LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019E3
POP & HISS
latimes.com/pophiss
SATURDAY
Whitney
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd.
$18-$35, 7:30 p.m.
ticketmaster.comFRIDAY
Black Mountain,
Ryley Walker
Teragram Ballroom
1234 7th St.
$25, 8 p.m.
eventbrite.comTHURSDAY
Bleached (as the
Ramones), Together
Pangea (as Misfits), more
The Factory
837 S. Alameda St.
$20, 8 p.m.
restlessnites.comSUNDAY
Seefeel, Chasms
Echoplex
1154 Glendale Blvd.
$20, 8 p.m.
eventbrite.comTUESDAY
Omar Apollo
The Fonda
6126 Hollywood Blvd.
$25, 8 p.m.
axs.com5 NIGHTS
OUT
A curated calendar
of live music
not to be missedTHURSDAY
TO SUNDAY
Beach Goth
SoCal surf-psych staples the
Growlers return with the eighth
edition of their annual Halloween
extravaganza. Fans can look for-
ward to three nights of headline
sets by the band (expect plenty of
cuts from their just-released al-
bum “Natural Affair”), plus a slate
of to-be-announced special
guests, art installations, food
trucks, themed oddities and
more.
Hollywood Palladium, 6215
Sunset Blvd. Tickets are sold out
but can be purchased on the sec-
ondary market.SATURDAY
Dinosaur Jr.
Though the seminal indie-rock
trio’s last release, “Give a Glimpse
of What Yer Not,” came in 2016, the
live chops of J Mascis and com-
pany are a selling point unto them-selves.
Fonda Theatre, 6126 Hollywood
Blvd. Tickets cost $36.SATURDAY
Dia de los Muertos
with Café Tacvba
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
marks its 20th annual Dia de los
Muertos celebration with a
stacked day and night of festiv-
ities. The bill features a headlining
performance by Mexican alt-rock
greats Café Tacvba, plus Canadi-
an Colombian synth-pop favorite
Lido Pimienta, ascendant
reggaeton star La Doña, local ska
and reggae staples the Delirians
and Portland, Ore., indie outfit
Savilá.Hollywood Forever Cemetery,
6000 Santa Monica Blvd. Tickets
start at $25.SUNDAY, MONDAY
Bauhaus
There may be no better act to
keep the Halloween spirit going
this weekend than goth icons
Bauhaus.
The pair of shows sees the
recently reunited band playing its
first sets with all four original
members — Peter Murphy, Daniel
Ash, Kevin Haskins and David J —
since 2006.
Hollywood Palladium, 6215
Sunset Blvd. Tickets are sold out
but can be purchased on the sec-
ondary market.MONDAY TO
WEDNESDAY
Billy Corgan
The alt-rock legend’s recent
endeavors as solo artist and with
the Smashing Pumpkins may be
hit or miss, but the chance to see
Billy Corgan in a 500-person ca-
pacity venue is simply not to be
passed up. The Grammy winner
will play a rare three-night solo
run at Highland Park’s intimate
Lodge Room next week, culling
from his extensive catalog with the
Pumpkins, Zwan and more.
The Lodge Room, 104 N. Ave 56.
Tickets are sold out but can be
purchased on the secondary mar-
ket.Goths, Day of the Dead keep the party rolling
By Andrea Domanick
If you missed out on Halloween concert antics, the holiday’s late-week
date this year brings with it a second round of top-tier music festivities.
While Doja Cat was writing her
second album “Hot Pink,” the 24-
year-old singer and rapper quit
smoking weed. Perhaps she
shouldn’t have been surprised
that, when the clouds parted, she
found her songwriting much im-
proved. Like the old joke about the
Grateful Dead fan who gets sober,
once the drugs wore off, she had
higher standards for music.
“My last album was me super
high all the time,” the 24-year-old
born Amala Zandile Dlamini said
from Orlando, Fla., as she paused
our phone interview to balance a
pitcher of mimosas on a hotel bed.
Last night, she’d performed as part
of Spotify’s Rap Caviar Live con-
cert in Miami. “When I stopped and
did this album, I’ve never been
more concise and clear and level-
headed. People will love me and
hate me for it: ‘Why doesn’t she
sound like she doesn’t know what
she’s talking about anymore?’ I
used to write stuff where it didn’t
matter. Now there are things I be-
lieve in, that get me excited and
piss me off. I’m actually reflecting
on who I am as a person.”
For fans who know her from her
ludicrous viral videos, don’t worry
— there’s enough sex and candy-
colored mayhem to go around on
“Hot Pink.” A sense of humor like
hers, not to mention her gender,
can often provoke suspicion or out-
right dismissal in quote-unquote
serious hip-hop circles but in to-
day’s meme-driven fandom, that’s
changing quickly. Doja Cat is man-
aging to be absurd while keeping
one eye on the whiplash move-
ments of rap and digital culture in- “Hot Pink,” due out on RCA
Nov. 7, will prove if the real person
behind it all can finally break
through too.
“I thought it’d be cool to be that
person smoking so much weed,
that it was the only way to be re-
spected,” she said. “Then I realized
‘Oh, yeah, I can just be myself.’ I’m
making so much more music now.”
