Calendar of Events

Wednesday, May 16

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  Sock Puppet Sitcom Theater: I Love Lucy

  Atwater Crossing

  If you're a fan of I Love Lucy — and who isn't? — the socks at the Sock Puppet Sitcom Theater have got some 'splaining to do. Puppet producer Mark Hayward and two others who go by the names Glamour Puss and Frenchie opened the theater company last month, reinterpreting the pilot episode of Three's Company using nothing but cloth, buttons and pipe cleaners. Tonight, everyone's... More >>

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  LACE Benefit Auction

  Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

  The annual LACE Benefit Auction is one of those fundraiser/cocktail party/art shows where it's as prestigious to be included in the show part as in any proper gallery exhibition. Put together by a team that includes artists, critics and curators, the art is organized in a string of small group shows, giving the installation a much more dynamic and coherent feel than the usual art-auction... More >>

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  Bern

  The Federal Bar

  Drummer Bernie Dresel first made his mark as the enthusiastic backbone of the Brian Setzer Orchestra's hugely popular run in the 1980s. Dresel has gone on to work with Chaka Khan, Andy Summers, David Byrne and last year's Grammy-winning Gordon Goodwin, among many others, while becoming one of the most in-demand studio drummers in L.A. Dresel also fronts two bands of his own, one a traditional... More >>

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  Second Skins: Painted Barkcloth From New Guinea and Central Africa

  Fowler Museum at UCLA

  The opening of the "Second Skins: Painted Barkcloth From New Guinea and Central Africa" exhibition unveils the barkcloth-making legacy of the people of the Ituri rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and those of the people in eastern mountains of Papua in New Guinea. Barkclothes are made by stripping fibrous inner bark from forest trees and beating the rough-hewn material until... More >>

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Thursday, May 17

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  Fowler Out Loud: A Cappella Night

  Fowler Museum at UCLA

  When it comes to a cappella singing groups, there's something for everyone. The art form originated in ancient times as an answer to religious oppression: With the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions originally forbidding musical instruments in worship, the human voice was harnessed to uplift the spirit, with such gorgeous vehicles as Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony; the Jewish a... More >>

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  The Beatles: The Lost Concert

  Landmark Regent

  Early 1964 was a weird time in America. Kennedy had just been assassinated, the Civil Rights Act was being hotly debated, they weren't making a lot of Hercules movies anymore and on February 11, the Beatles gave their first U.S. concert. More than 8,000 people saw the performance at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C., and it was filmed by an eight-man camera crew for the express... More >>

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  George Carlin's 75th Birthday Celebration

  The Comedy & Magic Club

  With — wow — Garry Shandling, Dana Gould, Rick Overton, Maria Bamford, Daryl Wright, others. More >>

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  Andre Nickatina

  El Rey Theatre

  With his unpolished swagger and preference for lo-fi beats, Andre Nickatina has, to paraphrase one of the San Fran rapper's lyrics, never jeopardized who he is. Over the course of a dozen-plus records, he's earned a sizable cult who, live, rap along to his detailed screeds about the trials and tribulations of cocaine sales and use. If the man's verses are to be believed, he's been to hell and... More >>

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  Ana Tijoux, 2Mex, DJ Ethos, Los Rakas

  The Echo

  Of course Chilean MC Ana Tijoux makes an appearance in rapper Invincible's documentary The Revival — like recognizes like, particularly when like means relentless precision and poetic ambition as well as the kind of passion that can weather famine and fire both. That's Tijoux to the core. Born in exile in Paris after her parents escaped after the Allende coup, Tijoux's recent breakout,... More >>

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  Project Mah Jongg

  Skirball Cultural Center

  In case the only time you've heard about mah jongg was the line from Annie Hall in which Woody Allen says that his mother, a "high-strung woman, locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of mah-jongg tiles," today is your chance to open a vast and copious treasure chest of Jewish-Chinese cultural confluence.  "Project Mah Jongg," produced by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, has... More >>

