Rock Picks: Circle Jerks, Money Mark, No Age

Mike Watt and the Missingmen, Calvin Weston with Monster Cock Rally at the Knitting Factory

Time to genuflect and throw flowers to the man in the van w/bass in hand, Mr. Mike Watt, on the 50th year of his birth, can you believe it. The pride of Pedro — Minutemen! Firehose! Banyan! Dos! Slapping bass with the Stooges! Outrageous various solo stuff! — just is not slowing down at all; why, you need to check out his site at http://www.hootpage.com to make even the most feeble attempt at keeping up with it all. Among Watt’s billion current projects is the Missingmen, who originally formed to bring his third punk rock opera, Ten and Twenty Does Not Make Fifty, to fruition; Tom Watson’s on guitar/some singing and Raul Morales performs on drums, in 39 miniatures of sculpturally modernistic yet Hieronymus Bosch–suggestive thud-thwacking. Do not miss opener Calvin Weston with Monster Cock Rally: The ex–Ornette Coleman/Blood Ulmer/Derek Bailey/Tricky/John Lurie drummer jams maximo in collab with Oakland’s dark kings of avant-metal colossalness. Watt and the Missingmen also at Mr. T’s Bowl on January 7; at Silverlake Lounge on January 9; Watt with Banyan at the Mint on January 3. (John Payne)

Rock-a-bye your B.B. with a bluesy melody...

Stone cold: Soul man Jerry Butler

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More About

• B.B. King
• Ben Chasney
• David Cotner
• Jonny Whiteside
• Punk Rock

Stone cold: Soul man Jerry Butler (Click to enlarge)

Mika Miko: Who would believe such cute kids could make so much friggin' noise? (Click to enlarge)

Talk about eclectic: Wrestling aficionado Bob Mould plays Disney Hall (Click to enlarge)

Mika Miko, No Age, David Scott Stone at the Smell

The crème de la crème of the punk world in a show with everything but Yul Brynner, tonight’s installation of the Smell’s 10-year-anniversary series starts early (7 p.m.) and boasts $5 haircuts for those willing to risk their cred by having their shaggy Samsonite locks so surely shorn. Stone, longtime heavy-noise stalwart and collaborator with the Melvins (whose Buzz Osborne is married to the gal who created Social Distortion’s drunken dancing skeleton — fact!), alchemizes his usual ur-concrete thud into sexy(!) French(?) swagger(~) on the MOTM modular synthesizer. Mika Miko, longtime Smell-noise stalwarts, unleash their flaming-arrow hail of growly-scowly synths and guitars, while the avant power-pop duo of No Age (conquistadors who recently retook the L.A. River from the forces of puzzled and beige park rangers) make even the lag time on songs on their MySpace page sound good. Also: Abe Vigoda, Disaster, Fast Forward, Hard Bop, Silver Daggers. (David Cotner)

MONDAY, Jan. 7

Radar Bros. at the Echo

Senon Williams is a busy man these days: On January 22, his local Cambodian-inspired psych-rock outfit, Dengue Fever, is scheduled to release its latest studio disc, while the following Tuesday will bring a new album from Radar Bros., the fuzzy indie-roots combo Williams has played in alongside ex-Medicine guy Jim Putnam for more than a decade now. Auditorium, the new Radar CD, finds Putnam, Williams and the rest of the band (which now includes guitarist-keyboardist Jeff Palmer) doing what they do best: sounding like a laid-back West Coast version of New York’s Luna. Fans of slow tempos, twinkly guitars and mellow vocal harmonies will find much to admire. This show kicks off the band’s Monday-night January residence at the Echo; admission is free. (Mikael Wood)

TUESDAY, Jan. 8

Songs of the City at Walt Disney Concert Hall

One of the central highlights of the L.A. Phil’s appealingly eclectic "Concrete Frequency" festival (see “Frequency Response,” page 80), this program aims to “celebrate the symbiotic relationship between music and the urban environment” (as a press release puts its) with performances by a bevy of globe-tripping indie-pop road warriors: Sean Lennon, whose terrific Friendly Fire didn’t receive half the attention it should’ve last year; former Hüsker Dü and Sugar front man Bob Mould, who has a handsome new solo disc due for release in February; Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche; John Doe of X; Inara George of the Bird and the Bee; Zach Rogue of Oakland’s Rogue Wave; Money Mark, the Beastie Boys’ amiable organ-funk buddy; Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio; Stevie Jackson of Belle and Sebastian; Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear; Marc Bianchi, who has made a series of dreamy electro-pop records as Her Space Holiday; Franklin Bruno, the songwriter (and occasional L.A. Weekly critic); actress Zooey Deschanel and others. Big cities require bright lights. (Mikael Wood)

Elvis Presley Birthday Celebration at the Henry Fonda Theater

On January 8, 1935, as Gladys Presley gave birth to twin boys, the skies above Tupelo, Mississippi, were filled with weird flashing beams of light, a phenomenon that climaxed several weeks of disturbing commotion out in the bushes surrounding the Presley shack — nocturnal occurrences so troubling that father Vernon had already cleared the surrounding property. The ramifications of this extracurricular — presumably extraterrestrial — activity remain a mystery, but one definite outcome is the annual Elvis birthday blowout, and this edition covers a wild stretch of EP-fixation. Between Billy Bob Thornton’s jackass bray and the Surfaris’ deep reverb riff-slinging, the King’s influence clearly still reaches across the musical spectrum as an inescapable force. Acolytes like masterly 1950s rockabilly Glenn Glen and Hollywood rabble-rousers the Groovy Rednecks polish the Presley rock of ages with reliably untamed enthusiasm, and the presence of the Mafia-groomed former teen idol Jimmy Angel, who just traded his two-decade Tokyo gig for a contract in Las Vegas, guarantees a high voltage, lid-flipping, Presley-infused ball. (Jonny Whiteside)