IAMSU! Over the past two years, collaborations with E-40, Wiz Khalifa, and John Hart, as well as a constant stream of mixtapes, have raised this 23-year-old rapper from another Bay Area oddity to one of hip-hop’s rising young stars. Catch him now before he hits it big. With Louis V, Rassan Heist, Fano, Jay Morrison, Tre Ross. Neumos. 8 p.m. $15 adv. All ages. ANDREW GOSPE

Pinback For all its surface beauty, a darkness lurks in San Diego. When I lived there, I found the city’s hyper social culture and constant sun so oppressive I fled to the Pacific Northwest, where the weather and attitudes are a bit more moody. There’s a sense that Rob Crow and Zach Smith, the two mainstays of SoCal alt-rock group Pinback, totally understand the feeling. Over the course of now five albums—their latest being last year’s Information Retrieved—they’ve mined a style of well-crafted, somber pop like Modest Mouse or Built to Spill, with Crow and Smith alternating tough-and-tender vocals that add muscle to the mix. Smith’s murky basslines alongside the dirgy tempo of a song like “Charborg,” from the excellent self-titled debut, make it sound like tracks have been melting on the dash in a heat wave, warping into something beautiful, but far from perfect. With Survival Knife. Showbox at the Market. 8 p.m. $18.50-$22. GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT

Sun Valley Gun Club This Northern California band’s namesake is an actual shooting range at an Idaho resort town (from Yelp: “All in all a good, place, but … I would go to Hailey Gun Club”), and its music is tough, brainy pop-punk. With Special Explosion, The Hague, New Lungs. Comet Tavern. $6. AG