The Best Concerts To See in L.A. This Weekend: Oct. 12-14

By LA Weekly Fri., Oct. 12 2012 at 7:44 AM

Categories: Los Angeles Concerts

Busdriver

Friday, October 12

Busdriver
BOOTLEG THEATER
Behold rapper Busdriver, the polysyllabic polymath who is truly, beautifully and persistently on his own thing, including collabs with DIY experimental punk bands and the routine dispensation of Can references. He first blinded minds with a wordcram MC style closer to a fingertap guitar solo than what conventional science might consider rap, but in the decade or so since those first releases, he discovered a space all his own in between hip-hop, pop, electronica and experimental music of the most enthusiastic kind. Recent album Beaus$Eros and companion EP Arguments With Dreams (with guest spots from Nocando and Open Mike Eagle, also playing this show) put new satellites in the Busdriver sky -- all the better to beam down his messages to this, his possibly adopted home planet. --Chris Ziegler

The xx
HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM
This trio's eponymous 2009 debut, released when its members were just teenagers, triggered a buzz almost religious in its fervor. Follow-up album Coexist, released last month, continues where its predecessor left off both musically (harplike guitars; lonesome boy/girl vocals; bulbous chill-out grooves) and in critical response ("Intravenous and heavenly," gushed Drowned in Sound). Exquisite in execution and efficient of expression, these Brits squander neither a note nor a percussive event, embracing traditional structures and arrangements only when they speak to the song. Any writing template is camouflaged beneath the timbres of Romy Madley Croft (breathy; wounded; gently soulful) and Oliver Sim (lightly grained; conversationally sexy), and in-band producer Jamie Smith's artful training of club-born beats into messages more of the morning after than the night before. Also Saturday at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. --Paul Rogers

Saturday, October 13

Aimee Mann
WILSHIRE EBELL
When a slyly witty songwriter like Aimee Mann calls her new album Charmer, you can assume that at least a little bit of sarcasm lies just beneath the ostensibly sunny title. (Her previous album, after all, was cheerfully named @#%&*! Smilers.) "When you're a charmer, the world applauds," Mann confesses amid the deceptively perky New Wave keyboards of the title track. "They don't know that secretly charmers feel like they're frauds." Fraud or not, the former 'Til Tuesday singer has delivered an album that is indeed charming. She exchanges lovelorn advice with The Shins' James Mercer on the power-pop gem "Living a Lie," finds herself living in a "Crazytown" and even takes the time to laugh at her old image in footage for "Labrador," which parodies the video of 'Til Tuesday's 1985 hit, "Voices Carry." As usual, what brings it all home so effectively is Mann's melodic and distinctively rueful vocals. --Falling James