Rock Picks: Prefuse 73, the Gaslamp Killer, VoicesVoices, Beyond the Pale

Friday/January/29

Bowerbirds

Julie Doiron

Location Info

Map

House of Blues Sunset Strip

8430 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

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McCabe's Bar & Grill

2455 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Santa Monica

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More About

• Janiva Magness
• Grammy Awards
• JANIVA MAGNESS McCABE
• Music Awards
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

TIMBALAND AT HOUSE OF BLUES
Shock Value II, Timbaland’s recently released sequel to his hit 2007 disc, is not without its share of bracingly inventive beats from the guy who more or less defined the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Truth be told, though, the new album is more notable for its bizarro guest list than for its musical achievements: Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado you understand, but Australian garage rockers Jet? Namby-pamby piano popsters the Fray? Chad Kroeger of motherfucking Nickelback? It’s as though the man behind “Big Pimpin’” suddenly took a music-supervision gig at Grey’s Anatomy. (Stranger still: The Kroeger cut, “Tomorrow in the Bottle,” is one of Shock Value II’s best.) For his current tour, Timbo’s taking some of his guests on the road and having others join the proceedings via digital projection; at the House of Blues, we’re promised in-the-flesh appearances by Jay Sean (aka the dude who sings “Down”), the Fray (bummer) and Honor Society, sport coat–clad white-funk protégés of the Jonas Brothers. (Mikael Wood)
 
V.V. BROWN, LOVE GRENADES AT SPACELAND
The rarefied world of the Grammy Awards would seem to have little to do with the lives of relatively unknown musicians kicking around in small nightclubs, but that’s not stopping several intriguing performers from gathering tonight for “Superfraiche Pop Night: Celebrating the Grammys.” British singer V.V. Brown has a way with sunny pop songs like “Shark in the Water” and such retro girl group–style tunes as “Crying Blood,” on her new CD, Traveling Like the Light. Her originals are melodic and smart, and she’s persuasively soulful on blue-mood ballads like “I Love You.” The local band Love Grenades have an especially infectious dance-rock sound with slinky tracks like “Tigers in the Fire.” Singer Elizabeth Wight exudes oodles of charisma as she purrs seductively over her mates’ throbbing beats and electronics. Although it’s a long way from Spaceland to Staples Center, it’s not unreasonable to imagine the vibrantly poppy V.V. Brown and/or the dance-crazy Love Grenades achieving the kind of all-around popularity that even the folks behind the Grammys might recognize. With Reni Lane and Scott Simons. (Falling James)
 
JANIVA MAGNESS AT McCABE’S
Janiva Magness had the blues before she even knew about the blues. Born in Detroit, she ended up on the streets after both of her parents committed suicide. She was shuttled among a dozen foster homes and was a teenage mother who had to give her daughter up for adoption before finally finding the meaning of life at an Otis Rush concert. Discovering the blues gave Magness a means of expression, a way of channeling all that pain and loneliness. On her most recent album, 2008’s What Love Will Do (Alligator Records), she wails it all away with uncommon style, elegance and fire. She can be funky and feisty (and wisely resigned) on an up-tempo Chicago-style dance-floor workout like “That’s What Love Will Make You Do,” but Magness can also bring it down with heartbreaking loveliness on slow, sad ballads like “Sometimes You Got to Gamble.” The longtime L.A. resident, who has a new album coming out in April, celebrates her birthday tonight with a special set. (Falling James)

Also playing Friday:
2010 MUSICARES TRIBUTE TO NEIL YOUNG FEAT. CROSBY, STILLS & NASH, EMMYLOU HARRIS, ELTON JOHN, WILCO, OZOMATLI at Los Angeles Convention Center; BOWLING FOR SOUP, JUST SURRENDER, FIGHT FAIR at El Rey Theatre; TIM REYNOLDS & TR3 at the Mint; LL COOL J at the Key Club; THE TENDER BOX, SATELLITE CRUSH at the Echo; NICK JONAS & THE ADMINISTRATION, DIANE BIRCH at the Wiltern; AIR SUPPLY at the Canyon; MARIACHI JESUS DE LA PLAZA at Eastside Luv; SLANG CHICKENS, BOOMSNAKE, SUPERHUMANOIDS at the Echo Curio; PHILM (DAVE LOMBARDO), IT’S CASUAL at Relax Bar; POLYSICS, SABROSA PURR, NEW KINGDOM at the Roxy.

