Rock Picks

Also playing Friday:

AL KOOPER at McCabe’s; MARCIA BALL at the Mint; VIEJOS TIEMPOS, MARIA FATAL, LAS 15 LETRAS, LOS OLVIDADOS, SECTOR LIBERTAD at Safari Sam’s; AUTUMNS, SUGARPLASTIC at Spaceland; ATOMIC SHERPAS at Taix.

Modest Mouse can't believe that Paris Hilton is going to jail.

Great Northern: Fade away and radiate (Photo by Sterling Andrews)

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More About

• Mr. T
• John Vanderslice
• Annie Clark
• Jimmy Tamborello
• Modest Mouse

SATURDAY, MAY 12

The Billybones at the Echoplex

One of the cool things about this year’s edition of the geographically challenged Silver Lake Film Festival (which occurs mostly in Echo Park) is that the promoters are using the event as an excuse to honor legendary local punk rock survivors. Last week, the Bags’ Alice Bag was given the Latina Music Pioneer Award, and tonight X bassist John Doe gets the star treatment with a Q&A session at the 6 p.m. screening of the 1986 documentary X: The Unheard Music. Afterward, at 8:30 p.m., another L.A. punk veteran — the Skulls’ Billy Bones — plays a set with his new combo, the Billybones. Although the Skulls featured a couple of musicians who would go on to greater fame with Wall of Voodoo, they never received the fawning media attention of bands like X and the Germs — in part because the Skulls released only one studio recording (the incendiary “Victims,” with its distinctively snarling whiplash-guitar lick) in their late-’70s heyday (a situation that was remedied with the 2002 release of the excellent Therapy for the Shy CD). New Billybones songs like “All Excess” have the old Skulls energy juiced up with a straightforward, no-nonsense Saints/Ramones drive. (Falling James)

Rock & Roll Adventure Kids at Mr. T’s Bowl

In Hollywood, the garage-rock game has dried up and gone stale, but in Highland Park trash maven Real Boss Hoss has kicked over the table, shredded the rule book and, with a series of increasingly unhinged package shows, instituted a wild new era of drastic big-beat demolition. Spearheaded by East Bay peckerwood-punk guitar-drums twosome Rock & Roll Adventure Kids, it ain’t gonna be nothin’ but a rampage. These daffy fuckers work a tore-up, blow-top flip-out sound that casts glittering shards of off-kilter Jonathan Richman/“Roadrunner” momentum and dysfunctional Hasil Adkins–style dementia with a fervent bite and ingenuous, primitivo charm that captures the essential, elemental lure of throwback rock & roll. If there’s any better sensation known to man, it’s strictly a behind-closed-doors proposition. (Jonny Whiteside)

SUNDAY, MAY 13

Modest Mouse, Man Man, Love as Laughter at the Greek Theatre

It’s unlikely that anyone who saw a mid-’90s show by Modest Mouse — an event during which front man Isaac Brock was likely to be drunk — imagined the Washington State outfit turning into the mainstream faves Brock and his band mates have become. (Even if you could imagine it, the use of “Float On” on American Idol a few weeks back still had to blow your mind.) The most unlikely part of Modest Mouse’s ascent has been how little they’ve tinkered with their sound to please mainstream palates; on We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (their first album with ex-Smith Johnny Marr on guitar), Brock still yelps like a backwoods madman while the rest of the group try their best to disco-fy the sea chantey. Philadelphia’s Man Man do a circus-punk thing perfect for Tom Waits fans, while Love as Laughter, from Brooklyn, play art-damaged garage rock. (Mikael Wood)

Also playing Sunday:

NON CREDO, BRAD DUTZ, KAORU, CAREY FOSSE, NORA KEYES at Dangerous Curve, 4 p.m.; PORCUPINE TREE at Grove of Anaheim; DIOS MALOS, FREE MORAL AGENTS at Alex’s Bar; ARIEL PINK at the Echo; SLUM VILLAGE at Key Club; CHENCHA BERRINCHES, VIERNES 13, UNION 13 at Knitting Factory; FAIRPORT CONVENTION at McCabe’s; CHAPIN SISTERS at the Mint; JOHN WIESE, DAMION ROMERO at the Smell; DINOSAUR JR. at Troubadour; BRENTON WOOD at the Hop, 3 p.m.

MONDAY, MAY 14Playing Monday:

RJD2, PIGEON JOHN at Henry Fonda Theater; BODIES OF WATER, KIND HEARTS & CORONETS at the Echo; HEALTH CLUB at Mr. T’s Bowl; HIGH SOCIETY, DAVE GLEASON at Silverlake Lounge; GLISS at Spaceland; DAEDELUS at Temple Bar; DITTY BOPS at City Hall, noon.

TUESDAY, MAY 15THURSDAY, MAY 17

King Kong at Spaceland

King Kong were formed in Louisville in 1989 by ex-Slint bassist Ethan Buckler, who discovered early on in his young punk life that that brutal yet sensitive and most misunderstood (and hairy) big ape represented his philosophy of life. King Kong the band were thus from the start a kinda goofy but bluesily rocking little combo, chock-full of tight, grooving beats and funky melodies, talk-sung by Buckler in a nasally monotone not unlike Fred from the B-52’s. Buckler’s ongoing series of ludicrously themed concept albums — including Me Hungry, the story of the great love between a caveman and a yak — were foolish, fun affairs, as is the band’s new Buncha Beans (Drag City), their first record in, like, five years. Beans is a somewhat more straightforwardly (musically, that is) tail-feather-shaking thing, chock even more full of tuff teen beats, a coupla horns, extra singer Amy Partin Ritchie and, most especially, an ever-droller Buckler intoning ace party tunes such as “Ride the Funky Mule,” “Monkey Business” and “Freak Off You.” (John Payne)