Free the Robots, Dr. John. Alex Cuba and Merle Haggard

ALEX CUBA AT The Mint
This Cuban-Canadian crooner got a high-profile boost last year when he collaborated with Nelly Furtado on her Spanish-language album, Mi Plan. Now Alex Cuba is touring the United States in support of a self-titled disc that recently won him a Juno Award back home. Listening to bright, polished tunes like "Tierra Colorá" and "Caballo," you can hear why Furtado recruited Cuba: He's a popwise mix-and-match type who never lets his love of studio-nerd texture overpower his commitment to radio-hit melody (in other words: imagine Manu Chao minus the confrontational post-punk energy). "I send you this song that doesn't say a thing," Cuba sings in Spanish right at the top of the album, "but goes directly to your heart." Couldn't say it better myself. (Mikael Wood)

Also Playing Saturday: OJAI FESTIVAL (see music feature); MAYER HAWTHORNE & THE COUNTY at the Getty; MURS, SICK JACKEN, NOCANDO at House of Blues Sunset Strip; INK-N-IRON at the Queen Mary; HENRY ROLLINS at Largo; MIYAVI at Club Nokia; DR. JOHN & THE LOWER 911 at Coach House; TABACO Y RON at Conga Room; FITZ & THE TANTRUMS at Detroit Bar; CONJUNTO PRIMAVERA, LOS RIELEROS DEL NORTE at Gibson Amphitheatre; STYLISTICS, CHI-LITES, BLOODSTONE, RAY GOODMAN AND BROWN, HAROLD MELVIN'S BLUENOTES, NEW BIRTH, FRIENDS OF DISTINCTION, PERSUADERS at Greek Theatre; ELEVATERS, QUETZAL, SO & SO, GREG LASWELL, BRIAN WRIGHT, YELLOW RED SPARKS at Hotel Café; KASHMIR at Roxy Theatre; SUBLIME WITH ROME, IRATION at Santa Barbara Bowl.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMES DEMARIA PRODUCTIONS

He wears sunglasses at night (trippin'): Dr. John

Location Info

Map

Queen Mary Park

1126 Queens Highway
Long Beach, CA 90802

Category: Parks/Outdoors

Region: Out of Town

Photos

0 user reviews	Write A Review

Related Content

• The Best Los Angeles Metal Shows to See in May
  May 1, 2013
• Music Picks: Coachella, Merle Haggard, Spiritualized
  April 11, 2013
• Music Picks: Charli XCX, Polica, Esperanza Spalding and More
  August 16, 2012
• The Best Concerts to See in L.A. This Weekend
  April 12, 2013
• The Best L.A. Metal Concerts To See In April
  April 2, 2013

More About

• Chris Martins
• Gibson Amphitheatre
• Whisky a Go Go
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Indie Rock and Indie Pop

SUNDAY/JUNE/13

ROBERT RANDOLPH & THE FAMILY BAND AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
There are some estimable performers — some of them even jazz musicians — mixed in among the pop and mainstream acts at the Playboy Jazz Festival. Today's highlights include the bewitchingly soothing jazz bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding, talented if frustratingly banal guitarist George Benson and the poppy Malian singer Salif Keita. But most of the festival's drive and power should come straight from Robert Randolph & the Family Band. They're really more rock — and soul, funk and gospel — than jazz, but it all comes together in an almost-psychedelic, spiritually uplifting fashion. The group would be worth checking out if only for the dazzling technical dexterity of pedal-steel guitarist/leader Robert Randolph, who waxes up wildly inventive solos that take rootsy archetypes into new directions. Yet the Family Band's interplay and songwriting are just as locked in. Don't be surprised if Randolph and crew steal the show. [See also Brick's Picks.] (Falling James)

Also Playing Sunday: OJAI FESTIVAL (see music feature); BETH HART at Echoplex; BEETHOVEN'S WIG (matinee kids' show), LESLIE & THE BADGERS at McCabe's Guitar Shop; NIC JACKSON, ADAM STERN, STEVEN WAYNE at The Mint; DRAKE BELL at Roxy Theatre; BOBBY FIELD, STEVIE STARLIGHT, SUPERUNLOADER at Viper Room; CABO VERDE CRETCHEU at Waterfront; TAPROOT, ANEW REVOLUTION at Whisky A Go-Go.

MONDAY/JUNE/14

RAINBOW ARABIA, JAPANTHER, SECRET CIRCUIT, PIZZA!, DJ DAVID ORLANDO AT THE ECHO
Rainbow Arabia, the husband-and-wife team of Daniel and Tiffany Preston, purvey a colorfully tough dance-floor exotica that steers miraculously clear of the corny pitfalls that "fourth world" music often falls into. The pair's couple of EPs, The Basta and Kabukimono, took their nods from faraway locales, clashing bossa nova and electro-pop in freaky dance-groove miasmas ornately draped with Middle Eastern polyrhythms. There's also a kind of punky hash of ferocious deep-bass synths sync'd with a small army of drum machines, percussion and especially Daniel's Lebanese Casio playing microtonal scales and Arabic beats. Along with Tiffany's spidery guitar fuzz and obliquely Gothlike vocals, it all makes for a certifiably new sound. They're doing a Monday-night June residency at the Echo with a load of good stuff planned, including Gary Wilson, 60 Watt Kid and semi-secret guest headliners, plus DJ sets from Fool's Gold, ORO11 and Bauhaus/Love and Rockets man David. J. (John Payne)

THOU, GRAF ORLOCK, HARASSOR AT THE SMELL
Metal has died, all hail its putrescent corpse: Mainstay monsters of the Baton Rouge–New Orleans underground, Thou carve out epic core with titles like "By Endurance We Conquer" while globbling out verbal wisdom such as "Waves crash down, unrelenting, unending. We are stone shaped by the force of its abuse; colossal mountain ranges eroded to jagged shorelines; aged cliff tops, decrepit and helpless; earthen cadavers now ripe for mining to the very core of our souls." On the other hand, they also say that "Self-knowledge is the key to the perfect control of the will." L.A.'s very angry Graf Orlock thrash a cinema-grind social-commentary-metal, best heard on their Destination Time trilogy, "a new testament to nebulous ideas and bodily harm" examining in grisly detail "presidential assassination, robotic domination and the pitfalls of pre-historic survival." Harassor plows the righteous path of self-cannibalization with a black metal/primitive black hate metal/experimental-metal straight outta Hollywood, USA. "We grimly demand the extermination of mankind," they say, but attendees at this show are not required to do this. (John Payne)

Also Playing Monday: CHIEF, HAIM, GROUPLOVE at the Troubadour; JULIAN POLLACK TRIO, CASEY LIPKA, EMMA LASRY, RANDY TODD at the Mint; LINE AND CIRCLE at Silverlake Lounge; WE BARBARIANS at Spaceland; UNKLE MONKEY at the Waterfront.