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  Confessions of a Mormon Boy (Part I in The Mormon Boy Trilogy)

  Hudson Theatre

  It's been said that the greatest asset any writer can have is a good story to tell. And self-styled Oxy-Mormon Steven Fales has a helluva story. Born and raised in the Mormon Church, he served as a missionary in Portugal for two years and tried hard to be a good Mormon. But he was increasingly aware of his homosexual nature, and had his first gay experience during his missionary training.... More >>

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Friday, May 18

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  Princess

  Largo at the Coronet

  Funny girl Maya Rudolph had a musical background long before she became famous for shitting in a wedding dress in Bridesmaids and as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. The daughter of '70s R&B singer Minnie Ripperton of "Lovin' You" fame, Rudolph was briefly in the mid-'90s alt rock band The Rentals, fronted by Weezer bassist Matt Sharp and featuring Petra and Rachel Haden. When the Haden... More >>

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  The 7th Annual Los Angeles Old Time Social

  Echo Country Outpost

  The 7th Annual Los Angeles Old Time Social, admittedly and unabashedly a "Traditional American Fiddle and Banjo Festival," promises a plethora of bands that boast some iteration of the words "String Band" or "Boys" so you know the Americana is strong in them, just like The Force. If you're reading this the Thursday the 17th, you can catch the trio of performers at the Echo Country Outpost:... More >>

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  Best Coast

  The Wiltern

  "We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair," Bethany Cosentino declares on the title track of Best Coast's just-released second album, The Only Place. "Why would you live anywhere else?" she asks endearingly as sparkling rays of guitar jangle behind her. "We've got the ocean, got the babes, got the sun, we've got the waves." So many anthems about L.A., such as the Go-Go's' "This... More >>

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  Take Offense, Twitching Tongues, Harness, Sleep Walkers, Locked in Silence

  Cobalt Cafe

  Venice thrash is alive and well — in Chula Vista. This young CV crew (with production and writing input from Terror drummer Nick Jett) channel Suicidal Tendencies like few of their generation, yet behind their mimicry lurks a real command of the manipulation of riffs, grooves and feels to maximum muscle-bound effect. Take Offense isn't the fastest, hardest or most technical band on the... More >>

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  Dum Dum Girls, Tamaryn, Young Prisms, Sisu

  The Echoplex

  Sometimes good girls don't wear white. Dum Dum Girls may look fierce, prowling catlike around the stage in funereal black lace, but, as the song goes, they're ultimately good-bad, not evil. They still draw from '60s garage rock on their second album, Only in Dreams, with the reverb-drenched, Jesus & Mary Chain–style guitars of the first album giving way to a broader and fuller sound.... More >>

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  "Pale Fires": Benjamin Lord, Joey Lehman Morris, Lili Reynaud-Dewar

  Latned Atsar

  The name "Malibu" comes from "Humaliwo," a word the Chumash Native American people used to mean "where the waves crash loudly." Benjamin Lord calls his new portfolio of stereoscopic photographs the Humaliwo Chambers, because they imagine a web of chambers and tunnels in the Malibu hillside. The photographs, dense archeological fantasies of miniature coliseums in sand or rock formations... More >>

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  Fellowship!

  Trepany House at the Steve Allen Theater

  You don't have to be a Hobbit fan to appreciate this good-humored musical spoof of The Lord of the Rings, although familiarity does help. Under Joel McCrary's direction, with musical direction by Gary Stockdale, a multitalented ensemble sings, dances and exuberantly cavorts around a tiny proscenium, parodying the tale about an odd band of hobbits, elves and fairies on a quest to rescue the... More >>

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Saturday, May 19

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  Roger Waters

  L.A. Memorial Coliseum

  Roger Waters has never lacked ambition. In fact, it was an overwhelming abundance of tenacity, coupled with his former bandmates' reluctance to tickle his every creative fancy, that caused the now 68-year-old bassist, best known as the lyrical and songwriting brains behind Pink Floyd, to eventually part ways with his already superstar-level crew. For three decades post-Floyd, Waters has been... More >>

