Sabbath Was the Blob

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30
Norwalker Horns gore the hell out of the avanter hardcore that PCH club used to feast on. Drive Like velocity for Blonde Red dynamic at Alex's. Yeah, that's all right!

 

FRIDAY
Just a matter of time: Peter Case did one third of the Nerves (who are more name-checked now than the Screamers) and then when that perfect little band cracked like an iceberg he floated off with the Plimsouls, who used a certain kind of guitar tone to flirt with girls from a million miles away and who were probably one of the best power-pop bands to have to try and be alive during the '80s, and who are also alive right now! Get me baby at the Coach House.

AND: Rapper Declaime confused the multitudes when he went back to his birth name of Dudley and started to siiiiing in a froggy folk-blues voice over dissipated Madlib beats, but it made for a pretty intriguing album. His Expressions (2012 A.U.) was a listener's-listener record: lots of connections lighting up, which is fun the first time through and revelatory by increments each time next, a reverse-engineering trip that tells you where and when Dudley comes from. Which is America, the year What Goes On came out, it seems like, plus Archie Shepp and James Brown and George Clinton, too. So what's going on at the Blue Caf with LD N Ariano back in town with LMNO.

AND: New Ariano solo song on the LD N Ariano MySpace. Sounds real good.

PLUS: Queensryche commit crimes against the mind at the HOB for two nights.

SATURDAY
Ex-Agnostic Frontman Roger Miret drags his Disasters to the Blue Caffor the kind of thing they call punk 'n' roll: guitar parts like the Heartbreakers and drum parts like Heart Attack for heartfelt stack-o-amps anthem-band stuff that sounds like oozing blue tattoos look. Disasters just dropped their label Hellcat but they stick to that kind of sound so this is a show that if you know, you go, and if you don't, it is beyond my capacity to educate you.

AND: Melvins sludge is so pseudo-sentient these days that it absorbed an entire band: Pac NW's Big Business, who escape nightly for opening sets but then sink back into Monster Melvin to make the most punishing heavy rock delivery system since the trebuchet. It's like if Black Sabbath was the blob at Detroit.

 

SUNDAY
Shape Shifters
psycho/psychedelic rap in important full-line-up performance at Chain: long time since all together locally but these guys keep busy with solo outs and side projects that are all coming up great lately. Existereo is hip-hop Zelig cutting tracks with everyone in the hemisphere—last report I heard was work with CoFlo's Bigg Jus—and Life Rexall had crazy banger band $martyr with 2MEX and Awol even hid a secret punk song at the end of his last album (he likes the Ramones) and . . . who else? Die/LA Jae/Akuma/Radioinactive and Circus all been popping around local shows but Shape Shifters as Shape Shifters haven't done an album or full OC set for a while so get this for total overload.

PLUS: New scuzz rock noise objects Crystal Antlers at Alex's for bluest cheers!

MONDAY
Gun Club by way of Bon Jovi makes Briertone ready for Coyote Ugly; I think forgetting everything they heard in high school and replacing it with everything Dead Moon ever recorded would do very much good for these guys, but it's also nice to see something in Detroit that probably likes Lynyrd Skynyrd as much as it likes Radiohead.

TUESDAY
You know I got to say I was never fair to Jenny Lewis because that California country album last year had hidden songs that corrected even me: first time I heard the persona split and the person sing out with lines about d-i-v-o-r-c-e done fine like my favorite John Prine. Say Jenny: “[My mother] was waitressing on welfare and we were living in the Valley, and a lady says to my mom, 'You treat your girl as your spouse . . .'” Aw, well, something there rings out sad and real and clear and if show-biz second-guessers don't damp it down for the next album I predict she could get something that was really something. Your flag decal won't get you into the Bren Center with Death Cab for Cutie.

WEDNESDAY
You got it made or so you thank!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7
Local lovefest with unbreakable post-ponk from Geisha Girls, Fall-go-gothisms from former cover features Squab and the stuckist everyman rock N roll of the Thingz, who play the kind of nourishing grawge crud you can eat three times a day, like potatoes or pizza. You're full at Alex's.

Visit blogs.ocweekly.com/music for venue listings and information.

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