SUNDAY/JUNE/20
Carlene Carter (see Thursday)
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ERYKAH BADU, JANELLE MONÁE AT THE GREEK THEATRE
A word of warning to those with work on Monday morning: Reports from the road indicate that Erykah Badu has been in no hurry getting her ass onstage at gigs on her current tour (hit up the Village Voice's Sound of the City blog for an amusing roundup of various showgoers' time-killing tweets). Fortunately, Badu's performances tend to be worth the wait. Few artists do the psychedelic-R&B thing as arrestingly as she does, and that includes ones with albums more explicitly songful than Badu's very jammy New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh, which came out in March. Opener Janelle Monáe, from Atlanta, just released a self-consciously sprawling avant-soul debut called The ArchAndroid that doesn't always live up to its ambition. But her Big Boi–assisted single "Tightrope" is one of the year's best. Shake your Polaroid picture to it tonight. With Lupe Fiasco. (Mikael Wood)
BAABA MAAL, PLAYING FOR CHANGE, YEASAYER, TINARIWEN, FOOL'S GOLD AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
This evening's lineup at the Bowl is loaded with fascinating performers, including the sprawling world-music cover band Playing for Change, the arty Brooklyn alterna-rockers Yeasayer and the sunny tropicalia of L.A. combo Fool's Gold. But it's headliner Baaba Maal and the lower-billed Tinariwen who are likely to conjure the most entrancingly dreamy sounds of all. The Senegalese singer-guitarist Maal plucks gently mesmerizing tunes that accrue an understated power as his blend of French vocals, atmospheric keyboards and guitars slowly build momentum. Songs like "International" ride on funky grooves that turn slightly psychedelic, with subtle overdubs that recall Manu Chao's blurry fever dreams. Saharan nomads (and former rebel freedom fighters) Tinariwen fuse electric guitars and soulful voices together in an unusual way that sometimes evokes the primal timelessness of the blues, yet their music also has a swirling, shape-shifting expressiveness that really doesn't sound like anybody else. Their recent album Imidiwan: Companions has an inexorable power, with the guitars twisting into weird shapes and patterns that glow like coins in the sun, before being buried by shifting sands and hot desert winds. (Falling James)
BERT JANSCH AT LARGO
The legendary Scottish acoustic guitarist Bert Jansch visits L.A. for a rare appearance. Jansch was a founding member of revered '60s folk-jazz group Pentangle, playing alongside highly regarded guitarist
John Renbourn, singer
Jacqui McShee, bassist
Danny Thompson and percussionist
Terry Cox. Jansch's hard-picking, deeply voiced and inventive guitar playing has been hugely influential, as has been testified by the likes of
Jimmy Page,
Neil Young and
Johnny Marr. He's got a naturally rustic, nasally vocal style that perfectly matches the mostly traditional songs of the
British Isles in which he's staked his highest claims. Jansch's most recent release was
The Black Swan
(Drag City), a very fine collection of self-penned and trad folk tunes with heavy guests including Devendra Banhart and singer Beth Orton. Singer-songwriter (and Neil's spouse) Pegi Young opens for him. (John Payne)
Also playing Sunday: JD SOUTHER at Coach House; THE GAY MEN'S CHORUS OF LOS ANGELES at Avalon; ROONEY, THE YOUNG VEINS, CANDYGRAM FOR MONGO at Canyon Club; KEIKO MATSUI at Catalina Jazz Club; JIN AKANISHI at Club Nokia; ELIZA RICKMAN, SEA OF BEES at Hotel Café (see Music feature); CABO VERDE CRETCHEU at the Waterfront.
MONDAY/JUNE/21
SNUFFALUFFAGUS & RATS AT ECHO CURIO
Canyon hippies, patchouli oil, redwood hot tubs and naked toddlers running amuck in the hot summer haze might come to mind on one's first listen to Brazil Wood Poetry, the new album by San Diego's Snuffaluffagus — but a truly contemporary undercurrent runs through it. This home-studio spawn of Chris Braciszewski and Say Anything's Alex Kent infuses an indie spirit into the jams that spill out in densely textured orchestrations, soaring messes of near-chaos and just enough quiet spots. And Braciszewski is sharing the love by offering the whole album for free on his Web site. At the trailhead of their meandering West Coast tour, they're joined tonight by Rats, who make a jazzy, shimmering, ruckus-lite. Head rat Eric Kiersnowski goes all experimental — careening across the neck of his baritone guitar — as one would expected from a guy with a résumé that includes stints with L.A. prog lords Upsilon Acrux and Godzik Pink. It's all strung together with Jonathan Silberman's drawn-out, breathy woodwind tones (he's also ex-Godzik) and Kelly Kawar's beautifully bending bass lines. (Wendy Gilmartin)
GOGOL BORDELLO AT THE MAYAN
Singer-guitarist Eugene Hütz smashes to pieces romantic Western notions about the lives of Gypsies on Gogol Bordello's new album, Trans-Continental Hustle. "Just because I come from Roma camp up the hill/They put me in the school for mentally ill," he sings. "You love our music/but you hate our guts." The furious racket stirred up by his band — Old World accordions and violins colliding with punk rock guitars and reggae bass, as sexy dancers spin and dash across the stage — sometimes obscures Hütz's serious messages, which lie just beneath the nonstop musical merriment. "In corridors full of tear gas/Our destinies jammed every day/Like deleted scenes from Kafka/Flushed down the bureaucratic drain," he laments on "Immigraniada." As much as the Ukrainian singer identifies with the dispossessed and calls for a global cultural revolution, he also keeps things on a personal level, chanting his restlessly surreal poetry in inventively fractured English. Although the increasingly popular Gogol Bordello are getting the star treatment this time around, working with the likes of producer Rick Rubin, Trans-Continental Hustle still sounds organic and real, and it's very much of a piece with such earlier releases as Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike and Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony. Also Tues. (Falling James)
