Rock Picks: Ray Davies, Beth Orton, Justice

Roy Ayers, Najite & Tony Allen, J. ROCC at Crash Mansion

The ArtDontSleep bunch present “Homenaje,” a series of events custom-designed to “bridge the gap between the elders and young adults in the Los Angeles community.” And this is a good start: Veteran jazz-funk-soul star Roy Ayers brings his trademarked cool vibraphone work, which is sounding even more relevant nowadays than it did back in the L.A. native son’s ’70s heyday with his band Ubiquity. And it gets better: a very, very rare chance to see the one and only Tony Allen in a local appearance, with his fierce Najite. Allen is the renowned Nigerian drummer who played with Fela Kuti and is personally responsible for the development of the Afrobeat sound with his synthesis of jazz, funk and highlife rhythms; he’s lately been a member of Damon Albarn’s the Good the Bad & the Queen group as well. He’s an unbelievably great drummer and hugely influential figure — listen and learn. Then you’ve got virtuoso turntablist J. Rocc hitting the decks, along with DJs Coleman, Jeremy Sole and Anthony Valadez. (John Payne)

Straight outta Buckersfield: Terry Hanson

Marco Dos Santos

Disco techs: Justice

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Buckfest at the Cowboy Palace Saloon

Marco Dos Santos

(Click to enlarge)

Disco techs: Justice

Tim Soter

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In the Justice system: DJ Diplo

Katerina Kuzmina

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Boys sing: Auktyon

The late California country star Buck Owens was a honky-tonk juggernaut with a bandstand penchant for gold lamé wardrobe and ear-splitting volume levels, and he managed to score an astonishing 26 number-one country hits between 1959 and 1974. That towering feat led his adopted hometown to become nationally known as Buckersfield and, for a time, the burg threatened to eclipse Nashville as the most hit-making spot on the map. Tonight, the second annual BuckFest tribute night, organized by the Oildale-based Owens acolyte Terry Hanson, ensures that many of those brash, hard-socking classics will gain a new, rowdy lease on life. With high-octane six-stringers Merle Jagger (one of a very few groups able to reach the guitaristic heights proposed by Owens’ fabled ax-man Don Rich), the eruptive empress of hard California country Patty Booker and that intriguing 11 p.m. “special-guest-star slot,” it’ll damn sure feel like you’ve got a tiger by the tail. (Jonny Whiteside)

Also playing Saturday:

GZA, BLUE SCHOLARS at El Rey Theatre; AZTLAN UNDERGROUND at the Airliner; THE STITCHES, SUPERNOVA at Alex’s Bar; THE BLASTERS at Anarchy Library; PONCHO SANCHEZ at Blue Cafe; JAMES HARMAN at Cafe Boogaloo; BACKBITER, THE PROBE at Mr. T’s Bowl.

 SUNDAY, MARCH 30

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB at the Wiltern LG; FREE MORAL AGENTS, THE YEAR ZERO at Alex’s Bar; MIKE STINSON at The Echo; THE GAY MEN’S CHORUS OF LOS ANGELES at House of Blues; BAD MANNERS at the Key Club; THE STUDIOFIX at the Knitting Factory; ELENI MANDELL, CORREATOWN at Tangier. 

MONDAY, MARCH 31

Justice, Diplo, Fancy at the Mayan

Justice emerged last year as the edgy French disco-house duo of choice among people who spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not Daft Punk have gotten too mainstream. Not even 12 months after the release of their debut album, though, Justice themselves have started dipping toes into that water: Their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show is a YouTube staple, you can currently hear their track “Genesis” in a Cadillac commercial, and here they are headlining the MySpace Music Tour, which wraps up tonight with a three-act bill that also includes globe-trotting producer/DJ Diplo and French glam-punk group Fancy. Will Justice’s new shine bring a share of dance-music neophytes to the Mayan? For sure. Will it lessen the impact of their stupid-smart heavy-metal electro jams? Not at all. (Mikael Wood)

Also playing Monday:

THE CHAPIN SISTERS, MORIS TEPPER, I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. at the Echo.

 TUESDAY, APRIL 1Auktyon at Safari Sam’s

Some wonderful things occurred when guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, John Zorn), keyboardist John Medeski, saxist Ned Rothenberg and trumpeter Frank London joined the Russian band Auktyon for Girls Sing (Geometriya), its first studio album in a dozen years. The punk-funk track “Debil,” with Rothenberg’s and Nikolai Rubanov’s swooning intertwined horns, starts out with an Eastern European flavor that’s not far from Gogol Bordello, segues into a percussive, staccato No Wave stomp and trails off with a reflective cool-jazz outro. Medeski’s melodica chases singer Leonid Fedorov’s acoustic guitar in a madcap tangle on the fast folk tune “Slova,” while “Padal” floats away on trance-y space echoes and the building momentum of its ponderous back-&-forth chords. It’s not so much East meets West as it is that the embellishments of Ribot, Medeski and crew fit in so naturally with Auktyon. Fedorov credits the American musicians for getting the Russians to improvise and avoid artifice: “There is no grandeur. All reflections on the subject of the eternal nature of art in reality are made up of fetishes; sooner or later, they disappear.” (Falling James)