Thursday 7
Fluxx downtown is bringing old-school hip-hop heat with Cypress Hill producer DJ Muggs and Wu-Tang’s “Genius” GZA. Muggs runs the decks while Geezy runs his mouth. The pair’s ’05 offering Grandmasters is a hardcore essential, the first in a series of “Muggs vs. ?” But there was no throwdown, as the beat mechanic gave the Genius plenty of space to work the joint, spitting chess moves as metaphors that had this amateur playa nodding along. This gig will pack the Fourth Ave. venue, so you might want to grab tix pronto.... Brushfire recording artist and FoJJ Matt Costa rolls his Mobile Chateau to Casbah. The Huntington Beach–based singer-songwriter expands the Brushfire folk-rock palette with psych-pop leanings. Costa played and produced this one himself, with indie guru Phil Ek fixing the mix. It’s his strongest set yet. Check out “The Season”: myspace.com/mattcostamusic.... Ramona Mainstage wrangles country outlaw David Allan Coe, who claims to have written over 10,000 songs recorded by hunnerds of different performers, including the Dead Kennedys and Pantera. You may know “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”...how about “Take This Job and Shove It”?... Art-punk supergroup Ghetto Blaster (Fishwife, Hostile Combover, Rats Eyes) turns up at Bar Pink with loud-ass Los Angelenos the Makeup Sex.
Friday 8
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women do time at Belly Up. Downey Dave’s best known for his time in the roots-rocking Blasters with his brother Phil and then taking the stage with punkabilly perennials X after the departure of lead guitarist Billy Zoom. Also, dude’s a Grammy winner for Best Traditional Folk collection, Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land — essential set, folk fan. Last year’s Yep Roc Records debut with all-female SanFran band the Guilty Women is a barn-burner, and hear tell they tear it up live. Our own “peace, love, and honky-tonk” honey Sara Petite will set the Solana Beach stage. This is the gig to get to, y’all.... If you miss the door on Cedros, upthataway Edgar Winter’s riding Rebel Road into Ramona Mainstage.... While ’round town, L.A. indie acts the Finches and Voices on Tape roll at Tin Can Ale House...Acid-jazz cats Pocket funk up Bar Pink with some of the sexiest electric grooves you never heard. Why haven’t you checked them out yet?...and Yesterday magazine celebrates its second issue at Ruby Room this weekend with a ton of local talent. Check it: Friday night ya get Dynamite Walls, Silent Comedy, Long Live Logos, and Vinyl Film; Saturday it’ll be Get Back Loretta, Paddle Boat, Endoxi, and Albatross. You can grab the read at any one of your three favorite shops: M-Theory, Lou’s, or Paras News.
Saturday 9
This’d be the best day to hit the Joshua Tree Roots Fest. For 50 bucks you get that wide-open high-desert awesomeness and some of the best rootsicananewgrassfolkadelic fare out there. Saturday sees Or, the Whale, Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons, the Lee Boys, These United States, Langhorne Slim, etcet etcet. They keep it rolling Sunday, too, for you never-say-diers. Click this for the full list: joshuatreemusicfestival.com.... In town: plink-rock duo Phantogram join Why? guy Josiah Wolf at Casbah...Comic-actor-writer-musician-Egyptologist Steve Martin mans the banjo for the bluegrassy Steep Canyon Rangers at Balboa Theatre...still on the bluegrass tip, Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings does its thing at the Acoustic Music San Diego showcase...L.A. post-punk duo Killing Bees swarm Eleven (née Radio Room) with the aforementioned Ghetto Blaster.... Up north, you got Celtic folkies the Young Dubliners doling clog rock at Belly Up...and, hoo doggies, Jed! Vanilla freaking Ice will rock the mic at Ramona Mainstage behind his sixth studio offering, WTF, which the Iceman says stands for “wisdom, tenacity, and focus.” I believe I’ve heard it all now.
Sunday 10
Go hang out in Normal Heights Sunday, as Eleven sets up a spicy afternoon jam with lots of borderland barbecue and Mario Escovedo’s MEX collective dishing the party rock con salsa. Oktoberfiesta?... And then a couple blocks east, Soda Bar serves up an Art Fag cocktail of electronic rock, featuring Portland artist Johnny Jewel’s bands Glass Candy and the Chromatics with this week’s unexpected grin-winners, Clevelanders Cloud Nothings. You like jangle pop, too? Check ’em out: myspace.com/cloudnothings. Art Fag’s resident DJ Mario Orduno will spin round sets.
