Rock Picks: Rupa & the April Fishes, Gnarls Barkley, Emmylou Harris

Black Kids at El Rey Theatre

From my Corona-plus-surf-and-turf-fogged-and-bloated perspective, the unlikeliness of this mid-July vacation I’m taking in Ft. Meyers, Florida, is about on par with the unlikeliness of the newest indie-pop go-getters coming from up the way in Jacksonville. Black Kids (a hipster handful of whiteys plus two actual black kids, they’re young enough to legitimize the over-it-ness of the band name) are a whip-smart and overconfident outfit who are exemplary of the new norms of both “youth” and “industry success.” An on-purpose amalgam of simultaneous-orgasm bands like Arcade Fire (obvs) and romantically inclined ’80s drag-pop, Black Kids have been owning festivals and demanding critical attention worldwide. As they rerelease the celebrated four songs from last year’s spunky EP Wizard of Ahhhs on this month’s full-length Partie Traumatic, it’s probable that Black Kids will hold on to it. (Kate Carraway)

Mick Rock

Alejandro Escovedo: Animal boy

Related Content

• Think You Like the Hollywood Bowl? These People Really Like the Hollywood Bowl
  May 6, 2013
• Fanatics! Sunday's Show Is Packed With Mix Tape Goodness
  May 10, 2013
• Remembering Napster
  March 28, 2013
• Henry Rollins: The Day After Bowie's The Next Day
  March 28, 2013
• Five Dance Shows to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Performance at the Playboy Jazz Festival
  June 13, 2013

More About

• Mr. T
• Hollywood Bowl
• Emmylou Harris
• Dizzee Rascal
• Hip-Hop and Rap

Also playing Tuesday:

BLOC PARTY, FRIENDLY FIRES at the Mayan; JAMES TAYLOR at Greek Theatre; WATSON TWINS, TIM FITE at the Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30

Chromeo at Henry Fonda Theater

We may just be suckers for a boomtastically boffo audio recording, but just you check out the “Intro” to Chromeo’s re-release of their Fancy Footwork album, which ought to be enough to float your little mind to electro-crunch nirvana. Montreal jokers P-Thugg on talk-box vocals and Dave 1 on squinky synth sounds are two smart guys, a mountain of vintage electronic gear and a keenly retro-savvy mindset that wraps itself around an irony-rich but richly musical and righteously riffmongering electro-R&B mishmash. It’s a glossily funky blast of new-wave bullshit that, like a lot of previously reviled music, has ironically come to sound pretty damn good in 2008 — you’ve just gotta run it through the blender the right way. Chromeo do it the right way, making their slick, superficial sounds shine by placing the emphasis on concise construction and healthy doses of catchy melodies and happy harmonies that take inspiration from the early days of hip-hop. There’s a totally intelligent retro-vibe interwoven in the Chromeo sound, evoking the best strands of electro-disco-funk-soul cheese from back in the day, when it was about having fun and messing around. (John Payne)

Tapper Zukie at the Echoplex

Hard-edged reggae toaster-vocalist Tapper Zukie was one of the true, fine lions of that music’s mid-1970s breakout. His spare, intense debut album, Man Ah Warrior — cut when Zukie was barely out of his teens and boasting a slew of classic numbers like “Black Cinderella” and “Simpleton Badness” — stands as one the era’s most arresting platters. Zukie’s rough-cut, earnest delivery really drove his messagery straight into your skull, and that immediacy won him more than a few fans on the punk rock side of the hill (hell, Patti Smith used him as opening act on a ’77 U.K. tour and wrote the liner notes for his Man of Bosrah album). He’s always throwing down a mixture of hyper-tough sufferin’-in-the-ghetto subjects and devout Rastafarian mysticism, and Zukie’s unbeatable, declarative realism on songs like “Green Bay Murder” and “Don’t Shoot the Youth” consistently sets him in a league of his own. Now, he’s wiser and wilder, and tonight’s session is certain to thrill. (Jonny Whiteside)

Also playing Wednesday:

JAMES TAYLOR at Greek Theatre; THE HOLD STEADY at Avalon; KILLAH PRIEST at El Rey Theatre; JAMES WILSEY at Blue Cafe; JAY REATARD at the Echo; DIE ROCKERS DIE at Echo Curio; WAZ, THE BOWMANS at the Hotel Cafe.

 
THURSDAY, JULY 31

Alejandro Escovedo at the Troubadour

Alejandro Escovedo is a real wild child, going back to the Nuns in the late ’70s, when he was literally one of the first troublemakers to arrive on the San Francisco punk scene. He helped cobble together the cowpunk and No Depression genres in the early ’80s with Rank & File and, after moving to Austin, the True Believers, but he’s really excelled during the past two decades with his solo albums, which range from darkly literate Velvet Underground rock stomp to glassily momentous balladry riven with Susan Voelz’s masterful and woozy violin. The big time seems to be finally catching up to him now that he’s represented by Bruce Springsteen manager Jon Landau, but Escovedo is as wonderfully unsettling as ever on his new album, Real Animal, crisply helmed by David Bowie producer Tony Visconti. There are some lovely and certainly commercial pop songs, such as “Swallows of San Juan” — where Voelz’s violins rush in dreamily like the namesake birds — but Escovedo also sends his not-necessarily-fuzzy punk nostalgia into stranger places. He ends up putting a bag on his head and punching himself in the mouth on “Nuns Song” (“mix in some Bowie trash,” he sings), while “Chelsea Hotel ’78” is utterly riveting — a palpably foreboding and urgently seedy rocker that doesn’t make it quite clear if Sid Vicious was set up or not. (Falling James)