Music Picks: The Weeknd, That '70s Soul, Power of the Riff

sun 12/16

People Under the Stairs

PHOTO BY ANDREW PAYNTER

Wooden Shjips: See Friday.

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More About

• People Under the Stairs (Band)
• Sunn O)))
• John Payne
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Metal and Hardcore

EL REY THEATRE

For more than a decade, local hip-hop duo People Under the Stairs have been charting the ups and downs of underground life in their L.A. hometown. Whereas the Doobie Brothers once sang about "Takin' It to the Streets," Thes One and Double K prefer "Talkin' Back to the Streets," from their 2011 album, Highlighter, which turns the boulevards of this city into a sentient presence. Riding a coolly funky keyboard groove and a sample by Rakim, they come back home, rhapsodizing over "familiar smells" and "palm tree silhouettes" and marveling about the "6 million stories, not a single one repeats." On "Electric Tookie," they come to "reboot the mainframe computer/coming on to servers like Hooters take my order/Recorders rejoice for my voice and call Reuters." People Under the Stairs are the supreme chroniclers of the real L.A. in such older tracks as "L.A. Song," "80 Blocks From Silverlake" and "Los Angeles Daze," but their musical geography also encompasses such languid northern idylls as "San Francisco Knights." —Falling James

That '70s Soul

THE MAYAN

Musician-composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson has a voracious appreciation of just about every known type of music, and since he's helming tonight's ultra-fab package show, "That '70s Soul," it's certain to be intensely felt, gorgeously rendered stuff. A star-studded homage to the critical likes of Curtis Mayfield, James Brown and Sly Stone, he's got a set list from paradise. With such collaborators as traps titan Ndugu Chancler, dazzling multi-instrumentalist Derf Reklaw, tenor sax paragon Kamasi Washington and special contributions from Brazilian sensation Seu Jorge, Afro-Pop empress Zap Mama and U.K. soul sister Alice Russell, this soul-stirring shebang will doubtless spread plenty of musical joy. —Jonny Whiteside

mon 12/17

The Moonbeams

HEMINGWAY'S LOUNGE

The Moonbeams' upcoming single might be titled "Life's a Circus," but the song is more mournful and foreboding than cheery or escapist. Lead singer Beck Black howls her bloody imprecations with a solemn, sullen intensity as drummer Adam Alt and guitarist Nick Maybury rattle together a post-punk racket that evokes the dark allure of The Doors mixed with Siouxsie & the Banshees. When she's not rolling around on the stage like Iggy Pop's little sister, Black conjures even more unholy dread from her keyboards, pumping out compulsively heavy bass lines with her left hand while delicately stirring up airier figures with her right. New Moonbeams songs like "Mindfuck" and "Marilyn Monroe" range from propulsive, electronic-based New Wave to hard glam-rock glitter. Former elimiDATE survivor Black may look like an adorable pixie in her glamorous, flapper-style frocks, but once she opens her mouth, she surprises with an inexpressibly sad and ageless low voice that comes out of nowhere like a forgotten ghost. —Falling James

Bobby Womack

GRAMMY MUSEUM

Bobby Womack's storied career as vocalist, songwriter and session musician has spanned more than 40 years. Rooted in the gospel music tradition, the Cleveland native made a fateful move to California at 16 after being taken under the wing of soul-music pioneer Sam Cooke, in whose band he later played guitar. Womack's 1970s foray into solo artistry yielded a bounty of well-known hits, including "If You Think You're Lonely Now" and "Across 110th Street." In June, a fearless Womack released his 26th studio album, The Bravest Man in the Universe. His triumph over cocaine abuse, colon cancer and personal tragedy will be among the many discussion topics explored in the Q&A session before tonight's show. —Jacqueline Michael Whatley

wed 12/19

The Watkins Family Christmas Gathering

LARGO AT THE CORONET

You never know who'll show up at Sean and Sara Watkins' regular appearances at Largo. Past guests have included singer-mandolinist Chris Thile, their former partner in the beloved alt-bluegrass band Nickel Creek, as well as such unexpected luminaries as Fiona Apple, Jackson Browne, Nikka Costa and even that rarest and most reclusive of all Monkees, Michael Nesmith. It's likely that a horde of similarly stellar names will join the siblings at tonight's holiday show, but don't let your celebrity stargazing get in the way of appreciating the Watkins' own music. Sara Watkins is an especially eloquent fiddler and charming singer with an inviting new country-pop album, Sun Midnight Sun, while her older brother Sean is a deft guitarist whose humble manner belies the astonishingly intricately patterns he wrings from his ax. And both sing like a dream. —Falling James

Defiler

WHISKY A GO GO

These fresh-faced Bay Area boys brilliantly distill the frustrated fury of adolescence into four-minute extreme-metal muggings. Frontman Jake Pelzl may look like the archetypal annoying little brother, but he pours the entire history of injustice into his murderous bellow. His bandmates display a grown-up grasp of less-is-more dynamics and mutually supportive musicality. Defiler's self-described "lifecore" leans giddily toward hardcore, with intelligible do-something-about-it lyrics, progressive punky beats and guitars that are more weight than widdle. Sophomore album Nematocera is a deathcore defibrillator, and countless bedroom cover versions of the band's songs (mostly 2010 post-breakup meltdown "Cyromancer") are on YouTube, yet these guys aren't taking themselves too seriously — one recent show featured an audience-inclusive pillow fight. —Paul Rogers