Rock Picks: Detour Music Festival, Dandy Warhols, David Byrne, Die Rockers Die

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2

 
Mad Juana at the Viper Room

The Dandy Warhols wonder if there’s life on Earth.

Shannon Brinkman

Henry Butler: Orleans inspiration

Related Content

• Why Did Emily Wells Leave Los Angeles? Her Music Provides Hints
  June 12, 2013
• The Best Concerts to See In L.A. This Week
  June 10, 2013
• X Games Leave Los Angeles
  April 30, 2013
• Think Morrissey Is a Douche? Go Join the NRA
  February 28, 2013
• DUI Checkpoints in Downtown Los Angeles, Studio City
  September 21, 2012

More About

• Salvador Santana
• Henry Fonda
• Mr. T
• Karmen Guy
• Heavy Metal

“You take the world for granted as you float up on your cake,” Karmen Guy purrs with a deceptive sugariness on Mad Juana’s new album, Bruja on the Corner (Acetate Records), before digging in the knife. “You think you’re some kind of a dignitary, but you’re nothing more than a fake,” she declares while accordionist Marni Rice, saxist Danny Ray and trumpeter Nico Camargo serenade her with merrily bittersweet, soused and swanky rejoinders straight out of old-time New Orleans. So many musicians invoke witchcraft and voodoo without ever sounding magical, but the New York group are indeed bewitching, with a timelessly exotic blur of Gypsy-punk influences akin to Manu Chao and Gogol Bordello that’s taken to another level of enchantment altogether by Guy’s sultry chanteuse persona. Her songwriting partner in crime, guitarist-bassist Sami Yaffa, lays down some considerable groovy grooves that go far beyond his previous contributions to Hanoi Rocks and the reconstituted New York Dolls, such as the dreamy dub interlude in the otherwise madcap “Strangers in Paradise” and the stormy acoustic guitars and haunting melodica-flecked sadness of “Circus Downtown.” It all culminates most impressively in the sinuously mesmerizing “Revolution Avenue,” whose dueling horns, loping dub bass, psychedelic sound effects and Guy’s border-dissolving imagery echo the febrile moods of Tijuana No’s classic album Contra-Revolucion Avenue. (Falling James)

 
Also playing Thursday:

RANCID, DR. KNOW at Henry Fonda Theater; MY BLOODY VALENTINE at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium; NEIL DIAMOND at Hollywood Bowl; GOGOL BORDELLO at Grove of Anaheim; JAMES at El Rey Theatre; SIGUR RÓS at Greek Theatre; SANTANA, SALVADOR SANTANA BAND at Nokia Theatre; DARKER MY LOVE at Amoeba Music, 7 p.m.; JOHNNY WINTER at the Canyon; JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE, CHAPIN SISTERS at the Echo; TERMANOLOGY, EVIDENCE at Knitting Factory.

 
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3

 
The Dandy Warhols at the Wiltern

With their designer-vintage threads, flippant attitude, and ability to cherry-pick the best bits from the last 40 years of British and American rock and bake them into the grooviest pop-pastiche ever, the Dandy Warhols remain one of rock’s most effective party bands. It’s a shtick that would get old if the group didn’t so thoroughly reinvent themselves with each album: the narcotic swirl of Odditorium, or Warlords of Mars; the disco love of Welcome to the Monkey House; the soundtrack-crashing masterpiece Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia; or silly stuff like the cover of the Xmas carol “Little Drummer Boy” (it actually rocks). The one constant is the observations of singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor, nailing the slacker zeitgeist with wry precision. The new Earth to the Dandy Warhols, reveling in dirty-psyche jams, squelchy guitars, and a charming wackiness, is a fitting title. Don’t worry: Even when these Portlanders free-fall down a rabbit hole, they still sound like themselves. (Andrew Lentz)

 
Henry Butler at the Getty Center

When New Orleans–born-and-bred piano man Henry Butler sits down to work the keys, it’s an experience not dissimilar to a slide into some surreal musical vortex. His playing — evocative, lush, dazzlingly executed — hints at ragtime, stride, boogie and bop, but these serve merely as reference points for his musical surge, a rich, rushing flow of all the influences swirling about the Crescent City jazz head. Whether it’s exotic Caribbean sounds, hot swing, after-hours philosophizing or Professor Longhair’s rumbling rhumba blues, Butler’s primary concern is innovation rather than replication, and his communicative zeal always lends a singular glow to the proceedings. This classically trained cat is, above all else, a seeker and, as such, remains deliciously unpredictable and impossible to categorize. One thing is certain: Butler’s nobility, devotion and unparalleled skill invariably combine for a tremendous earful. (Jonny Whiteside)

 
David Byrne at the Greek Theatre

Nearly 30 years after their collaboration on the groundbreaking My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, former Talking Heads front man David Byrne and brainy superproducer Brian Eno have joined forces for a new album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, which the duo released on the Internet in August for a very reasonable $8.99. (Stream it for free at everythingthathappens.com.) If we’re being honest about it, Everything That Happens isn’t as great as it might have been; compared to Bush of Ghosts’ spooky sampledelica, it kind of sounds like a so-so Peter Gabriel record. But there are highlights — most notably “Strange Overtones,” a sly little funk-rock cut — and, anyway, the new album will only form a portion of Byrne’s show tonight, which he’s calling “Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno.” That means stuff from the three wonderful Talking Heads albums Eno produced between 1978 and 1980 — and that means “Once in a Lifetime,” “Life During Wartime” and, with any luck, “Take Me to the River.” (Mikael Wood)