LA Weekly

FRIDAY, October 20

Swollen Members at El Rey Theater

You can blame Canada for this shape-shifting hip-hop threesome that exists in two distinctly different worlds. Formed in the land of liberal weed laws and rampant movie production (I’ll take Vancouver for $200, Alex), Swollen Members — a.k.a. rappers Madchild and Prevail alongside producer Rob the Viking — are pop stars in the Great White North, touring with Black Eyed Peas and selling records in the millions. In America, they’re soldiers in the indie underground, rolling with Dilated Peoples and Planet Asia. Beloved by backpackers for their grimier, battle-ready beats, they bummed a bunch of them out with the decidedly poppy 2004 album ironically titled Heavy. They’re back on track with the recently released Black Magic, boasting cameos from Ghostface and Alchemist. They’re known for bringing it live, so expect more ladies than at your average rap show. (Scott T. Sterling)


Bob Dylan at the Forum

Don’t fence in Bob Dylan with your puny expectations of how he should act or how he’s a legend, the voice of a generation. He’s defied easy categorization and slipped in and out of contrasting musical personas throughout his long career as a word salesman, from his beginning as a champion of Woody Guthrie to juicing up his folk roots in the mid-’60s with electricity and the devil’s forbidden rhythms, from his incarnations as a postmodern country singer and Jewish soul-searcher to his role as a Christian avenger. He eventually brings it all back home with the blues, as he does on his latest CD, Modern Times, whose best tunes — such as the sidewinder snap of “Someday Baby” and his boxcar-chugging reworking of “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” — throb with a John Lee Hooker bounce. He’s hornier than ever, too. In fact, it turns out that Dylan’s almost human, almost like the rest of us. His satellite-radio show and his recent autobiography, Chronicles, Volume 1, reveal that he hasn’t been sitting aloof like a god on a mountaintop; instead, he’s been among us all along, taking notes and paying attention, impulsively following the rivers and stories wherever they lead him. Also at the Long Beach Arena, Sat. (Falling James)


Ollin, The Pogues at the Wiltern

Nothing says Irish folk music more than the East L.A. band Ollin. Yes, that’s right: The Pogues were so impressed with an impromptu live acoustic performance by Ollin near San Francisco’s fabled Fillmore Auditorium that they decided to book them as an opening act. Man, talk about respect. But what’s new — the talented Ollin (Maya for “movement”), fronted by classically trained twin brothers Scott and Randy Rodarte, have been performing the Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy and the Lash the past few St. Patrick’s Days to sold-out crowds. This Wiltern show will showcase the versatile talents of this amazing band, who were prominently featured in the critically acclaimed play Chavez Ravine by Culture Clash and have played alongside Ozomatli, Lucinda Williams and Los Lobos. Mexicans and the Irish have had a long connection; they even fought together (see San Patricios). Now the two are connecting again for what looks to be one of the best shows of the year. So don’t miss this classic concert as Ollin throw down the jams and some Guinness Stout. Pogue mahone! (“kiss my arse”). (Ben Quiñones)


SATURDAY, October 21

The Decemberists, Lavender Diamond at the Wiltern

’Tis the season for the Decemberists. The frighteningly literate Portland quintet just released their fourth album and major-label debut, The Crane Wife (Capitol), and their legions of devoted fans just keep growing. Who would’ve thought that their erudite stories of Chinese trapeze artists, Spanish princesses and drunken mariners would appeal to the masses? Tonight’s audience will be treated to front man Colin Meloy’s clearly enunciated, fanciful lyrics — and perhaps the band’s penchant for wearing Civil War–era garb. But nothing beats being in a room full of jaded Angelenos singing along with every word of the damning ode to their city, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours”: “How I abhor this place/Its sweet and bitter taste/Has left me wretched, retching on all fours/Los Angeles, I’m yours.” With promising Silver Lake locals Lavender Diamond. (Laura Ferreiro)


The Detroit Cobras at the Key Club

In this stultifying era of tribute groups, unimaginative rock & roll revivals and endless oldies weekends, what makes the Detroit Cobras more than just another cover band is that they bring something of their own to the table: fire. Guitarist Mary Ramirez keeps things down to earth with her chopped-up, rootsy garage-rock riffing, and singer Rachael Nagy is such a radiantly powerful, distinctively soulful stylist that the Cobras’ remakes of obscure R&B gems are often more memorable than the originals. (And that’s really saying something when you consider that they’re redoing tunes by the legendary likes of Otis Redding, Bobby Womack, and Jackie DeShannon, who was so pleased by their version of “He Did It” on 2001’s Life, Love and Leaving that she’s now one of band’s biggest fans.) Like the Rolling Stones, who also started out as a cover band, the Detroit Cobras are finally writing original songs such as “Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat),” from their 2005 CD, Baby, that approach the intensity of those divinely, deliciously incendiary remakes. (Falling James)


