Music Picks: Duran Duran, Jessie Evans, k.d. lang, The Dodos, Swahili Blonde,

Patrick Stump

@ HOTEL CAFÉ

PHOTO BY BILLY AND HELLS

Jessie Evans: See Sunday.

Location Info

Map

The Echoplex

1154 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Out of Town

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El Rey Theatre

5515 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Mid-Wilshire/ Hancock Park

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The Troubadour

9081 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: West Hollywood

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Nokia Theatre

777 Chick Hearn Court
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Category: Music Venues

Region: Downtown

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• Walt Disney Concert Hall
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• Jessie Evans
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While unashamedly fame-friendly bassist Pete Wentz hogged the headlines, it was Patrick Stump's savvy songwriting and supple, soulful vocals that propelled Fall Out Boy clear of their emo peers. When FOB failed to build on the sometimes near-perfect pop of Infinity on High with Folie à Deux (and with Wentz apparently more interested in tweetin' than twangin'), Stump went it alone with his Truant Wave EP, released in February. He's still penning supermelodic, uplifting/nostalgic gems but, apparently no longer feeling obliged to pander to punky expectations, Stump can tailor-make these with beats and keys around his almost Michael Jackson–y, octave-hopping R&B croon. Small surprise that this show (like much of Stump's current tour) is already sold out. —Paul Rogers

Olafur Arnalds

@ BOOTLEG THEATER

The Icelandic keyboardist composes gentle, exceedingly delicate instrumental passages. The tempos also are glacial, as if Arnalds were writing a soundtrack to accompany long winter nights in the Arctic Circle. —Falling James

Also playing Wednesday:

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE at the Wiltern; BRIGHT EYES at Fox Theatre (Pomona); BAND OF HEATHENS at the Mint.

thu 4/14

Janet Jackson

@ GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE

Janet Jackson has always been overshadowed, whether by brother Michael, Madonna or the media's hyperactive obsession with her weight fluctuations. But while the soft-spoken singer seemed to prefer a life out of the limelight, her team manufactured old-school attention ploys (that infamous "accidental" Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction), and she's now as widely known for a pasty-covered breast popping out as for her contributions to pop. Those contributions are many: Not only is she just as good a dancer as Michael was, and a better singer than Madonna ever has been, she has amassed 35 No. 1 hit singles, all of which she'll play for this 35-city tour. Although it's her largest world tour, she claims it's also the most intimate. In other words, no special effects, just the spotlight she's always deserved. —Rebecca Haithcoat

PVT, Tearist

@ THE ECHO

English indie rock has a proud tradition of incongruously jamming pop sensibility up against arty experimentalism — see Beta Band, Hot Chip, Field Music, Malachai — but the bands that do it best invariably lean a little more toward the freaky end of the spectrum. London's PVT (formerly Pivot) is one of those — a trio that recalls the avant-garde groove of This Heat in that members Richard Pike (vocals, guitar, bass), Laurence Pike (keyboards, drums) and Dave Miller (programming) sound as if they're improvising on record, yet always to a locked, propulsive beat. It makes sense then that their latest, Church With No Magic, was released by the legendarily progressive Warp Records. Expect a perfect amalgam of thud, sweat and cheers. [Ed.'s note: Also, Tearist, always a live treat. Stay tuned for their upcoming live release. It's amazing.] —Chris Martins

Big Audio Dynamite

@ THE ROXY

Having departed The Clash in 1983, guitarist-vocalist Mick Jones had sufficient class to stylistically move on with Big Audio Dynamite, a band built around his collaboration with filmmaker Don Letts. Well, sort of: BAD still married punk, funk and reggae, Clash-style, but also heaped on the hip-hop to become an altogether more rump-rattlin' proposition. Lineups came and went, as did bastardizations of the name (Big Audio Dynamite II; Big Audio), but Jones' Everyman, slightly sneery timbre and questioning lyrical stance remained as through lines however sunny the tunes became. Nearly 15 years after he disbanded BAD, there remains considerable interest in what Jones (who's lately been a touring member of Gorillaz) and Letts have to say, and this Roxy show will be a warm-up for their Coachella set two days later. —Paul Rogers

Cleveland Confidential

@ THE GRAMMY MUSEUM

Wild punk rockers and the staid Grammy Museum would seem to be an odd fit, but tonight's event is a crucial reminder that Akron and Cleveland — long before other Midwestern metropolises like Chicago and Detroit got hip — were among the earliest punk-rock scenes in the world. The panel discussion features readings from new books by such crucial Buckeye kingpins as the Dead Boys' Cheetah Chrome, the Pagans' Mike Hudson, Pere Ubu's David Thomas and Human Switchboard's Bob Pfeifer. For all of his fierce sonic reductions, Chrome is a better guitarist than a writer, but Hudson is a real revelation in his insightful memoir, Diary of a Punk, which evocatively captures the bleak mid-1970s Ohio milieu, while his collection Jetsam is the stark Cleveland punk equivalent to Charles Bukowski's memoirs. —Falling James

Duran Duran

@ FOX THEATER

"The thing that is unusual about finally seeing a band that you've loved for the bulk of your life is that it can open you up for disappointment. That was not the case with Duran Duran. I left the show feeling optimistic, as though I had not just seen a good show but learned a few things in the process." [From Liz Ohanesian's recent West Coast Sound blog post "Five Lessons Learned From Seeing Duran Duran Live for the First Time." Read the whole piece at laweekly.com.]

Also playing Thursday:

YUCK at the Satellite; THE MEATMEN at the Airliner.