sun 12/2
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PAPPY & HARRIET'S PIONEERTOWN PALACE
Sara Watkins has fiddled up some up lovely melodic flourishes in her old band, the Vista alt-bluegrass combo Nickel Creek, and has sawed up bewitching adornments in studio and onstage collaborations with such folks as The Decemberists, Grant-Lee Phillips and that famously stubbornly loyal dog owner, Fiona Apple. But Watkins really takes off with her latest solo album, Sun Midnight Sun, where her country-folk roots diverge appealingly into new pop and rock byways. She's utterly charming and disarming on straightforward romantic tunes like "You & Me," and her heartache bends perfectly into the waterfall guitar hook that adorns "When It Pleases You." Clear-voiced Boston singer-guitarist Aoife O'Donovan also steps away for a spell from her own bluegrass band, Crooked Still, to break down her sad-pretty acoustic tunes in a more intimate solo setting. —Falling James
mon 12/3
The Henry Clay People, So Many Wizards
THE SATELLITE
The title of The Henry Clay People's rather reckless new album, Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives, pretty much says it all: These are restless times, pent-up angry times, explosively joyful times, too. But what's that peeking around the corner? Couldn't be middle age, could it? Yikes! The record's feverishly punky, finely crafted anthems express their rage in buzzsaw power chords, thumping piano and singer Joey's wailing young man's blues. Long Beach boys So Many Wizards' recent Warm Nothing is a dreamy but nicely gritty slice of pretty bedroom pop with a likable DIY spirit, perhaps rooted in founder Nima Kazerouni's childhood experiences at a U.S. detention facility in Iran. This show is free and also features Future Ghosts and The Steelwells. (The Henry Clay People appear at the Satellite Mondays throughout December.) —John Payne
tue 12/4
BOOTLEG THEATER
Lindi Ortega is originally from Canada, but her country-pop songs are so innately American, it's no surprise that the singer-guitarist now is based in Tennessee. Even as she swoons lyrically over an inattentive lover during "The Day You Die," her band kicks up a fast and feisty ramble that belies the morbid song title. She gets down and dirty and rocks out on the bluesy plaint "Murder of Crows," with her searing vocals burning memorably through a dark pool of metallic slide guitar. On the title track of her new album, Cigarettes & Truckstops, she searches in the shadows for her love, her vibrant voice torching a late-night campfire to stave off loneliness: "Look out, California, I'm coming for my long-lost heart tonight." —Falling James
The Starvations
THE ECHO
Sometimes you gotta amend "never again" to "just once more," especially when there's a good reason, and this completely unexpected reunion of L.A.'s Starvations didn't come easy. It's a benefit for writer Joseph Mattson, author of a much-acclaimed novel and book of short stories, as well as liner notes for Starvations' front man Gabe Hart's current band, Jail Weddings. As previously mentioned in these pages, Mattson is mired in a truly tragic legal battle with the man who killed his mother. So tonight you can join the good fight. It's led by L.A. greats who chased the same weird ghosts as Charlie Feathers and Nick Cave, who loved 1920s murder ballads as much as choice 1970s punk, and whose indestructible iconoclasm allowed them to survive, and then thrive, for an uneasy decade. This almost certainly will be your last chance to see this band — but The Starvations were always at their best when it came to last chances. —Chris Ziegler
wed 12/5
Guilty Simpson, House Shoes
LOW END THEORY
Detroit comes to L.A. via rapper Guilty Simpson and DJ-producer House Shoes, both heavyweights in their hometowns and much loved locally, too. The transplanted-to-L.A. fixture House Shoes — the dude who had a connection with every great dude ever, up to and including Dilla — finally put out his first album, Let It Go, this summer, and it's full of intricate and idiosyncratic beats and precisely chosen guest spots. And of course Simpson was one of those guest spots, hooking up two tracks between his O.J. Simpson collaborations with the legendary Madlib and the just-out Dice Game with fellow Detroiter Apollo Brown. Between the two of them, this'll be hip-hop at its grittiest and most powerful. That's how they make it in Detroit. —Chris Ziegler
THE ECHOPLEX
The son of the great R&B bandleader Johnny Otis, singer/multi-instrumentalist Shuggie Otis was surrounded by a dazzling blend of influences when he was growing up a wunderkind guitarist. But Shuggie ultimately outdistanced even his dad by inventing his own soulfully groovy form of R&B in the '60s and '70s, creating a kind of psychedelic pop that proved an obvious inspiration many years later for Prince and Lenny Kravitz. A song like "Strawberry Letter 23," from Otis' landmark 1971 album, Freedom Flight, still sounds fresh today, as the singer walks merrily through a blissful garden of bell-like chimes and flurries of intricately whirling, almost proglike guitar. The reclusive musician rarely performs, which makes tonight's gig a very special occasion. —Falling James
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