When Those Darlins play RIBCO on Monday in a Daytrotter.com show, be prepared for things to get a little crazy. And if they don't, expect some good-natured hectoring from the Tennessee-based band.

Nikki Darlin -- they go by that fake family name, even though the three singing and songwriting leaders aren't sisters -- described the scene at a recent Nashville show celebrating the release of the group's self-titled debut:

"Jessi [Those Darlins' guitarist] and I had built a giant chicken piñata that was destroyed during 'The Whole Damn Thing' song. And my friend ... had made me a dress that night, and he ripped it off of me in the middle of the set. So I was playing the rest of the show in my underwear. And then everyone started taking their clothes off and got up on stage. Everyone's spitting beer all over everyone else. People were making out, and it was just fucking awesome."

The piñata, by the way, was filled with feathers.

Describing Mantis, Umphrey's McGee bassist Ryan Stasik doesn't mince words about the band's ambitions: "This record was like our opus, ... withstanding of time and complex and progressive and still a little heavy with aspects of pop."

It is not a "summer fun" album, he said, and despite the Chicago-based outfit's reputation as a jam band, Mantis is daring, tight, and expertly played.

That's different, however, from saying it's concise or disciplined. "Complex and progressive and still a little heavy with aspects of pop" describes not only the album but pretty much every song.

When the group plays the Capitol Theatre on Thursday, it will be debuting the Mantis material in the Quad Cities - a departure from its typical road-testing of material. Fans of Umphrey's are used to knowing the songs by the time they've been committed to a studio album, but Mantis is different. The group worked on the recording for two years and didn't play the songs in front of an audience until it was released in January.

The Listener engenders confusion.

Is it Listener, or the Listener Project? Yes. But not anymore.

The albums Whispermoon (2003) and Ozark Empire (2005) sure sound like hip-hop, but their creator prefers the term "talk music." "What we do is not hip hop," said Dan Smith, the Arkansas-based performer who is the Listener.

So in advance of the Listener's July 5 show at Fireworks in Moline, let's clear a few things up.

When Jesy Fortino talks about her experiences with touring -- particularly opening for rock bands -- she sounds self-pitying and ungrateful. Most musicians would kill for her situation.

"The hype around here was pretty cool in Seattle," Fortino said in a phone interview last week. "I just went from starting to play to getting signed to Sub Pop. It was really quick. I hadn't gone through the trial and error of being an unsigned musician."

As Tiny Vipers, she released Hands Across the Void in 2007, and Pitchfork called it "as sobering as folk music gets: patient, resonant, and, perhaps most importantly, curious."

mp3 Tiny Vipers - "Dreamer"

But despite the buzz and early acclaim, touring was torturous. "Nobody [in the crowd] gave a shit," she said. "They're there to see the band that's after me." When she opened for Minus the Bear (again, most emerging artists would be more than envious), "the audiences would mostly just chant 'Minus the Bear' while I was playing. When it first happened, I was totally devastated. I really internalized it. ...

"I got really lame and kind of selfish in my own negativity," she continued.