Sherman Oaks / Encino

Hot damn tamale the local big-beat savages Charleston Grotto, long and aptly hailed as one of the key progenitors of punk (get a load of their 1961 classic "Kill the Teacher") are sure to absolutely lay waste to the room (twice they perform a second set at 9:30 p.m.); plus a solo set from Grotto co-founder Danny Cohen, doing numbers from his new Anti- CD, Shades of Dorian Grey Gray (Anti-).

1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hlywd.

; two sets, 7 9:30 p.m. (John Payne) Of all the bands in the pop-punk collective Kiss or Kill, the Letter Openers have the most pleasingly cynical attitude.

The longtime, if obscure L.A. quartet are informed by good old punk rock on their recent CD, All the Time Right Now especially on the unsentimental documentation of a certain lost place and time with Summer of 79 but they play with a mostly straight-ahead rock roll drive.

They abolish romanticism on the pounding hypnosis of I Won t Remember Your Name, and they have a way with elegantly wasted descending chords on such tunes as Peppermint. Mac Dunlop s gruff howling is brightened by Martin Ransbury s judiciously quick lead-guitar adornments, while bassist Matt Peter and drummer-singer Jon Goldberg clobber everything in sight. You know, it s all about the wedding ring, Dunlop sings on the power-pop-laden hook of Special Things before snatching away happiness with the sarcastic rejoinder You get yourself a house in the Valley and then, baby, those are special things.

The Letter Openers come off like a darker L.A. version of Cheap Trick.

Don t miss em. (Falling James)
also with Sounds of Asteroth, The Black Fuzz, The Fuxedos

Once again, producer Jamie Nichols has skimmed the cream of the local dance scene, assembling seven local troupes and one out of town guest company for this celebratory festival. This year s participants offer contemporary dance (Backhausdance and TRIP Dance Theater), nuevo flamenco (FUSION Dance Theater), Afro-American jazz (JazzAntiqua Dance Music Ensemble), updated traditional dance (Viver Brasil Dance Company and Djanbazian Dance Company), plus ballet (San Pedro Ballet).

And from San Francisco, former Eifman Ballet dancer Viktor Kananiaev brings his eponymous company. Among the ensembles are a clutch of Horton Award-winners offering some of the most intriguing choreography and crowd pleasing dancing to be gathered under one roof. For the participating companies, it s a chance to dance in a major venue, something few local companies can afford alone.

For audiences, it s an enviable chance to sample some of L.A. s best while only having to park once.

The unquestioned mistress of site-specific dance, Heidi Duckler has escorted audiences on magical mystery tours of often overlooked or underappreciated L.A. landmarks including Laundromats and historic jails, underground to the former subway terminal and aboveground at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel and the revitalized banks of the L.

A. River. This excursion set in an operating ice skating rink takes a page or more from the iconic epic poem Beowolf.

Duckler finds contemporary parallels in Beowolf's universal themes of heroes at war and the villainy, real or advertised, of the targeted enemy. Post-performance options include a fund-raising dinner ($50) and ice skating from 7:30 to 10 p.m.

for an additional charge under $10. As much a danger to traditional values as fluoride in the water or pee-pee in the Coke, legendary composer and absurdist Jean-Louis Costes appears with actress Lisa Prout in a Gallic superduo singing, stripping, rubbing semi-solid foods all over themselves and playing cracked electronics on this tour for Les petits oiseaus chient [Little Birds Shit], an opera porno-social, a voyage from youth to the bourgeoisie alongside acts of bizarre S M sex and the logical conclusion of this journey: finishing in hell. Accompanying them on this magical misery tour is the pile-driving drum bass of Captain Ahab and Mr.

Natural s living plants, transformed into noisy killing machines of verve and charisma. Baseck, he of the Sonic Death Rabbit collective/unconsciousness, thrives in a glitchy 17/2 backwater, while Rale purportedly is a member of Unnecessary Surgery and Beach Balls two things in life we positively cannot do without. (David Cotner) French Kicks aren t uncool just because they suck.

Make no mistake, this is a bad band which is exhausting to listen to, so absent are any good, original ideas. Plenty of bands suck, but the more human among them eventually recognize that shitting out banal music isn t productive for anybody. Not French Kicks, who haul out their pop-rock triteness at every opportunity.

If they re remarkable at all, it s in their tenacity. How the forces outside of the band, like their label and audience (fuck, even their best friends), haven t put it to them that their shelf life in Brooklyn s bargain basement has expired is a curiosity. Do they have trust funds that dig to China?

What s behind the curtain? Part of me would love to know. The other part is too bored with the French Kicks to care.

(Kate Carraway) If you think Lady Sovereign is a weak rapper with little to say besides how great she thinks she is, you might prefer Romy Hoffman, a.k.a.

Macromantics. The Australian performer is much more intelligent and aware of the world around her, and she s influenced as much by feminist riot-grrl icons like Bikini Kill, Crass Eve Libertine and Lydia Lunch as she is by rap forefathers like Wu Tang Clan, Big Daddy Kane and Nas. On her new Kill Rock Stars CD, Moments in Movement, Miss Macro wastes little time on braggadocio and self-affirmation, preferring instead to axe and slash the fascist fucks.

She s joined by guests Ground Components on Dark Side of Dallas, where she reveals a surreally poetic side when she chants, I give you the swarm of apostrophes/who dream in patches of splashes as magic as black is. She meets her match on the autobiographical statement of purpose Locksmith, where she exchanges robotic-voice verses with her male doppelg nger, Sage Francis. DJ Amy scratches up an intriguing brew of magnificent sound effects, although a little more melodic variety would break up Miss Macro s singsong delivery.

