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The Baton Rouge and New Orleans hard rock/metal crowd was in full effect when Pistols at Dawn and Blackfire Revelation hit the Spanish Moon like a thunderclap this past Friday. Both bands are whiskey-fueled, metal-injected trios that mix punishing juggernaut rock and razor wire blues. Pistols leans more toward the juggernaut side, where their songs form runaway trains of fuzz. New Orleans’ Blackfire Revelation, (formerly a duo, but guitarist John Fields and drummer Hank Haney have upgraded with the help of bassist Tom Beeman), mounts gritty swamp blues on the head of a battering ram pointed straight at your soul. When Fields is tearing into his flying V guitar with his head pointed to the heavens, taut as a compound bow, you see one of those places where the sacred and the profane meet.

On Saturday, Baton Rouge blues guitar legend Little Jimmy Reed appeared at Teddy’s Juke Joint in Zachary to show a different, but just as effective variant on the blues. A veteran performer of more than 50 years, Reed now does what he calls his one-man band, playing his battered electric, wailing on a freight train harmonica and intoning with his grizzled, rough holler over programmed rhythm tracks. It was unsettling at first, but two or three songs into it you didn’t care. Reed is one of those guys whose playing is so natural and so seasoned that you cannot help but be drawn into it. The bluesman, who now resides in Enterprise, Alabama, was making a stop at Teddy’s before heading overseas for a set of dates in Scotland and France.

Later that night, an exhibition of monochromatic heavy rock was on display before a capacity crowd at the Spanish Moon. Kansas City’s The Life and Times presented a rather melodic take on monolithic drone metal, which served as a great appetizer for the main course: Mono, an instrumental quartet from Tokyo. Mono delivers an equally elegant and terrifyingly huge sound that starts from a simple melody and spirals upward into dense clouds of overtones and feedback, somehow managing to keep things rocking instead of diffusing into a fog. The crowd was under what seemed to be mass hypnosis as the band blazed through tracks off their latest album, You are There. The band played for well over an hour, leaving little time for the headliners Pelican to do their thing. The Chicago instrumental group follows a similar path, but focuses more on digging in deep to simple caveman riffs and exploding them into a lotus of power chords and cosmic pulses. The venue thinned out a little after Mono, which presented one of the more powerful sets I’ve witnessed in a while, but Pelican made the most of their 45 minutes.

My picks for the week:

Wednesday, May 24: Art rock will be in full effect as Liars appear at the Spanish Moon with Apes and Deerhunter

Thursday, May 25: Pinback, Mary Timony (formerly of Helium) and 2VC kick up a ruckus at Chelsea’s. Lafayette’s Matt Rock and the Powerboxx appears at the North Gate with Secret Annexe

Friday, May 26: Hip-hop notables Tre Harden of The Pharacide and Pigeon John rock the Spanish Moon. The Rewinds and Direwood appear at Red Star

Saturday, May 27: School’s out for the summer, and while Alice Cooper does not appear to be on hand, Arcane Theory, Imbroglio, Everything Beautiful Dies and Downtown Fiasco will usher in the heat at the Darkroom. The Court and Spark bring their exquisite brand of angular indie rock to the Red Star. People Under the Stairs await you at the Spanish Moon. The Captain Legendary Band appears at Chelsea’s

Monday, May 29: One of the cooler hip-hop lineups to hit the city in a while – Dj Atrak (DJ for Kanye West), Edan and The Rub (Prefuse 73 has had to cancel his tour due to illness) enlightens the Spanish Moon this Memorial Day.

Tuesday May 30: Okay, stay with me on this one. Clicks on Corporate is hosting nu-metal icons Hed P.E. with support by Wicked Wisdom, a metal outfit fronted by Jada Pinkett-Smith. Yes, that Jada Pinkett-Smith. The Fresh Princess. Wife of Will Smith. Niobe from the last two Matrix movies. Fronting a metal band. Could be so crazy it just might work, or an SNL skit gone horribly awry.