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Tuesday, November 12
The Murder City Devils w/ TSOL
The Observatory
Our favorite ball-busting, electric organ-drenched, sinister-vocaled garage rock band of all time plays an exciting show at the Observatory this week. A Murder City Devils show is something to grab onto tight when it swings by–the band plays few shows a year (fortunately for us, usually on the West Coast) with new material released only once in the last decade. But Murder City fans are a die-hard sort–we'll wait as long as it takes for a chance to witness the throaty howl of singer Spencer Moody live onstage. They play Tuesday night–giving us a healthy dose of mayhem before they disappear again into the fog of hometown, Seattle. They'll be joined by our favorite Huntington Beach punk legends TSOL, fronted of course by Jack Grisham who writes a column for us every week called True Story.(Erin DeWitt)
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Wednesday, November 13
Audacity
Continental Room
Before they had completed high school, Audacity realized their destiny with a Milo Goes to College-Adolescents, teen-genius-punk LP on Burger called Power Drowning. It proved not only the kids, but also the actual world was all right. And once that was rolling, they became the much-loved little brothers of the Burger Records boys . . . and once that got them all over the USA, they'd become such a preternaturally ripping unit that other already-ripping dudes–F.Y.P and Toys That Kill's Todd Congelliere, King Tuff's King Tuff–enlisted them as a self-contained backing band. Sometime during all that, they recorded their second album Butterkife with so much energy it's shaking like a time bomb on the last 10 seconds. And of course at some point in there, they became legal to be in the bars they always played. (Chris Ziegler)
Beats Antique
The Yost Theater
Bay area world-tronica band Beats Antique are going old school on their newest album–actually, they're kind of going primordial, with a two-part treatment of the ancient Campbellian hero's journey called A Thousand Faces. (If you've seen Star Wars, you know how the hero's journey goes.) Although Act 1 ends on something of a musical cliffhanger, with the punny title “Veil of Tears” and a particularly tense Middle Eastern melody over a relentless electronic beat, the rest of the album zig zags from style to style and mood to mood as our character presses ever on. And Les Claypool adds his own unique atmosphere to the song that brings the villain into the light. Act 2 isn't out as an album yet, but Beats Antique plan to perform plenty of illuminating new material live. So enjoy the rare live music show that deserves a spoiler alert. (Chris Ziegler)
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Tycho
The Observatory
Tycho is the stage name of Scott Hansen, a rising star out of San Francisco whose sound craft centers in the electronic/ambient music genre. Though his music is sufficiently unique enough to defy simple classification, his sound calls to mind the artists of chill wave style, notably Toro y Moi. But where Toro seeks to infuse structure into his sound, Tycho seeks to deconstruct. Listening to the floating melodies interspersed with keyboard bleeps and rustles, it's hard not to think of a glass of water whose walls have disappeared, and the bounty of liquid drifts into the cosmos. (Brandon Ferguson)
The Grinning Ghosts
Father's Pub N Grub
Exuding a cool, garage pop sound that echoes bits of sunny indie rock in a lo-fi vein, the music of The Grinning Ghosts somehow betrays their gloomy, black and white album covers that take from classic films. Listening to the group's album Pastiche Depressionism, I can't help but be reminded of early Beat Happening, if Beat Happening used more fuzzy garage guitar and surf rock melodies. Calling themselves a scrappy rock n' roll band, The Grinning Ghosts are poised for more prominence in these coming months. These local talents are hitting Father's Pub tonight with fellow frenetic OC-based acts Bellhaunts, Bella Novela and The Kyms, for a hip-shaking, dancey feel good time.
(Aimee Murillo)
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