely processed a little bit with effects, but more in an analog way. I mean, I don't know what My Bloody Valentine did in the studio; they probably did a lot of everything. This was on a slightly more slackery scale, a more raw scale, but there was definitely studio tweakage and all that stuff."

Adding more muscle to the show will Centipede Eest and Hidden Twin. It begins at 10 p.m. Admission is $6.

Direct Action reunites

• Greensburg hardcore band Direct Action will reunite for a show at Gooski's in Polish Hill on Saturday. DA, which featured Rob Henry (Kim Phuc) and Tom Jagger (Bait and Switch), raged from 1987 to 1990, and, as teenagers, shared bills at Danceland with the likes of the Rollins Band, NOFX and Half-Life. "We played hardcore-punk, a la 7 Seconds meets Descendents," Henry says. "Later we had more of a Youth Crew/Early Revelation Records sound." Opening the 9 p.m. show will be Brass Chariot (members of Fangs of Panda). Proceeds from the $5 admission go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Anti-Flag at Small's

• Anti-Flag will resume touring on Jan. 12 in Detroit with Cancer Bats, Aiden and the Menzingers. The tour stops at Mr. Small's in Millvale on Feb. 6 with local openers Code Orange Kids. Also, the band, which was playing shows of Clash covers in Europe, has designed an Anti-Flag T-shirt that mimics the cover of the first Clash album. It's sold for $10 with a code that allows you to download A-F's "The People or the Gun," three Clash covers ("I Fought the Law," "White Riot" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go") and b-sides from "The People or The Gun" sessions. Go to www.anti-flag.com.

In Flames

• Ball of Flame Shoot Fire, local chamber popsters who draw comparisons to Arcade Fire and Man Man, will play a rare local show Saturday at Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Ave. The show marks the release of their new EP, "Danny and Rob."

It's also a homecoming for sugary-pop songwriter Scott Simons, formerly of local piano-rockers The Argument, who moved to Los Angeles to seek his fortune but also put out an EP last year on local label Rostrum Records (of Wiz Khalifa and Donora fame). Dani Buncher, the drummer for local dance-rockers Big Hurry, will be manning the kit for Simons. Joining them are Code Orange Kids and The Snails.

It begins at 8 pm. All ages. $6. 412-361-2262.

Critics Andrew Druckenbrod and Scott Mervis talk about music on "The Beat," available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.