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

Also playing Saturday: McCOMBS at 826; BASSNECTAR at the Wiltern; RICK AGNEW, SYMBOL SIX at the Redwood Bar.

PHOTO BY TIFFANY ROSE

Macy Gray

Gogol Bordello

Location Info

Map

El Rey Theatre

5515 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

Photos

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Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center

1310 11th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Category: Performing Arts Venues

Region: Santa Monica

Photos

Saint Rocke

142 Pacific Coast Highway
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: South Bay

Photos

The Troubadour

9081 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

Photos

The Getty Center

1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Category: Museums

Region: Out of Town

Photos

Bootleg Theater

2200 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

Photos

House of Blues Sunset Strip

8430 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

Photos

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

SUNDAY/OCTOBER/10

ANA CARAVELLE, DNTEL, THE LONG LOST AT BOOTLEG THEATER

Basic Climb (Non Projects) is the debut album from L.A. vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Ana Caravelle, a harp-playing pixie with, apparently, a million ideas about how to write the old song and cleverly sidestep clichés of said form. She does it in richly atmospheric pieces that seem assembled from myriad places and times, wildly texturized in arrangements that tumble all over the 20th-century musical map, all laced in that lovely, strange harp and a voice from a parallel planet — a really interesting one. Also electronic soundscapes/beats/who knows what from the ever-surprising Dntel aka Jimmy Tamborello, who's been low-profile of late, and is now making a welcome return to live action; and the Long Lost, featuring the towering DJ/sound-artiste Daedelus and his partner Laura Darlington in psychedelic lullabies for the lovelorn and lonely; their eponymous album came out in March on Ninja Tune. (John Payne)

THE WEEPIES, LUCY SCHWARTZ AT EL REY THEATRE

Don't let the name confuse you — the Weepies are anything but sad. The Topanga-based folk-pop duo has a bright sound, and why shouldn't they? Both members, Deb Talan and Steve Tannen, were budding singer-songwriters when they met, started playing together and discovered that rarest of chemistries. You know, the one that spurs a pair of people not only to make beautiful music together (see their 2004 debut Happiness), but to marry and make babies. They also wrote a bunch of songs for Mandy Moore's 2007 stab at adulthood, Wild Hope. That and a record deal with Nettwerk (plus countless TV placements including a prominent Obama campaign ad) are more than enough to explain the title and effervescence of "I Was Made for Sunny Days," a cheery but nuanced highlight from their new fourth album, Be My Thrill. Subtler songs like "Please Speak Well of Me" and "They're in Love, Where I Am" display the warm country of Gillian Welch and the cool acoustics of Nedelle Torrisi. (Chris Martins)

CULTURE COLLIDE FEST BLOCK PARTY WITH AMUSEMENT PARKS ON FIRE, AM, MONOTONIX, AND MORE ON RESERVOIR STREET BETWEEN ALVARADO AND SUNSET

In order to fully cope with the immensity of the Culture Collide fest's Toyota Antics Block Party — which is a free event, mind you — first you need to RSVP at uptheantics.com/culturecollideblockparty. After you've done that, you (assuming you're a CC wristband holder) will have access to a "priority viewing area" at several outdoor stages as well as performances in other pop-up venues on the street. Among the numerous well-chosen acts playing these events are Amusement Parks on Fire, the Nottingham-based purveyors of a sound some have fittingly termed stargaze (as opposed to shoegaze, y'see). This is a wildly inventive young band whose ambitious rock sonics come in a colossal (and we do mean colossal) wall of massed guitars, voices, drums and string sounds that bespeak real urgency and fly with a gorgeous lyricism. Road Eyes (Filter) is their new album; seek it out, and witness the beauty live. (Amusement Parks also plays at the Echo on Friday, October 8.) (John Payne)

LITTLE JIMMY SCOTT AT THE HOUSE OF BLUES

Star-crossed singer Jimmy Scott is one of the greatest jazz artists ever to draw a breath, yet his inordinately turbulent 85 years on earth have been dominated by pain, loss and longing. Despite his spectacular early-'90s rediscovery and comeback, misery and hurt still permeate his work. Scott's achingly languorous phrasing and emotionally loaded delivery remain as uniformly intoxicating and impressive as ever. He is the consummate balladeer, a man whose strange romance with unhappiness affords him an interpretive mastery so profound that it transposes familiar titles beyond boy-girl Tin Pan Alley and onto the vast cosmological scale of soul-deep suffering. That universal reach, intact since his very youthful 1949 start with Lionel Hampton, guarantees no song will be performed exactly the same way twice and always ensures on-the-spot vocal fireworks. Scott is singing from a wheelchair these days, but his spirit and genius still operate at a level higher than even his most vaunted colleagues — every one of whom he has outlived. Come and get it. (Jonny Whiteside)

Also playing Sunday: TOM TOM CLUB at the Echoplex; RESIDUAL ECHOES at the Smell; BACKBITER at the Redwood Bar.

MONDAY/OCTOBER/11

TEENAGE FANCLUB AT THE EL REY

With new albums out by the Vaselines, Belle & Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub, 2010 is shaping up to be an unusually excellent year for fans of old-school Scottish indie pop. (There's even a seven-disc Orange Juice box set due in stores next month.) The new Fanclub record, Shadows, continues down the road they've been traveling for more than a decade now, away from the fuzzy thrashings of A Catholic Education and Bandwagonesque and toward a pastoral folk-rock sound as indebted to Crosby, Stills & Nash as to Big Star. Minus those grungy guitars, the fresh tunes occasionally bland out in a well-meaning roots-music blur: Only a deeply devoted All Songs Considered listener could get excited about some of the album's overly genteel jams. Fortunately, these middle-aged Teenagers tend to up the energy onstage. With L.A.'s Radar Brothers. (Mikael Wood)