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The third installment of Arthur Sunday Evenings at McCabe’s brought out a diverse crowd of bearded stoners, record geeks, pregnant professors, unsuspecting folkies, the coolest 15-year-olds in L.A., and Robert Downey Jr. No kidding. The evening began with Headdress, whose otherwise hypnotic (some might say sleep-inducing) performance was marred by the distracting and presumably unintentional rattle of a snare drum vibrating throughout the set. One forty-something McCabe’s regular found the Texan duo “oppressive,” though she freely admitted she was accustomed to the more “geriatric” performers the legendary guitar shop has hosted. Well if Headdress wasn’t her cup of tea, she was probably pleasantly surprised by the next artist, Mariee Sioux, sometimes a part of new hippie group Brightblack Morning Light. And if gentle finger plucking and lilting melodies about wizards, magic, and animals in the forest sung by a demure, sugary-voiced maiden are your thing, you’ll want to check her out too. Finally up were the Shjips, and hip kids young and old stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the center aisle in anticipation of the rock. Ripley Johnson, giving heed to the uninitiated by offering free earplugs should anyone need them, came out looking like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle who dozed off listening to the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat and awoke a few decades later to Spacemen 3’s Sound of Confusion. But some other influences must have crept in during that epic nap because the raucous up-tempo opening number sounded almost like a cover of Devo’s “Gates of Steel.” Lest anyone fear a post-punk makeover, though, the Shjips soon floated into their signature meditative, psychedelic drone, laying out blistering guitar freakout solos over minimal electric keyboard, metronomic drumbeats, and bass lines repeated like a mantra. Johnson joked that the band adheres to the Ramones philosophy of playing short sets. But whereas  Joey and Co. might tear through 15 songs in 20 minutes, Ripley, Dusty, Omar, and Nash jammed out about 6 or so in a bit more than half an hour—leaving the audience still wanting more.

— Hane C. Lee