Music Picks: Liz Phair, the Weepies, Tom Tom Club, Evan Voytas

FRIDAY/OCTOBER/8

Liz Phair

Tom Tom Club

Location Info

Map

El Rey Theatre

5515 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Bars and Clubs

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center

1310 11th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Category: Performing Arts Venues

Region: Santa Monica

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Saint Rocke

142 Pacific Coast Highway
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

Category: Bars and Clubs

Region: South Bay

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The Troubadour

9081 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars and Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

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The Getty Center

1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Category: Museums

Region: Out of Town

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Bootleg Theater

2200 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Category: Bars and Clubs

Region: Out of Town

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House of Blues Sunset Strip

8430 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069

Category: Bars and Clubs

Region: Out of Town

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More About

• John Payne
• Mikael Wood
• Paul Rogers
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Indie Rock and Indie Pop

CULTURE COLLIDE WITH CARIBOU, NITE JEWEL AT THE MUSIC BOX

The Culture Collide fest (at several venues through October 10) continues with Caribou, aka Canadian electronic-acoustic alchemist Dan Snaith. The London-based artist recently put out Swim (Merge), the latest in a series of works that, while traversing droney ambient chill-out and IDM-type pure-beat/texture/tonality, gradually hark back to song forms and arrangements of '60s and '70s psychedelia, progressive rock and even AM classic rock. The artful collision of electronic timbre and dynamic range resonate naturally atop songs boasting baroquely complex vocal harmony and instrumental settings — note that the club-savvy Swim floats atop solid, memorable songs, albeit wide-screened and thrillingly crafted. Onstage, Caribou is a band (with a real drummer, even) that brings this blurrily opulent sound to kicking life. [Also: Nite Jewel (see music feature) and Emerald.] (John Payne)

LIZ PHAIR AT EL REY THEATRE

On her new album, Funstyle, the Chicago singer-guitarist Liz Phair reinvents herself in unexpected ways that might surprise critics who have her pigeonholed as a relatively mainstream indie-rock artist. Whereas such pop-minded tracks as "Miss September" and the pleasantly melodic if unremarkable "You Should Know Me" (where she's joined by MOR merchant Dave Matthews) echo her early work, she gets her freak on with "Bollywood," rapping nimbly over a spacy groove. She might come off as too self-conscious on "Smoke," where she disses an old label ("Liz, ATO will never put this out!/You won't be washing dishes in this town"), but it's a weirdly fascinating junkyard trip-hop workout with a funky bass line and eerie vocal exclamations. "Oh, Bangladesh" is a swirling power ballad that seemingly has little to do with the titular country, while "Beat Is Up" is a perky dance number with a gushing chorus that works despite cutesy narration. "And He Slayed Her" reportedly is about her battles with a record-label executive ("I'm coming for you with a wooden stake"), although the lyrics don't have the same sarcastic bite and mildly shocking eroticism of her celebrated 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville. (Falling James)

JUDY COLLINS AT SANTA MONICA COLLEGE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

The 71-year-old folk icon has been playing cabaret-style shows for the last few years at New York's ritzy Café Carlyle, and that's the performance she'll bring to the Broad Stage here Friday night. It's gonna be just Collins and her trusty piano player, Russell Walden, doing songs from Broadway and the movies and pre-rock pop, as well as her own tunes, such as "Kingdom Come," about New York firefighters following 9/11. Collins released a strong new studio disc earlier this year called Paradise on which she offers up typically heartfelt renditions of "Over the Rainbow" and Jimmy Webb's "Gauguin," the latter of which features the songwriter himself on keyboard and conch (yep, conch). Hopefully the album's ghostly take on the traditional "Dens of Yarrow" makes the cut tonight. (Mikael Wood)

THE LEE BOYS AT SAINT ROCKE

Completely removed from the numbing auto-tuned lip-synch circle of hell that is the Billboard sales chart, the flabbergasting Lee Boys bring a singular, soul-stirring dose of "sacred steel," a sound fraught with irresistible honky-tonk mysticism. Developed generations ago by the African-American congregants of a few small Southern houses of worship, it's a blues-infused, gospel-beholden style driven by the ebullient fluidity that only a pedal steel guitar can provide. The Florida sextet both upholds and enhances the sacred steel tradition, peppering it up with country, funk, bluegrass and hip-hop, to propose an exciting new musical form that's equal parts sacred and secular. Long story short, these cats don't proselytize — they rock. (Jonny Whiteside)

Also playing Friday: CULTURE COLLIDE WITH KLAXONS, BESNARD LAKES, LAND OF TALK at the Echoplex; AMUSEMENT PARKS ON FIRE at the Echo; EL GUINCHO at Spaceland; ULRICH SCHNAUSS, CHAPTERHOUSE at Troubadour; THE URXED at the Smell; PAUL COLLINS & JOHN WICKS at Gengis Cohen; KILLSONIC PRESENTS at Echo Curio.

SATURDAY/OCTOBER/9

KLAXONS AT TROUBADOUR

It would be nearly impossible for anyone growing up in 1990s Britain, regardless of their musical fancies, not to be impacted by that country's all-powerful rave culture of the time. And so it is that even rock bands like London's Klaxons have a glow-stick wash of heady, looped vocal refrains, bashy beats, squirming sequencers and even sirens. But amidst these off-your-tits trappings is a rock trio partial to fuzzy bass and cheeky-chappy melodies recalling earlier rave-era rockers Supergrass and Blur. Considering that they were originally called Klaxons (Not Centaurs) and their new album, Surfing the Void, includes titles like "Future Memories" and "Valley of the Calm Trees," it's no surprise that these Mercury Prize winners (for 2007 debut Myths of the Near Future) harbor epic, prog-rock ambitions that only their record label and some (probably prudent) self-censorship keep in check. (Paul Rogers)

TOM TOM CLUB AT THE GETTY CENTER

"Words are stupid. ... Words are trouble," Tina Weymouth announced on Tom Tom Club's 1981 single "Wordy Rappinghood," but we'll try to use some of them judiciously to describe the band's still-intoxicating blend of art-pop lyrics and low-key funkiness. Tom Tom Club started out as a side project when Weymouth and her drummer-husband, Chris Frantz, were still in the Talking Heads, but the group became a full-time endeavor after Heads leader David Byrne wandered off into Brazilian tropicalia and other styles of music in his solo career. Far more than just rock dilettantes slumming in the dance-music genre, Frantz and Weymouth crafted playful proto-rap tunes like "Wordy Rappinghood" and "Genius of Love" that were later adapted by Grandmaster Flash, MC Redman and even Mariah Carey. It's been a while since Tom Tom Club performed in Los Angeles, but Weymouth and Frantz have reignited their career with such releases as the Live at the Clubhouse CD and an upcoming album, Genius of Live. They play tonight (from 6 to 9 p.m.) as part of the Getty Center's "Saturdays off the 405" music series. Also at the Echoplex, Sun. (Falling James)