The LA Setlist: July 15-21, 2024

As Jah Wobble closes in on a 50-year career spanning everything from punk and industrial music to ambient, dance, and folk, he remains best known for his relatively brief spell as a cofounder of post-punk upstarts Public Image Ltd (PiL) alongside John Lydon. For many aficionados, PiL’s first two albums, with bassist Wobble aboard – 1978’s Public Image: First Issue and particularly ‘79’s Metal Box – were the “real” Public Image, although the much-changed band endures to this day. For all of his diverse musical adventures, Wobble has continued to reference his PiL days, though he declined to rejoin the band in 2009. Three years back, he released Metal Box – Rebuilt in Dub, which massively amplifies the dub reggae influences displayed on that album’s original recording. While the hugely prolific Wobble has released five albums since, it’s Rebuilt in Dub that he’ll be revisiting at Hollywood Forever.

Tickets to the all-ages show at Ticketweb.

Every Tuesday, Open Folk fills the second stage of Hollywood’s intimate Hotel Café with an eight-strong bill of carefully curated singer-songwriters. Open Folk has produced events elsewhere in the US, Argentina and Spain, as well as releasing a series of related albums. While the lineup for these themed evenings is kept as a surprise, individual performers often announce their appearance ahead of time.

This edition includes New Zealand-born indie-pop chanteuse Lisa Crawley, who arrived in LA just pre-pandemic after spells in England and Australia. Pianist/vocalist Crawley has earned regular TV placements, opened for the likes of John Mayer and Paul Weller, and even performed her own song arrangements with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. A Hotel Café regular who also frequently graces the legendary Dresden in Los Feliz, the striking Crawley’s accessible, poppy yet soulful songcraft feels tailored to cozy shared experiences like Open Folk. Tickets at Songkick.

With three of their four members raised in the Bay Area, you can sense the sneering resentment of Oakland’s Shutups towards the tech-bro invaders and gentrifiers of their native region – and, indeed, of a whole lot more besides. Over the past decade, these melodic indie poppers have consistently railed against capitalism, technology, and multiple facets of contemporary culture, their rather self-consciously eccentric take on subversion made palatable by innate tunefulness and clever lyricism. Originally a super-prolific duo of versatile vocalist/guitarist Hadley Davis and learned-on-the-job drummer Mia Wood, fleshed out with guest musicians and (ironically) studio technology, Shutups had expanded to today’s four-piece incarnation in time for their 2022 sophomore album I Can’t Eat as Much as I Want to Vomit. Appropriately releasing music through the respected Kill Rock Stars label, Shutups are an indie band in the old-school sense, delivering gently counterculture sentiments through introverted/isolated prisms, bold guitars, and imaginative lo-fi videos. Tickets at AXS.

While “successful slacker” sounds oxymoronic, slacker-rock subgenre maestro Mac DeMarco had to add not one, but two additional Greek Theatre dates to satisfy demand. This trio of “Evening with Mac DeMarco” shows is very palpable proof of the ever-expanding draw of an artist who’s made a career out of appearing not to try. Clad in random outsize garments, unkempt hair restrained only by a cap, the LA-based Canadian singer/songwriter/producer boasts a catalogue that defies his demeanor, including last year’s 199-track, nine-hour One Wayne G compilation. At first glance an archetypal indie rocker, with his off-kilter personality oozing into unhurried tunes recorded on hipster vintage gear, DeMarco’s superficially breezy material often explores weighty themes around maturity, morality, and aging. And it says a lot about both his talent and authenticity that DeMarco can captivate even without words, with last year’s Five Easy Hot Dogs album being entirely instrumental. 

Tickets to the all-ages shows at AXS.

In music, sampling is the sincerest form of flattery – and Slick Rick has been sampled/interpolated over 1,000 times by everyone from Eminem to Beyoncé. His not releasing an album in a quarter-century matters little to hip-hop historians who revere his enunciated storytelling as crucial to the nascent genre’s development. Born in London to Jamaican parents, the eyepatch resulting from a childhood injury was far from Rick’s only distinguishing feature when he broke through with Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew in the mid 1980s. Incredible attention to tone and inflection alongside some Queen’s English pronunciations place him among the most distinctive and charismatic narrative rappers of all time. Years of incarceration between his Platinum-selling 1988 debut album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick and the aptly-titled ’99 comeback The Art of Storytelling dented Slick Rick’s career but not his legend, so expect the compact Venice West to be rammed. Tickets at Ticketweb.

