Rock Picks: Pink, the Grates, Doug Paisley, Ooh La L.A. Festival

Koralie Supakitch

Emilie Simon performs as part of the Ooh La L.A. Festival, a gathering of buzzing French artists.

Related Content

• Music Picks: Kaskade, Dirty Projectors, Ondatrópica
  July 26, 2012
• X Games Leave Los Angeles
  April 30, 2013
• Music Picks: As Blood Runs Black, Kelly Hogan, Regina Spektor
  August 9, 2012
• LAPD Bracing for L.A. Kings Riot at Staples Center Tonight
  June 6, 2012
• Music Picks: Charli XCX, Polica, Esperanza Spalding and More
  August 16, 2012

More About

• NHL Western Conference
• NHL Pacific Division
• Los Angeles Kings
• Professional Hockey
• Hockey

Also playing Saturday:

PORCUPINE TREE at Club Nokia; GIPSY KINGS at the Greek Theatre; PINK MARTINI at the Hollywood Bowl; MASON JENNINGS, CRASH KINGS at El Rey Theatre; BIG SANDY & HIS FLY-RITE BOYS, THE VAQUETONES at Alex’s Bar; SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS at the Echoplex; I SEE HAWKS IN L.A., GINA VILLALOBOS, ELLIOT RANDALL at the Bootleg Theater; POWDER at the Key Club; AVERAGE WHITE BAND, ALTO REED & HIS BLUES ENTOURAGE at the Canyon; THE HUMPERS, THE HANGMEN, STAB CITY, BARRIO TIGER at the Redwood Bar.

Mount Eerie, No Kids, Karl Blau, Tara Jane O’Neil at Center For The Arts, Eagle Rock
The last time Mount Eerie, a.k.a. Phil Elverum, came to town, he filled the Smell with fog and played seated from the floor, virtually invisible within the cross-legged crowd. The Anacortes, Washington, shut-in is known for dwelling in the ethereal, but the scenery will be a bit different when he returns to L.A. this week. Elverum has a truly awesome new death metal–inspired album under his belt, Wind’s Poem, and his Web site advertises this as a “full band tour.” Just who will round out the live, hopefully shredding, lineup remains to be seen, but there’s a good chance it will include members of Toronto’s R&B-bending No Kids and frequent Elverum collaborator/K Records star Karl Blau — both of whom are performing. In fact, No Kids’ MySpace page places Elverum in its current lineup, so there may be more crossing over than expected. Opener Tara Jane O’Neil is another highly talented Northwesterner with a DIY approach and an impressively large back-catalog. (Chris Martins)

The Avengers at the Echo
The rise of riot-grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, who combined the rage and intensity of punk rock with leftist and feminist ideals, must have seemed like a bracing shock in an early-’90s music scene that was dominated by overtly sexist hair-metal bands and lugubrious grunge groaners, but Penelope Houston and her San Francisco band the Avengers actually invented that style of music a full decade earlier. While other late-’70s American-punk divas were giving in to the luridly romantic allure of bohemian self-destruction (Exene Cervenka, Patti Smith) or engaging in party-time escapism (Belinda Carlisle, Deborah Harry), Houston was looking outward with a critical social perspective that encompassed everything from identity politics (“I Believe in Me”) and conformity (“Thin White Line”) to the assassination of JFK (“The American in Me”). While Houston’s mix of hippie idealism and post-Watergate cynicism occasionally came off as awkward and naïve (“We will build a better tomorrow/The youth of today will be the tool,” as she once proclaimed in the otherwise exhilarating “We Are the One”), there was something undeniably inspirational in the way she railed against the FBI and decried consumerism. At a time when punk leaders like Darby Crash and Sid Vicious were abdicating their thrones and falling on their own swords, Houston was brave enough to offer hope: “I am the one who shows you the future/I am the one who buries the past/A new species rises up from the ruins.” (Falling James)

Friends of Richie III: A Bloody Good Time at the Knitting Factory
The late vibraphonist Richie Hass was a major part of several local art-rock and jazz-punk outfits, including Saccharine Trust, Freehead, Zoogz Rift and his own combo Richie Hass & the Beatniks, and he was also the playfully subversive composer of such satirical anthems as “Battle Hymn of the Repugnant.” Although he passed away from myeloma last year, his friends continue to commemorate his life and raise funds for the International Myeloma Foundation. These ongoing benefits (which started in 2007, after the vibist was diagnosed with the disease) emphasize the diversity of Hass’ various collaborations and feature many of the leading lights in Los Angeles’ underground-music scene, including jazz-punk poets Saccharine Trust, former Minuteman Mike Watt, Wilco ax-bender Nels Cline, noisemakers Carnage Asada, cult guitarist/surfer Sylvia Juncosa, Clawhammer kingpin Jon Wahl, improvisational weirdoes Bag: Theory and a relatively rare performance by soulful diva Kat Arthur’s seminal punk band Legal Weapon. While the occasion is sad, the idea is to celebrate Hass’ contrarian spirit and have “a bloody good time” listening to music that’s more likely to be weird and adventurous than mawkish and sentimental. (Falling James)

Also playing Sunday:

FRIGHTENED RABBIT, THE TWILIGHT SAD, WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS at the Knitting Factory; BY SUNLIGHT, SHIRLEY ROLLS, LAST AMERICAN BUFFALO, CHRIS GARNEAU at Spaceland; ALLA LEVONYAN, SEYRAN TIGRANYAN, POGHOSYAN NAREK at the Greek Theatre; PIETA BROWN, DEAD ROCK WEST at McCabe’s; THE SWELL SEASON at Hollywood Forever Cemetery; THE CHEATIN’ KIND, THE GROOVY REDNECKS, THE BLOODY BRAINS at the Bigfoot Lodge; PETER FRAMPTON at the Canyon; KAILASH KHER, MALKIT SINGH, RHYTHMS OF RAJASHAN at the Hollywood Bowl.

Doug Paisley, Leslie & the Badgers at the Echo
From Toronto comes a good friend to the country-folk-trad world by name of Doug Paisley. His eponymous album was a little gem released on No Quarter late last year to little acclaim, mainly because not enough people knew it existed. On it, Paisley dug out and washed off the roots of Americana in surprising ways, kinda like the Band used to do, by throwing in burnished-gold piano ballads alongside slightly steamier, Hammond-hued Southern soul, then zipping through none-of-the-above. Solo onstage, his is a very understated style of gentle plucking and plain but highly expressive vocalizing, almost scandalous in its lack of pretension (dude doesn’t even have a beard). This’ll be Paisley’s first trip to California to perform as a solo artist. As well, this show, which includes a set by Leslie and the Badgers and a few others, heralds the return to action of Arthur magazine, which stamps its approval on tonight’s entire lineup. (John Payne)