Photo by Jeanne RiceTHE ORANGE COUNTY MUSIC AWARDS
IT'S THE COMMIE GIRL SHOW!
Questions swirling around the fourth annual Orange County Music Awards: What potentially controversial utterings will emerge from the mouth of show MC Rebecca "Commie Girl" Schoenkopf? And who will she be wearing? Why are Mollystongue nominated in the Best Punk category when they're so clearly notpunk, but rather punk-esque? Whose previous OCMA live performance dwarfed all others when it comes to supersonic fantazmic spectacularness (not so fast there, Ashley Bee!)? What kind of an OCMA is this when Scarlet Crush aren't nominated their usual 27 times? The Chris Cox that's nominated for Best Jam Band can't possibly be the same Chris Cox who's the diabolical OC congressman, can he? Will audience members throw drinks again at Chris Paul Overall? Will Vaylor win Best High School Band because they're so awful in a really good way or because they're so good in a really awful way? Why do 40 percent of the nominated blues bands insist on having the word "blue" in their name? Why no category for Best Skin Flute Player? Will a gaggle of bad Gene Simmons impersonators show up outside to protest the show like they did last year? Will OCMA founder Martin Brown manage to squeeze in an Al Stewart reference sometime during the evening? And since there are again no Christian music categories, why does Martin Brown still hate Jesus?
THE ORANGE COUNTY MUSIC AWARDS AT THE GROVE OF ANAHEIM, 2200 E. KATELLA AVE., ANAHEIM, (714) 712-2700. SAT., 8 P.M. $22.50.
LOUIS XIV
PRETTY HYPE MACHINE
So there's this band, Louis XIV. From San Diego. Used to be a subpar alterna-band called Convoy. We started hearing the next-big-thing buzz several months ago, which immediately made us hate them without ever hearing a note. Then in January, their label sent us an EP, which we slipped into our box to see if the hype was deserved. The slow, crawling intro; the thunderclap drums; the wheedle-y guitars that sounded strangely reminiscent of AndJusticeforAllMetallica . . . because it wasAndJusticeforAllMetallica—and somebody at the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic pressing plant screwed up (such is life when you overlord a catalog of zillions; thanks for the free copy of Justice,though. Our cassette melted on our dashboard during the summer of '92). Finally securing some realLouis XIV music—their debut full-length, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept—we've ruled that they're a perfectly fine, capable li'l rock & roll band, more quality fallout from the Strokes pseudo-revolution of 2001 (y'know the clichés: catchy melodies, hooky guitars, blah, blah, blah). Let's just brand them inoffensive, then, shall we? Except maybe for the fake New Yawk/London accents that seem to pepper their songs. And that naked-lady album-cover art, which these days can onlybe ironic.
LOUIS XIV WITH DEATHRAY DAVIES AT THE GALAXY CONCERT THEATRE, 3503 S. HARBOR BLVD., SANTA ANA, (714) 957-0600. SAT., 8 P.M. $12-$14.
