Kevin Scanlon

Maria del Pilar performs Aug. 4 at MacArthur Park

In an exclusive to West Coast Sound, the Levitt Pavilions in Pasadena and MacArthur Park have revealed the lineups to their massive, free summer concert series -- almost 100 shows between the two venues.

This year features everything from Latin alternative to folk, indie and world music. Highlights include former Los Abandoned frontwoman Maria del Pilar (aka Pilar Diaz), noisy garage rocker Hanni El Khatib, cacophonic big band Killsonic, Sara Watkins of contemporary folk trio Nickel Creek and Mexico City-based electronic outfit Mexican Institute of Sound. The full list is below.

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Katy Baugh

*Top 20 Worst Bands Ever: The Complete List
*Top 20 Musicians of All Time, in Any Genre: The Complete List
*Top 20 Sexiest Female Musicians of All Time: The Complete List
*Top 20 Sexiest Male Musicians of All Time: The Complete List

Considering that most all of today's popular music -- be it rock, pop, dance or rap -- sprang from genres pioneered by black musicians, being all Caucasian about your songs is to literally betray your roots. To qualify as one of our whitest musicians, then, requires more than a pasty complexion, it requires a near-total disregard for jazz, blues and soul or, even worse, a complete whitewashing of them. Without further ado, then, here are 20 performers who put the you-know-what in honky-tonk. -Ben Westhoff

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Danielle Bacher

See also:
*Glenn Danzig's Amazing Art Collection
*The Craziest Danzig Stalker of Them All
*Glenn Danzig's Head On Other People's Bodies: An Appreciation

Glenn Danzig is a hard man to get face time with, so we were extremely psyched to meet up with him at his management company's Wilshire Blvd. office. The veteran metalhead cut an imposing figure: compact and muscular frame, long dark hair, sunglasses, leather jacket and intense demeanor. Adding to the scene was a creepy life-sized Clown from Slipknot doll staring at us from the corner of the room. You can see it below.

To our surprise, he turned out to be polite and forthcoming, talking about his Danzig Legacy Tour, on which he and his band will be performing songs from the Misfits, Samhain and Danzig, in similar fashion to his Halloween show at Gibson. (It hits SoCal tomorrow night, May 26 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.) It was a thrill talking to him, and topics discussed included his feelings about the current Misfits, folks he talks to (Rick Rubin), folks he doesn't (Jerry Only), his fighting background, how he would have played Wolverine in X-Men and how our story about a guy who stalked him was wrong.

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Shannon Corr

Punk legends XBXRX have a reputation for raucous shows, driven by their frenzied stage theatrics that have sometimes left members hospitalized. The group, which is now based in L.A. and performs at Silver Lake Jubilee tomorrow, are quite provocative, donning various uniforms for performances, and sometimes eschewing song titles.

Their name may be intentionally meaningless -- "Just trying to keep the focus on the art and the music, and not about us as people," says guitarist Steve Touchstone -- but they're pretty badass. In fact, they've gotten themselves banned from venues about a million times.

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KCRW Broadcast #166 for Saturday, May 26, 2012

See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! South Africa's Present and Future

Fanatics! What a show! So many new tracks! Besides that, we give our thanks to some great musicians who have recently passed away. The last few weeks have been very tough with all the sad news of Chuck Brown, Adam Yauch, Duck Dunn, Donna Summer and Robin Gibb.

I am back from the shows in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and what a great time all that was. I got back here a few days ago and almost immediately wanted to go back to the airport and fly back to NZ and start it all over again.

Since I have been out, a lot of records have come into the office. I brought back quite a few from tour, so there's a lot to sort through and over the next few weeks, we will get into some of these.

Tonight, we have a lot of firsts. Let's get into it!

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The new Los Globos

See also: Los Globos Gets A Hip New Reinvention

Less than a year after Sunset Junction went down in flames, Silver Lake's music scene is again the subject of civic tension, as its neighborhood council has threatened to bring down the Los Globos nightclub.

Owner Steven Edelson purchased the venue last summer, and proceeded to overhaul its interior, menu, and musical offerings. According to both him and minutes from a May 7 public safety committee meeting for the council, a handful neighbors living near the club -- located at Sunset and Vendome -- are complaining about noise and rowdy behavior, and are threatening to take action against the club, including seeking a revocation of its liquor license.

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Timothy Norris

See also:
*The Pharcyde's Bizarre Ride, 20 Years Later: 
An Appreciation
*Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums Of All Time: The Complete List

The Pharcyde
The Roxy
5/23/12

Better than ... listening to the album.

The city's been a little tense lately, honking on the freeway, power drinking, and slinking off to Best Buy to replace smashed television sets. But now that we're out of the basketball playoffs, the Pharcyde did their best to restore our "don't sweat it" mentality. The Roxy last night was packed and steamy, perfect conditions for the group to perform one of the greatest albums ever cooked from the city's time-tested recipe of women, weed and weather, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde.

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Louisville, Kentucky-based punk-metal act the Hookers are among the hardest-hitting and most under-appreciated forces in contemporary music. Their sound -- screamingly pure, brutally focused, dangerously loud, dreamily vehement -- evokes a particularly nasty Southern subculture (ever heard of the Confederacy of Scum?) that has mostly, and thankfully, festered in the dark.

It ain't pretty, it ain't for everyone, but if you're a rocker, these guys are of critical importance. Tonight, they're billed with the 70-something underworld rock & roll overlord Simon Stokes (one of Hookers' lead vocalist Adam Neal's idols) at the Redwood. We spoke with Neal about American culture, Satan and destroying shit.

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​[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.]

A few hours from now, I will be climbing onto the stage at a venue called the Bassline, here in Johannesburg, South Africa. This will be my third time performing in this country. The audiences have been, in all the cities I have played here, really good. South Africa is a relatively new stop on my tour. I now come here after my shows in Perth, Australia. The 11-hour flight and time change leave me a little dazed for a day or two, but I turn around pretty quickly.

I'm currently staying in a place called Melrose Arch. It looks like a gated city-state. I think I am put up here for insurance reasons, or perhaps it gives my great promoter John one less thing to worry about. The bodyguard, Zenzo, he's definitely part of the insurance package.

Yesterday was a day off. I went with Zenzo to Soweto (South West Townships) and we walked around for quite a while. Most interesting was visiting Nelson Mandela's old home there.

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See also:
*The Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All-Time: 20-16
*The Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All-Time: 15-11
*The Top 20 Whitest Musicians of All Time: 10-6
*Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time

5. Radiohead
Go ahead and turn on VH1 right now. You know those bands playing in the background
of your favorite hot mess celeb reality show? Notice how they all sound like some pop
crossover version of Kid A? The prosecution rests. Radiohead went from being maudlin alt rock radio standard bearers to self-consciously difficult and avant-garde. They're currently the preferred artistic rock band for people who don't like artistic rock, with NPR-listening Volvo drivers everywhere lapping it up. -Nicholas Pell

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