Music Picks: Repeater, Project Blowed 16th Anniversary, Infected Mushroom

Also playing Tuesday: A THOUSAND FIFTY LIES, THE MOONDOG ORCHESTRA, BLACK ELEPHANT at La Cita.

PHOTO BY BAROFT WIX

Busdriver. See Saturday.

Jane Monheit. See Tuesday.

Location Info

Map

The Avalon

1735 Vine St.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Hollywood

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The Smell

247 S. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Downtown

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• Chris Martins
• Dorothy Chandler
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• Zydeco Music
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WEDNESDAY/DECEMBER/29

MKNG FRNDZ, GHOST MOM, COLD SHOWERS, MGM GRANDAT THE SMELL

Brooklyn's Mkng Frndz is, frankly, awesome. The duo was founded by the totally badass queer folkie Tami Hart, a onetime label mate of Le Tigre's, when she was bored and miserable and listening to lots of Justin Timberlake. As a result, she and partner Daniel Erickson make lo-fi, '90s-flavored R&B that sounds not only like it was made for the bedroom but made in the bedroom as well. "All I Wanted 2 Do" is a slow-grinding, positively creepy tribute to Missy Elliott, while "Situation" toys with throbbing drums and bubblegum vocals, and "Don't Make Me Cry" is a tiny, skronky anthem for the hopelessly brokenhearted. Oregon's Ghost Mom is another boy-girl pair, but this one specializes in spare, playful blues ("YAY!") and swooning Best Coast–y garage surf ("MC Hammer Was My Boyfriend"). Cold Showers is a new project featuring at least one former member of Mika Miko, and MGM Grand is an experimental dance troupe that'll collaborate with one or all of the night's bands. (Chris Martins)

Also playing Wednesday: ROSIE FLORES at the Cat Club; GIANT DRAG at the Satellite.

THURSDAY/DECEMBER/30

THE GROWLERS AT THE ECHO

Bong Leach homies the Growlers do most everything on the cheap and warped, and it sounds good, end of story. They do a kinda surfy-psychedelic thing, on the surface, but it gets tricky when you dig a bit; sometimes it's bluesy bits about feedin' the dog. Well, most of the time they're all about the miracle of crappy sound and high-to-medium concept, dishing the goods for those times when you crave a lot, and we mean a lot of twangy tremolo'd semituned electric guitars and wryly sinister/jokey rock tunage. Basically, they rock very, very hard, yet they deliver clever humor and genuinely atmospheric music. Therefore, sometimes they howl, sometimes they pluck their banjos 'round the campfire, and sometimes they sound like the Doors, because the keyboardist favors that Ray Manzarek organ sound and the singer vibratos handsomely like wicked old Mr. Mojo Risin'. The Growlers are not clotheshorses, yet they reek of style. Interesting! (John Payne)

THE DUKE SPIRIT AT THE ROXY

Not to be confused with the Americana-laced Long Beach roots-pop combo Delta Spirit, the British quartet Duke Spirit have a grandiose, otherworldly hard-rock sound that's anything but folksy or down-home. Singer Liela Moss is a striking figure onstage, banging on her tambourine and howling icily searing melodies as the rest of her band churns up a compelling racket that's as sparkling and luminescent as it is hard-driving and powerfully convulsive. On new single "Everybody's Under Your Spell," Moss praises an unknown Svengali with a vocal delivery that's sinuous and spellbinding, even as Luke Ford sends out foreboding, sirenlike squalls of lead guitar. For such a heavy group, though, the Duke Spirit also have an atmospheric, spacey side to them, especially on such tracks as "Northbound," where Ford's and Toby Butler's riffs drizzle like rain and Moss invokes her heroes the Gun Club and declares beguilingly, "I'm friends with moonlight. ... The fire of love sends you northbound." (Falling James)

REPEATER AT SILVERLAKE LOUNGE

While no stylistic Second Coming, Long Beach's Repeater plunder the '80s and '90s to densely intense effect. Growling Gang of Four bass, New Romantic keys, and vocals that evoke both Interpol and a rather livid Pet Shop Boys exceed the sum of their parts with a rare sense-of-self strut. Though produced by "Godfather of Nu Metal" Ross Robinson, Repeater's recent EP The Pattern should be filed next to his more recent work with At the Drive-In and the Cure. "To Swallow Lost Goodbyes" is an indignant, danceable slap around the face that smarts (yet pleasantly) for days; "Keep the Sun From Rising" is both introverted and epic (and curiously pseudo-Celtic), in an Editors sorta way; and the pride-hurt "Patterns" should be a shoo-in for the Fahrenheit 451 remake soundtrack. Factor in Repeater's frenetic live show and it all hints at a night in post-punk paradise. (Paul Rogers)

Also playing Thursday: TERMINAL

TWILIGHT at the Satellite; BATTLE SHOW III at the Smell.