British songstress Jessie Ware emerged dressed down, looking like Stevie Nicks in a black ensemble and hoop earrings, Jan. 22 at Amoeba Hollywood. It’s only worth mentioning as it coincided with the difference between her live show, raw and organic, and her more digital records, on the covers of which she appears glossy and glammed up.

Ware, known as kind of the hipster Sade, began with “Devotion,” the title track to her Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, which will see a physical release in the U.S. later this year. Her voice sounded quiet against her band’s booming basslines, but by the set’s second song, the title track to her EP, “If You’re Never Gonna Move,” everything locked into place as she began loosening up, and tried to loosen up the audience too, who laughed when she called out their serious faces. “Sweet Talk,” which appears on both the album and EP, sounded lush and bassy as her four-piece created an approximation of the recordings, with one guy handling both guitars and keys. Her voice sounded incredible on “Sweet Talk” as well as “What You Won’t Do for Love,” a cover of the Bobby Caldwell quiet storm classic.

Ware’s voice and manner grew more confident over the course of the show, with each subsequent song, like “Wildest Moments,” sounding better than the last. She hurriedly introduced her band and gushed about playing with The Roots on “Jimmy Fallon,” pulling the audience in with endearing gratitude for her success. The show demonstrated how Ware is still developing as a central performer (she rose to prominence guesting on tracks by Joker and SBTRKT) and learning how to work a stage, but her voice was impeccable, reserving her belting for a spine-tingling finish in “Running.”

At the beginning of documentary Beware of Mr. Baker, we’re introduced to the titular character when the misanthropic elderly man bashes his biographer in the face with a cane. Filmmaker Jay Bulger gets out of the car to show us his bloody nose, and from there we’re whisked back through not only the story of Ginger Baker, famed drummer for Cream, but also the story behind the creation of the film.

Bulger bills himself as a writer for Rolling Stone in order to get an interview with the reclusive Baker — this is a lie. However, the article Bulger comes up with once he meets with Baker in his South Africa compound does get published in Rolling Stone, providing the catalyst for the film. The brash Bulger, and his interactions with Baker, become a hilarious side story to that of Baker, the red-headed wild man who helped pioneer rock drumming as a member of Cream, with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. Baker’s unique, African and jazz-influenced style would go on to be widely used in hard rock and heavy metal in years to come. But Baker’s personal life is beset by drugs, family issues, several wives and money problems.

However, Beware of Mr. Baker is no predictable “VH1 Behind the Music” story, nor is it a sob story. It’s more a celebration of a life thoroughly lived, and of a character whose lust for life and for drumming supersedes his ability to live normally and care for anyone else. It’s riveting viewing, even (and perhaps especially) for those unfamiliar with Baker. The film’s editing, full of animated bits, stock footage and interview footage, jump-cutting and fading with psychedelic aesthetic, is nothing short of brilliant. It also includes enlightening, often funny interviews with the likes of Clapton, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana, Lars Ulrich and Neil Peart.

It’s the first big release date of the year, with tons of much-anticipated albums hitting shelves.

Album Picks:

FIDLAR - FIDLAR

CD $12.98

LP $19.98

FIDLAR’s long-awaited debut album is a Pabst-soaked party record with strong songwriting anchoring its punk attitude. Pulling from hardcore, surf rock and pop-punk, and with the immediacy of The Clash’s first record, the foursome, made up of singer/guitarist Zac Carper, Brandon Schwartzel (bass), and brothers Elvis Kuehn (guitar) and Max Kuehn (drums), sing about being young and dumb and getting fucked up in songs with names like “Cheap Beer” (the chorus of which consists of the shouted lyrics “I DRINK CHEAP BEER SO WHAT FUCK YOU!”). But all the funny lyrics in the world wouldn’t mean a thing if the songs themselves didn’t captivate you, and they do, across FIDLAR’s 14 tracks. There’s nary a hint of cynical sneer, and though they play with sloppy punk abandon, their hooks are tight as a six-pack ring. FIDLAR sing about who they are and what they do, whether that’s waking, baking, skating in mechanical hedonism on the ferocious “Wake Bake Skate” or reflecting that said young hedonism can “kind of suck,” on the exhausted-sounding closing track. That’s a telling moment — for all of FIDLAR’s gleeful celebration, the record’s honed hooks are the sound of very hard work, and it pays off in spades.

Amoeba Hollywood is hosting the cast of the stage show Backbeat direct from London Feb. 4 at 7:00 p.m for a performance and CD signing. You can also win tickets through Amoeba to the show, which is running now through March 1 at the Ahmanson Theatre. Enter to win a pair of tickets for the Feb. 7 show here. You can buy tickets as well at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org/RINGO or call  213.972.4400 and mention code RINGO — special pricing runs through Feb. 3.

The show tells the story of The Beatles before they were famous, when there were five members (even before Ringo was a member) and they were five working-class lads from the docks of Liverpool, playing seedy nightclubs while honing their epic new sound. The London press loves the show, calling it “edgy and cool” in the Sunday Express. The hit show is written by Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys and directed by five-time Tony award nominee David Leveaux.

The show features renditions of Beatles songs such as “Twist and Shout,” “Love Me Do,” “Long Tall Sally,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “I Saw Her Standing There.” Sample two songs from Backbeat below.

Montage: Love Me Do, PS I Love You, Twist and Shout by Center Theatre Group
Long Tall Sally by Center Theatre Group

L.A.-based outfit He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister are seeing their album Nobody Dances in This Town get a wide release Jan. 22 via Park the Van. The album features the brother-and-sister vocals of Rob and Rachel Kolar singing over an amalgam of outlaw country, folk-rock and rockabilly that should tickle the fancy of any fan of such genres. At times they sound like Johnny and June; others, Exene and John. To kick it off, the band, which also includes Lauren Brown (tap-dancing drummer), Oliver ‘Oliwa’ Newell (upright bass) and Aaron Robinson (slide guitar), is performing an album-release show at L.A.’s The Troubador Jan. 19 (with Jenny O., Tommy Santee Klaws and Ramshackle). I caught up with the band, whose will take their twangy sound up the West Coast and around the country in the coming months.

PST: Is the first thing people usually ask you about your name, even though it’s usually spelled out right in the press material (much less the band name) that you are indeed brother and sister?

Rob: Yes, Rachel is my brother and I am her soul sista’.

Rachel: They do. I think The White Stripes made journalists question the authenticity of the sibling band.

The Kolars. Photo by Zane Roessell/LA Record

PST: Do you think there’s something particularly special about sibling vocals and the way they mesh?