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  Venice Art Walk

  Westminster Avenue Elementary School

  The soul of the Venice Art Walk is, of course, the Sunday afternoon art-walking between and among the famous open studios of Venice Beach"s talented and diverse artists — especially in the rough triangle around Abbot Kinney between Lincoln, Venice, and the beach. But in each of the 34 years since this legendary event launched, it's grown in both vision and geography. Not like getting... More >>

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  Too $hort, Greedy Entertainment, Mike P, Richie Valley & Robs the One

  House of Blues Sunset Strip

  It's undoubtedly for the better that pimp culture has taken a backseat to personal independence in the rap vernacular, but that doesn't mean we can't reminisce with one of the iciest players to ever turn a ho out on record (we're using technical terminology here). At 46, Too $hort is a veteran, having been one of the first Bay Area rappers to rise to prominence after dropping his first... More >>

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  Lee Fields & the Expressions, Cody Chesnutt, Naytronix

  The Echoplex

  Lee Fields started as a pleader in the James Brown style — well, maybe "James Brown mold" would be a better term, as young Fields was pretty much poured into the silhouette of Mr. Please Please Please — in the late 1960s and then bent backward to make overcranked dancers like "Funky Screw" and "The Bull Is Coming" in the '70s. After decades with a respectable, if not yet... More >>

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  Betty Blowtorch

  El Cid

  Much like their heroes the Runaways and AC/DC, the late-'90s hard-rock quartet Betty Blowtorch had the unique ability to appeal to both punks and metal-heads with no-nonsense head-bangers like "I Wanna Be Your Sucker" and the succinctly eloquent "Shut Up & Fuck." The local band appeared to be well on their way to national success when lead singer/bassist Bianca Halstead was killed in a car... More >>

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  Toadies, Useless Keys, Blank Faces

  Roxy Theatre

  Though best known for uniquely creepy 1994 single "Possum Kingdom," Toadies' consistently distinct sonic statement is perhaps personified by their much-delayed 2001 sophomore full-length, Hell Below/Stars Above (poor sales of which hastened the band's breakup shortly after its release). The stop-start male angst of "Push the Hand," the bass-propelled bounce of "Motivational" and the epic... More >>

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  "Beuys in the Basement": Michael Montfort

  Coagula Curatorial

  German artist Joseph Beuys used to do "actions," his word for "performances." His most famous was I Like America and America Likes Me in 1974, in which he wrapped himself in felt and spent a few days in an New York gallery with a live coyote. A few years earlier, in 1969 in Frankfurt, Beuys performed Iphigenie auf Tauris, reciting text from Goethe's play Iphigenia, about the woman who... More >>

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  Heidi Ducker Dance Theatre: Expulsion

  Expulsion Lot

  Choreographer Heidi Duckler long ago cemented her bona fides as L.A.'s mistress of site-specific dance theater, guiding audiences to a deeper understanding of this city's geographic infrastructure, from Laundromats and the underground Red Car lines to historic jails and the concrete walls of the L.A. River. Lately, Duckler and the dancers, actors, writers and composers of her Heidi Duckler... More >>

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  Holding On - Letting Go

  Fremont Centre Theatre

  Bryan Harnetiaux's new play focuses on family dynamics as the 51-year-old husband, Bobby (Barry Wiggins), in a childless marriage, enters a hospice for terminal liver cancer. It recalls a couple of Pulitzer Prize-winning, end-of-life plays — Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box and Margaret Edson's Wit. Bobby's wife, Lee (Iona Morris), is a highly motivated sports coach whose brash... More >>

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Sunday, May 20

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  Silent Films with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

  UCLA Royce Hall

  How prescient and enduring: This marks the 23rd year that the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has performed a live score accompanying silent film in the acoustic heaven that is Royce Hall. Tonight, composer and conductor Carl Davis leads the 40 members of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra in original musical scores for two films by Harold Lloyd: The Kid Brother (1927) and High and Dizzy (1920). The... More >>

