Big Business Walters Downtown, April 1
In the course of the last decade, L.A.'s Big Business has earned a solid rep as one of the loudest and heaviest underground-rock bands around, splicing their records together with plenty of squalling Big Black-style post-hardcore, a hint of old-school thrash, and a foundation of vintage Melvins sludge; BB are very close to Dale Crover's camp, in fact. When the quartet's longtime label, HydraHead, folded in 2012, Big Business went the difficult and time-consuming route of setting up the machinery to release their music themselves in the form of Gold Metal Records, the imprint whereupon they released 2013's noble and unrelenting Battlefields Forever.
Kiesza Fitzgerald's, April 2
Kiesza is unambiguously retro, a throwback to the days when electronic-based, R&B-flavored pop dominated the charts for the first time since the heyday of Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer -- the early '90s, when acts like C+C Music Factory, CeCe Peniston and Technotronic owned both the dance floor and Top 40 radio. The 26-year-old Alberta-born singer comes to Fitz on the heels of Miami's Ultra Music Fest and her classic-house hit single "Hideaway"; her 2014 debut album, Sound of a Woman, also features a cover of Haddaway's "What Is Love?", just to put an exclamation point on her credentials. With Betty Who.
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