The Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

By LA Weekly Mon., Feb. 11 2013 at 3:30 AM

Categories: Los Angeles Concerts

Nous Non Plus -- See Thursday

Monday, February 11

Hindu Pirates
SILVERLAKE LOUNGE
The days of oh-so-crude adjectives like "surf" and "garage" are well behind O.C.'s Hindu Pirates now. For while the Pirates are in fact darlings of the surf-skate industry, as evidenced by their clean and pristine session last year at Hurley's in-house studio, they're also power pop with just a little bit of grit for traction, sort of like The Strokes when they first came out. (Or Rodney on the ROQ when he first came out, for that matter.) There's a little bit of The Jam in the guitars, a tiny bit of The Stones in the way these songs chug-chug along, perhaps a touch of Robert Pollard's magic touch and maybe some of the pre-Pinkerton Weezer in here, too. Really, this is the kind of guitar band the American suburbs built their reputation on. Put them on your mixtape today; put them in your TV show closing credits tomorrow! --Chris Ziegler

Tuesday, February 12

Beak
THE ECHOPLEX
Portishead's Geoff Barrow got together with a couple of mates named Matt Williams and Billy Fuller, and they formed a band called Beak. The trio recorded their self-titled debut album for Barrow's Invada label, a project launched with a sort of manifesto declaring that they would create songs entirely via improvisation, with all the musicians playing together in one room, and with no bleedin' overdubs or tarting up after the fact. The results? A really choice mixture of off-kilter, brazenly sour-toned and, if you can imagine, resonantly ugly rock that drives-drives-drives. The band call it a "wobbly, anti-blue note sound," as good a descriptor as any we could come up with. Released in July, Beak's synth-ier second Invada album is entitled >>. It's even wobblier, and live onstage Beak wobbles quite wildly. --John Payne

Wednesday, February 13

Taylor Eigsti
BLUE WHALE
What defines "prodigy"? In this pianist's case, it means being inspired by Fattburger at age 2, and faithfully mimicking David Benoit solos at age 7. Taylor Eigsti is one of the few musicians raised on smooth jazz to become an outstanding straight-ahead artist. His playing certainly is smooth, but that's smooth like a Jägerbomb -- it will knock you on your ass before you even know what hit you. He wields a ferocious technique and a mature and unpredictable sense of harmony, with beautiful pianistic aesthetics. See Eigsti on Wednesday with bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Eric Harland, or go Thursday, when the excellent saxist Dayna Stephens joins the trio. Thursday is Valentine's Day, so if you go, best make sure your date understands that jazz is your first love. --Gary Fukushima

Stone Sour
CLUB NOKIA
Stone Sour will be forever associated with Slipknot, a band with which it shares both singer Corey Taylor and guitarist Jim Root. But not only does it precede that heavy-metal juggernaut; lately the more accessible Stone Sour has been approaching Slipknot's commercial clout. Blissfully uninterested in genre or niche, Stone Sour use the ominous riffage, melodic menace and uneasy harmonies of Alice in Chains (electric and acoustic) as starting points on last year's conceptual House of Gold & Bones -- Part 1, then wantonly amble around Metallica's anthemic thrash and entry-level Pink Floyd-style prog, all propelled by the paranormal punk panache of drummer Roy Mayorga (House of Gold & Bones -- Part 2 is due in April). Instrumentally immaculate, Stone Sour's crucial humanity lurks in Taylor's articulate, lyrical soul searching and marvelously textured, macho-yet-wounded delivery. --Paul Rogers