WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS
Because of holiday printing schedules, I’m putting this together a week, even two weeks in advance. So it’s incomplete, could even have some errors (last minute changes in booking).
But here’s the good news, there is enough here to keep you busy and happy.
Also -- I stand behind all my recommendations but keep expanding the palette of the NOTEWORTHY column so as to be the most useful to readers,, and I should explain that the COMING ATTRACTIONS are usually but not necessarily full-blown RECOMMENDATIONS. If they are, you will know it as their week comes up. They’ll either get the full treatment or vanish.
Oh -- and I trust you have figured out that DTSM means downtown Santa Monica and DTLA...
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
THE YOUNG DUBLINERS (they rock, they’re Irish, well half of them are, they’ve released 10 albums including a new one and one of Irish ballads and they’ll play from the whole stew with guaranteed high energy, a rare opportunity to see them in such an intimate venue and you don’t even have to leave SM), Sat 9 p.m., Harvelle’s, DTSM, $20.
RECOMMENDED:
LOS LOBOS (few could have predicted the breadth, depth, longevity, import and critical acclaim of this ”just another band from East LA” when they burst on the scene in the late ‘70s, there was no place for them, really, in popular music and they had to create it, they have explored so many directions it’s impossible to predict what you’ll hear at any Los Lobos show except to know that it will be exceptional and mostly danceable), Fri The Canyon Agoura Hills, Sat The Canyon Santa Clarita, Sun The Rose, Pasadena, Tues The Canyon Montclair, 9 p.m., $38-$68.
ENGLISH BEAT (they were The Beat in England but some bozo American group after the fact took and registered that name so in America they had to be billed as The English Beat, not quite the same, is it? -- so here’s the scoop, co-founder and mostly-featured vocalist Dave Wakeling, longtime Pacific Palisades resident who obviously has some solid deal with the devil to look not that much different than he did 40 years ago, plays with a band he puts together who always has the ability to play to the note the Beat and General Public songs, missing now, sadly, the voice of Ranking Roger who passed at 56 last March, but he only sporadically rejoined Wakeling for some time, so when you go to an English Beat concert you will be blown away at how many great songs they had, not just one or two, and how much they take you back to the early ‘80s with Wakeling’s still-strong vocals, I had them/him on my cable TV show called Not Just Another LA Music Show in the mid-’90s and Wakeling brought an entire sound setup that resulted in possible musically the best show I did out of 75), Fri, Sun Saint Rocke, Hermosa Beach, Tues The Coach House, San Juan Capistrano.
THE WORLD IS MY HOME – THE LIFE OF PAUL ROBESON (looks like this is making a one-night return, after wide-spread acclaim, there was hardly a more interesting character in American history and the arts and politics than Paul Robeson, its a "Turn-of-the-Century Love Story" about the triumphs and tragedy of this great American, told with music, comedy, passion and heartfelt emotion that delves into Jim Crow Laws, the Holocaust, the Harlem Renaissance, his complex 44 year marriage to Eslanda and his close friendship with Albert Einstein and his affection for the Jewish people, Jamaican-born, Brooklyn-bred TV and stage star Stogie Kenyatta plays 12 characters and ages from 5 to 65, with props, wardrobe changes and an irresistible soundtrack from Louie, Ellington, Coltrane, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Robeson himself). Sun 7 p.m., Santa Monica Playhouse, DTSM, $30.
HOT CLUB OF LA (if Django was still alive he would sit in with these guys, and have to hustle to keep up, they really are good, they’re there at the tiny funky cool Cinema Bar every Monday night for years and there’s no cover so… get going!), Mon 9 p.m., The Cinema Bar, Culver City, free.
LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE (Obama had a boyhood crush on her, she slept with Gov. Jerry Brown on a mattress on the floor of his $250/mo. zen-unfurnished apartment in Sacrament, she had an amazing voice and a landmark career despite insecurities and stage fright, if you didn’t see this in the theaters a few months ago when it ran forever, much longer legs than most docs, then you can pat yourself on the back for being smart and saving 12 bucks and now as you regain consciousness New Year’s Day you can skip dinner, microwave your own Orville Redenbacher, have endless refills on your big gulps and relax on the couch in your underwear in front of your big screen with surround sound, crank it up, please, as you get the inside story on this remarkable woman, not just for her thrilling voice but for her persistence to excel and break ground in music and other areas as well, and as her buddy Dolly Parton put it, “that girl can sing ANYthing!”), Wed 6 p.m., CNN.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: MEHTA’S MAHLER, #2, “Resurrection,” 1/3, 4, 5 - 2020, M. conducts WAGNER, SCHOENBERG, WEBERN, 1/10, 11, 12 - 2020, JASON ISBELL acoustic, 1/10 - 2020, LAURIE ANDERSON & CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE, 1/21 - 2020, BEETHOVEN with EMANUEL AX, 1/24, 25, 26 - 2020, Disney Hall, DTLA; BAD HABITS, 1/4-26 -- 2020, Ruskin Group Theatre, SMO; BARBARA MORRISON, 1/7, 14, 21, 28 - 2020, Pip’s on La Brea; SOUNDWAVES/Pianospheres: Richard Valitutto, 1/9 - 2020, SOUNDWAVES: Daniel Rothman, 1/15 - 2020, SM Main Library; KT TUNSTALL, 1/10 - 2020, The Canyon Monclair; PITTANCE CHAMBER MUSIC with LIV REDPATH, soprano, 1/11 - 2020, Pasadena Conservatory of Music; LIBRARY GIRL - Tribute to BILLIE HOLIDAY, 1/12 - 2020, Ruskin Group Theatre, SMO; JOACHIM COODER, 1/12 - 2020, DAVE ALVIN & FRIENDS: A Tribute to Chris Gaffney, 1/18 - 2020, ERIC ANDERSEN, SCARLET RIVERA, 1/25 - 2020, McCabe’s, SM; LED ZEPAGAIN, 1/11 - 2020, Harvelle’s; STANLEY CLARKE BAND and LYRIS QUARTET, 1/18 - 2020, Broad Stage, SM; VILLAGE PEOPLE, 1/25, The Saban, BH; LA OPERA - EURYDICE, 2/1-23 - 2020, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, DTLA; PHAST PHREDDIE & THEE PRECISIONS Reunion! 2/1 -2020, Burbank somewhere; JACARANDA - PAX AMERICANA I & II, 2/2 - 2020, First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, DTSM; MAVIS STAPLES, 2/13 - 2020, The Soraya, CSUN.
Charles Andrews has listened to a lot of music of all kinds, including more than 2,000 live shows. He has lived in Santa Monica for 33 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
