Back Beat

Catch a cozy eve of tunes at Sam Bond’s 9:30 pm Friday, March 28, with Eugene’s swampy, New Orleans-tinged foursome The Long Hello and Spokane’s achy-breaky folk rock outfit the Marshall McLean Band. If you can peel your eyes away from the stage, check out the mystical paintings of Jayme Vineyard for Last Friday Art Walk. For more music-art mash-ups, stop in first at Oakshire Brewing’s Whiteaker public house, 4:30 to 8 pm, for the sounds of The Fiddlin’ Sue Band and the frenetic works of Salt, Pepper, Ketchup & Mustard, a new show by artist matt@theworld.

If the era of globalization and technology could be encapsulated by one band, it would probably be Beats Antique. Touring with the 2013 release A Thousand Faces (inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces), the trippy, electronic world-fusion group draws from classical Indian music and Balinese sounds all laced with the constant thump of EDM. Headlining McDonald Theatre Thursday, April 3, Beats Antique will be joined by plush beatmaster Phutureprimitive, who will return to the area for the inaugural Mohawk Valley Music Festival Aug. 8-10 in Marcola.

Betty and The Boy, local alternative folk quintet and EW’s 2011 Next Big Thing winner, released its sophomore album, The Wreckage, in early March via iTunes. Start listening to this dazzling album now — swelling with violin, cello and upright bass, Josh Harvey’s plucky banjo and Bettreena Jaeger’s soulful vocals — so you’ll be ready to sing along for the band’s CD release show later this spring before they head out on an international tour to Scotland, Ireland and other corners of Europe.

Don’t miss: The Apache Relay, Nashvillian indie rockers with real heart, March 27 at Cozmic; Snow Tha Product, aka Claudia Feliciano, who raps in English and Spanish at a supersonic clip, March 30 at WOW Hall.