Top: She's the Car. Bottom: Therefore I Am

DOWNLOAD: Therefore I Am, “I Get Nervous In Cars” (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: She’s the Car, “Vibeke” (mp3)

We take an interest in scenes of all flavors, and right now the one that’s got the most juice in Boston is the teenpunk underground that’s grown up around venues like the ICC Church and bands like Vanna and the Receiving End of Sirens.

Photos (c) Byron Smith.

Wales's Bullet for My Valentine are having their breakout year: introduced to the headbanging faithful via tours with Rob Zombie and Lacuna Coil, they landed the most coveted opening slot in New York (Guns N Roses' Hammerstein shows) and then set out to headline a Trustkill tour, which brought 'em to Axis last night.

DOWNLOAD: Finian McKean, "Oh, My Heart Is Heavy" (mp3)

Back when he was with the Boston indie-rock group Push Kings, on former Dambuilders’ guitarist Eric Masunaga’s label, Finian McKean went by the name Finn Moore Gerety. Now he’s moved to Brooklyn, where he’s crafting sad, spare, Heartbreaker-grade indie-folk ballads alone at the piano.

DOWNLOAD: Age Rings, “Millions of Americans” (mp3)

This song was recorded last weekend at a converted Civil War-era barn, and you can practically hear the woodgrain. Age Rings have yet to officially release a single song, but after listening to their previous demo for six months, we’ve already started thinking of them as Boston’s answer to Wilco.

Is that a Pearl Jam hat?

Donate enough money to a good cause -- or win the Red Sox their first World Series in 80-odd years -- and you too can rock out with Pearl Jam. Last night between songs PJ's Eddie Vedder went on a rant about how part of the ticket price ($51 + service fees, ouch!) was to be donated to Horizons for Homeless Children, a Boston-based organization that attempts to break the cycle of homelessness, starting with children.

DOWNLOAD: Snowleopards, "Stuck in the Middle" (mp3)

Sarah Tomlinson gets the lowdown this week on Heidi Saperstein's band the Snowleopards, who're playing tonight at Sally O'Briens, next to PA's Lounge in Union Square, openingg for Emily Grogan: it's a CD-release party for a one-song single that they'll be giving away free at the door.

We're so turning our entire weekend over to Compound 440r. Mr. MicL Potvin just checked in to inform us of a late-breaking gig by Japanther Friday night over at MIT. Which is sort of like just casually mentioning that there's gonna be a fucking hurricane in someone's living room. Oh, the furniture damage. For those of you who attended the Steer Roast, this is the same address: 70 Amherst Street, 9 pm.

Photos: Carina Mastrocola

Pearl Jam/My Morning Jacket mayhem continues tonight at the Garden. Full report from last night's show is up now over here. Also, we would like to encourage people to join the Tool argument in the comments section on James Parker's piece. Hilarious.

READ: Jung at heart: Tool at the Orpheum.

That dude DJ Mark E. Moon has been awful quiet lately -- too quiet, buried-in-the-lab quiet, building-birfday-mixtapes quiet. We should've known that he wasn't kidding when he told us his Dipset-ized Neutral Milk Hotel "King of Karat Flowers" remix was part of a longer suite. But after that, there was his baile-funk Belle and Sebastian remix and then .

(In this week's Circuits column, David Day profiles the WERS "Revolutions" triumvirate. Addendum: 'ERS honcho Alden Fertig (above, at right) doesn't just let the music play, he also makes some himself.)

Brookline resident Alden Fertig runs Emerson’s radio station WERS, but he's been DJing since he was 14 and is a bit of a techno prodigy.

Say what you will about this year's Best Music Poll, the hippie kids sure love them some Matisyahu, who plays the Pavilion tonight. BMP is always an occasion for some of us older dudes -- you know, us early-30s geezers -- to sit around telling the interns about the good old days. So here goes.

It's probably the most famous WFNX show ever: depending on who's telling the story, it was either the night Nevermind came out or the night before -- Google isn't much help here -- and the band that was about to break punk or whatever was playing a gig at Axis for the station that had been the first (there still weren't that many) to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

There are those nights that you go see see a friend’s band and you tell yourself: this headliner that I’ve never heard of has about 30 seconds to absolutely blow me away or I’m going home. That's what happened last night. An hour later I was standing in line to pick up MuteMath’s disc.

Mashed in prog-rock somewhere between the Police and Radiohead (yes I know that Radiohead sucks, but think of Angels and Airwaves but not as cheesy), this was quite possibly the best show I’ve seen this year.

DOWNLOAD: DJ C featuring Tiger Saw, “Fish Town Freighter (Remix).”

Cambridge beat scholar, party scientist, Boston bouncer, remixer of M.I.A., and ragga maniac DJ C is the busiest man in Boston these days: he’s prepping a half-dozen releases on two continents including 7-inches, 12-inches, CDs, and digi-only downloads with guests ranging from Kid606 to Ghislain.

Dance, dance.

Now that everyone's counting, it's time to get our Merrittometer up.

1. Just when you thought the D4L/snap craze couldn't get any more ridiculous, along comes the best monkey-dance song since the Ideals' "The Gorilla."

DOWNLOAD: R. Kelly & Fabo, "Gorilla" (mp3 link, via Shanghai Flu)

All photos (c) Carina Mastrocola.

If you've got to have bands play in the sun -- and that's how it goes at the Best Music Poll -- then OK Go are a great fit. Upbeat tempos. Creative, thought-provoking lyrics. You know: good times. They were infectuous, and the audience (a mix of young and old) seemed to be catching their fever.