Rock Picks: Peanut Butter Wolf, Serj Tankian, Conor Oberst

THURSDAY, JULY 31

Sarah Christine Wilson

Sarah Christine Wilson

Carrie Rodriguez: Wild thing

Christian Lantry

Buddy Guy: Stone-cold chilling

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More About

• Carrie Rodriguez
• Alejandro Escovedo
• Serj Tankian
• Peanut Butter Wolf
• Celebrity News

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Carrie Rodriguez: Wild thing

Christian Lantry

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Buddy Guy: Stone-cold chilling

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Dolly Parton outside her Barbie dream house

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)

Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Joneses at the Knitting Factory

This is one of those superhero match-ups that could only occur in a parallel comic-book universe, like Spider-Man joining forces with Batman or Howard the Duck battling Godzilla. I mean, what are the chances that the ’80s Hollywood punk & rollers the Joneses would ever play on the same bill as the ’70s English pub/punk rockers Eddie & the Hot Rods? Both bands broke up long ago and had their heydays in different decades, in underground scenes that occurred thousands of miles apart. And yet the pairing makes some sense. The Hot Rods were linked with the early British punks because of singles like 1976’s “Teenage Depression,” which was more of an Eddie Cochran update than anything nihilistic. They were really a power-pop band at heart on such nearly perfect tunes as “Do Anything You Wanna Do.” With their slower, more classically rocking Johnny Thunders style, the Joneses were nearly trampled in the conformist macho panic of the early-’80s hardcore scene/stampede, but their sexy, sassy form of trash-punk aligned them with Hollywood’s hair-metal bands later in the decade. Unlike so many N.Y. Dolls clones, though, singer/former bank robber Jeff Drake writes his own sneeringly wonderful anthems. (Falling James)

Also playing Thursday:

JOHN MELLENCAMP, LUCINDA WILLIAMS at Greek Theatre; MOBY at Malibu Performing Arts Center; THE HEALTH CLUB at Echo Curio.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1

 Peanut Butter Wolf at Grand Star

You all know homie Peanut Butter Wolf, the acclaimed local DJ, producer and founder of the esteemed Stones Throw Records label. Starting August 1 at Firecracker at Grand Star in Chinatown and concluding triumphantly on August 8 at a private party in Hollywood, Wolf will go where no astronaut or DJ has gone before, spinning eight different genres of music over eight consecutive nights at — you guessed it — eight Los Angeles venues. That’s right, and no song will be played twice. This mad collector to the 20th power of recorded vinyl and music videos has shown no limits in the way he hears and sees good, funky music, which his label is a testament to, of course, and to which his live VJ skills will attest, too. Wolf will be spinning early house to new wave, ’80s boogie to reggae, Afro-Latin to classic hip-hop, hipster ironic to beyond. (By the way, get a copy of the Time Out DVD Peanut Butter Wolf’s Guide to L.A. for a far fuller enjoyment of your life in this fascinatingly evil town.) 943 N. Broadway, Chinatown. Also at Crane’s, Sun.; Cinespace, Tues.; the Echoplex, Wed.; Little Temple, Thurs. For more info, dial 1-888-WOLF4LA. (John Payne)

Buddy Guy, George Thorogood at the Greek Theatre

You’ve got to feel a little bit sorry for George Thorogood. The Delaware singer-guitarist is a likable and engaging performer, tearing into his blues-rock originals and souped-up covers of classics by John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley with a barreling drive and hound-dog enthusiasm. But pity him if he has to follow the co-headlined Buddy Guy onstage tonight. Thorogood may be “Bad to the Bone,” but his good-time boogie just doesn’t carry any of the supernatural dread and flat-out menace lurking in every one of Guy’s stinging, pinging (like a bullet) licks and straight-from-the-swamp declamations. By most accounts, Guy stole the show during his guest-star turn in Marty Scorsese’s recent Rolling Stones concert film, Shine a Light. The Chicago guitarist’s high string bends were stone-cold chilling, and the scary-intense look in his eyes was fierce enough to give Mick Jagger pause and send Ron Wood scurrying back into rehab. We’re talking about a Guy who taught Jimi Hendrix most of his shape-shifting tricks in volume, distortion and showmanship. He’s got a new album, Skin Deep, the latest in a long line of prime blues platters. (Falling James)