the echo and echoplex

Rickie Lee Jones || Listen

What a long, strange trip Rickie Lee Jones has been on since running away to Hollywood in 1973, palling around with Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss, and releasing her self-titled album in 1979. She’s transformed herself from a fairly straightforward Joni Mitchell-style folk-pop singer into a multilayered, jazzy chanteuse, and her 2006 CD, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard (New West), is her most ambitious (and, arguably, satisfying) work to date. The album is based on her producer Lee Cantelon’s book The Word, which tries to take a fresh look at the story of Jesus Christ. Sermon isn’t a dogmatic attempt to convert unbelievers so much as it’s an engrossing journey through various personas and disguises, such as the symbolic visitation “Elvis Cadillac.” Jones is utterly mesmerizing on the enigmatic “Tried to Be a Man,” where her breathy vocals are draped over murky, bluesy chords, and “Nobody Knows My Name,” which chugs along with a shimmering Velvet Underground intensity. - LA Weekly

with:
Petra Hayden || Listen
Lili Hayden || Listen
Rob Wasserman || Listen
& More

8pm / $25 seated and $20 standing room only, $27 and $22 dos / all ages