Best Place to Go to a Random Concert

Even the best area clubs have off nights, hosting popular groups with dubious talent (or creatively bankrupt cover bands, which help bankroll risks on high-quality acts with smaller followings). But for the most part, if you like one show at Davey's Uptown, you'll like them all. Davey's has a certain musical hero in mind -- someone who's literate, often dour, occasionally self-deprecating and ultimately intoxicating -- and it fills its roster with artists who fit the bill: Richard Buckner, Alejandro Escovedo, Eleni Mandell, Rex Hobart. Davey's still makes room for local standouts that don't exactly fit this formula (Shiner and Onward Crispin Glover played a memorable double-header there this summer), but on any given night odds are that you'll find a guitar-strumming, slightly twangy, effortlessly poetic singer/songwriter with a liquor-stained voice following in the world-weary footsteps of so many similarly tortured souls.