LA Weekly

THURSDAY, MAY 8

Cameron Wittig

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Tapes ’n Tapes, blissfully unaware of the oncoming train

Monica Medeiros

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Every day is the Renaissance Faire with the Parson Red Heads.

Katie Cassidy

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Northern State defy their photographer’s plea to look into the camera.

Chana at Temple Bar

Who says music has to be full of doom and gloom all the time? The local singer Chana’s new debut EP, Manos Arriba, is an ebullient assortment of dance tracks that are enlivened by a variety of inescapably catchy beats and clever production touches from co-songwriter and Volumen Cero producer Marthin Chan. “La Duda” and “A Veces” sound a little like Julieta Venegas’ airy pop as Chana coos engagingly sunny melodies, but the songs are pumped up with a harder, funkier and more readily danceable ska backing. She calls her music “trop-electro-hip-pop,” and you can hear traces of the New York/Miami native’s dance and art-school background in the way she refuses to dumb down her electrically eclectic dance music. (Chana recently used her terpsichorean skills to choreograph a video for folk-pop singer Mia Doi Todd.) She’s similarly charming when she trades lyrics with guest rapper Malverde amid the bouncing dub echoes of the intoxicating song “The Whistler.” (Falling James)

Rolling Blackouts at Charlie O’s Lounge

Rolling Blackouts have finally got the Led out of their system and seem to have settled on a sound that’s closer to that of their Hawthorne brothers the Beach Boys. And while their new music isn’t exactly “Good Vibrations” or “California Girls,” there are definitely traces of a warm, summertime sound — veering off into ’70s Camaro-rock territory. After nearly six years together, the Rolling Blackouts still thrill with their soaring harmonies and solid musicianship, peppered with just the right amount of hand claps and tambourines, making each show an air-guitar/sing-along party. Even though stardom of epic proportions still (shockingly) eludes them, they’re always plugging away and keeping it fuzzy and wild. An EP is in the works, but until then check out one of their upcoming shows at Charlie O’s, where you can catch a hook and cozy up to an endless supply of riffs. Also May 22 and June 5. 501 S. Spring St., dwntwn. (Kat Jetson)

The Deadbirds at the Bordello

Since he moved into the now-gentrified Villa Elaine a decade ago, Brandon McCulloch’s world on Vine Street has become something of a legend. The entrepreneurial busker first founded Substance Records and released a haunting compilation called California from the arty derelicts who hung about/squatted there (Remy Zero, Spacetwins, Aaron Embry, et al.), before releasing his ex-band Silver’s elegiac Red City in 2002 — an album that solidified him further as an artist’s artist rather than a household name. Even still, McCulloch helped make the Hotel Café a recognizable venue with his early residencies there, and whenever he straps on the acoustic at the Three Clubs, he’s received like Lou Reed. After taking some time off to help produce tracks for the likes of Nancy Sinatra and Rachael Yamagata, McCulloch returns with a gentler power yearn in his new band, he Deadbirds, who replace Silver’s coked-up keys-and-guitar arrangements with violins and sedatives. (Chuck Mindenhall) 
Also playing Thursday:

RUSH at Nokia Theatre; YEAR LONG DISASTER at Alex’s Bar; HAWNAY TROOF at the Smell.

FRIDAY, MAY 9

Elbow at Avalon

Elbow are perfectly demonstrative of what a Britpop band should be. Remember when Oasis devolved into a parody of itself, and Blur stumbled into unexciting American collaborations? That wasn’t the intended eventuality for ’90s British rock exports. Radiohead are great, but they don’t have anything to do with the kind of soggy anorak wailers that rock audiences the world over require. A rock band from the U.K. should be everything that Elbow is: great on guitar, thematically dour, Martin Amis–level clever, and indulgent of a little grandiosity, psychedelia and weirdness when it’s called for. They’ve endured lots of years in the business for not a lot of (commercial) acknowledgment without falling face-first into helicopter vanity. Maintaining their unpretentious, early-Beatles thing over four studio albums and various extra pursuits like a Destiny’s Child cover and a landmark tour in Cuba, Elbow fulfill whatever the British version of manifest destiny is. (Kate Carraway)

The Parson Red Heads at Spaceland

With their clunky old-timey name, the Parson Red Heads might initially seem like yet another retro country-rock band, and these exiles from Eugene, Oregon, do have elements of the Byrds in their sun-dappled harmonies. But on their upcoming CD EP, Owl & Timber, they reveal some new twists to their sound. The first track, “County Line,” encompasses several dramatic shifts, beginning with the gorgeously fused celestial hum of Erin Way’s glowing keyboards and Raymond Richards’ hazy pedal-steel guitar before giving way to Samuel Fowles’ and lead singer Evan Way’s chiming Big Star–style guitar chords. It’s as soothing and catchy as an eight-minute power-pop song can be. This extended family and their friends (who include drummer Brette Marie Way and bassist David Swensen) relocated to Los Angeles a couple years ago, and you can hear traces of Southern California (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Love, the Beach Boys) in some of their new songs. “Got It All” marches along with mellow vocals laid over jangly guitars, while “Don’t Hold Back” and “Crowds” echo the pastoral folkie dreaminess of their earlier tunes. (Falling James)

Slick Rick at the Rhythm Lounge

There isn’t a more appropriately named rapper than Slick Rick. The London-born, Bronx-based MC is smooth like a velvet tracksuit and spits constant free-flowing rhymes like water at Niagara Falls. Although many know of MC Ricky D as the originator of “La Di Da Di,” covered on Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, his debut full-length, 1988’s The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, is near the top of most every hip-hop critic’s best-of list thanks to rap standards such as “Children’s Story,” “Indian Girl (An Adult Story),” “Teenage Love” and “Mona Lisa.” Hip-hop naysayers argue that the genre is nothing more than someone talking over a beat. Little do they know how accurate that statement is when discussing Rick the Ruler. Many MCs go for an unnatural vocal style to sound unique, but the man born Ricky Walters never comes off as anything but calm, comfortable and in control. 245 Pine Ave., Level 2, Long Beach. Also at the Roxy, Sat. (Ryan Ritchie)