Monday 11
Belly Up books NYC Gypsy punx Gogol Bordello. The nonet is out to tout this year’s Rick Rubin–produced Trans-Continental Hustle. GB signed to Rubin’s L.A.-based American Recordings for this, their fifth and biggest critical and commercial success yet. A lot of fun live, too, as Eugene Hütz is one of the most animated and engaging front men going.... Else: Seattle sludge rockers the Melvins Anti-Monday it up at Casbah behind their 20th (!), The Bride Screamed Murder. Like-minded Los Angelenos Totimoshi go first.... Aussie indie-poppers Crayon Fields sound as if they’ll be coloring outside the lines at Soda Bar with Heavy Hawaii and Escondido’s tasty skategazer Scruffles. Sounds good, Jon.
Tuesday 12
More visitors from Down Under on Tuesday, as the Hoodoo Gurus hit Belly Up with the Heartaches. The Gurus broke in the early ’80s with college-rock staples Stoneage Romeos and famous follow-up Mars Needs Guitars! The quartet signed to Sony for this year’s Purity of Essence.... Also back from the ’80s, Talking Heads Tina and Chris and the Tom Tom Club, who will play Casbah in support of the remaster release of Close to the Bone, the ’83 follow-up to their dancelicious debut. The equally dancelicious Rafter will warm the floor.... Dust off yer shitkickers, shitkickers, as the Legendary Shack Shakers take the stage at Soda Bar behind Bob Wayne & the Outlaw Carnies and our own country skrunks, the Screamin YeeHaws. Can I say shitkickers on TV?
Wednesday 13
Hump-night highlights: the Morning Benders will wake and bake Belly Up behind super-solid crit hit Big Echo. I love that one...English electropoppers Hot Chip hit House of Blues behind this year’s One Life Stand...local electric folkies Blackout Party darken the door at Bar Pink...noise-pop experimentalists Zola Jesus, Broken Spindles, and Spirit Photography fill a bill at Soda Bar...and Portland folk-pop band Blind Pilot crashes into Casbah. No, you shut up.
— Barnaby Monk
Thursday 7
Fluxx downtown is bringing old-school hip-hop heat with Cypress Hill producer DJ Muggs and Wu-Tang’s “Genius” GZA. Muggs runs the decks while Geezy runs his mouth. The pair’s ’05 offering Grandmasters is a hardcore essential, the first in a series of “Muggs vs. ?” But there was no throwdown, as the beat mechanic gave the Genius plenty of space to work the joint, spitting chess moves as metaphors that had this amateur playa nodding along. This gig will pack the Fourth Ave. venue, so you might want to grab tix pronto.... Brushfire recording artist and FoJJ Matt Costa rolls his Mobile Chateau to Casbah. The Huntington Beach–based singer-songwriter expands the Brushfire folk-rock palette with psych-pop leanings. Costa played and produced this one himself, with indie guru Phil Ek fixing the mix. It’s his strongest set yet. Check out “The Season”: myspace.com/mattcostamusic.... Ramona Mainstage wrangles country outlaw David Allan Coe, who claims to have written over 10,000 songs recorded by hunnerds of different performers, including the Dead Kennedys and Pantera. You may know “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile”...how about “Take This Job and Shove It”?... Art-punk supergroup Ghetto Blaster (Fishwife, Hostile Combover, Rats Eyes) turns up at Bar Pink with loud-ass Los Angelenos the Makeup Sex.
Friday 8
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women do time at Belly Up. Downey Dave’s best known for his time in the roots-rocking Blasters with his brother Phil and then taking the stage with punkabilly perennials X after the departure of lead guitarist Billy Zoom. Also, dude’s a Grammy winner for Best Traditional Folk collection, Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land — essential set, folk fan. Last year’s Yep Roc Records debut with all-female SanFran band the Guilty Women is a barn-burner, and hear tell they tear it up live. Our own “peace, love, and honky-tonk” honey Sara Petite will set the Solana Beach stage. This is the gig to get to, y’all.... If you miss the door on Cedros, upthataway Edgar Winter’s riding Rebel Road into Ramona Mainstage.... While ’round town, L.A. indie acts the Finches and Voices on Tape roll at Tin Can Ale House...Acid-jazz cats Pocket funk up Bar Pink with some of the sexiest electric grooves you never heard. Why haven’t you checked them out yet?...and Yesterday magazine celebrates its second issue at Ruby Room this weekend with a ton of local talent. Check it: Friday night ya get Dynamite Walls, Silent Comedy, Long Live Logos, and Vinyl Film; Saturday it’ll be Get Back Loretta, Paddle Boat, Endoxi, and Albatross. You can grab the read at any one of your three favorite shops: M-Theory, Lou’s, or Paras News.
