DUM DUM GIRLS AT SPACELAND
When Iggy Pop sang about the “Dum Dum Boys” on his 1977 album The Idiot, it was a harrowing, sullen elegy to his former musical partners in crime who’d died, disappeared from the scene or moved back in with their moms. The local band Dum Dum Girls don’t use funereal synthesizers or evoke old, gray Berlin, but there is a certain shadowiness on their scattered singles and Sub Pop album Jail La La. Covers of the Rolling Stones’ sinister “Play With Fire” and G.G. Allin’s “Don’t Talk to Me” are drenched in reverb and fuzz much like the Jesus & Mary Chain. Vocals swim in thick seas of echo, and the guitars are so tinny, all the bottom end and warmth have been sucked out. The dehydrated sound that remains gives these girl-group garage-rock melodies an icy, brittle allure. (Falling James)
Also playing Saturday:
J. Tillman: Crazy like a fox
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JOKER, NOMAD, NOSAJ THING at Lot 613; PILAR DIAZ, WAIT. THINK. FAST. at the Echoplex; THE BLACK CROWES, TRUTH & SALVAGE CO. at Club Nokia; KITTEN, FORT WIFE, TORCHES IN TREES, PLG/VNDR at the Smell; THE ENGLISH BEAT at the Troubadour; CARNEY, JOEY RYAN at El Rey Theatre; PLACIDO DOMINGO at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; TIESTO, DADA LIFE at Shrine Auditorium.
SUNDAY/NOVEMBER/29
CANDYE KANE AT THE REDWOOD BAR & GRILL
The San Diego blues belter Candye Kane easily lives up to the title of her ninth album, Superhero (Delta Groove Music). Not only has she recovered from pancreatic cancer, she’s used the stuff of that awful experience to infuse the lyrics of original songs like “Hey! Toughen Up!” and “Don’t Cry for Me New Jersey” with a shot of positive energy, wicked humor and soulful defiance. “I’m going to be just fine,” Kane declares. “I’m going to live ’til a hundred and nine ... a white-haired lady with a lot of soul.” She’s actually more obsessed about a different, more incurable disease — doctors refer to it as a broken heart — in such tunes as “I Didn’t Listen to My Heart.” This wondrous woman even uses all of her superpowers to rescue Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love” from memories of Led Zeppelin’s plagiarized desecration “Whole Lotta Love,” giving it a primal, seductively funky blues beat. Kane’s guitarist/co-songwriter Laura Chavez and guests like the Hacienda Brothers’ Dave Gonzales, Tom Waits sideman Stephen Hodges and the Fabulocos’ Kid Ramos lay down a variety of swinging and jazzy blues for the kittenish Ms. Kane to roll around and revel in. Also at Cozy’s, Sat. (Falling James)
Also playing Sunday:
LIGHTNIN’ WOODCOCK at the Unknown Theater; STRAIGHT NO CHASER at the Wiltern; NEIL HAMBURGER at Spaceland.
MONDAY/NOVEMBER/30
FRANKLIN BRUNO AT ECHO CURIO
Can smart people play rock & roll? So much great music has been made in the past by barely articulate idiot savants, but songwriter Franklin Bruno has proved that musical knowledge and intelligence are no impediment to creating witty pop songs. (In fact, one could argue that they even help.) A visiting professor at Bard College, Bruno has been a music critic for the Village Voice and (many years ago) L.A. Weekly, and has collaborated with the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle. Whether he’s performing solo or with such projects as Nothing Painted Blue and the Human Hearts, his power-pop melodies and jangling guitars are draped over incessantly clever lyrics in songs like “(Jessica’s Got a) Ropeburn,” “The Death of Vaudeville” and “A Whole Art” (which involves head-spinning wordplay about a “counter-counter-counter-revolution”). Some of Bruno’s scattered ’90s solo singles were recently released on the Local Currency compilation on Fayettenam Records. (Falling James)
Also playing Monday:
THE HAPPY HOLLOWS, THE PITY PARTY, TWILIGHT SLEEP, TRAPPS at Spaceland; THE GROWLERS at Origami Records; SEASONS, DOWNTOWN UNION, JACK WILSON JR., REGRETS AND BRUNETTES at the Echo; IMAAD WASIF, TINY TELEVISION at the Hotel Café; THE CHOKE, ARISTIDES, TRUDGERS at Pehrspace; MISSISSIPPI MAN, LAST AMERICAN BUFFALO, WHAT LAURA SAYS, SLIPPING INTO THE DARKNESS at the Silverlake Lounge; DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL, NEW FOUND GLORY (acoustic sets) at the Troubadour.
TUESDAY/DECEMBER/1
TEN OUT OF TENN AT THE TROUBADOUR
The Ten Out of Tenn troupe basically equals Nashville’s Hotel Café scene. This talented 10-pack (Katie Herzig, Andy Davis, Tyler James, Trent Dabbs, Andrew Belle, K.S. Rhoads, Matthew Perryman Jones, Butterfly Boucher, Jeremy Lister and Erin McCarley) isn’t a bunch of big-hat country wannabes trying to be the next Nashville Star or retro hillbillies looking to re-create Depression-era music. Rather, they are a collective of bright singer-songwriters exploring the various realms of pop, folk and rock. While none of the performers is a household name, some are familiar to the KCRW crowd (Boucher, Belle), and most have fans among the music-supervisor set (Jones, James, McCarley). Each artist brings something unique to the stage, whether it’s Herzig’s quirky pop or Dabbs’ soulful stylings (his impressive upcoming disc, Your Side Now, should raise his profile). There’s also something fun about having a stage full of singer-songwriters bouncing tunes off one another. This time around, they will be sprinkling some seasonal selections from their second Christmas compilation into the song rotation. (Michael Berick)
