WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16
Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige at the Hollywood Bowl
Blue magician: Jay-Z
Nigel Craine
Sabbat: Robert Plant finds himself in a parallel-universe version of Led Zeppelin.
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The big news out of Jay-Z’s camp last week was the announcement of his impending $150 million deal with Live Nation, the concert-promotion behemoth that’s working hard to become the last (profitable) man standing in the record industry. Live Nation’s narrative neatly mirrors that of Jay-Z, who, as even grandmothers know, has spent the last decade-and-change pushing product (first drugs, then music) to an increasingly large consumer base. Last year’s American Gangster — tied to the Ridley Scott film of the same name — didn’t sell like the hotcakes of yore, but it did prove that 2006’s iffy Kingdom Come wasn’t the creative death knell many took that CD for. There aren’t many acts for whom Mary J. Blige, the brightest light in current R&B, would deign to open — and, indeed, she’ll almost certainly find several opportunities to make her way into Jay-Z’s set tonight. (Mikael Wood)
Eels at El Rey Theatre
Eels’ founder/singer/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist E recently marked his band’s 10-year anniversary with the release of two separate loads of material: Essential Eels, a greatest-hits collection plus a DVD of several videos; and Useless Trinkets, a compilation of soundtracks, b-sides, rare and unreleased items, and a DVD featuring videos of Eels’ 2006 performance at Lollapalooza. Taken altogether, these tunes are some of the smartest, deepest and most heart-rendingly beautiful pop music the “indie rock” (and beyond) era has yielded to date. As shall undoubtedly be revealed again tonight, the man is remarkable for the vast array of musical approaches with which he paints his music, and perhaps most of all for the variety of personas that reveal themselves in the telling of his songs. Also Thurs. (John Payne)
Also playing Wednesday:
HALF PINT at the Echoplex; SARA LOV, PATRICK PARK at Tangier.
THURSDAY, APRIL 17
Sabbat at the Whisky
While America’s four horsemen of thrash metal — Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax — were gate-crashing MTV in the late 1980s, their broke Brit cousins were releasing indie albums and playing underground van tours. Nottingham’s Sabbat skewed the genre’s amphetamine formula (post–Iron Maiden militaristic/poltergeist vocals, chugging riffage and strangulated solos, ADHD tempo) with Tolkien-worthy lyrics, refreshing acoustic interludes, chuckle-inducing sound effects, and (seriously) cover art featuring the stringy-haired band posing at Stonehenge in Renaissance Faire attire. Though Sabbat’s original stint was stunted, guitarist Andy Sneap continued to shape extreme metal as a producer for everyone from Megadeth to Arch Enemy. Making their first-ever stateside visit to mark the re-release of their two mini-classics (1987’s History of a Time to Come and 1989’s Dreamweaver), these together-again gloomsters are getting some belated kudos for an uncompromising, unfiltered — and slightly unhinged — purity seldom seen on the contemporary Strip. (Paul Rogers)
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Jail Weddings at the Echo
The name Jail Weddings reminds us of a time in the ’80s when Social Distortion’s Mike Ness, talking onstage about a recent stint in jail, thanked “all the homeboys and homegirls” he’d met there. We’re not sure just where Ness’ mythical coed lockup is located, but Jail Weddings take the notion of such sexy imprisonment as a fanciful launching point for their “death doo-wop” and groovy ’60s girl-group melodramas, which they describe as “the last gasp of romance.” The 10-piece L.A. band are led by singer-guitarist Gabe Hart (the Starvations, Fortune’s Flesh), who aims for a Roy Orbison grandeur on their “Somebody Lonely” 7-inch (Revenge Records) but howls with a raggedy mumble that’s closer to Jonathan Richman or the Saints’ Chris Bailey. Hart is buttressed by singers Tornado Jane and Katya Nadia Hubiak, who coo “Don’t let our mess get in the way of our obsession” over Brad Caulkins’ restless sax on the b-side, “The Honeymoon Loop.” Drummer Ian Harrower’s thunderous tom-tom rolls and Hannah Blumenfeld’s weaving violin stir up similarly grand and tragic passions on their upcoming single, “People Like Us (Are Extinct).” (Falling James)
Tift Merritt, Sara Watkins at the Troubadour
Before recording her third studio album, Another Country, in Los Angeles last summer with producer George Drakoulias, North Carolina native Tift Merritt locked herself up in a rented apartment in Paris in an attempt to recharge her creative batteries. The country singer’s immersion into another (literal) country seems to have lifted her spirits, as she sings with a relaxed confidence on such easygoing tunes as “I Know What I’m Looking for Now” and the recent hit “Broken.” Apart from the Stax-y “Tell Me Something True,” the new CD doesn’t rock out quite as much as 2004’s Tambourine (which included such similarly warm and catchy R&B-laced tracks as “Good Hearted Man” and “I Am Your Tambourine”), but mellow tunes like “Morning Is My Destination” are lovingly rendered, and Merritt does a decent job of singing in French on the sugary album-closing piano ballad, “Mille Tendresses.” Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins — who was recently a guest on Merritt’s new radio show, The Spark — opens tonight’s show. (Falling James)
Also playing Thursday:
EELS at El Rey Theatre; THE WATSON FAMILY HOUR at Largo; OLIVER FUTURE at Safari Sam’s; THE MONOLATORS at the Scene; DON CAVALLI at UCLA’s Kerckhoff Grand Salon, noon.