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  K-EARTH's California Music Festival AIDS Walk

  Griffith Park

  Okay people, this is where you want to be today. K-EARTH's California Music Festival AIDS Walk has fun in spades. The afternoon festival in the park is bursting with bands covering the Beatles, Beach Boys, disco, a Latin Explosion, plus a comedy stage. Carnival rides, including a zip line, bungee jumping, a Ferris wheel, midway games, a psychic and way more are included with your admission.... More >>

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  Imagine L.A.'s Fifth Annual Celebration of Family

  Vista Del Mar

  Fun galore awaits with kids' activities (game booths with prizes, bounce houses, rock climbing, crafts, game trucks, sack races and more), food and drink, live music and entertainment and more, all to benefit formerly homeless families participating in the Imagine L.A. program. More >>

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  U.K.

  El Rey Theatre

  If you're an aficionado [sniff!] of the great progressive rock bands that found their fullest flowering in the '70s, you'll have already bought your tix for this performance by perhaps the best of them all, UK. The original lineup of the band was a sterling supergrouping that featured King Crimson/Yes drum god Bill Bruford, Crimson (and later, uh, Asia) bassist-singer John Wetton, jazz-rock... More >>

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  "Music for Hoarders": Dawn Kasper

  Armory Center for the Arts

  Three months ago, L.A. artist Dawn Kasper moved her studio to the Whitney Museum to prepare on-site for the 2012 Biennial. When the Biennial opened Feb. 28, VIP guest Martha Stewart hung out with Kasper long enough to tweet a photo of the artist in her haphazard, messy space, which looks like everything Stewart's sunny aesthetic negates. Stewart should come to Pasadena next, to see "Music for... More >>

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  Finding the Burnett Heart

  Elephant Stages, Lillian Theatre

  Although coming out is integral to the story, that's not what makes Paul Elliott's drama so involving. It takes place in a small bedroom shared by an intelligent, upbeat teenager named Tyler (Joel Johnstone) and his mean-spirited, homophobic granddad, James (James Handy), temporarily boarding with his son's family. Tyler's a kid any mom would be proud of, and Grace (Colleen McGrann), the... More >>

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  Heidi Ducker Dance Theatre: Expulsion

  Expulsion Lot

  Choreographer Heidi Duckler long ago cemented her bona fides as L.A.'s mistress of site-specific dance theater, guiding audiences to a deeper understanding of this city's geographic infrastructure, from Laundromats and the underground Red Car lines to historic jails and the concrete walls of the L.A. River. Lately, Duckler and the dancers, actors, writers and composers of her Heidi Duckler... More >>

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  Bats Day in the Fun Park at Disneyland

  Disneyland Resort

  Don't call security. They're just Goths, and they want to peacefully converge en masse at the annual Bats Day in the Fun Park at Disneyland. What started as a one-day meet-up organized by Goth club promoters in 1999 has turned into a three-day event, which kicks off with Friday's Bats Day Dark Club at the Anaheim DoubleTree Guest Suites and includes David J of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets and... More >>

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Monday, May 21

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  Henson Alternative's Stuffed & Unstrung

  Largo at the Coronet

  Remember the first time you saw Bob Saget do stand-up? It was, like, "Whoa. Danny Tanner from Full House curses? The America's Funniest Home Videos guy? He's hung out with Ron Jeremy? He used to suck dick for coke?" It was disillusioning and tantalizing at the same time to see his grittier side, which is kind of what it will be like tonight at Stuffed and Unstrung, the adults-only improv show... More >>

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  Robert Adams: The Place We Live, A Retrospective Selection of Photographs

  Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

  Photographer Robert Adams is a moralist and a cynic with a soft spot for sheer beauty. His current LACMA retrospective starts with Adams' iconic photographs of Colorado in the 1960s, probably still his best work. They show tract homes and trailers and ranch-style churches against the stark, glorious Western landscape. They're frustrated with how manmade structures invade nature, but they also... More >>

