The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

By LA Weekly Mon., Dec. 10 2012 at 3:35 AM

Categories: Los Angeles Concerts

Timothy Norris

Public Enemy -- See Thursday

Monday, December 10

Lamps
PEHRSPACE
Lamps are punk (like Chrome? Or Suicide?). They're from space (like Hawkwind?) but also from hell (like Electric Eels!), where everything melts together into a big hot white ball of confusion that's bright enough to give off some sick kind of light but which will turn you to ash in a second if you touch it. (Are the guitars on here being murdered? Or are they murdering something else?) Anybody who ever gritted their teeth in a traffic jam with one of the nastier Oh Sees albums jammed in the tape deck needs to buy Lamps' newest, Under the Water Under the Ground, and then break it into pieces and eat it to correctly absorb its primal power. Or, yes, you could listen to it in its entirety, but that's gonna do far stranger things to your system. A great band in a crazy way. --Chris Ziegler

Tuesday, December 11

John Cale
EL REY THEATRE
It would be convenient to place John Cale into some nostalgic little box, given the massive impact he's had on underground and (once the rest of the world caught up with him) mainstream music during the past 50 years. He's most celebrated for his crucial contributions to the Velvet Underground, anointing Lou Reed's druggy tales of sin and no redemption with a classical veneer that made already strange songs like "Venus in Furs" and "Sister Ray" sound even more hazily exotic. He would be a legendary figure if only for the many important musicians he discovered and championed, producing, arranging and collaborating on classic works by The Stooges, Patti Smith, tTe Modern Lovers, Nico and Nick Drake. Cale is so avant-garde, he's held his own with the visionary likes of Terry Riley, John Cage and La Monte Young. His solo albums in the 1970s were impressively dark and literary but, with a creative mind this restless, he's continued to make interesting and unpredictable music all the way through this year's release, Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood, where he even collaborated with Danger Mouse. --Falling James

Thursday, December 13

Public Enemy, X-Clan, Schooly D, Monie Love
CLUB NOKIA
Characterized by Chuck D's penetrating delivery and unapologetic social commentary, Public Enemy is one of hip-hop's most important acts. Their avant-garde sonic milieu, saturated with black militancy and noise, took the world by storm in the late '80s and early '90s with the legendary releases Yo! Bum Rush the Show, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet. In 2012, Public Enemy released two thematically related LPs: Most of My Heroes Still Don't Appear on No Stamp and The Evil Empire of Everything. The group has since embarked on a tour with the father of gangsta rap, Schooly D. This quasi-Native Tongues reunion also features X Clan and Monie Love. --Jacqueline Michael Whatley