Rock Picks: Beirut, The Cure, Jonathan Richman

Tom Rush at McCabe’s

Tom Rush emerged from the midcentury American folk revival, but he can rock like rock & roll oughta rock, roaring on Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly standards. His hallmark blue-noted and growling baritone is also a natural for ballads and, displaying an uncanny ear for songwriters, he was among the first to record early masterpieces by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. His occasional originals have become classics as well (the haunting “No Regrets,” for example). He’s a working road warrior, and his live performance of “The Remember Song,” Steven Walters’ hysterical ode to the challenges of technology on the aging, got 3,500,000 hits on YouTube in the last year. Rush is one of those cats: a singer’s singer, a guitarist’s guitarist, a songwriter’s dream and, in person and solo tonight, a superlative delivery man of cathartic fun. (Michael Simmons)

Daragh McDonagh

Hatebreed are especially fond of rainbows and little kittens.

Minuit got a suspicious score from the Romanian judge.

Related Content

• Music Picks: Cedric Gervais, Van Hunt, Jonathan Richman
  June 28, 2012
• Think You Like the Hollywood Bowl? These People Really Like the Hollywood Bowl
  May 6, 2013
• Music Picks: Rusko, HARD Summer, SMOD
  August 2, 2012
• Music Picks: As Blood Runs Black, Kelly Hogan, Regina Spektor
  August 9, 2012
• Update: Times Story on Coachella 2013 Was Fabricated, Says Writer
  January 22, 2013

More About

• Jonathan Richman
• Henry Fonda
• Tom Rush
• Beirut (Musical Group)
• The Viper Room

Also playing Friday:

LADYTRON at Henry Fonda Theater; FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS at the Orpheum Theatre; THRICE at Avalon; IRON MAIDEN, ANTHRAX at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater; THE STITCHES, JAIL WEDDINGS at Alex’s Bar; FISHBONE at Malibu Inn; THE SATIRISTAS at the Mint; VAGABOND OPERA at Molly Malone’s; DIE ROCKERS DIE at Pehrspace; FIERY FURNACES at Spaceland.

SATURDAY, MAY 31

The Cure at the Hollywood Bowl

Few bands can boast 30 years of international arena-filling success while still making albums that people actually give a fuck about. The Cure — for all their lineup changes, essentially a bunch of mates since their teens from nowhere-town England — have achieved perhaps the ultimate career while seldom triggering traffic-stopping hysteria or becoming stale, Rolling Stones–y institutions. The formula appears simple: unkempt main man Robert Smith’s writhing, childlike, yelp-flecked vocals; melodic-backbone bass lines; twinkling/cascading effected guitars (and sometimes keys); and lyrics both melancholy and mischievous. Yet with these tools the Cure have spanned the brisk post-punk of their 1979 debut, Three Imaginary Boys; the Eraserhead-bleak, wrist-slitting disconnection of 1982’s Pornography; the lush darkness of the 1989 breakthrough Disintegration; and seemingly flippant pop ditties like “The Lovecats.” “The Only One,” the first of four monthly singles leading up to the Cure’s 13th studio album in September, suggests that Smith’s in a (relatively) jaunty mood, and his band’s current four-piece incarnation is its leanest yet dreamiest yet. Also at the Shrine Auditorium, Sun. (Paul Rogers)

(Click to enlarge)

Minuit got a suspicious score from the Romanian judge.

Also playing Saturday:

IRON MAIDEN, ANTHRAX at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater; BEIRUT, THE BRUNETTES, DEVON WILLIAMS at the Wiltern; SWERVEDRIVER, FILM SCHOOL, XU XU FANG at the Henry Fonda Theater (see Music feature); JACKSON BROWNE at Barnum Hall; BILLYBONES, RAVENS MORELAND, SMOGTOWN, SUNTRASH, at Alex’s Bar, 1 p.m.; DANNY B. HARVEY at Blue Cafe; MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL CULT at Boardner’s; ADOLESCENTS, THE CROWD at Knitting Factory; UH HUH HER at the Roxy; GRAM RABBIT at Safari Sam’s; ANNY CELSI at Taix; GREEN JELLO at Vault 350.

SUNDAY, JUNE 1

Type O Negative, Hatebreed, 3 Inches of Blood at Avalon

With Type O Negative and Hatebreed as co-headliners, the Jagermeister Tour might have been dubbed the Goths & Thugs Concert, but apparently potent black liqueur unites metal fans of all stripes. For all their ghoulish surfaces and gallows humor, Type O are essentially a prog-pop band, stretching their hooks over fuzzy walls of guitar, pipe-organ-style keyboards, and multipart harmonies led by Lurch-like bassist Peter Steele, who rolls his r’s with Transylvanian relish. Amazingly, one track off their 2007 record Dead Again is almost 11 minutes long, and it’s the catchiest song of the bunch (how’s that for upending rock convention?). By contrast, every bumper-sticker slogan barked by Hatebreed front man Jamey Jasta drips with sincerity, which kinda makes sense since the Connecticut band is Tuff Guy hardcore’s flagship act, if not its most commercially viable. Triangulating the mix are the classic-metal stylings of 3 Inches of Blood, replete with clean vocals, twin-ax onslaughts and old-fashioned unambiguous heroism in the lyrics. (Andrew Lentz)

Little Jimmy Dickens at Safari Sam’s

Veteran country-music star Little Jimmy Dickens may be best known for his novelty smasheroo “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose” and Loretta Lynn’s description of him as “Mighty Mouse in pajamas,” but get it straight: Dickens is one of the toughest singers ever to wander out of the West Virginia hills. With the morbid romance of “Slow Suicide,” the knockdown jolt of “Salty Boogie” and his signature tearful ballad, “Take Me as I Am” — a song that he delivers with all the choked-up, melodramatic intensity of Johnnie Ray — Dickens has routinely covered territory that would guarantee a ban at the Grand Ole Opry, but the wild little dude is so irresistible that he’s been a regular there for decades. Now pushing, dig it, 90 years of age, he’s hardly softened, and chances are good that this unspeakably rare Los Angeles show will showcase that mind-ripping repertoire. The recent loss of Eddy Arnold only heightens the crucial status of an innovator like Dickens, a guy whose friends included Roy Acuff and Hank Williams. Treat him right — he could just as well have stayed in Tennessee for a typical Sunday, fishing with Bobby Bare and Jerry Reed. (Jonny Whiteside)