The weekend starts Friday, with the Get Up Kids swinging through Pomona's Glass House. One of our featured artists in this week's music section, the quintet's members have long since passed any form of being kids in favor of having their own. Yet the band's ups, downs and all-arounds, combined with a small but heavily worshiped discography, have cemented them as pop-punk lodestones for scores of bands, even if co-lead singer Jim Suptic once apologized for all the bad examples they inadvertently inspired.
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Saturday will be an out-of-nowhere nostalgia moment thanks to Marcy Playground, who appear at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. Afflicted with the alt-rock one-hit-wonder syndrome that ended up defining the '90s more than most realize (Deep Blue Something, anyone?), Marcy Playground have released several albums since “Sex and Candy” peaked. But if there's a measure of a band's commitment, it's probably as simple as keeping at it, no matter the vagaries of fame, so credit goes to John Wozniak and Dylan Keefe for plugging away.
Sunday is nostalgia of a deeper and specifically British sort with Ian Hunter's show at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana. Heading up the brief Mott the Hoople live reunion in 2009 was an unexpected treat, but the real pleasure lay in someone born shortly before World War II still able to rock out like nobody's business. Hunter's gift for biting wit masking deep sympathy helps to explain the reverence his solo work and that of Mott's still holds to this day. This show will be the conclusion of a brief California tour.
Sunday also brings some younger noise with Kamikaze, Sassafras and Anesthetic Frank— and we admit we love that name–at Alex's Bar in Long Beach. The self-described LA sludge punks in Kamikaze stick to a tried-and-true approach on their recently released debut EP–namely, “noisy as hell.” Appropriate considering the title of that EP is Tinnitus. But this bunch definitely has a certain something going on, not least a good eye for visual design via the website–and one has to admire the instrument credits for member Nicole, which read, “drums/shotgun.”
On Tuesday, She Screams Remedy takes a turn in this week's OC Music Awards showcase performance at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa. The Anaheim-based band has a name that suggests a born-too-late MTV emo-dude act from 2005, but, surprisingly, there actually is a woman in the band (lead singer Kyrsten Gammon). Our Locals Only featured artist for the week, they'll be opening the show, followed by Entice, Railroad to Alaska, Pistolero and Seedless–and, as with other OCMA showcases, the show is free of charge.
