LA Weekly

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8

Bill Kirchen at Safari Sam’s

When it comes to hip-hick, Sturm-und-Twang guitar heroes, Bill Kirchen’s name always rises to the top of the list. He initially damaged heads flying with Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen over 30 years ago, notably resurrecting the souped-up postwar-era thriller “Hot Rod Lincoln,” a frantic, fret-fracturing exercise that provided Kirchen with a permanent honky-tonk calling card. He has done anything but squander that cachet, maintaining both a steady flow of increasingly stinging work and an ever-rising profile among the rabid cult of six-string fanatics. He strikes tonight with a mitt full of tunes from his sharp new (and most aptly titled) album, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods album. Kirchen’s amiable modus operandi — drastically relaxed, expressive vocals and a guitar that stalks the wildest back alleys of country and rock & roll — should manifest ample evidence supporting the Kirchen mystique. (Jonny Whiteside)


Eleni Mandell at the Echo

Eleni Mandell’s sixth album, Miracle of Five, begins not with a bang but with a sultry come-on titled “Moonglow, Lamp Low.” The snare beat and languorous sax that set the tone tell us that the singer — make that chanteuse — is in a “Blue Velvet” kind of mood and ready for her David Lynch close-up. The 12 songs are all pretty, dreamy and unsettling, featuring an array of superb guest musicians including Nels Cline and DJ Bonebrake. There’s the psycho waltz of “Girls” (“I am the dice you roll in the alley/I am the pennies that come in handy”) and the hill-Billie Holiday swoon of “Miss Me,” that latter of which could actually break your heart. Slow dancing will ensue. (Libby Molyneaux)

Also playing Thursday:

TONY BENNETT at House of Blues; VOLUMEN CERO, LOS SUPER ELEGANTES at the Knitting Factory; NINJA ACADEMY at Mr. T’s Bowl; JUCIFER, SASQUATCH at the Scene; VISIONARIES at the Viper Room.


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9

Sparklehorse, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter at Henry Fonda Theater

Sparklehorse is Mark Linkous, but he gets by with a little help from his heavy friends on his ambitious sprawl of an album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain. Guest pianist Tom Waits and Dambuilders violinist Joan Wasser paint the wide-open spaces of “Morning Hollow” with subdued, funereal shadows, while Gnarls Barkley’s Danger Mouse and Flaming Lips drummer Steven Drozd take Linkous for a spin around the galaxy on the Beatles psychedelia of “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away.” The album works best when there’s more sparkle and less songs that sound like they were recorded on horse; all the glittery Christmas lights and electronic embellishments can’t salvage some of the ponderously long, sleepier ballads, and the stiff tracks where the multitalented Linkous plays all the instruments do miss Drozd’s heft and swing. Seattle’s Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter specialize in taking the slow road on their just-released Barsuk CD, Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul. Sykes intones with a soulfully mellow intimacy on the pastoral stillness of “Eisenhower Moon” and “Spectral Beings” as partner Phil Wandscher lights the hearth with embers of glowing guitar. (Falling James)


Miho Hatori, Los Abandoned at the Troubadour

Los Abandoned are simply one of L.A.’s most exciting new bands. Lady P. comes off like a hipper Debbie Harry on “Panic-Oh!” and slyly name-drops Drew Barrymore on the obsessed-fan anthem “Stalk U,” from last year’s Mix Tape CD, as partner Don Verde cranks up a variety of sunny musical settings that range from Oingo Boingo/Devo–ish new-wave bounciness to punk-rocking fuzz. And don’t let her smart-&-sassy bilingual lyrics on “Van Nuys (Es Very Nice)” and “Conquistarte Bien” fool you into thinking that Los Abandoned are just an ephemeral and silly pop band; the jangly acoustic closer, “State of Affairs,” is a sweetly rueful Valentine and calling card to the world. Headliner Miho Hatori moves away from the cartoonish cutesiness of her old band Cibo Matto into dreamier electronic-pop settings on her new solo album, Ecydysis (Rykodisc). “Today’s like the rainy season of my thoughts,” she coos over the mellow keyboard chimes of the ethereal “Today Is Like That,” while subtle traces of harmonica and accordion are woven into the electronic folds of “Barracuda.” It’s all quite charming without being too precious. (Falling James)


Also playing Friday:

THE DICKIES at the Galaxy Theatre; NORAH JONES at Amoeba Music, 6 p.m.; KRS-ONE at Blue Cafe; JOEY ALTRUDA, COATI MUNDI, PLEASANT GEHMAN, MR. UNCERTAIN at the Bordello; THAILAND, RADARS TO THE SKY at El Cid; ERIN McKEOWN at the Hotel Café; JUCIFER at the Mint; XU XU FANG at Tangier; PAT TODD & THE RANK OUTSIDERS at Studio Suite.



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Mirah, Anna Oxygen at the Troubadour

You know those girls who are totally sweet and sort of befuddled, pushing their glasses up their nose and poking holes in their tights, but manage to bag wicked-hot lovers and get straight A’s without trying? This is Mirah. She’s a strong songwriter who seems to have cutely stumbled into the kind of collaborations (most notably, with Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie) that most solo guitar-slinging outfits couldn’t roll with. Every Mirah record is a treasure chest of gloriously breathy sing-alongs about hurt feelings and doing it. A cozily wholesome, Jewish-sexpot kind of lesbian, Mirah is destined to make this show a tea-and-cookies-style love-in. Opening is Kill Rock Stars’ Jazzercise queen Anna Oxygen, who applies a Lycra-pants performance shtick to her Kraftwerk-oriented techno beats and regular calls for the audience to get in on the action. (Kate Carraway)


Songs of Protest with Cindy Lee Berryhill at Largo

To paraphrase the late Molly Ivins, we must sing about this war until we find some way to end it. Cindy Lee Berryhill and friends gather tonight to counter the horror with beauty and dissent. Berryhill’s forthcoming album, Beloved Stranger, is her finest in years, a poignant honky-tonk lament to the devastation wrought by a rich man’s power grab fought by the less privileged. Most of the evening’s artists are featured on Neil Young’s “Living With War Today” Web site (www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html), one of the countless efforts to ratchet up the critical democratic mass against the slaughter. These singers and their songs personalize the dehumanizing and insane surges ordered by the tyrants in Washington. The sum total empowers our community and demands that decisions affecting our destiny be returned to we the people. As Ivins said, “We are the deciders.” With John Doe, Rev. Madison Shockley, Josh Hisle, Jenny Yates, John Hughes, Gale Mead and special guests. (Michael Simmons)