rock/pop

Though this lo-fi, SoCal, blue-eyed soul singer/multi-instrumentalist has occasionally teamed up with one-time label mates Animal Collective, the Ariel Pink live experience has been pretty much a one-man show. Until now. Pink and his publicist Katy Martineau are seeking to remedy his oh-so-solo stage presence by asking locals in each town he visits to accompany him during the second half of each evening's show. "The criteria have been: whoever could reference specific Ariel stuff the quickest—say, what five songs they knew definitively—and then how quick they could rehearse them," says Martineau. They've gotten commitments from Mah Jongg in Chicago, R. Stevie Moore in Manhattan and a group of 19-year-olds who just happened to live nearest the Seattle club where Pink'll be playing, but the Philly gig is still up in the air. "We've done some MySpace and some MP3 listening and it's a tie, right now, between Dragon City [the opening act] and Bamshire—a local experimental psychobilly act." "The element of surprise will keep me from falling asleep onstage," says Pink.

Sat., Feb. 25, 9 p.m., $8, with Psychic Ills, Dragon City, Steven Ward James and Belong, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-235-5888, www.thekhyber.com.