Bobzilla

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment it occurs, but at some point while watching John Fogerty run through the highlights of his career at the Kodak Theater, one gets the distinct sensation of tapping the source. Though the songs he wrote for Creedence Clearwater Revival were mostly conceived roughly forty years ago, they seem to be as old as the mountains. They’re so ingrained in the collective consciousness, so deeply embedded, that it’s easy to take them for granted, to assume they’ve just always been around. Not for nothing were they Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski’s favorite band; they’re a signifier of righteousness.

Henry Rollins once reminded us about John Fogerty, “The man was born in Berkeley, California - there’s not a bayou within two thousand miles!” But despite a lack of physical proximity, Fogerty absorbed a feel for the American heartland through records, and the songs he wrote at the end of the sixties have only added to its mythology. Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the most stubbornly tradition-minded of Bay Area bands during the psychedelic era, gleefully hooting about listening to Buck Owens when stating such a preference was an unnerving freak-flag to the other freaks. With songs like “Out My Back Door” and “Lodi”, they pretty much invented country-rock as it would come to be known a few years later. But CCR was also in on the revolution, and no one who’s heard “Fortunate Son” or “Run Through The Jungle” could mistake them for reactionaries. The body of work they produced in just six years together is among the most revered and influential in American music, a touchstone that Toby Keith and the Minutemen can both raise a glass to.

When Devo first appeared on the scene in 1978 (1977, if you were hip enough to be at a punk show where their independent film/ music video “The Truth About De-Evolution” was screened in between bands), there was nothing remotely like them under the sun. In a heavily macho scene, they offered a stiff, robotic alternative. Highly conceptual, wickedly funny, and possessed with a knack for garage-rock riffs, which were then mangled by machinery like a thumb under a drill press, it was Poindexter Rock that could also get you to move your ass

For fans of a particular kind of sixties music, the Nuggets series can seem like a longtime friend, one with a really good record collection. The guy knows his stuff. He combs through the bins of 7-inch ephemera and peeks inside every rockin' garage in America so you don't have to, and puts together reliably excellent mixtapes according to whatever theme was picked that day. Rhino's recent release of the four-disc Where The Action Is!...

It was a hell of a week for old post-punk college-rockers in Los Angeles, what with former Husker Du guitarist Bob Mould at the Troubadour and Mike Watt of the Minutemen/ fIREHOSE playing the Redwood in the same five-day period that saw return visits from two of the major acts from Chicago’s legendary Touch & Go label. The Jesus Lizard and Butthole Surfers were two of Independent America’s most beloved bands, renowned for their...

Just four lines into the LA stop on Roger Daltrey’s “Use It Or Lose It” solo tour - so named for the singer’s desire to keep his instrument in shape for a planned burst of activity from his “other” band, the Who, in the coming year - he seemed in danger of losing it... It was a nervous moment, especially with the knowledge that Daltrey’s ailing throat had forced a few last-minute cancellations during the Who’s 2007 tour. But he plowed on, muttering “we’ll come back to that one,” picked up an acoustic guitar, and led his band through a dramatically re-arranged version of “Who Are You.” Now in a more familiar vocal range, he managed to warm up and start belting it out. And from that point, through the whole two-hour show, everything was more than fine.

Psychedelic extremity gets up and close and personal this Thursday, when Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips open their very own pop-up shop in the lobby of the the Nike/ Ricardo Montalban Theater. Open from noon to midnight, the shop promises “unique artifacts available on this day and location” including a vinyl pressing exclusive to the event, as well as tickets to see the Lips play a full set inside the theater that night. Tickets are also...

Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a dark place at night. Inky black, like you need a flashlight to find your way out of the parking maze and avoid tripping over a headstone, which has got to be bad luck. Inside, it wasn’t much better. At this show, once the lights go down, they never do come back up again. There were a few candles to the left and right of the stage, some stage lights with the dimmer switch all the way to the left, and that was it. In the middle, barely visible at all, was Hope Sandoval, taking “mellow” to a whole new depth.

The band Pere Ubu emerged from Cleveland, Ohio at the precise midpoint of the 1970s, as the members of proto-punk heavyweights Rocket From The Tombs went their separate ways before even making a record. Half of that band took the driving, relentless Stooge-like intensity with them and went on to start the Dead Boys. The two that would become Ubu, Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner, instead chose to keep it weird, follow their most extreme instincts and make rock and roll that sounded like their own lives. Doing so, they produced something that, still to this day, sounds utterly unlike any other band. Often touted as influential, and periodically covered, they’ve never been successfully ripped off. Their whole trip is so complete, and so absurd, it’s hard to imagine any other band could ever swallow it whole, let alone spit it back out.

Considering the amount of undiluted road rage our society has experienced in recent weeks, the return of Hope Sandoval to the American music scene comes not a moment too soon. Through The Devil Softly, her latest collaboration with musical partner Colm Ó Cíosóig of My Bloody Valentine and their group the Warm Inventions, has the power to soothe the savage beast with its dreamlike, candle-lit ambience and transcendent melodies. Fans of Sandoval’s earlier work with Mazzy Star and Opal already know what to expect: a warm bath and a glass of wine, surrounded by fog in a state of suspended animation. Hers is the odd hallucinogen that has a sedative effect, a thick, sensual slow drip into the bloodstream that inspires heavy lids and slackened jaws, just the kind of valium our water supply could use about now. If you already hold tickets to their heavily sold-out show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Tuesday, we offer our congratulations. If not, we suggest you snap up tickets to her US-tour-ending stop at the Mayan while they last.