Rock Picks: Amy Millan, Dirty Projectors, Chip Taylor, LA 101

Also playing Tuesday:

Basement Jaxx plays Hard Haunted Mansion on Halloween night

R. Kelly delivers the hot, buttered funk at the Nokia Theatre on Thursday.

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More About

• James Taylor
• Dinosaur Jr.
• Tahiti
• Indie Rock and Indie Pop
• Halloween

LIGHTS, STARS OF TRACK & FIELD at the Troubadour; HENRY PHILLIPS at Largo at the Coronet; PIGEON, BLACK WHALES, DEVLIN at the Silverlake Lounge; WARPAINT, SEASPIN, CORRIDOR at Spaceland.

Pixies, No Age at the Hollywood Palladium
Reunion tours are a dime a dozen, but the legendary Pixies may be experiencing a true second coming. Each of the band’s five albums — released over five consecutive years, 1987 to 1991 — modified the very DNA of alternative rock in ways that can never be undone. To wit, Kurt Cobain famously told Rolling Stone in 1994 that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was a direct attempt to rip off the Pixies sound, a mercurial mix of dark pop, jagged guitars, bent harmonies and cryptic poems. 1989’s Doolittle is widely regarded as the band’s greatest moment, and in honor of that album’s 20th anniversary, Black Francis and co. are performing every song on it, front to back, B-sides included. Along with the recent release of the gorgeous Minotaur box set and news that the group is headed for the studio in 2010, it’s all enough to make a monkey think he’s died and gone to heaven. H, and did we mention No Age is opening? Also Thurs. and Fri. (though not with No Age). (Chris Martins)

Also playing Wednesday:

ATLAS SOUND, BROADCAST, SELMANAIRES at the Troubadour; MIA DOI TODD, GOOD LISTENERS, BONE GUNN at the Bootleg Theater; FAUN FABLES, DIRT BIRD at the Mint; RUSTED ROOT, CROWFIELD at El Rey Theatre; DEVO at the Henry Fonda Theater; QUEEN LATIFAH at House of Blues; ENRIQUE BUNBURY at the Nokia Theatre; LOW VS. DIAMOND, MELEE at the Echo; MILES BENJAMIN ANTHONY ROBINSON, THESE UNITED STATES, JESSE WOODS at Spaceland; DOUBLE NAUGHT SPY CAR at Taix.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5

R. Kelly, Pleasure P at Nokia Theatre
On December 1, R. Kelly — or the Pied Piper of R&B, as he brazenly refers to himself in spite of a widely publicized child-pornography trial, which ended last year in a not-guilty verdict — is scheduled to release a new album called Untitled. The disc was originally to have been in stores by the launch of Kelly’s current road show, known as the Ladies Make Some Noise! tour, but that didn’t happen. (Untitled actually began life in 2008 as 12 Play: Fourth Quarter, a sort of sequel to Kelly’s 1993 solo debut; when that album leaked to the Internet shortly after the singer’s acquittal, he shelved it and returned to the studio.) Untitled’s lead single, “Number One,” recently earned Kelly his 35th Top 10 single on Billboard’s R&B chart. The just-released second single, “Religious,” finds Kelly singing not about church but about a woman who reminds him of church. With Pleasure P, formerly of the proudly lascivious R&B boy band Pretty Ricky. (Mikael Wood)

Tahiti 80, Brookville at the Troubadour
Normandy’s Tahiti 80 have recently released their fourth album, Activity Center, but only in France and Japan. It’s typically unpushy of them, what with their mellow offering of likable and loose-fitting, garagey electro-pop. The English-singing band, who’ve been around since 1996, seem to care only about quietly crafting sounds that take joyful cues from the usual suspects of the British Invasion era yet have evolved into something even more breathlessly innocent. Tonight’s opener is the very tasteful eleganza-pop specialist billing himself as Brookville, a.k.a. Andy Chase, the ex-Ivy member whose moody new Broken Lights album was produced by his pal Pedro Resende of Tahiti 80. Chase’s background is wide and varied — he has produced Juliana Hatfield and composed the score for the Farrelly Brothers’ Shallow Hal, among a lot of other things, and he’s full of new-pop surprises, as you’ll see tonight. (John Payne)

Also playing Thursday:

THE BRAVERY at the Wiltern; PIXIES at the Hollywood Palladium; VENETIAN STARES at the Key Club; ZIGABOO MODELISTE at the Mint; AVI BUFFALO, AARON EMBRY, WILDBUNCH at the Echo; GIFT OF GAB at Amoeba Music; DINOSAUR JR., LOU BARLOW at House of Blues; CAGE THE ELEPHANT, MORNING TELEPORTATION, THE SHACKLETONS at El Rey Theatre; RUSTED ROOT, CROWFIELD at the Canyon; BOSTICH + FUSSIBLE at the Echoplex; 13 GUITAR RUMBLE at the Redwood Bar & Grill; STILL FLYIN’, YELLOW FEVER, HEARTS OF PALM UK at Spaceland.