Saturday 9
This’d be the best day to hit the Joshua Tree Roots Fest. For 50 bucks you get that wide-open high-desert awesomeness and some of the best rootsicananewgrassfolkadelic fare out there. Saturday sees Or, the Whale, Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons, the Lee Boys, These United States, Langhorne Slim, etcet etcet. They keep it rolling Sunday, too, for you never-say-diers. Click this for the full list: joshuatreemusicfestival.com.... In town: plink-rock duo Phantogram join Why? guy Josiah Wolf at Casbah...Comic-actor-writer-musician-Egyptologist Steve Martin mans the banjo for the bluegrassy Steep Canyon Rangers at Balboa Theatre...still on the bluegrass tip, Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings does its thing at the Acoustic Music San Diego showcase...L.A. post-punk duo Killing Bees swarm Eleven (née Radio Room) with the aforementioned Ghetto Blaster.... Up north, you got Celtic folkies the Young Dubliners doling clog rock at Belly Up...and, hoo doggies, Jed! Vanilla freaking Ice will rock the mic at Ramona Mainstage behind his sixth studio offering, WTF, which the Iceman says stands for “wisdom, tenacity, and focus.” I believe I’ve heard it all now.
Sunday 10
Go hang out in Normal Heights Sunday, as Eleven sets up a spicy afternoon jam with lots of borderland barbecue and Mario Escovedo’s MEX collective dishing the party rock con salsa. Oktoberfiesta?... And then a couple blocks east, Soda Bar serves up an Art Fag cocktail of electronic rock, featuring Portland artist Johnny Jewel’s bands Glass Candy and the Chromatics with this week’s unexpected grin-winners, Clevelanders Cloud Nothings. You like jangle pop, too? Check ’em out: myspace.com/cloudnothings. Art Fag’s resident DJ Mario Orduno will spin round sets.
Monday 11
Belly Up books NYC Gypsy punx Gogol Bordello. The nonet is out to tout this year’s Rick Rubin–produced Trans-Continental Hustle. GB signed to Rubin’s L.A.-based American Recordings for this, their fifth and biggest critical and commercial success yet. A lot of fun live, too, as Eugene Hütz is one of the most animated and engaging front men going.... Else: Seattle sludge rockers the Melvins Anti-Monday it up at Casbah behind their 20th (!), The Bride Screamed Murder. Like-minded Los Angelenos Totimoshi go first.... Aussie indie-poppers Crayon Fields sound as if they’ll be coloring outside the lines at Soda Bar with Heavy Hawaii and Escondido’s tasty skategazer Scruffles. Sounds good, Jon.
Tuesday 12
More visitors from Down Under on Tuesday, as the Hoodoo Gurus hit Belly Up with the Heartaches. The Gurus broke in the early ’80s with college-rock staples Stoneage Romeos and famous follow-up Mars Needs Guitars! The quartet signed to Sony for this year’s Purity of Essence.... Also back from the ’80s, Talking Heads Tina and Chris and the Tom Tom Club, who will play Casbah in support of the remaster release of Close to the Bone, the ’83 follow-up to their dancelicious debut. The equally dancelicious Rafter will warm the floor.... Dust off yer shitkickers, shitkickers, as the Legendary Shack Shakers take the stage at Soda Bar behind Bob Wayne & the Outlaw Carnies and our own country skrunks, the Screamin YeeHaws. Can I say shitkickers on TV?
Wednesday 13
Hump-night highlights: the Morning Benders will wake and bake Belly Up behind super-solid crit hit Big Echo. I love that one...English electropoppers Hot Chip hit House of Blues behind this year’s One Life Stand...local electric folkies Blackout Party darken the door at Bar Pink...noise-pop experimentalists Zola Jesus, Broken Spindles, and Spirit Photography fill a bill at Soda Bar...and Portland folk-pop band Blind Pilot crashes into Casbah. No, you shut up.
— Barnaby Monk