12 local-music picks around metro Phoenix in March

Destruction Unit, Motobunny, Gospel Claws and Murietta are among our local music picks for March. There's also a block party brewing on Roosevelt Row for Paint PHX that features a headlining set by the great Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra.

Here's a look and those highlights and other March picks. And be sure to check out the local performers at Luckyman's Pot of Gold Music Festival and McDowell Mountain Music Festival this month.

3/3: Murrieta

A six-piece indie-folk collective, they open their album, "A Head & Hand," with the aching understatement of a haunted folk ballad, "A Head." And they keep things fairly quiet as they ease into the second track, the harmonica-driven "Joaquin Dead," which features a lyrical reference to a Wilco song (a telling frame of reference). But they sound just as natural letting it rock a bit on "The Outlaw," a track that feels a bit like Green on Red (and that can only be a good thing).

Details: 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 3. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $10: $8 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/6: The Sugar Thieves live concert DVD release show

Voted best local band by the readers of Phoenix magazine two years running, the Sugar Thieves would like it if you thought of them as "Arizona's finest meat-shakin' blues band." Fair enough. They're release a concert DVD at this performance, allowing you to watch them shake that meat in the comfort of your own home. Japhy's Descent and Gonzales round out the lineup.

Details: 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 6. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $10: $8 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/7: Snake! Snake! Snakes!

These local indie-rockers have a way of getting from point quiet to point loud that's sure to speak to fans of early Arcade Fire. After setting the tone for their impressive first EP in 2010 with a slow-burning anthem called "City on Fire," they followed through with such obvious highlights as the post-Cure pining of "Matchsticks for Lips" and the widescreen majesty of "Porcelain." And the tracks I've heard from them since that debut are just as good. It's epic stuff put out there with a raw, emotional intensity and hooks that work their way inside your head without being obvious about it.

Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 7. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $5: $3 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/7: Paint PHX 5th Street Block Party

Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra will top the bill at this daylong event in downtown Phoenix, which also features sets by the Drunken Immortals, Wooden Indian, Dragons, Pro Teens, Just Chris, El Goonie and Mic. And that's just the music. It also features demos by Apache Skateboards, live mural painting, a live art battle and a lowrider show.

Details: 2 p.m. Saturday, March 7. Fifth and Roosevelt streets, Phoenix. Free. facebook.com/paintphx.

3/12: The Haymarket Squares

These guys bill themselves as "Arizona's finest purveyors of punk-grass, where righteous anger meets strong four-part harmonies and bluegrass instruments for a surprising moshpit hoedown!" And that sounds about right. For those who haven't heard them, a fun place to start is last year's video for "Gateway Drug," a mock indictment of smoking marijuana, which includes the lines, "It leads to laughter / It leads to tears / It leads to scholarly discussions 'bout the songs of Britney Spears." And do not miss the opening sets by the Limit Club and the Pubes. A great bill all around.

Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, March 12. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $7; $5 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/19: Destruction Unit

These local rockers set the tone for 2013's aptly titled "Deep Trip" with a hail of feedback and reverb-saturated noise guitar before following through on that promise with an album's worth of reckless rock and roll that effectively blurred the lines between Stooge-y garage punk and post-Sabbath stoner rock. And don't miss Numb Bats opening.

Details: 8 p.m. Thursday, March 19. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $12; $10 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/20: Love Me Nots

These local heroes sounded great on last year's "Sucker," an album by the lineup responsible for their 2006 debut, "In Black and White," and the even better followup, 2008's "Detroit." And if the end result sounds a bit like it's meant to recapture the sound and spirit of those first two records, well, it was. But their pop sensibilities have only gotten more refined since then, allowing them to set the tone with a highlight called "Don't Let Him" that filters a primal garage beat, Michael Johnny Walker's fuzz-guitar riff and Nicole Laurenne's Farfisa through one sugar-coated pop hook after another. And they're always entertaining live.

Details: 9 p.m. Friday, March 20. Rips Bar, 3045 N. 16th St., Phoenix. 602-226-0015, facebook.com/rips.bar.7.

3/20: Dave Riley & Bob Corritore Juke Joint Blues Band

Guitar-playing vocalist Riley and blues harpist Corritore have recorded three albums together. Highlights of their latest, 2013's "Hush Your Fuss!," ranged from the swampy swagger of "Baby Please Come Home" to John Weston's slow-burning "Snuff Dippin' Woman," on which Riley memorably sets the tone with "I got a snuff-dippin' woman / Snuff juice runnin' all down her dress."

Details: 9 p.m. Friday, March 20. Rhythm Room, 1019 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. $8. 602-265-4842, rhythmroom.com.

3/21: Darkness Dear Boy CD release

Help these local rockers celebrate the release of second album "Cage Avoidance of a Definitive Answer." Their previous effort, "Brand New Carrot on a String," set the tone with an opening track that offset chugging punk guitars with an unexpected reggae break. And most tracks followed suit, defying easy labeling while sounding as if they would have fit right in on commercial-alternative radio in the '90s, whether recalling 311 or Nirvana.

Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 21. Rogue Bar, 423 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. 480-947-3580, facebook.com/theroguebar.

3/27: Motobunny

The latest spin-off from Love Me Nots members Nicole Laurenne and Michael Johnny Walker is a garage-rock supergroup of sorts, with two lead vocalists -— Laurenne and Christa Collins of LA's Woolly Bandits — sharing the spotlight, and Love Me Nots drummer Jay Lien and the Bandits' Rik Collins rounding out the lineup. As Laurenne says, "Motobunny is a really unique experience for us because the concept of two equal frontwomen hasn't been explored much in the rock world. We really are trying to apply the Icona Pop stage show to an Iggy Pop sound — so the fun quotient is through the roof for all four of us." They're joined at the Crescent by one of the Valley's most exciting rock artists, Scorpion vs. Tarantula.

Details: 8 p.m. Friday, March 27. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $8; $6 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/28: Gospel Claws

It's been a little more than two years now since Joel Marquard and Gospel Claws have blessed us with new music, following "C-L-A-W-S," a first album that placed them squarely at the forefront of the local indie scene, with the even more promising 2012 release, "Put Your Sunshine Away." Recorded, like "C-L-A-W-S," with producer Bob Hoag, their second album made the most of Marquard's increased infatuation with the sounds of early rock and roll on such obvious highlights as "I Move Around" and "Teenage Kicks."

Details: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 28. Crescent Ballroom, 308 N. Second Ave., Phoenix. $10; $8 in advance. 602-716-2222, crescentphx.com.

3/28: Emerald Isle EP release show

These Tempe metalheads, who won the Arizona Ernie Ball Battle of the Band in 2013, are releasing a debut EP, "Lesson Learned," citing metalcore heroes Bring Me the Horizon, Our Last Night and Miss May I as inspirations. And they've put together a powerful lineup for the big event, with Hometown Letdown, A Step Ahead, Aspiria, Your Young and Origins of Orion.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28. Pub Rock, 8005 E. Roosevelt St., Scottsdale. 480-945-4985, pubrocklive.com.