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  The Brad Mehldau Trio

  Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, Broad Stage

  At this point in his career, is it too soon to credit the visionary pianist-composer with becoming the most influential jazz artist of the past two decades? He has inspired an entire generation of players, and it's hard to find a young pianist who hasn't borrowed something from him, a copycat reverence heretofore applied to such hallowed figures as Parker, Coltrane and Hancock. Still, there's... More >>

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  Keep It Clean Comedy

  1739 Public House

  While you were busy swing dancing, JC Coccoli's been hosting a night of "speakeasy-esque" standup comedy. Hear her explain why Keep it Clean Comedy came to exist. "Working comics in L.A. were in dire need of a speakeasy spot to work their showcase material. Prepping for performances on Leno, Conan and Carson Daly, comedians can stop in and punch up sets. Nestled away in Los Feliz proper,... More >>

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Tuesday, May 22

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  Sparta, Ki: Theory

  The Troubadour

  When the mighty At the Drive-In disbanded in 2001, the El Paso band's former members split their influences down the middle. The group's experimental soul went to The Mars Volta, while their post-hardcore heart would beat on as Sparta, fronted by earnest barker Jim Ward and propelled by the drums of Tony Hajjar. With those two back on the road with their old group, ATDI, Sparta too has... More >>

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  Some Favorite Writers: An Evening With Sherlock Holmes and Friends

  Hammer Museum

  Open letter to Guy Ritchie: In the next Sherlock Holmes movie, you should include a scene where Holmes says something really obvious, at which point Watson turns to him and says, "No shit, Sherlock!" Other individuals keenly concerned with all things Holmesian gather tonight for author Mona Simpson's "Some Favorite Writers" series installment titled "An Evening With Sherlock Holmes and... More >>

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  Spiritualized

  The Wiltern

  There's something inexorably magical about rock & roll odes to girls named Jane. "Queen Jane Approximately" was one of Bob Dylan's most mysteriously beguiling songs of the mid-'60s, while "Sweet Jane" was just about as close as Lou Reed ever got to a feel-good classic rock anthem. Garage-rock howlers Dead Moon revealed a previously unknown pop reverence on their obscure gem "Jane," and even... More >>

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  Lianne La Havas, Ferraby Lionheart

  Bootleg Theater

  This young English singer — one of several in recent months to be tagged as the next Adele — has a debut coming out in August on Nonesuch called Is Your Love Big Enough?, parts of which she recorded here in L.A. with Matt Hales of the U.K. pop act Aqualung. Hales is just one of La Havas' high-profile benefactors; last year Bon Iver took her out on the road as an opener after they... More >>

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  "A Drawing Survey": Carroll Dunham

  Blum & Poe

  In the pilot of Lena Dunham's new HBO series, Girls, the lead character tells her parents she might just be "the voice of my generation," or at least "a voice of a generation." Lena's real dad, Carroll Dunham, opened a retrospective of his drawings made between 1982 and 2012 at Blum & Poe gallery the same week as Girls' hyped-up debut. His perverse, introspective work seems almost unaware of... More >>

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  Herb Ritts: L.A. Style

  The Getty Center

  Herb Ritts' 1977 shot of actor pal Richard Gere in San Bernardino put him on the map, and his cover of Madonna's 1986 album True Blue, which was taken in Hollywood and lead to a decades-long collaboration, made him famous. The late, L.A.-born photographer, noted for his black-and-white images inspired by Greek sculpture, is the subject of the Getty's new "Herb Ritts: L.A. Style" (one of the... More >>

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  Fiesta

  Bob Baker Marionette Theater

  Xylophone playing, ice skating and traditional Mexican hat dancing are just a few of the talents displayed by Bob Baker's marionettes in this south-of-the-border celebration. A favorite production at Baker's theater since its premiere in 1964, the show shines brightest when the colorful puppets interact with children in the audience, like when two peck-happy ostriches provide particularly... More >>

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