Rock Picks: Raveonettes, Amebix, Thorns of Life

SUNDAY, JANUARY 25 

Sean P. Costello

The Spanks

Whitman

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RYAN BINGHAM & THE DEAD HORSES AT KING KING

With his dirt-raspy voice, Ryan Bingham sounds much older than his 27 years. In fact, the New Mexico native has lived the life of a much older man. After a peripatetic childhood, Bingham wound up on his own as a teenager, working as a bull rider on the rodeo circuit. Learning guitar at 17, he toiled in the Texas honky-tonks before getting a stamp of approval from Lone Star luminaries like Terry Allen and Joe Ely. Bingham’s 2007 Lost Highway debut, Mescalito, generated much buzz in the Americana circles, and deservedly so. His rough-hewn tunes of desperados and drifters exude a natural authenticity; you don’t doubt him when he sings about hard times and “workin’ for a dollar a day.” Bingham has re-teamed with producer (and ex–Black Crowe) Marc Ford for his spring-bound sophomore effort, so he may share some new raw-knuckled West Texas tales. Also on tonight’s bill is Bingham’s buddy, Doug Moreland, a fiddler and chain-saw artist — although probably not done simultaneously. (Michael Berick)

Also playing Sunday:

FE & MARLENE, LYSA FLORES, LOVE GRENADES at Chucho’s Justice Center, 1 p.m.; SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS at Club Nokia; BARRINGTON LEVY at Blue Cafe; KAKI KING at Brixton South Bay; CATTLE DECAPITATION at the Knitting Factory; AMY FARRIS, DOUG MORELAND at Redwood Bar & Grill, noon; NO AGE, ABE VIGODA, DAVID SCOTT STONE at the Smell, 1 p.m.; NEIL HAMBURGER at Spaceland; PATRIA JACOBS at the Cocaine.

MONDAY, JANUARY 26

VOICE ON TAPE, WHITMAN AT PEHRSPACE 

For those about to rock: Weasels loot you. That’s why the avant-garde remains your greatest entertainment value — well, ever since you thought “golden parachute” meant you should turn your assets into an actual parachute made of gold for recreation. Sean Carnage showcases Beaumont label Folktale Records and their Sun, Smog and Hate compilation — five bands from Phoenix, five from Los Angeles, all bitching creatively about the sun, smog and hate. Whitman, on an extended tour of Arizona and California, plies his trade in whispery/shouty/mumbly free-folk, while Ontario’s Voice on Tape creates captivating, echoey no-fi passages of abstract folkish guitar with voices both diaphanous and assured. It’s as though the mistakes and reversals made during the ’60s folk revival are laid bare and revivified because these young captains of the guitar are also in love with noise, the opposite number of melody that, when embraced, makes one surprisingly freer. Also: Clark 8, Foot Ox, John Thill, Bri White. (David Cotner)

Also playing Monday:

SECRET ALPHABET, THE HEALTH CLUB, BASTIDAS, JOHANNA CHASE at the Airliner; JAKE LA BOTZ at the Redwood Bar & Grill; ROCCO DELUCA at Spaceland.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 27

N.A.S.A. AT CINESPACE

N.A.S.A. is a new global-groove duo comprising Brazilian DJ Zegon and L.A.-based producer Squeak E. Clean, the latter of whom is known to the IRS as Sam Spiegel and to the celebrity press as the younger brother of director Spike Jonze. (The group’s name stands for North America South America.) Next month Anti- Records is set to release N.A.S.A.’s appealingly daffy debut, The Spirit of Apollo, which features collaborations with an absurdly long list of blog-bait guest stars, including Kool Keith, David Byrne, Tom Waits, the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman Karen O, with whom Spiegel wrote the score for a Jonze-directed Adidas spot a few years ago. When I visited the duo at Spiegel’s Hollywood headquarters in 2007 for a magazine profile, they talked passionately about wanting to break down boundaries between different types of music fans. A year and a half later, I’m not entirely convinced that they didn’t mean different types of hipsters. (Mikael Wood)

Also playing Tuesday:

THE VOYEURS, THE MONOLATORS, LES BLANKS at the Echo; AZALIA SNAIL, FEATHERBEARD, DANIEL OXENBURG at Echo Curio; IO ECHO at the Echoplex; PAULA NELSON at the Mint; MIKE STINSON at Redwood Bar & Grill; SARA LOV at Spaceland.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28

JIMMY WEBB AT LARGO

Singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb was to mid-’60s mainstream pop what the 13th Floor Elevators were to Summer of Love rock & roll — nothing less than a revolutionary force. Each operated during their respective idiom’s peak, and, where the Elevators’ sheer historic extremism dwarfed Dylan and the Beatles, Webb’s soaring, irresistible compositions handily overshadowed the glorious likes of Burt Bacharach and Lee Hazlewood. Pop, of course, is a much more restrictive and commercial style, yet Webb’s single most successful number, the much-recorded “MacArthur Park” (hell, Waylon Jennings got a Grammy for his version), still stands as one of the most bizarre and impenetrable tunes of the 20th century. Webb’s loose, evocative lyrics and tremendous melodic sense achieved a paradoxical state of complex simplicity, one ideally suited for the times, and allowed its proponents, notably Glen Campbell, to surf Webb’s golden wave into the Billboard chart’s annals of perpetual notoriety. Getting it direct from the source, naturlich, is the optimal equation, and (who knows?), after the house lights go up tonight, you may finally appreciate the metaphorical significance of that damn cake left out in the rain. (Jonny Whiteside)