SUNDAY, October 22

Oxford Collapse, The Joggers, The Capitol Years at the Knitting Factory

From song titles like “Please Visit Your National Parks” to the suburban-leisure album-cover art, Oxford Collapse’s Williamsburgian irony belies their gently rocking loveliness. The Brooklyn trio’s earlier releases had a tendency to ape their New York brethren’s dance-punk sensibilities, but their brand-new Sub Pop release, Remember the Night Parties — a lo-fi nimbus of chiming guitars and shimmering distortion — would float away if it weren’t anchored by drummer Dan Fetherston’s meaty fills and Adam Rizer’s funk-inflected bass lines. Portland warmer-uppers the Joggers, former Oxford tour partners, have a similarly shambolic thing going on, but their deliberately muddy execution can’t obscure their ditties’ melodic centers. Philly’s the Capitol Years funnel late-’80s Amer-indie through the onstage histrionics of yesteryear’s arena rockers. (Andrew Lentz)


UK Subs at the Key Club

While a rather dismal package of past-it acts, Fiend Fest does include one particularly notable aspect — the presence of ferociously intransigent, intemperate punk rocker Charlie Harper. The Cockney-Chicano shouter has been driving his UK Subs (as in subversives, kiddies) for nigh on 30 nonstop years, and while the band’s recorded output and lineups have been wildly inconsistent, Harper’s cheerily rabid presentation remains as powerful as ever. The consummate misfit (his father was a U.S. serviceman from Arizona, a heritage frostily received by the bulldogs of postwar London), Harper early on sought refuge in the big beat, but it wasn’t until punk’s 1976 outbreak that he found a home — and a sound the Subs excelled in. Tireless, trashy and thoroughly charming, Charlie Harper ably — perhaps even nobly — represents punk rock’s finest. (Jonny Whiteside)


MONDAY, October 23

The Secret Machines at Avalon

If pops won’t shut up about Roger Waters’ recent shows at the Bowl, you’d do well to introduce him to these new kids on the epic-rock block. This pulverizing power trio’s massive monuments of sound blend the druggy psychedelia of Pink Floyd with the stage-strutting bombast of Led Zeppelin (drummer Josh Garza assaults his kit like he’s possessed by the spirit of John Bonham). Layered with the hypnotic drone of Krautrock and touches of moody shoe-gazer blues, it’s an intoxicating mix that’s not just for stoners anymore. Expounding on their cinematic debut, Now Here Is Nowhere, with the wide-open spaces of the dreamier follow-up, Ten Silver Drops, the Secret Machines keep it classic by jamming in the round for an especially intense sonic experience. Prog on, people. And at Union Station, Tues. (Scott T. Sterling)


TUESDAY, October 24

Airpushers at El Cid

Multiplatinum stars have generally got hi-watt auxiliary talent lurking nearby, and in the case of Black Eyed Peas, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and lots more, a couple of them are Printz Board and Tim Izo Orindgreff, a.k.a. Airpushers. Largely instrumental music not your thing? You’ll change your mind on hearing their new Themes for the Ordinarily Strange, whose release they celebrate tonight. Melody lines jut out clean against countermelodies, bari saxes huff like engine lungs, trumpets blare, rhythms whap sparely yet with powerful sophistication. This urban R&B machine can jump without notice into electronicized dub or Beatlesque hop-pop — these pushers never run out of candy. Mainly, it’s just fun. And if it matters, Printz co-wrote the Peas’ “My Humps,” “Where Is the Love?” and “Don’t Phunk With My Heart.” (Greg Burk)


WEDNESDAY, October 25

No Means No at the Knitting Factory

Originally from Victoria, British Columbia, No Means No have since way back in the ’80s been not just a standard-bearer but a highly influential (Fugazi, among a million obscure others) trio whose freewheelin’ forays across the hinterlands of post-punk hash up heady swirls of avant-jazz, twisted funk, nonmacho metal and out-’n’-out noise. While few NMN songs come without the de rigueur clever-dick sarcasto verbal spew, neither do they skimp on the extremely hot-shit spazzy time signatures, laid down by the genre’s best-ever rhythm section of co-leaders Rob (bass, guitar, vocals) and bro John Wright (drums, keyboards, singing). The brothers have a just-plain-excellent new album out, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, on AntAcidAudio/Ipecac, which, along with tonight’s most-likely-explosive performance, will only confirm how criminally overlooked they’ve been. Take heed! (John Payne)


THURSDAY, October 26

Matt Pond PA, Micah P. Hinson at Spaceland

The Brooklyn-based indie-pop ensemble Matt Pond PA is led by a former Philadelphian named Matt Pond, a guy whose talent for sweet-and-sour acoustic balladry far exceeds his ability to name bands with anything approaching a creative flourish. The group has had some success outside (what’s left of) the college-radio ghetto: Last year, its cover of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” made it onto one of The OC mixtapes, which these days probably delivers more exposure than airplay on commercial radio. But Pond’s music is exceedingly gentle stuff, better suited to a world of library boys than hollaback girls. Opener Micah P. Hinson, from Texas, plays pretty but depressive folk-blues laments for people who wish Bright Eyes would get a little trippy sometimes. (Mikael Wood)