This Friday, April 17, is Darkwave Nite at Club Underground. Both rooms of Grand Star Jazz Club will be open with Larry G. playing indie Britpop and more in one room, while I’ll be spinning darkwave, synth, electro, post-punk, etc. in the other room. Will you dance to new Ladytron? Maybe some ADULT.? Sextile and Pixel Grip? Come down and find out. Advance tickets are available now.
Concerts
The concert calendar for this weekend and early next week is jam-packed, so if you said Nochella this year, you made a good choice. Lebanon Hanover is in town this weekend for two nights at The Vermont. The Friday night show has been sold out for a minute, but, at the time of writing this, there were still some tickets available to catch the darkwave band on Thursday, April 16. IMHO, this is the best night to catch them as well, since Geneva Jacuzzi. She’s fantastic live and her most recent album, Triple Fire, was one of my favorites of 2024. Down in Long Beach on Thursday, Kate Clover is playing Alex’s Bar. She’s very early ‘80s L.A. punk/new wave with a sound that could fit into the Valley Girl soundtrack and a look that reminds me of Weetzie Bat. Bonus is that the show is under $20 on Dice. Cowpunks Jenny Don’t & the Spurs open the show.
There are two big ticket events happening on Saturday, April 18. Gwar, who are still pissing off right-wingers after all these years, will be at the Belasco while Nico B.’s documentary Rozz Williams: Romeo’s Distress screens at United Theater on Broadway with a live performance featuring former members of Christian Death. At this point, all I’ve seen for those two shows are pricier “official resale” tickets. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly live music option that doesn’t feed into the Ticketmaster beast, head to The Smell. The bill for Saturday night is multi-genre, contemporary electronic music with VORA, Neyva and Nitebus. I have seen Neyva before, at Leiminspace in Chinatown a while back, and was really impressed with the music and energetic performance. This is a low cover, all ages show with doors at 9 p.m.
Heading into early next week, Tuesday is the night with too many options. Failure and Cold Gawd over at Zebulon is already sold out, but you can still get tickets to see Throwing Muses atTeragram Ballroom, Mirah at Sid the Cat Auditorium orI Speak Machine and Lana del Rabies at Gold-Diggers.
Club Nights/DJ Events
Coinciding with the super cool exhibition Cumbia de Mi Tierra, which is running at Human Resources through April 26, the arts space is hosting screenings of Sonidero Metropólis and Kumbia Net on Saturday afternoon, followed by DJ sets from Noche Romantica, Que Madre, Dave Salvaje, Sonido Sapo, Space Primo, Discos Rolas, Xandao and Ganas. There will also be a record store pop-up from Innovation Records and Discos Rolas.
On Saturday night, DJ/producer Suzanne Kraft will be at Amore Disco at Apotheke in Chinatown, playing house and Italo disco alongside resident DJs Aiden Ramos and Reedstar. There’s no cover, but Apotheke is pretty small, so you might want to get there early. If your tastes lean more towards faster, heavier techno, head to Exchange on Saturday night for Mutate. Rebekah, the British DJ/producer, is playing alongside Godtripper and the general admission tickets are pretty reasonably priced too.
The L.A. Record Fair is happening on Sunday, April 19, at Arts District Brewing and they have a solid DJ lineup scheduled with sets from the Milk Crate Mondays crew, DJ Curse, XL Middleton and Egyptian Lover. Sunday night is Catastrophe Ballet at Harvard and Stone with DJs Slavic Succubus, JACKIMISSYOU, Kenneth Danger, as well as a DJ set from Mareux. There’s no cover.
If you like parties and reading, Lodge Room has the event for you on Monday night. Fab 5 Freddy will be stopping by to talk about his new memoir, Everybody’s Fly. After that, the dance floor will open up and Peanut Butter Wolf and J Rocc will VJ sets culled from the golden age of hip-hop.
Movies
If you’re down for a movie marathon, head to Brain Dead on Saturday, April 18, where Secret Sixteen is hosting a 12-hour stretch of ‘80s swords and sorcery films. That’s six movies, the identities of which you will not know until they are presented. The marathon begins at 2 p.m. On Saturday night, RZA will be on hand at Vidiots for screenings of The Man with the Iron Fists and The Mystery of Chess Boxing.
On Sunday, April 19, Philosophical Research Society’s 7th House presents a René Laloux double feature as part of their series Out There: Far-Out Intergalactic Animation. Laloux made the French psychedelic sci-fi animation classic Fantastic Planet (aka La Planète Sauvage) and, of course, that is part of the screening. The other film is his lesser known, but also incredibly cool, 1982 feature The Time Masters, which was a collaboration with illustrator Jean Giraud, better known as Mœbius. This does not stream or screen nearly as often as Fantastic Planet – and, tbh, it’s definitely worthwhile to see both films together – so keep that in mind for Sunday evening.
For 4/20, Vidiots is screening “mind melters” from the theater’s own physical media collection. Anticipate oddities on 16 mm, VHS and other formats. That same night, down in Santa Ana, The Frida is holding a John Waters/Divine double-feature with Female Trouble and Desperate Living. For more weird cinema, try to get tickets for Weird Wednesday’s screening of Communion at Alamo Drafthouse on Wednesday. Christopher Walken stars as Whitley Strieber in this adaptation of Strieber’s own book Communion. The book was a best-seller with a truly creepy alien on the cover that would become ingrained in 1990s pop culture. The movie is also super creepy. Definitely check it out if you haven’t seen Communion before.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to Beatique, April 2026 on Mixcloud, featuring music from Slayyyter, Kneecap, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Armand Van Helden and more.
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