Gig Alert: Al Scorch

ARTIST: Al Scorch 
GIG: Friday at Cake Shop

Punk music has always been more about attitude than about an actual sound. When a bit of punk energy gets dunked into a musical idiom like, say, bluegrass, the result sounds like a runaway train. That’s the kind of music the perfectly-named songwriter Al Scorch creates on his banjo. The Chicago musician conjures up equal parts old timey country and the freewheeling fire of The Pogues on his new album Circle Round the Signs.