THURSDAY 29
YEAH BUB | The Maine comedian Bob Marley is a big fan of indefatigability. The dude presently holds the Guinness World Record for longest consecutive hours performing stand-up comedy (40 hours; the first 18 of them without repeating a joke), and takes the stage again for his 17th annual holiday series of shows at the Merrill Auditorium, tonight through Saturday at 7 p.m. This man does not quit. And he's synonymous with Maine humor as it lives today. | $52.50 | Merrill Auditorium, 20 Myrtle St. | porttix.com
FOR THE MIGNONETTES | The concept of ladies night needs a little unpacking. Whenever an arbitrary evening is passionately dedicated to a such a broad, heterogeneous coalition of people, merely for being alive, it's worth checking to see where the motives lie. Perhaps it's a thinly veiled admission that you've created a product or programming that appeals solely to one gender type and thus face social pressure, possibly from that very gender type, to fix or balance that, for reasons of social equilibrium or integration. Maybe it's a nonpolitical way of addressing that American women make 78 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make. Perhaps it's an attempt at a safe space, an environment where women are prioritized above men. Or, I suppose, it's something to do. We'll never know for sure the motives of seafood tiki bar Rhum, but regardless, they throw a ladies night every Thursday, where such folks can get $3 shots of Tito's vodka, $3 cans of Truly spiked seltzer, half-off cocktails and $1 oysters. 4 to 7 p.m. | Rhum Food + Grog, 4 Free St., Portland | rhumportland.com
TRUE HORRORS | One massive part of musicians' jobs is to create a world that looks and feels different from the one we presently live in, with different truths, logics and systems. (The music itself is but a beaded curtain between this realm and ours.) The Portland group Video Nasties accept this role, having the last five or so years created some of the most fucked-yet-enjoyable music to come out of the North East, and performing it capably. Tonight they celebrate the release of their first LP, a self-titled affair, which presses all the songs found on their four out-of-print, cassette-only releases. They play with the songwriter Caethua (aka Clare Hubbard from Belfast, Maine), the oudsman Tom K, and Colby Nathan — in some mesmerizing combination TBA. 8:30 p.m. | $8 | SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland | space538.org
FRIDAY 30
BAND BACK TOGETHER | In what should be a fairly heartfelt, touching affair, the late pop-punk group Sophomore Beat, whose members have gone on to play in Worried Well among other melody-forward units, reunite for Erica Lohmeyer, the wife of SB frontman Daniel James Lohmeyer, in a medical benefit. They're aided by local acolytes Lannen and Cape Cannons. 8 p.m. | $8 advance, $10 day of | Portland House of Music, 25 Temple St., Portland | portlandhouseofmusic.com
YOUR UNIVERSE | Even if we knew the inner language of the Phish universe, it'd be an untoward act of pandering for us to reprint any of it here. If you're in, you know who you are (and you know who your fellow phans and haters of Wilson are). Congregate amongst ye'selves tonight at Port City Music Hall for a Phish Webcast. Proceeds benefit the Mockingbird Foundation, a philanthropic foundation backed by the band that endeavors to promote music education. 7 p.m. | $5 | Port City Music Hall, 504 Congress St., Portland | portcitymusichall.com
SEND A POSTCARD TO YOURSELF | Tonight, the Maine archivist and musician Sumner McKane presents Northeast by Eastern, a majestic film comprised of photographs collected by Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company, a Waldo County postcard company launched in 1909. McKane has built a knack for making these gorgeous and serene Maine folklore films while scoring them himself with lovely, neo-Americana music, and this latest is an even deeper dive, exploring the impact of technologies and modernization on Down East Maine. McKane, in attendance, plays alongside musician Josh Robbins. 7:30 p.m. | $14 adv, $16 at the door | St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress St., Portland | stlawrencearts.org
THERE'S GONNA BE A FIGHT | Some people grow up to be politicians, some grow up to be theater kids, and some grow up to be wrestling fans, but they're essentially all strands of the same DNA. Some kind of pro wrestling cabal invades Geno's Rock Club tonight, featuring names like "Flash" Nick McKenna and Aiden Aggro. We originally thought this was pure showmanship (because Geno's is cold and its floor is unforgiving), but apparently there's going to be actual wrestling matches. If you think of it as a fringe theater show, it might make more sense, possibly less. Produced by the North Atlantic Wrestling Camp, based out of Skip's Pool and Lounge in Buxton. 9 p.m. | $8 | Geno's Rock Club, 625 Congress St., Portland
