Now that his 2002 disc Lifted . . . (Saddle Creek) has broken the 100,000 mark, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst has left the powder-blue suit and the all-girl band back in Omaha; this time, he’d much rather be with the boys. On his current tour, Oberst teams with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and the cracked indie singer-songwriter M. Ward to perform together and individually tonight (February 26) at Pearl Street (413-584-7810) in Northampton; Friday at Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in Winooski, Vermont; Saturday at Lupo’s at the Strand (401-331-5876) in Providence; and Sunday at a sold-out Somerville Theatre (617-931-2000) in Somerville.

Meanwhile, sometime Bright Eyes drummer Matt Focht’s indie dorkestra Head of Femur are out in support of last year’s superior Ringodom or Proctor (Greyday), which approximates the sound of a high-school marching band discovering Neutral Milk Hotel, Sgt. Pepper, and hallucinogens all in the same day. Their inveterate plea "I Don’t Wanna Go to Tech School" (actual title: "Acme: Summit of a Mountain") is even lonelier and prettier than their cover of the Brian Eno song that A Certain Ratio stole their name from. And their song about money’s being the root of all evil comes off like the kind of electro Kool-Aid acid test that Polyphonic Spree might have invented if they’d been mesmerized by Marxist guerrillas instead of Bible-school hippies. Head of Femur check into the Plan at Great Scott’s (617-566-9014) in Brighton on Monday.

Lisbon-via-Berlin riot-grrrl Suspiria Franklin’s tough-cookie post-punk band Les Baton Rouge return to New England with a new Tim Kerr–produced disc, My Body, The Pistol (Elevator Music); they’ll play Bar (203-495-8924) in New Haven on Sunday as well as a basement show in Brighton on Saturday (see www.eximiousproductions.net for details). The rad-fem violin-and-djembe folk-punk duo Bitch & Animal recently announced they’re calling it quits after one last tour that kicks off at Club Passim (617-492-7679) in Cambridge on Wednesday and Thursday before continuing on to the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton next Friday, March 5.

Sweden’s Opeth, the band who brought back the 12-minute prog-thash opus, end their latest North American tour with a gig at the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester on Saturday. And if that ain’t math-nerd enough for you, West Virginia’s Byzantine, the latest thrash maniacs on Prosthetic, claim to have a riff inspired by the Fibonacci sequence on their debut, The Fundamental Component. They’re at the Fat Cat (413-734-0554) in Springfield on Sunday.

Synonymous with the sound of contemporary Mississippi blues, the Fat Possum label sends forth its semi-annual "Juke Joint Caravan" tour, which features idiosyncratic one-chord moaner Paul "Wine" Jones, the ass-whopping felon T-Model Ford, and rocket-fueled R.L. Burnside protégés guitarist Kenny Brown and drummer Cedric Burnside, who blend slide-guitar sizzle with hip-hop soul while keeping the old man’s hill-country music alive. They’re at the Iron Horse on Monday and T.T. the Bear’s Place (617-492-BEAR) in Cambridge on Wednesday.