Music Picks: Hootenanny, The Moonbeams, Kamasi Washington
Also, Eleni Mandell, Endermen, The Lions
Hootenanny
OAK CANYON RANCH
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Southern Californian rockabillies and garage punks, rejoice. Hootenanny, the Oak Canyon Ranch rockabilly festival, is back in its 14th year with its most stacked roster to date. Festival veterans Rev. Horton Heat and Bouncing Souls join headliner Rancid, along with Chris Shiflett & the Dead Peasants, The Growlers and Lucero. If you've got a classic ride, be sure to bring it out for the car show, or find your pin-up queen at the Miss Hootenanny competition. With 16 bands and a slew of events packed into one day, you're gonna need to build an itinerary to see all of Hootenanny's heavy hitters, but for a measly $39, you'll more than get your money's worth. —K.C. Libman
Also playing:
MATES OF STATE, STEPKIDS at the Echo; BLIND PILOT at the Henry Fonda; PAPA at Bootleg Bar; JOE LA BARBERA QUINTET at Alvas Showroom.
sun 7/8
Kamasi Washington
LEVITT PAVILION (Pasadena)
Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington is an L.A. native, a product of musical parents who are also educators and a graduate of the Hamilton High Music Academy. Shortly after enrolling at UCLA, Washington began playing in the bands of numerous faculty members, including Kenny Burrell and 2011 Grammy nominee Gerald Wilson. Washington's own style is reminiscent of the mid-'60s free jazz of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, most often heard locally at Leimert Park's World Stage. Washington comes north for tonight's show at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena as part of its fine program of 50 free summer concerts. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more musical way to spend a lovely outdoor evening in July. —Tom Meek
Also playing:
HIROE SEKINE at Vitello's; APL.DE.AP TAKES YOU TO THE PHILIPPINES at Hollywood Bowl.
mon 7/9
JMSN, Family of the Year, ERAS
BOOTLEG BAR
In 2005, an 18-year-old Christian Berishaj signed to Atlantic with his party-pop band Love Arcade. A few years later, he went solo as Christian TV, inked with Universal, toured with Backstreet Boys and wound up remixing Rihanna's "Rude Boy." Now, freshly freed of his label commitments (again), he appears at this minuscule venue under his new guise, JMSN. As it happens, third time's the charm, as Berishaj's new material ditches the major gloss for the kind of creeping darkness that R&B oddballs like The Weeknd and Drake prefer. In other words, JMSN's self-released debut, Priscilla, combines the vocal chops of a born pop star with the bleak outlook of that same singer after his every attempt to make it big fell flat. Local folksters Family of the Year are about as opposite an opener as one could imagine, but their sun-dappled jangle isn't to be missed. —Chris Martins
Also playing:
GEOFF STRADLING'S STRADBAND at Typhoon.
tue 7/10
Eleni Mandell, Lavender Diamond
Many musicians claim that releasing an album is just like giving birth, but Eleni Mandell really did give birth — not only to her eighth and most recent album, I Can See the Future, but also to a real-life baby, who inspired new songs like "Bun in the Oven." And yet all is not bliss for Mandell, who has always specialized in delicately rendered, often mournful ballads. For one thing, the baby's father is apparently an anonymous "astrophysicist sperm donor who likes classic rock," she says, so there are elements of mystery, longing and distance that hang over gentle tunes like "Magic Summertime" and, fittingly, "Now We're Strangers." What ties it all together are Mandell's languidly captivating vocals, imbuing spare idylls like the countrified "Desert Song" with a bit of warmth and intimacy. Becky Stark, one of Mandell's partners in the sweetly harmonizing supergroup The Living Sisters, appears with her band Lavender Diamond, who are kind of an ebulliently positive and poppy counterpoint to Mandell's solemn contemplations. —Falling James
Simone White, Sara Watkins, Tom Brosseau
Largo
When Simone White's long-player I Am the Man came out in 2007, we heard an enchanting and curiously shadowy batch of folk stories sung melodiously and laced instrumentally with a languid melodicism culled from '50s-'60s dream pop. She's followed up with a couple of pleasantly mystifying sets of contrasting hues, including the just-out Silver Silver, where the spacey grace of White's crystalline voice resonates in surprising ways with producer Fol Chen's densely woven electronic arrangements. White's sardonic/sweet songs of politics (personal and otherwise), fated love and times good and bad are overflowing with an ecstasy that sounds purely musical, fully intuitive. Nickel Creek singer-fiddler Sara Watkins plays songs from her recent Sun Midnight Sun; singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau debuts material from his latest, as-yet-untitled collection, accompanied by guitarist Sean Watkins and others. —John Payne
Endermen
BLUE WHALE
Minecraft players know and fear the Endermen, dark, long-limbed block movers who appear benign until you look directly at them, at which point they put down their blocks and stare directly at you, daring you to turn away. Pianist Jordan Carrington doesn't have long limbs and he won't kill you, unless you're getting slayed by his prodigious piano skills and innovative writing of the head-exploding variety. This 20-year-old is endowed with a sui generis identity and a musical vision others could never achieve with a lifetime of study. His band of brutes includes his mentor, long-limbed trumpeter John Daversa, plus saxophone wunderkind Jacob Scesney, drummer Brijesh Pandya and bassist Neil Patton, all in possession of high skill and health points. Enjoy the music, but please don't make eye contact. —Gary Fukushima
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