FUNK THIS LIFE | If you're the type to blitz it on the 30th (and the 1st?) and spend New Year's Eve proper reading Ferrante on your couch, you've got a clear path tonight at the State Theatre, where Boston funk act Lettuce play with their Portland homeslices Jaw Gems, whose praises have been sung again and again. Also with TAUK, a "dirty funk" quartet from New York. 8 p.m. | $25 | State Theatre, 609 Congress St., Portland | statetheatreportland.com
SATURDAY 31
LIBRARY SWEAT | You'll find plenty of offbeat ideas for spending your New Year's in our feature, but here's another one for you: In the Portland Public Library today, you're invited to 'treat your bod' to a contra dance. 11 a.m. | Free | Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Sq., Portland | portlandlibrary.com
DON'T TRIP | Are we in agreement that dubstep's moment is behind us? Probably not. Nonetheless, that's kind of the domain of the live instrumentalists Moon Hooch, former conservatory students and busker Wenzi McGowan and Mike Wilbur (saxophone) and drummer James Muschler, who some argue are forging a new path for the break-heavy rhythm. They credit yoga and meditation as practical inspirations for their new album, Red Sky, and their work is definitely a lot more satisfying to watch than some 17-year-old kid press some buttons on stage. 8 p.m. | $20-25 | Port City Music Hall, 504 Congress St., Portland | portcitymusichall.com
FLANNEL UP | Besides the Rustics (and maybe Motor Booty Affair), it's hard to point to a Maine band more institutionalized than the Mallett Brothers Band. Read Tim Gillis's do-up on the group and their new members (including ex-North of Nashville fiddler Andrew Martelle and former thrash-metal drummer and Maine legend Adam Cogswell) on page 19. The boys plan for a new album of reinterpreted 19th-century Maine folk songs titled The Falling of the Pine: Songs from the Maine Woods, this winter, and play batches of those songs alongside their signature staples as the world turns on its axis. 8 p.m. | $20-25 | Port City Music Hall, 504 Congress St., Portland | portcitymusichall.com
SUNDAY 1
DO LITERALLY NOTHING | As you emerge from the wreckage that was 2016, surely there's a resolution or two you've considered from the vast index of "wellness" initiatives the Western world has to offer. Yoga, we'd reckon, is among them. And why not? — yoga has numerous benefits, including offering one arena where it's verboten to play with your phone. I personally get down with Maine Hatha Yoga (having read in a book by Jerzy Grotowski long ago that hatha is ideal for theater people, which, I don't know, stuck), but you shouldn't care about me. January 1 is classically a day to care about yourself above all, but you'd do well to resist that too. Who should you care about, then? The whole of humanity, because it's in trouble. At Maine Hatha Yoga, the "Silent Meditation for Peace and Unity" could be a stepping stone along your path to spiritual and social engagement. No joke, you forget how powerful it is to sit silently in a room with a bunch of people. 4 to 5 p.m. | Maine Hatha Yoga, 49 Dartmouth St. Portland | mainehathayoga.com
MONDAY 2
FOR FANS OF STARFISH | The 2015 film Evolution, by French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic, is a lyrical and entrancing meditation that also manages to be a sci-fi thriller. Hadzihalilovic is the wife of famed director Gaspar Noe, who also works in this inventive and confrontational genre of filmmaking. A superb January 2-sorta thing to do. 8:30 p.m. | $8 | SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St. | space538.org
TUESDAY 3
THANK A SISTER | The songwriter Clara Junken, whom you may remember from the roots-folk act Marion Grace, plays a solo set at Blue tonight, a small jewel for the dark weeks ahead. 8 p.m. | one-drink-minimum | Blue, 650A Congress St., Portland | portcityblue.com
WEDNESDAY 4
CARE ABOUT NUTRITION | The great January nothing is here, and you might do well to counter it by gathering some special ones close and cooking a hearty, kale-based soup. But if they're in a bad mood tonight, you could instead sneak off to a brewery in Biddeford. Banded Horn has a comedy night every Wednesday, and tonight they've got sketch team Boxed Wine and Boston's Brett Johnson, who says he grew up in New York City and East Africa. 8 p.m. | $5 | Banded Horn, 13-W in the Pepperell Mill, 32 Main St. in Biddeford | bandedhorn.com
YELLING PRACTICE | The Crowbait Club, the upstart theater group that keeps on ticking, rouses its troupes for a "Deathmatch," where local playwrights script plays on the theme of "dissonance" and workshop their pieces in front of (and starring) a live audience. 8 p.m | Mayo Street Arts, 10 Mayo St., Portland | mayostreetarts.org
THURSDAY 5
POST-9/11 COMEDIES | Today, the Nickelodeon plays some old-world throwback films from 2002. Frida, the biopic of pathbreaking Chilean artist Frida Kahlo starring Selma Hayek, screens at 1:15 and 6:50. Analyze That, the square peg/round hole buddy comedy starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, screens at 9:20. Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine gets three rounds (at 4:10, 7, and 9:35), and Nicole Kidman in Far From Heaven goes up at 4 p.m. The Oscar-considered films are soon to follow at Nickelodeon, 25 Temple St. | patriotcinemas.com