Found sounds, Joey Ramone wigs and Ally Sheedy’s eyeliner

Alone but not lonely: The foothills are home to many hermetic weirdo musicians. Hearing of new sounds from near the Sierra Nevada often feels like receiving postcards from a foreign beyond. Take Daniel Trudeau’s Pregnant project, a delightfully strange marriage of electronica and freak folk. Pottery Mill, his new album out on Mush Records, plucks from the charm of a creator’s isolation. In fact, all his records uniformly sound as though they would not be possible without the backwoods of Placerville and the modern world of Midtown within an hour’s reach. With no one around, Trudeau warps found sounds from the wilderness into the strum of his guitar; glitch meets organic to create something not far from pastoral electronica.

Now, he’s headed East for a string of dates—a tour that could use some friendly funding assistance. As it happens, Pregnant’s Bandcamp merch page (http://pregnant.bandcamp.com/merch/your-song) currently features a “Your Song” option, wherein Trudeau promises to pen a song in exchange for a mere $5. All you need is a name for the track and a PayPal account. Current donors include Liz, whose song includes the refrain “Hey, Liz. We love your Tumblr so much … Are you going to the frog convention?” Then, there’s someone named Jeanie who’s requested a song with the lyrics “a power exists in me that I got from Jeanie.” Five dollars is a small price to pay for a theme song.

Better than angels: On the eponymous track to Deerhunter’s sixth studio album Monomania, frontman Bradford Cox requests, “Send me an angel / If you can’t send me an angel / send me something else instead.” In August, Harlow’s Restaurant & Nightclub is guaranteed a show in the “something else” category. It could be Deerhunter fronted by a gangly Cox in a dress, as depicted in the band’s most recent press photo. It could be Cox donning a Joey Ramone wig like he did on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Hell, it could be an hour-long cover of “My Sharona,” a stunt he once pulled on an unruly Minneapolis crowd. Known to obsess over ’70s New York counterculture, Cox exists somewhere between Patti Smith and Richard Hell when it comes to stage presence. Deerhunter’s Monomania won’t likely compete for a Grammy or earn Cox a seat on The Voice, but its critical accolades and the promise of potential stage antics should be just the oomph needed to convince fans to hit the presale outlets months in advance.

It’s time to talk about your vinyl habit: True vinyl addicts don’t bother with Record Store Day. They patronize stores year-round and browse the classifieds for yard and estate sales as part of an ongoing quest to mine for analog discs. Buyers whose conditions can only be described as terminal suffer lungs dusted from thumbing through old records at swap meets, such as the one taking place in Davis on Sunday, June 2. The Armadillo Music & KDVS 90.3 FM Vinyl & Music Fair is free to the public, although for a mere $5 early birds can check in at 8:30 a.m.—a half-hour before its official start. The fair goes until 4:30 p.m. and features tables from local vendors and collectors looking to shop rare finds. Take your deep pockets to the Davis Senior Center at 646 A Street in Davis.

Ally Sheedy is my spirit animal: This one’s not until Friday, June 7, but you need time to plan an outfit for the John Hughes Soundtracks Show scheduled to take place at Old Ironsides (1901 10th Street). For someone who spent much of her 16th year trying to perfect Ally Sheedy’s moroseness in The Breakfast Club, this is a big deal. Local artists, including 50-Watt Heavy, Desario and Harley White Jr., will converge to pay tribute to the late filmmaker and the songs that made many of his greatest films so iconic. You know: the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, Flesh for Lulu and General Public. (Fun fact: Hughes refused to release a soundtrack for the 1986 Matthew Broderick comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, believing fans wouldn’t want a record featuring both the Beatles and Wayne Newton. Go figure.) The show starts at 9 p.m. and costs $5 at the door; everyone attending is encouraged to dress up like their favorite Hughes character. Who’s calling dibs on Curly Sue?