Saturday/January/30

BOWERBIRDS, JULIE DOIRON AT THE ECHO
The North Carolina trio Bowerbirds make music that’s a little off the beaten track. There’s something rustic and traditional about the way Phil Moore’s driving acoustic guitar is pushed along further by Beth Tacular’s weaving accordion and Dan Westerlund’s unobtrusive drums and keyboards, but the band are not stuffy traditional folk revivalists. “We carry on like the storm, like we’ve no idea where we’re coming from,” Moore announces on “Beneath Your Tree,” from last year’s Upper Air. The hazily poetic lyrics and gentle pastoral arrangements do seem more inspired by the direction of the wind than any conscious nostalgia. Bowerbirds are touring with Canadian indie rocker Julie Doiron. Formerly with Eric’s Trip, she has also worked with Herman Dune and the Wooden Stars. The music on Doiron’s recent solo CD, I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day (Jagjaguwar), ranges from fuzzy Breeders-style rockers like “Consolation Prize” to softly glowing embers like “When Brakes Get Wet.” (Falling James)

THE SOFT PACK AT 10 LOCATIONS ACROSS THE CITY
The Soft Pack’s 10-song debut long-player clocks in at a hair over half an hour total, which is actually way more than enough to get the point. Naw, they’re not boring or grating, just the opposite. The San Diego transplants’ The Soft Pack (Kemado) is chock-full of fast-fast-fast ’n’ loose-but-tight insta-hits that you want to hit the repeat on. That’s kinda surprising given the band’s fairly loony wiseassery lyric-wise, but makes sense given the truckload of steaming riffs and charming hooks that dazzle with wit, and the band’s undeniable zeal for the punkier-indier side of classic rock & roll. Let’s just call them “infectious,” as all the best rock critics used to say, and leave it at that. The Soft Pack will indeed play at 10 places around L.A. today, including people’s living rooms and backyards and record stores and down at the beach. For info on the schedule see thesoftpackofficial.com. (John Payne)

LOS LOBOS AT ROYCE HALL
Two shows here by these East L.A. legends, the first of which goes down at the family-friendly hour of 2 p.m. On the agenda for that one? Selections from the Walt Disney animated-feature catalog, as presented on last year’s Los Lobos Goes Disney, which features the Latin-rock outfit’s typically delightful takes on such gems as “I Wan’na Be Like You” (from The Jungle Book), “I Will Go Sailing No More” (from Toy Story) and “When You Wish Upon a Star” (to which they sweetly append a bit of “It’s a Small World”). For the grown-up-geared late show, at 8 p.m., expect material from throughout the band’s wildly expansive songbook — hands up for 2006’s well reviewed (if underpromoted) The Town and the City — as well as a possible preview or two from their upcoming debut for Shout! Factory. (Mikael Wood)

THE STAINS, LA BESTIA, CARA DE MIL PUTAZOS, AZTLAN
UNDERGROUND AT THE BOULEVARD
From the mid-1940s pachuco-boogie boom to the soul-garage glories of  the mid-’60s and the following decade’s punk rock conflagration, East Los Angeles’ musicians have consistently set higher standards for America’s pop underworld. Theirs is an unrivaled and closely linked tribe, and with each generation informing and expanding upon the forebears’ achievements, the fast-moving Eastside scene always demands — yet is too rarely accorded — close attention. Between the tense, explosive punk of chronically superb hell-raisers the Stains, the intense sound of Rocio Ponce and Rudy Brat’s La Bestia and the fearsome, brain-pulping metallics of untamed duo Cara de Mil Putazos, expect a vortex of unimpinged creativity and old-school slam. Nicely tempered by the more pacific (but no less pointed) sociocultural observations of Aztlan Underground, not to mention screenings of several rare punk rock documentaries, this should be a swarming, sincere and altogether intoxicating affair. (Jonny Whiteside)