Top weekend shows: Big Boi, Best Coast, Peter Stampfel

Big Boi: Atlanta MC Antwan Patton has his first solo album to showcase, “Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty,” but if his Pitchfork Music Festival set last summer is any indication, he also will be performing plenty of his old OutKast hits, 6 p.m. Friday with Travis McCoy and Chiddy Bang at Congress Theatre, 2135 N. Milwaukee Av., $38; congressticketing.com.

Best Coast: Attention fans of shoegaze guitar-rock and girl-group harmonies, this band is your sweet spot, 9 p.m. Saturday with Titus Andronicus and Free Energy at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., $16; etix.com.

Peter Stampfel: The godfather of alternative folk, Stampfel was a fixture in the New York City scene of the ‘60s with the Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs, and has continued to record and perform ever since. His Chicago appearances have been extremely rare, though, so don’t miss this one, 9 p.m. Saturday at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, $10; ticketweb.com.

greg@gregkot.com

Album review: Big Boi, 'Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty'

3 stars (out of 4)

Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, the more playful half of Atlanta hip-hop juggernaut OutKast alongside “Andre 3000” Benjamin, turns his solo debut,"Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty” (Def Jam), into a state-of-the-art Southern-fried party-funk album.

It’s full of surface charm, the type of music that is designed to sound big in a club, the soundtrack for a night of excess. But there’s very little conventional about these beats and the way Big Boi nimbly spreads his living-large imagery over them.

“You Ain’t No DJ” (with Andre 3000 as producer) builds a percussive foundation that sounds like a collection of glassware being struck while sci-fi sound effects zoom overhead.  A choir gives “General Patton” an appropriately majestic backdrop. “Tangerine” combines a tribal beat with a reverbing rock guitar. “Fo Yo Sorrows” channels the synthetic bass tones of Parliament Funkadelic, with George Clinton adding an appropriately toasted vocal. A whistled melody wafts through “The Train Pt. 2” like an eerie voice from another dimension. 

The MC sounds right at home amid all these shifting genres, his Georgia twang only adding to the sense that he’s still the smoothest hustler alive.  The only disappointment is that a fine collaboration with Andre 3000 intended for the album, “Lookin’ For Ya,” had to be left off because of a record-label squabble. It’s well worth seeking out on-line, a prelude to the next, long over-due OutKast release. In the interim, Big Boi is doing just fine on his own.

greg@gregkot.com