Finding her own way
Doja is an L.A. native with a
typically roundabout way into the
music business here. Born in Tar-
zana, she moved to New York as a
child with her artist single mother.
Later she spent time in an ashram
but waves past questions about it
— “I hate telling that story” — and
came back to L.A. as a tween and
soon began posting demos on
SoundCloud. Rihanna was a big in-
fluence as were the heady soul
vibes of D’Angelo. Later, she got
into Erykah Badu and Nicki Minaj,
a clear influence on her wisecrack-
ing, sexually brash persona.
She first signed to a major label
under Kemosabe, the now-dis-
graced producer Dr. Luke’s RCA
imprint. (He is a credited writer on
her 2018 single “Juicy,” which will
appear on “Hot Pink” as a remix,
but representatives did not reply to
questions about any involvementon the new album.)
Her current pop star career
broke wide last year in the way that
almost all rappers do today — a vi-
ral video clip.
“Mooo!” was a psychedelically
goofy visual that feels like Tim &
Eric directing a PETA commercial
made entirely from hentai clips —
and has close to 58 million views on
YouTube. The song — “Bitch, I’m a
cow / I’m not a cat / I don’t say
meow” — was an admitted stunt
designed to whip attention to her
more traditional rap records,
which pair the stripper-baiting
trap of Megan Thee Stallion and
Rico Nasty with a Bugs Bunny-ish
sense of humor and ear for tightly
wound, infinitely quotable lines.
The trick worked: Chance the
Rapper and Katy Perry gave their
approval on social media and
helped rack up 40 million more
views for her hit “Juicy,” where she
takes standard booty-as-fruit im-
agery to its furthest possible
reaches (a butt as a vivisected wa-
termelon). Last year’s “Tia Tam-
era,” riffing on the ’90s throwback
sitcom “Sister Sister,” has 31 mil-
lion Spotify plays. Like many in her
Gen Z cohort of entertainers, Doja
has a talent for going extremely vi-
ral but a cynicism-bordering-on-
loathing for having to engage with
social media at all.
“At this point, I just do whatever
... I want, to my detriment,” she
said. “I have a boyfriend [she’s been
canoodling with indie musician
Johnny Utah on Instagram] andwant to kiss him all day. I don’t
want to wake up at 6 a.m. just to let
people [online] know I love them.”
Doja produced much of “Hot
Pink” with longtime collaborator
Yeti Beats. But that kind of No F’s
Given, But Secretly Giving Lots of
F’s attitude is what drew Ben Bil-
lions, who co-wrote and produced
for Beyoncé and The Weeknd, to
work on her new single “Rules”
with Salaam Remi.
“I like how she gets into charac-
ter and is not afraid to be assertive,
demanding or comedic,” Billions
said. He’d been a fan for years, but
“Rules” was their first time work-
ing together, and it’s a centerpiece
— lasciviously sexy (“Bobs on me
like Dylan, blondes on me like
Hilton”) and punchline-soaked but
sincere about Doja being taken se-
riously as a young woman.
Her new song “Bottom Bitch”
turns a dragged-out sample of
Blink-182’s “What’s My Age Again”
into a night-riding, gender-flip-
ping, endearingly vulgar state-
ment of intent. The album sounds
like how kids live now — endlessly
referential, supremely confident in
their sexual mores and yet laced
with something like longing and a
forced-on maturity.Musical inspirations
Underneath all that, she also al-
ludes to her South African heritage
with unlikely but very modern pro-
duction combinations.
“Yeah, this album is a lot more
African influenced,” she said. “Ican sample Blink-182 but put an Af-
rican vocal sample in there. The
whole song feels like you’re in a
tropical forest.”
The LP is also a clean start from
a nervous moment when, after
some old teenage tweets using ho-
mophobic language resurfaced
last year, Doja apologized and
course-corrected. It was mild stuff
by today’s cancellation standards,
but when asked if young artists
struggle with their whole lives be-
ing online from the moment they
break, Doja flips from bawdy ex-
stoner into brand manager.
“You’re not supposed to ask me
about that. Nope,” she said, her
voice rising sharply before going
silent on the line.
A beat later, she was back in
usual Doja mode, but it was obvi-
ous that her devil-may-care atti-
tude is from a place of caring deeply
about how she’s seen.
Doja can be both blissfully silly
and meticulously rowdy. But the
humor, even when it’s absurdist, is
always smart in how it makes room
for a real person, one that’s more
complicated than even her own
fans might have expected.
“That’s a small portion of my ca-
reer, taking a moment to do some-
thing stupid,” she said. “I have a
song called ‘Waffles Are Better
Than Pancakes.’ If I can’t be goofy,
I’ll go insane. I can talk about waf-
fles and how much I hate spiders all
day, but I can’t sit and write about
heartfelt [stuff] unless I have the
emotional space to do it.”GEN Zrapper Doja Cat, 24, who became famous from her viral smashes like “Mooo!,” hopes her second album, “Hot Pink,” establishes her as a serious force in hip-hop.
Mel MelconLos Angeles TimesHer serious potential
Doja Cat hasn’t lost her sense of humor, but she’s also got more on her mind
By August Brown