The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend
Friday, January 4
Lord Huron
Los Cincos, Silver Daggers, et al, at The Smell's Quinceañera
THE SMELL
When a truly DIY, all-ages space lasts for 15 years, you don't celebrate a birthday -- you celebrate a victory! So let's salute L.A.'s Smell, which has survived and even thrived to become a hometown institution. It's presenting a two-day blowout of reunion show after reunion show this weekend, featuring the bands who helped build it. Tonight, marvel at ahead-of-their-time '60s revivifiers Los Cincos (who probably would provoke a bidding war if they were reincarnated in 2012) as well as no-wave omnivores Silver Daggers, maximalists Godzik Pink and stripped-down, cranked-up riff-rawkers The Pope and Qui. Tomorrow, don't miss the intensely wild and weird Centimeters and Smell champions The Sharp Ease, as well as honorary out-of-town Smellers Get Hustle and the gloriously overstimulating Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound, plus Pope and Godzik Pink redux and a DJ set by Allison Wolfe. --Chris Ziegler
Lord Huron
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
Transplanted-to-L.A. Michigander Lord Huron (aka Ben Schneider) makes indie pop to fit the line where the horizon hits the sky -- big, beautifully endless songs that sunrise and sunset instead of just "starting" and "stopping." His debut album, Lonesome Dreams (on L.A. label Iamsound), is full of what the world calls anthems (which means songs you save for either the perfect end or perfect beginning of your mixtape -- and believe that if you're into Lord Huron, you still make mixtapes). These are world-pop guitar melodies that wrap around you like smoke, with an affection for the cinematic that makes this almost more a short film than an album. His set at the Natural History Museum will be like being inside the movie he's destined to one day make. --Chris Ziegler
See also: Stand Back: These Los Angeles Bands Are About to Blow Up
Neurosis
FONDA THEATRE
While other bands play doom-metal, San Francisco's Neurosis plays apocalypse-metal. Band leaders Scott Kelly and Steve von Till have spent more than two decades crafting art-metal soundscapes that rely more on atmosphere than speed. There is little moshing to be found. Instead, a typical Neurosis song is a melancholy slow-burner that builds a sense of despair before morphing into a skyscraper of monstrous riffs and percussion, leaving listeners emotionally drained. Lyrically, Neurosis spin haunting tales of destruction, without falling into meathead bombs-and-bullets fetishization. They tell stories of biblical-level plagues and disasters from the perspective of a protagonist who has survived these things and lost all hope. The band's newest album is titled Honor Found in Decay, which sums up their approach to music and lyrics. --Jason Roche
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The Smell
247 S. Main St., Los Angeles, CA
Category: Music
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Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Category: General
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