Music Picks

Blah Blah Blah

L.A. Lovin’

We interrupt our usually scheduled Blah Blah to celebrate the doings of May 1, and express pride in our hometown. The march on Wilshire was by far the most mellow-yet-massive human gathering I’ve experienced. (You get a better workout at a typical Dodger game — what with hiking in, getting beer, etc.) Our fair city deserves an ovation for exercising free speech with style. In honor of L.A.-tino pride, I gotta endorse Friday night’s Cinco de Mayo Dodger game (against Milwaukee), which will feature fireworks, followed on Saturday night by Jose Feliciano at House of Blues. As you may read elsewhere in this week’s paper, Feliciano’s “Star Spangled Banner” at the 1968 World Series was a bit of a killer. (And surely the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.) As Feliciano recalled in 2003, “I thought, ‘Jose, you have a great opportunity to express how you feel about America.’ When I did it, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I was going to cause such a stir . . . It was soulful. It was a little bit gospel. It was done in a way that has never been done before.” Kinda like, you know, what happened in L.A. on May 1. (Kate Sullivan)

THURSDAY, MAY 4

Daniel Johnston at Spaceland

The “other” basement recordings are by a man-boy from a Christian family who joined a Texas carnival, worked at McDonald’s, scared an elderly woman into jumping out of a window and psychotically crashed his father’s plane. Then Kurt Cobain wore his T-shirt — the rest is lo-fi history. From Bowie to Beck, rock gods covet covering Daniel Johnston’s spookily childlike, untrained odes to love and demons. But Johnston’s madness is only half his charm. His crude songwriting deserves the cultish attention his legendary D.I.Y. cassette recordings won in seminal 1980s Austin. The troubled little guy showed that something unpretentiously pure and insightful can come from deterioration — a deeper understanding that is perhaps impossible to articulate without being nuts. And we still like the way he thinks. Many pounds and bouts later, Johnston continues to inspire in 2006: a documentary about his life released nationally in March, his drawings featured in the Whitney Biennial, the release of his first greatest-hits collection, and a national tour. Still heartbreakingly crazy after all these years, Daniel Johnston performs in L.A. for the first time in ages. Catch him now before he crawls back inside his basement. Also at Amoeba Music, 6 p.m. (Courtney Fitzgerald)

Aterciopelados at the Conga Room

Doing their best to revive the reputation of Colombia as more than a haven for drug lords, Aterciopelados — which means “the velvety ones,” in case you’d wondered — achieve a harmonious marriage of punk rock, bolero, pop and mariachi that, in the words of the McDLT, keeps the hot side hot and the cool side cool. Grammy winners Andrea Echeverri and Héctor Buitrago, on acoustic guitar and bass respectively, have taken to including string sections and trip-hop aspects in their latest work, and Echeverri released a solo album of not-too-dissimilar grooves earlier this year. She played at the inauguration of Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president, last month, and likely these latest performances will be touched by Echeverri’s latest lead: as mother to her tiny hippie baby Milagros. 5364 Wilshire Blvd. (323) 938-1696. (David Cotner)

FRIDAY MAY 5

{mosimage}Andre Williams at Alex’s Bar

One of the R&B underworld’s finest, orneriest and raunchiest practitioners, Alabama-born, Detroit-informed chanter Andre Williams began infecting the youth of America during the late 1950s with a series of immortal, incendiary rhythm bombs (“Bacon Fat,” “Jailbait,” “Greasy Chicken”), all put across with a delirious drawl and blue, dynamic tension quite unlike anyone else in the business. A drastically physical showman with a voracious taste for the after-hours high life, Williams almost destroyed himself and wound up a panhandling bum on the streets of Chicago. That fate reinstated him as a working performer is a genuine blessing, and Williams’ shows invariably savage the psyche with an unparalleled blend of venal aggression and soulful frolic. 2913 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. (562) 434-8292. Also at Spaceland, Sat. See Hoopla. (Jonny Whiteside)



Nortec Collectiveat Amoeba Music

Cinco de Mayo sees the Nortec Collective celebrate their latest release, Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 3 (Nacional Records), as well as the publication of the book Paso del Nortec: This Is Tijuana! by Jose Manuel Valenzuela (available from finer bookstores with tailless cats near you). Playing in places as disparate as Ibiza and East Los Angeles, Nortec pump rhythms (with equally shifting portions of norteño and techno) from computers like stones skittering across a sea made entirely of china; their oral history is that of people who do work no one else wants — cleaning up the awful offal of litterbugs and other fucktards — and who exist outside “mainstream” society, where most are certainly not maid in Manhattan. 6400 Sunset Blvd., Hlywd.; 6 p.m. (323) 245-6500. (David Cotner)

SATURDAY MAY 6

Acid Mothers Temple at the Knitting Factory

A “freak-out group for the 21st century,” Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. were founded in 1996 by members of the Acid Mothers Temple music-art commune. Led by electric guitarist/violinist/occasional bowed-peacock player/visionary Kawabata Makoto, they’ve put out approximately 800,000 albums of psychedelia varying seriously in quality, including the truly epic glories of In C, their radical reworking of Terry Riley’s famous minimalist piece (which, for F’s sake, also included their own “In E,” and, on the CD reissue on Squealer, the 19-minute bonus track “In D”). Their earlier Hawkwind-meets-Zappa improvised loon-pants-floppy-hats-and-cheesecloth-shirts hippie litter has recently evolved (probably ’cause they’ve learned to play their instruments) into more satisfyingly conceptualized works like the brutal monster heaviness of Starless and Bible Black Sabbath(Alien 8), honoring King Crimson and Black Sabbath, or the very groovy medieval space-rock of Mantra of Love. (John Payne)



Junkie XL at Avalon

A native of the Netherlands who moved to Venice Beach last year to be nearer to the film and TV industry that keeps his music career pumping, Junkie XL rocketed out of studio-hound semi-obscurity in 2002 when his tweak of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (originally recorded as the soundtrack for a Nike spot) became an international pop smash. These days, the man known to friends as Tom Holkenborg is for the most part back to studio-hound semi-obscurity: The new Junkie XL CD, Today, is a streamlined slab of guitar-stoked disco-house, largely free of the celebrity guest spots that drew attention to 2004’s Radio JXL. At Avalon, he’ll likely emphasize his big-beat bona fides; not unlike Moby, though, his soft-serve stuff might be his best. 1735 N. Vine St., Hlywd. (Mikael Wood)


Jose Felicianoat House of Blues

While the popular perception of Jose Feliciano, the born-blind Puerto Rican singer-guitarist of “Light my fire, light my fire, light my fire” infamy, is likely that of a large, glistening cheeseball, nothing could be further from the musical truth (perhaps you’re thinking of Trini Lopez). As a kid, he’d stay in his room for hours at a stretch, absorbing rock & roll and jazz platters, and the man can dig into a tune with a masterly combination of ferocity and restraint that could only come from such a diet. Long story short, Feliciano’s gift for taut, provocative and tastefully economical jams, delivered hot and fraught with atmosphere, is still tragically underrated. See Blah Blah Blah. (Jonny Whiteside)