(Falling James) For the past few years, local Butoh master Oguri has focused on the desert, requiring fans to trek to Joshua Tree to view his movement explorations. This marks his return to a theater although the black box REDCAT arguably falls into the interior/exterior realm. Also, despite the title, the subject is the writings of William Faulkner, not golf handicaps.

L.A. Opera presents the first two concerts in a multi-year project presenting the music of composers affected by the Holocaust.

Music director James Conlon, a longtime advocate of these composers, conducts works by Ernst Krenek, Franz Schreker, Walter Braunfels, Viktor Ullmann, Erich Korngold, Erwin Schulhoff and Alexander Zemlinsky.
The story of Jesus of Nazareth has been told, retold, interpreted and misinterpreted by a legion of true believers, spiritual seekers and even fanatics who deliver salvation with a sword or a gun. Rickie Lee Jones is probably thinking of such zealots on her new album when she declares, See all those people praying on TV and in the churches/they like to make a big parade out of what they re doing.

She prefers having a private conversation with God on her new CD, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard (New West), which was inspired by her producer Lee Cantelon s book The Word, which recasts the Christ legend in an artier, more personal and less dogmatic fashion. And unlike the sometimes slick mainstream-pop settings of her early work, the best songs on Exposition churn with a raw, acoustic-based radiance, such as Tried to Be a Man, where her filtered, hushed vocals simmer over swampy Creedence guitars, evoking the boho vibe of her old pal Tom Waits. Jones sounds just as influenced by another oft-misunderstood Jewish prophet Lou Reed on quietly ecstatic tunes like Nobody Knows My Name.

(Falling James) with country ace Michael Dart, that paragon of wild bluesology Carlos Guitarlos, bluegrass from The Hooverville Rounders, plus Cattywompus, Devastating Karate, The Barndance Band, a climactic jam and, dig, a birthday bash for veteran bassist-singer Russell Scott.
tears it up with unhinged go-go beat grinders Harold Ray, DJs, more
ALL ABOUT WALKEN So these eight Christopher Walken impersonators glide onstage, strutting and yowling and wearing bad wigs. Most are decent Walkens, and the best have mastered the piranha stare and elastic enunciation that snaps the ends of syllables like rubber bands.

As the octet Michael Bayouth, Lily Holleman, Amy Kelly, Kanzo Lee, Patrick O Sullivan, Tara Prince, Brennan Vetter and Troy Vincent shapeshift through a dozen familiar Great Moments in Walken (much of which involve violence or the threat of it), it s clear that Walken, like Elvis, is easy to imitate but hard to top (though Holleman and Bayouth come close). Walken s gleeful insanity is realized when director O Sullivan challenges his band of Walkens to new Walken frontiers an all-Walken Wizard of Oz , a loopy feminine spray commercial, a Q A called Talking to Walken, and a threatening karaoke cover of These Boots Were Made for..

. By the time the Walkens have killed each other off only to rise as zombies and to groove through a gangly version of Thriller, my ribs hurt so bad, I felt like I d been mano a mano with Vincenzo Coccotti. PAUL GLEASON THEATER, 6520 Hollywood Blvd.

, Hlywd.; Mon., 8 p.

m.; thru March 12. (310) 663-4050.

(Amy Nicholson)
Kravanh, whose life was spared in the killing fields of Cambodia when he found a soldier's accordion and was recruited by the Khmer Rouge to play for them, will play now while his biographer Lafriere reads from Music Through the Dark: A Tale of Survival in Cambodia.
The mighty Phil Alvin gears up for another high-intensity blues-rock-roots session; also punk rockers Angel City Outcasts and potent psychobilly siren Mad Marge The Stonecutters. In the lounge: Primadonna, Power Chords, Pop Machine, Red Hearts, Poison Hearts The author presents and signs The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification, a coming-of-age tale set in San Jose and Silicon Valley.

Abani reads and presents his new novel The Virgin of Flames, with T. Cooper, who will read from her latest work.
FEED While Jim Lunsford s new play retreads some familiar science fiction paths, his story of a future in which ordinary humans are sterilized to battle overpopulation is remarkably literate, expressing well-stated ideas from multiple perspectives.

The structure is an old-fashioned courtroom drama that pits overly aggressive, macho public defender Cowboy (Robert W. Arbogast) against equally ambitious, effeminate prosecutor Keller (Paul Denniston) in a case against Sid (Andrea Lockhart) accused of illegally untying her tubes and giving birth to an unregulated offspring. A central metaphor using Mount Vesuvius ancient destruction of Pompeii to illustrate the human drive for survival still needs development for relevancy, but the character relationships and dialogue are superbly wrought.

James Mellon s intense directing style (his signature) magnifies each idea and sentiment through these emotionally tuned and well-trained actors. And though the proceedings step into melodrama, the story remains riveting. Craig Siebels stark courtroom set frames the chilling legal action, while video projections by Tony Mark reveal whatever humanity that remains outside.

NOHO ARTS CENTER, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hlywd.

; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.

m.; Sun., 3 p.

m.; thru March 11. (818) 508-7101.

(Tom Provenzano)
Author Amy Stewart discusses and signs her book Flower Confidential, a behind-the-scenes look at the flower industry.
The author signs and reads from her latest book, Becoming Judy Chicago, which chronicles the artist's rise from obscurity.