Rock Picks: THE JOE KROWN TRIO, THE FIERY FURNACES, THE LILYS, MR. GNOME

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21

Johanna Hedborg

Dogmatic: El Perro del Mar

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• Kirk Joseph
• Joe Krown
• MYSTERIOSOS Alex
• Ray LaMontagne
• Indie Rock and Indie Pop

THE FIERY FURNACES AT EL REY THEATRE
The Fiery Furnaces are going from peculiar strength to strength. Siblings Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger’s new I’m Going Away (Thrill Jockey) is again damn chockablock with the sort of supersundry, surprising stuff that has caused fans and casual bystanders to scratch their skulls even as they frug furiously. There’s little point listing the ingredients from their vast source reservoir that the Friedbergers hash together to make their sound — okay, classic rock & pop (BOC and the Carpenters), some “blues,” operettas & music hall, etc. — you only need to know that their new songs are lovely, plaintive, elliptical, genuinely literate, ironic in a friendly way, skronking-rocking, epic but not too, spellbindingly harmonized and jaw-droppingly arranged, and all this done in a rapidly flickering reflection-of-the-hard-times style. The Fiery Furnaces think of I’m Going Away as a “proper rock album,” and, while that’s relative, it is a verifiable fact that it deserves to top pop charts from here to Ouagadougou. (John Payne)

KRONOS QUARTET, TERRY RILEY, MATMOS, MIKE EINZIGER AT DISNEY HALL
The organizers at Disney Hall have assembled an incredibly diverse foursome to kick off their annual “West Coast, Left Coast” concert series. Outsider string ensemble Kronos Quartet celebrated its 35th anniversary this year, so it makes sense that David Harrington’s acclaimed group would be the guest of honor. Kronos has worked with everyone from Mike Patton to Phillip Glass — not to mention successfully adapted works by both Sigur Rós and Jimi Hendrix — and is a longtime collaborator of legendary organist Terry Riley, also performing. Riley became famous for his improvised all-nighters in the ’60s, drawing acid-addled hippies and hammock-toting families alike to his marathon performances. Since, the 74-year-old has composed a spate of works for orchestra and string quartet, and he’s still a monster on the pipe organ. Matmos may be best known for producing much of Björk’s Vespertine and Medúlla albums, but the duo’s own catalog is an impressive collection of soundscapes sourced from bizarre samples, including the sounds of surgical procedures. Opening the night is Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger, who’s recently begun a second life as a solo composer. (Chris Martins)

Also playing Saturday:

RAY LAMONTAGNE at the Orpheum Theater; SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, PEPPER, MADVILLAIN, FLOBOTS, GLITCH MOB, QUINTO SOL at L.A. Center Studio; HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD, ATREYU at the Wiltern; BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, BAND OF HORSES, SHIRLEY MANSON, SEA WOLF at Avalon; PETER BJORN & JOHN, EL PERRO DEL MAR at Club Nokia; FRIENDLY FIRES at Henry Fonda Theater; BERNADETTE PETERS at Fred Kavli Theater; BEN GIBBARD at Ivy Substation Theater; THE CHOKE at Boardner’s; DAVID LINDLEY & JOHN HAMMOND at Brixton South Bay; ATOMIC SHERPAS, THE SCRAPPERS at Taix; THE MISFITS at the Key Club; CHELSEA GIRLS at the Roxy; KINGSIZEMAYBE at Taix; LUKAS NELSON & THE PROMISE OF THE REAL at the Viper Room; EVIL BEAVER, JESSIE DELUXE, PSYCHOSTAR at Que Sera; IAN WHITCOMB at Boulevard Music; GROOVY REDNECKS, THE CHEATIN’ KIND at Cinema Bar.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22

THE LILYS AT SPACELAND
A bit of a rock nomad, ever in search of that elusive sound, in 1988 singer-songwriter Kurt Heasley brought the Lilys from his native Philly to Washington, D.C., where they hit with their first single, “February 14,” a tip of the hat to My Bloody Valentine. That starry-eyed shoegazing urge wove throughout the prolific Heasley’s subsequent albums, along with an abiding love for the glories of British Invasion bands (the Kinks in particular). There have been more recent forays into a kind of rockier blue-eyed soul, as heard on the Lilys’ most recent disc, Everything Wrong Is Imaginary (2006). The thing is, none of the above information sounds all that out of the ordinary, and in many ways it isn’t. But Heasley writes and performs songs with consummate taste (a rare commodity) and inordinate skill, and, once you’ve heard them, it is simply impossible to get them out of your mind. (John Payne)

Also playing Sunday:

THE LANNY MORGAN SEXTET at the Lighthouse Cafe, 11 a.m.; JAKE SHIMABUKURO at Haugh Performing Arts Center, Citrus College, 2 p.m.; RAY LAMONTAGNE at the Orpheum Theater; OZZY OSBOURNE, SLASH, PERRY FARRELL, TRAVIS BARKER at Avalon; H.R., WALTER SCHREIFELS, JEFF PEZZATI, STEVE SOTO at Alex’s Bar; JEREMY JAY, SEA LIONS at the Echo; DIR EN GREY at House of Blues; THE MISFITS at the Key Club; KIRK FLETCHER at Liquid Kitty.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23

THE BOOKS AT HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY
The Massachusetts future-folk duo have been lying low for a bit, focusing, as they put it in a recent press release, on family, deconstruction, reconstruction, film scoring, organic gardening, babies and reassessment. (Wonder if that’s a musician’s euphemism for something?) Now, though, the Books are back, finishing up a new studio album they’re planning to release sometime next year and heading out on a brief North American tour that, in addition to this show at Hollywood Forever, will also see them playing two gigs at a Presbyterian church in San Francisco. Crazy kids. The most recent Books full-length, 2005’s Lost and Safe, contained more of Nick Zammuto’s vocals (and more of a sense of avant-pop structure) than did the group’s earlier records, which may provide a hint of what’s to come. On the other hand, in 2006 they put out an EP built around elevator music composed at the behest of the French government. So you never know. (Mikael Wood)