Rock Picks: Jon Brion, Andrew Bird, Tortoise, Vice Squad

Vice Squad at the Key Club
Rebecca Louise Bond has gone through several distinct personality crises and identity mutations in her self-proclaimed “Lo-Fi Life” in crime and rock & roll. At age 15, Beki Bondage was dodging gobs of spit and singing Sex Pistols covers like “EMI” with Vice Squad, who formed at the fringes of the early English punk frenzy, in Bristol in 1978. A couple of years later, Vice Squad were signed to EMI, and she expanded punk’s still-limited subject matter with epic doomsday scenarios (“Last Rockers”) and one of the first animal-rights anthems (“Humane”). The charismatic, Xena-like heroine stood out all the more in the increasingly macho early-’80s British hardcore scene, appearing on magazine covers, defying her increasingly repressive band and speaking up in interviews. But just as Bondage was turning into some kind of punk Marilyn Monroe, she walked away from Vice Squad in 1982 and went in a more experimental direction with Ligotage. She eventually returned to rock & roll with the Bombshells and re-formed her own version of Vice Squad in 1997 with Bombshells guitarist Paul Rooney. Although Bondage and Rooney sound terminally fierce on the old classics (“Coward,” “Latex Love,” “Rock N Roll Massacre”), they’re even better when tearing through the surprisingly diverse assortment of great glitter-punk-metal-psychedelic-pop new tunes on such severely underrated “comeback” albums as 1999’s Get a Life, 2006’s Defiant and the upcoming London Underground. This is one of the precious few punk revivals that outpaces the original incarnation. Also at Alex’s Bar, Fri., July 10. (Falling James)

Also playing Saturday:

Jon Brion

Michael Rubenstein

Joan Jett

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More About

• Jon Brion
• Hollywood Bowl
• Catalina Bar
• Punk Rock
• Metal and Hardcore

CHIP TAYLOR at McCabe’s; 16 VOLT, CYANOTIC at Bar Sinister; OLETA ADAMS at Catalina Bar & Grill; BEYONCÉ at the Staples Center; MANDY MOORE at Largo at the Coronet; FUNK RUMBLE BLOCK PARTY in Chinatown; NIGHTMARES OF YOU, BRIAN BONZ, PLUSHGUN at the Knitting Factory; BOZ SCAGGS, MICHAEL MCDONALD at the Greek Theatre; THE TUBES at Brixton South Bay; GILBY CLARK AND FRIENDS at the Viper Room; SWITCH at Avalon Hollywood.

SUNDAY, JULY 12

Ray LaMontagne, Jenny Lewis, Blitzen Trapper at the Hollywood Bowl
Hot on the heels of excellent shows by Femi Kuti and Adele, KCRW’s smartly curated World Festival continues at the Hollywood Bowl with this fine roots-music triple bill. Though he’s still best known for his debut single, “Trouble” (thanks in part to Taylor Hicks’ performance of the tune on American Idol a few years ago), Ray LaMontagne last year released what might be his best album yet, Gossip in the Grain, a gorgeous set of haunted soul-folk stunners about winter birds, the endurance of love and, um, White Stripes drummer Meg White. Expect the slow stuff to sound particularly pretty backed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra tonight. Like Gossip, Jenny Lewis’ recent Acid Tongue didn’t earn as much acclaim as the Rilo Kiley frontwoman’s solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat; unlike Gossip, that’s probably because it’s not as good. Blitzen Trapper, from Portland, play a retro-’60s brand of folk-pop psychedelia. (Mikael Wood)

Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Killswitch Engage, Bullet for My Valentine, Cannibal Corpse at the San Manuel Amphitheater
Slayer’s unleashing of an album called God Hates Us All on September 11, 2001, hints darkly at their sound: a sacrilegious locust swarm of goose-stepping riffs and spat, spite-drunk lyrics pummeled by devilishly dexterous double-kick drumming. Their shows may not be the whiplash-inducing rituals they once were, but after nearly three decades without compromise, these Huntington Park hesher heroes have utterly earned their fans’ grimacing devotion. Marilyn Manson only wishes he was cursed with Slayer’s instinctive evil: He’s morphed his way through goth Child Catcher (his first two albums); androgynous Bowie-borrower (1998’s Mechanical Animals); and absinthe-sipping Weimar boho (2003’s The Golden Age of Grotesque) on his quest to remain the king of creepy. This year’s T-Rex/Ziggy-dusted The High End of Low will win few new converts but, with his heyday co-writer/bassist Twiggy Ramirez returned, at least shows that M.M. has something left to say. Elsewhere, Cannibal Corpse’s almost mechanized savagery (and perpetually teenage splatter lyrics) should make Manson sound like Hanson, while Bullet for My Valentine’s radio-ready metalcore and Trivium’s throwback twin-ax thrash will inflate forests of air guitars. (Paul Rogers)

Johnette Napolitano at the Hotel Café
The latest collection from Johnette Napolitano is called Sketchbook 3, but it isn’t the raw, half-baked assortment of songs you might expect from such a title. For one thing, the Concrete Blonde singer has too much passion to be contained by unfinished demos or faint sketches. She might simmer among the rolling, hypnotically repetitive Leonard Cohen piano chords of “SF/LA/JT,” keeping her famously fiery voice to a low, confidential whisper, but you can also hear the approaching storm clouds. “I’m a wire,” she warns inside the foggy Crazy Horse fuzz of another new song. There’s something searing but terrifying in the way the Joshua Tree resident’s reproachful backups sweep in from the dry and hollow desert, trying to undo the “Damage I Have Done” over a funereal organ melody that swirls slowly, in no hurry because there’s nowhere to go. “The best part of the movie’s coming on/The lights are on, and it is time to move along,” she implores persuasively on the contrastingly warm acoustic thrum of “Considering.” It’s a clearing of pure sunlight amid the filtered shadows of more ominous tracks like “Friday Silvertone Mix” and “It’s in the Blood.”  (Falling James)