Music Picks: No Doubt, Nikki Hill, Alice Cooper

mon 11/26

Everyone Dies in Utah

PHOTO BY CRYSTAL ROLFE

Nikki Hill: See Thursday.

PHOTO BY AMELIA HANDSCOMB

Delicate Steve: See Saturday.

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WHISKY A GO GO

Post-hardcore bands don't dwell in some dark kingdom where only battering-ram beats, gurgled vocals and de-tuned guitars are tolerated. While plenty brutal, many of these acts also are influenced by the dance-music genres dominant among their peers. The Texas sextet Everyone Dies in Utah cradle airy arms-aloft melodies, escapist harmonies and nightclub-evoking electronica amidst desolate riffs and raw-throated wrath — summoning irreverent Day-Glo undertones all too welcome in what can be an overly grim genre. With such song titles as "Bed, Bath and Beyoncé" and "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish," they're willfully flippant, but Danny Martinez's bestial screech and the band's repeated rhythmic muggings still are unsettling in their premeditated ultraviolence. —Paul Rogers

tue 11/27

Bela Fleck and The Marcus Roberts Trio

CATALINA JAZZ CLUB

Banjoist Bela Fleck has almost singlehandedly redefined what was previously an instrument confined to bluegrass and Dixieland music, garnering a total of 13 Grammys along the way. Born and raised in New York, Fleck has performed over the last three decades in jazz, rock, classical, folk and other musical genres while gaining recognition as the finest banjo player in the world, most often at the helm of his own band, The Flecktones. Tonight Fleck begins a four-night run at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood in yet another unusual musical combination: joined by a trio led by blind pianist Marcus Roberts, who burst upon the jazz world as a member of the Wynton Marsalis groups of the 1980s. The pair is touring in support of a new album, Across the Imaginary Divide. —Tom Meek

wed 11/28

Spirit Vine

THE ECHO

The Echo Park tribe Spirit Vine are obsessed with "wine, weed, witches, warlocks ... wombs, windows" and other weird words that start with the letter w. Their music is suitable witchy and bewitching, as keyboardist Jaquelinne Cingolani belts it out in a mournfully moody yet powerful voice, while guitarist Gabe Pacheco cuts up little chunks of glowing ice cubes, which hiss and spark when they brush up against Cingolani's keening vocals. Like The Duke Spirit, Spirit Vine construct songs that aren't short and bubble gum–cute. Instead, tangled and serpentine guitar lines unwind slowly while Cingolani chants hard and heavy incantations like "Cold Living." But the band also has a coolly melodic side on such pretty tunes as "Pluto Why," which nonetheless rockets into the ether, leaving behind a trail of psychedelic sparks. —Falling James

Support Your Local Moustache with Don Juan y Los Blancos

REDWOOD BAR & GRILL

By the time you read this, Movember will almost be over — yes, Movember, one of the more touching months of the year, when folks everywhere grow moustaches to raise both awareness and funding to battle prostate and testicular cancer. Thus there is no better time for Don Juan y Los Blancos, L.A.'s moustachiest garage rock & roll band, to lend their time and riffery to a good cause. They've been sporting fancy facial hair since their first full-length on Wild Records in 2009, and while Billy Childish may yet possess the most impressive upper-lip adornment in the genre, the Blancos are in the running. They'll look like Snidely Whiplash and sound like The Sonics and The Milkshakes. Good health has never seemed so attractive! —Chris Ziegler

Lawrence Arabia

THE MINT

Lawrence Arabia is the pseudonym of New Zealand's James Milne, who, among several things, is the singer in Reduction Agents and a former member of The Brunettes and The Ruby Suns. He is a songwriter-producer of prodigious and wonderfully idiosyncratic gifts, as evidenced by his recent solo album, The Sparrow. The album is a gorgeously crafted song suite delineating the outer and inner aspects of what a pop song might possibly be, with Milne weaving minor-keyed, melancholic moods strewn under the shadow of Scott Walker, Serge Gainsbourg and, most obviously, John Lennon. The Sparrow is a tersely defined work with a subtle lushness of emotion, and drily witty as well. Yet with the album's overarching theme of dashed hopes and fading dreams, songs like "Travelling Shoes" and "The 03" make you want to say "ouch." Also appearing at Origami Vinyl on Nov. 27. —John Payne

thu 11/29

Kneebody

BLUE WHALE

Famous collaborative jazz bands are rare, with only a handful of notable examples: Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, The Bad Plus. As in those groups, Kneebody's members have become as well-known as their occasional cause célèbre. Saxist Ben Wendel and trumpeter Shane Endsley have stellar New York jazz careers, Adam Benjamin plays keys with Dave Douglas, and bassist Kaveh Rastegar has played with Cee-Lo Green and Bruno Mars. Drummer Nate Wood is also a star on bass and guitar and as a singer-songwriter. (He even has his own fan site.) Iron Man, Captain America and the Hulk are cool, but what if they joined forces in the same movie? Kneebody could be the Jazz Avengers, if only that name wasn't taken by some group in Wichita. —Gary Fukushima

Nikki Hill

VIVA CANTINA (back room)

The fast-rising, hard-charging, 20-something, North Carolina born-and-bred singer Nikki Hill has more than earned her evocative "Southern Fireball" moniker. This African-American rock & roll sister trades in resolutely old-school soul and R&B, and she does so with stunning measures of heat, grace and impressively flawless vocal technique. Hill's vivid atmospherics, innate dynamicism and declarative delivery make for some thrillingly memorable song stylings. No mere fetishistic '50s throwback, she's facing an uphill battle out of the brain-dead ducktail-and-fat-cuff rockabilly ghetto. But Hill definitely has the pipes and the power to transcend that hell and reach Olympian heights. Just try to keep up with her. —Jonny Whiteside