Chirp Where You At

Photo courtesy Atlantic RecordsTHURSDAY, OCT. 6
Bullet Train To Vegas drive like Jehu toward Alex's; Steve Spacek comes from other planets for a very special engagement at L_ephunk at Detroit.

FRIDAY
Irvine's favorite metalcore—all the speed, but serious technique—sons Thrice headline the hometown Bren just before their new album, Vheissu (from the book that contains Pynchon's most romantic image ever), explodes from the hole in which it is currently concealed. This is as big as Orange County gets, and there isn't a trumpet player anywhere—things are getting better.

PLUS: Against Me! gets the arena deals and Two Gallants gets the ratings, but This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb were the first and heartiest agit-country punk band, killing fascists with their machines—harmonicas, mostly—and touring America in a reconstituted yellow taxicab before anybody else had figured out you didn't have to play superloud to get the necessary attention. They're not a cult band, they're cult heroes. At Koo's.

PLUS: Selecter sound system at HOB; it never rains at Arrowhead Pond when the Eagles play; 00 Soul are 25 miles from home at Blue Cafe; Los Lonely Boys at the Vault.

SATURDAY
Punk's not dead but it sure smells like old cheese with the Exploited, who missed every point Johnny Rotten ever made but did notice how often he'd spit at things and where exactly a safety pin catches best when you poke it through your face. The joke's on them, but that's why they're still playing, isn't it? With our own-ish Channel 3 and refugees from the canceled-due-to-lack-of-sales Wasted Punk Festival at the Galaxy.

PLUS: If you like high-energy yellin' dudes with guitars turned up, might you go instead to see Japan's Electric Eel Shock at the HOB: Pacific Rim punk/metal/rock played by guys who come from a land where Guitar Wolf sets the standard. Your demand for insanity will be satisfied.

AND: (Club) Love reunion party at Detroit: house is in the house! Average White Band at the Coach House; you may be directed here to seek out recordings by James Brown's Above Average Black Band—AABB—who recorded a few tracks during the early '70s; Flogging Molly something-something dead leprechaun at the Vault.

SUNDAY
Westside Connector Mack 10, who went from Inglewood to the Dirty South (guest tracks with Master P) and back to LA with the song they used to play at Clippers home games. New album (featuring Nate Dogg—of course—but also B-Real) is Hustla's Handbook and new show is at the Vault.

PLUS: The Orphans torch Alex's; the Genitorturers are just how you'd think at the Galaxy; grand finale of downtempo club Relax, curated by 17th-scariest DJ Kristina B and featuring a dream team of local guests. Free at the Kitsch Bar.

MONDAY
Not-so-mad-chester-these-days band Doves serviceably rocks it up in the way that British people tend to do: guitar-guitar-guitar-and-now-here-comes-the-singing at the HOB.

TUESDAY
Are we not men? We are men or astromen! Devo-id surf-y rock & a billy with San Francisco's sci-fi Phenomenauts at the Alley.

WEDNESDAY
America's cell-phoniest rapper Fat Joe (CHIRP: "Where you at?"), who actually came up with KRS-ONE and Diamond D and even got in an excellent tussle with 50 Cent, responding with a dis track of his own but also deploying excellent tactical judgment: Joe claimed that 50 Cent had never actually performed in da or any club, as opposed to Joe, whose dues-paying live shows went back for years, and offered a million dollars for photographic proof of 50 on a small-venue stage. At press time, this reward was still unclaimed, though Joe had received several pictures of what experts later determined was Bigfoot. At HOB.

PLUS: Two-man wrecking crew DFA 1979—one day too early to meet the fully legal DFA at the HOB!—with openers the Mean Reds for an orgy of poorly chosen clothes and fast and screwy disco-d-beat. At the Glass House.

THURSDAY, OCT. 13
Then everything went black (T-shirt): Bleeding Through, Poison the Well, Eighteen Visions and Ignite unite for a teenage hardcore dream show at the Glass House. This one's got a $30 price tag—a deal, actually, when each of these bands plus three inferior opening acts would probably cost as much, and be at a Hollywood venue besides—but all proceeds go to further Hurricane Katrina repairs.

PLUS: Local tokers Kottonmouth Kings purport to have smoked up a hundred pounds of marijuana and dranked up a quarter-million cases of beer—right now in the Third World, someone just wants a drink of water—and even tallied 25 trips to the emergency room, which is street cred by the rawest of numbers, though how many of those emergency room visits were just for like inflamed prostates? Which is what really kept G.G. Allin down. Gigantic entertainment event at the Galaxy.

AND: Richard Swift gets welcomed home at Detroit; LCD Soundsystem gets the glory, but openers Juan MacLean do the same kind of thing with the same kind of talent and the same kind of good ideas at the HOB.

See Calendar listings for club locations. Also: be smart; call ahead.