These Gallant shows at The Sun Rose bring together two names unfamiliar to many yet deserving of greater recognition. LA-based Gallant is a soulful alt R&B prodigy whose GRAMMY-nominated 2016 debut album, Ology had him being hailed as the genre’s future. Three years later, follow-up Sweet Insomnia didn’t live up to such lofty hype, but maybe Gallant’s infusing of R&B with hints of trip-hop, dub, rock, and even folk was just too nuanced for radio programmers and playlist creators. Nonetheless, a cult following still reveres Gallant’s talents, as evidenced by his first night at The Sun Rose being sold out at the time of writing. And if you’re wondering, “WTH is The Sun Rose?” it’s the upscale, sleek and seated venue inside the Pendry West Hollywood hotel, on the site of the old House of Blues Sunset Strip, where just 100-150 lucky guests will get to witness the underrated Gallant up close. Tickets at Dice.

Prolific multi-hyphenate drag artist and singer Shea Couleé debuted her Love Ball concept, modeled on Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, with a five-date U.S. trek in February where she was joined by sister RuPaul’s Drag Race alums. This special one-off showing at The Belasco’s Below, the speakeasy-esque nightclub space beneath its main theater lobby, will feature Coulée performing her slick and sultry dance-pop supported by Monét X Change, Jada Essence Hall, LaLa Ri, and Luxx Noir London, plus an opening set by Mirage Amuro, all meticulously crafted to be a continuous, seamless night of drag, fashion, live music, and frenetic choreography. "The Love Ball is a heartfelt tribute to the art of drag and the joy it brings to life,” Couleé told Entertainment Weekly last year. “Every performance of the night is carefully curated and choreographed to celebrate self-expression.”

Tickets at Live Nation, with available upgrades including pre-show VIP sanctuary access and fast lane entry.

LA’s Goldfinger are simultaneously hugely 1990s synonymous, notably for hit ’96 debut single “Here In Your Bedroom” and - thanks to shedding their original, faddy ska-punk sound and the sheer amount of talent involved - still sufficiently relevant to headline The Wiltern. Built around vocalist/guitarist John Feldman and on-again/off-again co-founding guitarist Charlie Paulson, Goldfinger wisely walked away from fading third-wave ska at the turn of the Millennium. While riding that wave had served them well, their shift to more straightforward melodic punk ensured a career long after skanking and pork pie hats had vanished from MTV. The more aggressive and cynical tones of songs like 2002 minor hit “Open Your Eyes” may have alienated some of their more fair-weather fans, but that was the price paid for enduring credibility. And if ska-punk is still your thing, Goldfinger are sure to play some early material, while Orange County subgenre stalwarts Save Ferris provide support. Tickets at Live Nation.

It’s been a long, steady rise to the top of the crossover country haystack for Tennessee-born Kenny Chesney. Originally signed as a songwriter more than 30 years ago, his debut album sold only modestly, but the next one was Gold certified and then 1996’s Me and You – his first album without any songwriting credits – began an incredible run of twelve consecutive Platinum- and multi-Platinum full-lengths before digital downloading hammered record sales. Specializing in breezy, beachy fare – Chesney has lived in the Caribbean, after all – speckled with barroom rockers and windswept ballads like “When the Sun Goes Down” featuring Uncle Kracker (who opens this SoFi Stadium show), and Grace Potter duets “You and Tequila” and “Wild Child.” With his unpretentiously sincere, enunciated timbre and well-chosen, sometimes self-penned material, Chesney has tallied giddying sales that have far transcended just the country charts and he remains a colossal concert draw. Tickets at Ticketmaster.

The vision for Festival de la Quebradita is a world-class fest that brings together people from all walks of life to celebrate music as a unifying universal language that promotes cultural understanding. An extravaganza of Mexican quebradita dance music, the 2024 lineup includes the 11-piece Banda Vallarta Show, Jalisco’s Banda Maguey, all-female sierreño act Las Patronas, Banda Rafaga (not to be confused with Argentine cumbia outfit Ráfaga), Mexican veterans Caballo Dorado, Banda Zeta from Tepic, and the long-running Banda Movil.

Opened in 2021, The Torch is the lush, tree-lined outdoor performance venue adjacent to the LA Coliseum in Exposition Park. Doors open at 5pm, with general admission tickets at Ticketmaster running $80 and VIP admission $150. (Note that LA Coliseum is now a cashless venue and only accepts credit/debit cards or mobile pay.)