Is it the weekend already? This week(end) is packed with tons of music, per usual, but there’s also a change to wear that scrunchy you’ve been holding on to for years and show off how much you know about booze. Life is good, no?

Los Angeles based roots-rockers Dawes play gorgeous Americana that sounds as sunny as the state where they formed. The band has mastered everything you could want from the genre—tight guitar picking and strumming, pounding piano, and perfect, soulful harmonies straight out of the late 60’s (think Crosby, Stills and Nash). Having released their debut album, North Hills, in the latter half of 2009 and touring extensively with other acts like Delta Spirit, Dawes are now embarking on a headlining national tour of their own to make their mark as one of the most promising emerging bands in Americana. With their track “When You Call My Name” featured on NPR’s Song of the Day last month and a boot-stomping live show that focuses on the “rock” in roots rock, the band is sure to be riding a ton of momentum when they make a stop in Allston this weekend.

Together: The New England Electronic Music Festival has taken Boston by storm (even more so than this light dusting of flakes that crippled downtown) and we will honor that fact by enlisting creative director, David Day, to bring you this weekend’s to-do list.

Retribution Gospel Choir describe themselves as a band that “plays loud and sings in key.” If you’re at all familiar with singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk’s other project, Low, you’re already familiar with the pitch-perfect vocals this band has to offer. What comes as a departure, though, is that this band rocks in the most classic sense of the word. Playing as a basic guitar, bass, and drums trio, they make no concessions while churning out a huge sound. Sparhawk culls as much sound as possible out of his guitar, while bassist Steve Garrington grooves right along with the riffs and drummer Eric Pollard pushes the intensity to its limits while singing spot-on harmonies. This is much more than just a side project—it is a truly talented band in it’s own right.

By now you may have noticed our snappy new events calendar holding it down over on the Events Calendar page– but we thought we’d keep up the habit of highlighting some of our favorite happenings each weekend.

4 days of planning, 3 bands, 2 DJs, 1 sold-out night at Great Scott and a whoooole lot of help from our friends added up to about $3,000 going straight into the pockets of reputable aid organization Partners in Health for use in their earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.

TeaParty Boston has partnered with Great Scott in Allston in an effort to raise money for earthquake relief in Haiti. 100% of the proceeds will go directly to Partners in Health, a Boston-based organization that already has a great reputation for providing quality health care to the people of Haiti.

Is 2009 over already? Seems like just last week it was Christmas… Anyways, we’re sure that most people have a pretty good idea about what they’ll be doing this Thursday night, but we’d also be willing to bet that a lot of you still have no idea. At all.

Everyone knows that Japanese bands are best at being loud. There’s noise-rockers Boredoms, whose Boadrum concert last year featured 88 different drummers, the heavy-as-anything drone metal trio Boris, and noise luminary Merzbow, whose been damaging ear drums since 1979. On Tuesday night, the Middle East Downstairs was assaulted by Melt Banana, another unapologetically loud Japanese band who either play hardcore punk or tweaked out techno-grind, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

In 2006, Mat Brooke left indie mainstay Band of Horses to explore his own sound. He recruited friends Jeff Montano, Curtis Hall, and Thomas Wright –veterans of bands such as The New Mexicans and The Jeunes – to form Grand Archives. Their indie street cred was solidified almost immediately: they were signed to Sub Pop after their first show, and opened for Modest Mouse for their second.