Donkey Show

The music of country-rock four-piece the Donkeys is the perfect accessory to a warm summer night -- here's hoping such a thing occurs tonight in the city. Like a glass of iced tea with a little pot resin on the rim, the band can make any location feel like a sunny, grassy field for about three lazy minutes. Perhaps coming from San Diego, where it rarely isn't summer, helped the group learn to go so easy on the ears. But the Donkeys' melodious tones couldn't be further from the thrashy maelstrom cooked up by their scene-mates (such as the Locust). Band members swap vocal turns and instruments, with occasional beachy harmonies filling out their comfortable organ and tube-amp-driven sound. Sounding like Pavement at its mellowest (circa Wowee Zowee) with some extra refried twang, the Donkeys do double duty tonight with a set of their own material before backing up headliner Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, whose “battery-powered” emo-pop surely can't escape without a sun tan.