I don’t know how official this e-flyer is, but apparently the long-defunct, recently resurrected noise pioneers will be playing a “warm-up” show at the mid-city venue this Thursday before they rock out in Indio on Sunday. I got a chance to check them out at the Santa Monica Civic Center on their mini-tour last October, and trust me: they have not mellowed out with age. Some of their albums’ nuance gets lost when played live, but the band makes up for it with sheer power. If you can stomach the 15-odd-minute white noise “holocaust” that ends every MBV show, I promise it’ll change the way you think about sound. They use plain old guitars and pedals and amps to create a giant, tangible force that finds its way into every cell in your body. Everyone stumbled out of the Civic Center that night looking like they’d survived an air raid.
I’m not sure how that sort of thing will translate in an outdoor setting like Coachella, where sound is allowed to escape into the desert instead of reverberating off the walls. So if you can manage to snag a ticket to the El Rey show, go. But bring earplugs.
