sun 9/30
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MAYAN
Although he is not a household name himself, this violist is linked to many of them, recording and arranging for will.i.am, Erykah Badu, Dr. Dre, Flying Lotus and countless others. Artists are by definition creators, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson has chosen to pour his life and considerable talent into the creation of good things. His five-year partnership with production house Mochilla and record producer ArtDontSleep has resulted in some outstanding shows dedicated to positive societal change through art that everyone can dig. Their latest show, "East Side Story," featuring such luminaries as Mayer Hawthorne, Bilal and legendary R&B drummer James Gadson, celebrates "low-rider" soul music from the 1960s, which was near and dear to the residents of East Los Angeles. Witness pop music transformed into high art, minus the highbrow. —Gary Fukushima
mon 10/1
EL REY Theatre
John Prine could write a country song that could really make you laugh, and Loudon Wainwright could write a country song that could really make you cry. Or maybe it's the other way around? And country/folky smoky-voiced Mary Gauthier can do both and then some, with autobiographical songs about tragedy and strength and redemption, not uncommonly in that order. Her lyrics and life story both might seem too wild to be believable. She was the first openly gay artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, a milestone in a personal life with bruises to rival Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash, and she has songs like "I Drink" to prove it. When you hear her sing, you'll hear truth in every raspy line. —Chris Ziegler
tue 10/2
Garbage
Palladium
When they formed in 1994, future chart fixtures Garbage had the makings of a sterile vanity project. Created by veteran studio rats (including Butch Vig, producer of Nirvana's Nevermind), with a grafted-on, unknown vocalist, their formula appeared better suited to impersonal one-hit electro than enduring alt-rock. Yet, though quilted with samples and loops, Garbage's elegant pop still throbs and breathes, and selecting Shirley Manson as their feisty figurehead uncorked potent yin-yang magic. The kinda-goth Scot boasts an intriguing demeanor that's part bawdy barfly, part svelte temptress, while almost sighing a threateningly sexy contralto that casts welcome humanity over her bandmates' much-massaged instrumentation. Manson's unconventional beauty and disarming frankness (happily admitting to once defecating in a boyfriend's Corn Flakes) ably dispel any lingering air of manufacture. —Paul Rogers
Screaming Females
PALLADIUM
They're called Screaming Females, but that primal, cuts-you-in-half sound you hear comes from Marissa Paternoster's guitar, which she uses to speak the language of Neil Young and Greg Ginn both — actually, both at once — in a new album of punk built from nothing but sharp edges. Screaming Females have been DIY since day one, rising from the all-ages basement shows of New Jersey to finish their recent record Ugly with Steve Albini and build themselves a band that's gonna be as indestructible as the Wipers, P.J. Harvey, Sleater-Kinney or Dinosaur Jr. (You know the deal: shreds up front, rhythms in the back.) When old people wonder about the kids being alright, what they're really hoping for is to get a chance to see this band. Proof that punk is still live and loud. —Chris Ziegler
ROYCE HALL
"Honky-tonk angel" used to mean something not very nice — the kind of girl who'd never make a wife, if you get what Hank Thompson was trying to say in an age when you couldn't use certain words on an album. But let's reclaim it for what it should mean, because Harris is an angel of the honky-tonks if there ever was one, with a voice so pure and sad and true that it couldn't possibly come from this dirty old earth. (Besides, she's got that silver hair — you know they all look like that up in honky-tonk heaven.) She's somewhere between archetype and myth, a woman who glided beside and between country and rock & roll's absolute greats to become one of country and rock & roll's greats herself. —Chris Ziegler
wed 10/3
TROUBADOUR
When he produced that album for The Damned — expertly, by the way — he got the nickname "Basher," but what Nick Lowe really turned out to be was a heartbreaker extraordinaire. Forgive the backhand to pop history, but it always seemed to us that Lowe was what everyone said Elvis Costello was supposed to be. Which was: brilliant but not frigid, literate but not pompous, sarcastic but not poisonously bitter, and hilariously and honestly human through every minute of it. Oh, and a superb writer and absolute fiend with the hooks and tricks and surprises that have powered pop songs since the first-ever "1, 2, 3, 4 ..." This acoustic tour pairs him with L.A.'s Eleni Mandell, a treasure on several levels and (happily!) Lowe's new labelmate. —Chris Ziegler
thu 10/4
BAKED POTATO
Keyboardist Scott Kinsey is the only real disciple of longtime Cannonball Adderley/Weather Report legend Joe Zawinul. Zawinul was notorious for being difficult to please, but he thought enough of Kinsey to serve as executive producer on Kinsey's 2007 solo album, Kinesthetics. Since then Kinsey has split his recording output between his own Human Element project and a new studio project for fusion supergroup Tribal Tech, released earlier this year after more than a decade since their last release. Kinsey's use of vocal and computer effects takes Zawinul's electronic approach to a new level in blending jazz, fusion and world music. He's joined here by a superb cast, including Jimmy Kimmel Live bassist Jimmy Earl, superdrummer Gary Novak and the terrific Steve Tavaglione on saxes, flutes and EWI in one of his rare public live appearances. —Tom Meek
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