Monterey County’s best week of music in 2014 thus far goes beyond Pixies and Willie.

Tonight, Willie Nelson unearths classics like “Pancho and Lefty,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “On the Road Again” to a crowd of around 700 at the Sunset Center. On Tuesday, just about 25 miles south of Carmel, The Pixies unleash nuggets such as “Wave of Mutilation,” “Where is My Mind” and “Hey” for an even smaller audience at the Henry Miller Library.

Both shows are sold out. A huge percentage of Monterey County’s music lovers didn’t score a ticket to either.

Instead of crying over it, get your ass to the Blue Fin tonight for an eclectic quadruple showcase.

Duncan Nielsen, aka DonCat, dropped his full-length debut Don Gato just a few weeks ago. The enveloping brand of folk rock, in the vein of Fleet Foxes, is fueled by a naturally gifted voice that feels like a fusion of Chris Isaak and Roy Orbison – way better than anything on The Voice orAmerican Idol.

Nielsen cut a lot of the record at the downtown San Francisco bar John Colins. A few years back, he and a friend hosted Tuesday night open mic nights at the spot, which brought in a lot of business. The bar owner was so grateful that he gave them a copy of the key and access to the bar on Sundays as a rehearsal space – and a recording studio.

“The thing that’s cool about John Colins is it has a big lofted ceiling and a pretty wide open bar, so it’s got a big-room sound; all the drums on the record were recorded on the stage in that bar.”

Once Nielsen finished recording Don Gato, he had big ideas for the way it should be released. As in vinyl – of a “Coke bottle green” shade – and an insert with lyrics on one side with the other side covered with 10 pieces of original artwork, from Bay Area artists, that accompany each of the album’s 10 tracks thematically.

Nielsen put out an online plea to his fans to pre-purchase the album so he’d have enough money to press and package the vinyl. (He estimated that he needed 200 people to throw down at least $20 a piece to make it happen.)

Though he didn’t raise the amount of dough he was asking for, he came close enough and all the various pieces came together as he envisioned, particularly the art. One of his favorite works is Brendan Hagarty’s mixed-media collage featuring mountains and the sun, fittingly paired with the cavernous and abrupt “Glass Window.”

Bells and whistles aside, Nielsen’s songs shine brightly, from the Silver Lake freak folk jam that erupts in “Where Wind Blows” to the 27-year-old’s acidic commentary on his generation on the album bookend, “John Wayne.”

“[My generation] lives flippantly by the seat of their pants,” Nielsen says.

Meanwhile, Matt Hable has been known to some around the Peninsula as the mind behind the one-man concert promotion operation, Gus Madsack Presents, the gravelly voice behind the now-disbanded White Dogs and way back when, an always-helpful employee at Recycled Records who gracefully steered clear of the record store-music snob archetype we love to hate, thanks to the caricatures painted in High Fidelity.

Since moving to Oakland, Hable’s solo project, dubbed Strange Ideas, has been taking shape and slowly becoming an outlet for some of the most important work of his musical career. It initially began as a source for tunes he had penned for White Dogs that never came to fruition; raunchy R&B and swampy blues with a early ’60s rock foundation. Hable says he wanted to “trick those songs out” somehow through his Strange Ideas moniker but wasn’t quite sure what element could take them to the next level. Then came the inspiration he was looking for: A karaoke bar in Guam, where he lived from the time he was 8 until he was 13. All the details were still clear after all these years: the long, L-shaped plush couch and the coffee table with the large menu of songs and the disco ball that dangled like a sad moon next to the TV. Hable and his parents spent hours taking turns up on the small stage.

“It was very meaningful for me,” he says.

Hable’s mom always insisted that he sing Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” Elvis’ “My Way” and Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” and he performed a rocking duet of Radiohead’s “Creep” with his stepfather. The memories of family karaoke have helped influence the foundation of the Strange Ideas’ sound.

“I realized that vocal delay is very important to karaoke,” Hable explains. “So I’m using the karaoke sound in [Strange Ideas].”

Additionally, Strange Ideas utilizes reverb-drenched guitar and a touch of dirty overdrive pedal. Hable has also traded in the Tom Waits whisky voice he brought to White Dogs for a more natural crooner voice. Currently, the Monterey native is doing some recording and plans on releasing a five-song EP on 10-inch vinyl in August.

Also performing, ’60s psych trio The Tomb Weavers and Keith Damron’s garage rock quartet El Camino Sutra.

Willie who?

DONCAT, THE TOMB WEAVERS, STRANGE IDEAS and EL CAMINO SUTRA perform 8pm Thursday, April 10, at Blue Fin, 685 Cannery Row, Monterey. $8. 717-4280.

: : HEAR MORE HERE : :

• doncatsings.com
• soundcloud.com/burgerrecords/the-tomb-weavers-andrew
• strangeideas.bandcamp.com
• elcaminosutra.bandcamp.com