Getting There

Photos by Ted Soqui

L.A. WEEKLY 25th-ANNIVERSARY PARTY at the Park Plaza, December 11

The L.A. Weekly celebrated 25 years as the country’s biggest and best alternative newsweekly with a party for longtime friends, family and foes at the grand old Park Plaza Hotel. The event was, as they say, a rousing success, with more than 1,500 people gathering in the hotel’s lobby and ballrooms to catch up with old cohorts and cronies, slap some backs, scam a lot of free food & drink, ogle the luminaries (and belly dancers), have a tarot-card reading, get a henna tattoo, and dance, dance, dance to Brendan Mullen’s freaky, funky DJ set. In the Plaza’s small concert area, several bands comprising members of the Weekly’s editorial and production staff performed, including a tenacious set by Gary Eaton and his Kingsizemaybe, Weekly creative director John Curry’s reconvened pop punks the Flyboys, and Dean Chamberlain’s timelessly suave Code Blue. The live-music segment of the evening’s entertainment was brought to a climax by the Kinksian jump of the 88 and the mosh-pit-inspiring energy and heart of Weekly-approved punk vets Bad Religion. The vibe was nice, everyone seemed really into it, and our gracious guests made the charity raffle benefiting Hollygrove Children and Family Services another huge success. That’s 25 years of free thinking and award-winning journalism, folks, something we can all be proud of. (John Payne)

MONDO GENERATOR, AMEN at the Troubadour, December 11 Amen prioritize attitude and adrenaline over artistry, epitomizing the current metal malaise: a slew of bands who present intriguing lyrical imagery and perform with endearing abandon, but when the smoke clears offer little in terms of tunes. Front man Casey Chaos and his long-black-bangs brigade assault the stage with confrontational, strobe-light energy, gouging through passages of fizzing guitars, Rotten vocals and structured bombast with impassioned punk irreverence. A few weeks back, Amen relished pissing off Killing Joke’s 30-something crowd at El Rey, but Mondo Generator fans are not easily offended, and, robbed of their shock factor, Amen’s redundant rage makes little impression beyond the first three rows. Rich Jones’ chiming guitar layers and drummer Luke Johnson’s barbarian battering leave dents, but overall, with a hollow mix and frigid crowd, Amen’s flailing around only brings an overly tattered edge to already indistinct material.

Mondo Generator at first appear to be a predictably eccentric side project: the emaciated, bearded hooker (Kyuss/ Dwarves/QOTSA veteran Nick Oliveri) on vocals, the naughty-nurse-stripogram bassist, a Starsky and Hutch street-hustler drummer (ex–Kyuss/Fu Manchu man Brant Bjork) and, apparently, Drew Carey on guitar. It doesn’t bode well, but there’s an immediate and welcome contrast with Amen: Mondo groove, understanding how to let a riff breathe and bloom, and, however putrid Oliveri’s beyond-the-grave squawking becomes, there’s no hiding his musicality and, at times, downright melodiousness. It’s tempting to think that this lot wouldn’t get arrested without Oliveri’s résumé, but, after a set of stoner beats, fuzzy ‘n’ flexible bass lines and effected guitar, they’ve established their own tasteless yet tuneful space. Much of Mondo’s material channels Oliveri’s love of controlled substances — if this sonic and visual apparition is indeed drug-induced, consider yourself warned. (Paul Rogers)

DAVID ALLAN COE at the Key Club, December 13

The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy hadn’t appeared on a Los Angeles stage for many years (reportedly awaiting a statute of limitations to run its course), but once he got there, the 64-year-old David Allan Coe made clear that he remains as threatening a performer as ever. Brandishing his trademark stars-and-bars Flying V, beard and hair entwined into multicolored ethnocentric hillbilly dreads, clad in a bright white antebellum pimp topcoat and hat, Coe launched into “Son of the South” with sweet, subdued menace; suddenly casting off the coat and hat, Coe lunged at the writhing, weed-burning crowd with naked musical aggression that he easily sustained for 90 minutes.

Burdened with decades of bizarre, self-aggrandizing stunts, Coe complained during one of many reflective between-song dissertations that the press rarely if ever writes about his music. It’s a valid beef; he’s a songwriter of considerable accomplishment and great metaphoric beauty (“Would You Lay With Me in a Field of Stone”); he’s a master of hard-country balladry (“This Bottle in My Hand”) and hardcore rabble-rousing (“If That Ain’t Country” had everyone screaming along, “You can kiss my ass!”). Coe threw down an orgiastic version of Steve Goodman’s backhills apocalypse “You Never Even Called Me by Name” and an eerie turn on his ghost-of-Hank number “The Last Ride.”

Coe’s five-piece band mostly worked a heavy-gauge Southern rock sound, he tossed out more “motherfucker”s than you’d find at a gangsta-rap festival, and at one point the proceedings nearly erupted into a riot. With a swaggering defiance tempered by an elegiac sense of his own mortality, Coe demonstrated not only his vaunted rebel pride but also a degree of crafty artistry that few others come close to approaching. (Jonny Whiteside)

THE FEVER, THE VUE, JESUS FOR VEGAS at the Echo, December 12