fri 4/1
JOSEP Ma DE LLOBET
The Pinker Tones: See Friday
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Odd Future
@ Glass House (Pomona)
[See Page Two]
N.W.A Reunion
@ SANTA MONICA PIER
Well, it was bound to happen. All the living members of N.W.A are reuniting for a one-time-only free show at the Santa Monica Pier, with Odd Future's Tyler the Creator re-enacting Eazy-E's raps in character. The event is a benefit for the charity Rappers Against Tsunamis, with all proceedings going to R.A.T.'s outreach work training at-risk youth on tidal-wave prevention. Warning: Triple-check your calendars to make sure you understand which day this is happening — you really don't wanna be fooled driving all the way to Santa Monica on the wrong date. —Weir F. Nwitcha
Uh Huh Her, Diamonds Under Fire
@ EL REY THEATRE
Naming one's band after a PJ Harvey album is really just asking for it. But L.A.'s Uh Huh Her dodge criticism by making music that sounds nothing like their ostensible inspiration. Instead, the duo focus on dancey beats and synthesizer licks, with guitar as moody coloring and vocals that coo sexily rather than cry sassily. Plus, there are other, more interesting distractions than the band's name. For instance, the fact that singer Leisha Hailey is best known as The L Word's Alice Pieszecki, or that multi-instrumentalist Camila Grey moonlights in American Idol Adam Lambert's band. All of this goes to explain what Uh Huh Her do well — a combination of against-the-grain grit and pop ambition that, live, delivers a little snarl and a lot of swoon. —Chris Martins
Robyn Hitchcock, Jon Brion, Grant-Lee Phillips
@ LARGO
Let us mix and match three exponents of what might be called the singer-songwriter genre, sit back, compare and contrast. Robyn Hitchcock — English, ex–Soft Boys, somewhat surrealist, prone in the past to mildly psychedelic, witty, melancholic ditties about Sex, Food, Death and Tarantulas. Largo house man/multi-instrumentalist/big-star producer/film score composer Jon Brion — encyclopedic pop historian, also purveyor of beautifully melodicized originals and inspiredly skewered cover versions. Grant-Lee Phillips — jack-of-all-talents, crafter of nicely pensive ballads and densely detailed roots-Americana, ripped masterfully out on his 12-string guitar. Let us do that. —John Payne
The Pinker Tones, Ceci Bastida
@ NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
The Pinker Tones' cheery, cheeky synth-pop anthems are so vibrantly sunny, they might even bring life back to the poor critters trapped behind glass in this macabre museum's dusty taxidermy exhibits. The Barcelona trio's perky rhythms camouflage subversively witty lyrics on their latest album, Modular, including "Sampleame," where Mister Furia and Professor Manso slyly diss unimaginative poachers who sample other musicians' ideas. On the new-wave travelogue "Tokyo," they echo the stranger-in-a-strange-land tourism of Sparks' "Aeroflot," singing in English, "In my room, I was lost in translation/Then I get lost in my imagination." Although Mexican singer Ceci Bastida's art-pop experiments aren't as hard-rocking as her early work with the ska-punk rebels Tijuana No, they reveal more depth and, yes, imagination than recent albums by her longtime collaborator Julieta Venegas. —Falling James
Ólafur Arnalds
@ BOOTLEG THEATER
The Icelandic keyboardist composes gentle, exceedingly delicate instrumental passages. On such languorous tracks as "Kjurrt" and "Undan Hulu," beautiful slivers of violin well up over his spare crumbles of piano like fading sunlight reflecting from glacial ice. The tempos also are glacial, as if Arnalds were writing a soundtrack to accompany long winter nights in the Arctic Circle. Think of his music as the instrumental equivalent to the Swell Season's laid-back lullabies. —Falling James
Pulse Out, J Irvín D, Geoff Geiss
@ PEHRSPACE
L.A.'s Pulse Out is new on the scene but not entirely unfamiliar. The unsigned four-piece smashes together surf rock, angular punk and power pop, then tops it off with twee, Belle & Sebastian–style vocals detailing the ups and (mostly) downs of love. It's both high-energy and high on emotion, which means it's best experienced live. Make sure not to miss J Irvín D: Falling somewhere between Andrew Bird and Bright Eyes, this troubadour offers both bright folksy jangle and the darker introspective stuff, often coating all with a glaze of homespun electronic atmosphere. Geoff Geiss (Pizza!, Big Whup) gets his solo, lo-fi lonely man on. —Chris Martins
Also playing Friday:
GANGI, DREAMTAPES at Origami Vinyl; THE SANDWITCHES, SONNY & THE SUNSETS at the Echo; DIERKS BENTLEY at Club Nokia; LAUREN PRITCHARD at Hotel Café; VAINS OF JENNA at Whisky a Go Go; THOMAS ADÈS at Walt Disney Concert Hall; UPSILON ACRUX at the Smell.
sat 4/2
Paid Dues Festival
@ NOS EVENTS CENTER
Last year Los Angeles MC Murs went largely local with his annual Paid Dues Festival, booking Ice Cube to top a bill that also included Tha Dogg Pound and Freestyle Fellowship. This time dude's looking eastward — not only to New York, home of headliners Black Star and Immortal Technique, but to Texas (former UGK rapper Bun B), Providence (poetry slam veteran Sage Francis) and Pennsylvania (frat-rap wiseacre Asher Roth). Not that California won't represent: Bay Area hyphy pioneer E-40 is scheduled to perform, as are L.A.'s Nipsey Hussle and, of course, Murs himself. You'll also see Lil B (the one, the only Based God!), whose home away from the Internet is Berkeley and who will gladly schtupp your biotch if you beg nicely. Still, you can tell Murs is thinking big this year — indie rap as a mindset rather than a scene or a statement of fact. —Mikael Wood
