Music Picks: Dum Dum Girls, Tricky, Leon Russell, OFF!

When Silver Lake's Michael Nhat says his main motivating forces are "loneliness, rejection and guilt," he's not being glib or pretentious. In a recent interview, Nhat explained that he survived a plane crash as a child, though his mother didn't, and he subsequently ended up in foster care. Life with an abusive stepbrother and racist adoptive family followed, so it's no wonder the man's songs sport titles like "Falling Down a Bottomless Pit," "All I Hear Is Silence" and "Replacing Their Owners [sic] Heads." Nhat is releasing his third album in just over a year on Tuesday via I Had an Accident Records. Dubbed Just Plain Dying, it sports a sound that could only be described as "classic Nhat" — an inimitable mix of beats that ranges from spare and light to black and clanging, and his unusual raps, which pour forth in an urgently percussive tumble. Fans of Busdriver, Shapeshifters and early Anticon take note. (Chris Martins)

Also playing Monday: BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA CHRISTMAS SHOW at Walt Disney Concert Hall; SHADOW SHADOW SHADE, RUMSPRINGA at the Echo; MIDNIGHT MAGIC at Bardot; SWEATERS at the Satellite.

PHOTO BY TYSON WIRTZFIELD

Dum Dum Girls. See Tuesday.

Tricky. See Wednesday.

Location Info

Map

The Orpheum Theatre

842 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Category: Music Venues

Region: Downtown

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The Troubadour

9081 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

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More About

• Chris Martins
• Guy Blakeslee
• Keith Morris
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Punk Rock

TUESDAY/DECEMBER/21

BELL BIV DEVOE AT HOUSE OF BLUES

When it comes to classic New Jack Swing, it doesn't get much better than Bel Biv DeVoe's 1990 debut, Poison. The album contained not only that percussive, swooning title single but the era's ultimate sex jam, "Do Me!," plus "BBD (I Thought It Was Me)" which includes Michael Bivins' near-perfect line, "My waterbed/Kept us afloat." Their 1993 offering Hootie Mack was solid, too — perhaps New Jack's last gasp — featuring the street-ball anthem "Above the Rim" and slowed-down Babyface collabo "Something in Your Eyes." But then came 2001's BBD, an incredibly cheap approximation of the group's former glory that traded in the winkingly sensual raps and yearning, harmony-laden choruses for blatant come-ons and trite hooks. That's the nice thing about reunion tours — the entire production is an act of pandering, so all you're likely to hear are the hits, and the pre–21st-century output of BBD is nothing but butter-smooth examples thereof. (Chris Martins)

DUM DUM GIRLS AT THE ECHOPLEX

Dum Dum Girls started as a one-woman band led by Dee Dee Penny, but the punk-pop group have since expanded to a four-piece outfit. As they've grown, so has their sound, which has evolved from crude, tinny and shadowy blasts into more diverse and melodic styles on their recent Sub Pop CD I Will Be. But these gals aren't getting slick or dum-dumbing down their sound; Dee Dee's songs are still shrouded in massive layers of rust, reverb and echo, coming off like a girl-group version of the Jesus & Mary Chain marooned in a fallout shelter. And, apart from all of the punky soul-clanging, there are also icily beautiful tunes, like their cover of Strawberry Switchblade's "Trees & Flowers." Expect more growing pains and even deeper maturity when Dum Dum Girls return to action at Check Yo Ponytail tonight, after they had to cancel a fall tour following the death of Dee Dee's mother several weeks ago. (Falling James)

BUZZBANDS.LA HOLIDAY PARTY AT THE ECHO

L.A. Weekly collaborator Kevin Bronson, of the Buzzbands.LA website, is hosting his annual holiday party at the Echo this year, benefiting Silver Lake's own Pablove Foundation and featuring the diverse talents of an all-L.A. lineup with Lonely Trees, Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits, John Carpenter and Non Ultra Joy. Lonely Trees's atmospheric sound features ex-members of Monsters Are Waiting and Campfire Girls in boy/girl harmonies (think Blonde Redhead, with hints of School of Seven Bells). Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits make introspective California shoegaze and dreampop and are fronted by Jack Burnside, formerly of Mezzanine Owls. John Carpenter will steal the show, with a long track record of shredding with his four-piece band, and singing bleak and spooky songs rising from the shadows of a seedy dive bar. Non Ultra Joy describe themselves as "The Cure mugging Dinosaur Jr." but with Guided By Voices showing up every once in a while to get in on the fight. Five bucks gets you all this and more (treats have been promised!) and it's for the best of causes, going straight to support the Pablove Foundation's fight against childhood cancer. (Lainna Fader)

Also playing Tuesday: WATKINS FAMILY HOUR at Largo; WINTER SOLSTICE SOUND BATH at Eagle Rock Center for the Arts; DEAD COUNTRY, HIGH PILOTS at Silverlake Lounge.

WEDNESDAY/DECEMBER/22

TRICKY/NOCANDO AT THE TROUBADOUR

As slippery as rapper/producer Tricky's tracks sound, it's no wonder he's so hard to categorize. After appearing on Massive Attack's 1991 debut, Blue Lines, he spun hypnotically onto the scene with his sexy, trippy first album, Maxinquaye. Drenched in persistently pulsing beats, ripe with heady songs looped with everything from gun cocks to Digital Underground and layered with his own throaty murmurs, the funky, soulful album made Tricky a leader of the trip-hop movement in the U.K. Hating that title, he tried migrating toward the harder edges of punk, but as he puts it, "The farther you run, it's still there." Plucking from rock, reggae, blues and beyond, his latest release, Mixed Race, is much tighter than his early, sprawling records — all of the tracks clock in at less than four minutes — but still retains the element of surprise that his signature sampling of genres provides. Seasoned West Coast battle rapper and Low End Theory resident host Nocando, whose fresh, funny flow was honed at Project Blowed and is representative of the best freestylers, opens. (Rebecca Haithcoat)