Rodriguez

Thu., May 14, 9 p.m., $12, with War on Drugs, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 866-468-7619, r5productions.com.

by Brian Howard

Every few years, as a form of karmic contrition, the music world exhumes some long-slept-on secret genius — unappreciated and carelessly cast off in their time — and resurrects them. This year's heir to the Shuggie Otis/Vashti Bunyan throne is Detroit psych-folk legend Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, a guy who quit the biz in the 1970s and subsequently became famous in Australia, and, unbeknownst to him, a cult legend in South Africa. His two albums of gritty, fuzzed-out social commentary reflecting on urban conditions in the Motor City circa the early '70s — he's been called a Hispanic Dylan — have been re-released, fueling his rediscovery by the cognoscenti.