Viper Room

This is a rare chance to hear alt-country's original siren, Lucinda Williams, in the intimate confines of the Viper Room. Best know for her early album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," she's stayed the foremost documentarian of the ravages of booze, drugs and heartbreak atop unerring modern folk-rock. Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 9:45 p.m. Fri. $100. viperroom.com

Official End of the World Party A quartet of local indie rock up-and-comers mark the second day of 2012, which — if Mayan predictions are accurate — is the final year for Mother Earth. Revent, Albert Garrett & the Bad Romantics, Gunpowder Secrets and Sabroasa Purr will woo the audience with a diverse display of grunge, pop punk and alt-rock. The Viper Room, 8852 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 7:30 p.m. $10. (310) 358-1881. viperroom.com.

Singer-pianist Hadda Brooks--whose two current CDs, "That's My Desire" and "Time Was When," were recorded 50 years apart--celebrates her 80th birthday in October with a special series of shows at the Viper Room every Thursday at 9 p.m., Aug. 8 through Aug. 29. Brooks will be accompanied by Eugene Wright on bass; singer-songwriter Teresa Tudury will open for her. Brooks will then return to New York's Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room to open its fall season with a three-week run beginning Sept. 10.

This is a rare chance to hear alt-country's original siren, Lucinda Williams, in the intimate confines of the Viper Room. Best know for her early album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," she's stayed the foremost documentarian of the ravages of booze, drugs and heartbreak atop unerring modern folk-rock. Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 9:45 p.m. Fri. $100. viperroom.com

FOR NEW Viper Room owner Harry Morton, the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is more of a guideline than a rule. The son of Hard Rock Hotel founder Peter Morton purchased the venerable Sunset Strip club this year and is in the process of renovating it -- all the while trying to assure fans he is not taking the club in a "Hollywood" direction.

AFTER wrapping up a cruise around Vietnam in April, Lynne Deutch spent a few days in Bangkok, Thailand, with her husband, Irwin, and 35-year-old son, Bill. They took a canal tour and wound up near the Crocodile Farm, an arena where keepers showed snakes and other reptiles. Outside was this woman, whom Deutch photographed using her Minolta Dimage. "I like her style," said Deutch, of West Hollywood.

Thank God for rock 'n' roll therapy this week. Got me a heavy dose at Elemental's recent Viper Room gig. The young L.A. rockers are destined for stardom. Word up to music manager Blaine Kaplan, who turned me on to Elemental. Talk about ears: As a young whipper-snap in San Francisco, Kaplan was the first booking agent to sign Cake and Sublime (a few of my favorite things). You can check out Elemental at the Troubadour on Monday.

When the dive-like Central was transformed into the Viper Room a year and a half ago, the spiffy changes were of little interest to the lay clubgoer. All that mattered was that Johnny Depp, a handsome young actor, now owned the West Hollywood club.

On its current album, "This Way Out," the group Idaho--which played the Viper Room on Wednesday--sounds like an auxiliary of the American Music Club, the San Francisco band that has elevated anomie to its pop pinnacle. Jeff Martin's thick drawl sounds as if it's slipping wearily out of a rumpled bed, and his wobbly, yearning tones offer impressionistic images of a soul adrift.

NEXT month in London, Dave Stewart -- the half of Eurythmics not named Annie Lennox -- will present a program titled "The Dave Stewart Songbook" at the Tower Music Festival. "Dave Stewart With Strings" is the motivating idea: He'll perform tunes he's written throughout his career (with Lennox, as well as with a long list of pop stars including Mick Jagger, Gwen Stefani and Sinead O'Connor), accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra.

BOOKS Ayelet Waldman Mother's Day may have passed, but that's no reason not to parse the ways the poor woman can be blamed for any number of transgressions. Waldman hoists her heavy artillery into the Mommy Wars with "Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace," a book-length response to the firestorm of controversy surrounding an op-ed piece she wrote for the New York Times in 2005. She'll be in conversation with author Susan Straight.

Guitarist Jean Yves "Jeeve" Ducornet of the alt rock group Hypnogaja has listed his historic Hollywood house for $649,000. Originally two bedrooms and one bathroom, the remodeled bungalow now has a 380-square-foot recording studio in front that includes a live room, a control room and a voice-over booth. Behind that, an additional 700 square feet include a bedroom, a living room and an adjoining eat-in kitchen with granite counters and stainless-steel appliances. The building has two bathrooms.

Twitterheads and boozehounds join forces for an extra-special excursion down the Sunset Strip at " Strip for the Holidays ," with seasonally themed stops at the Standard, the Comedy Store, the Viper Room and the Roxy. If you have any holiday shopping to do at the Hustler Store, that's an option too. The Standard, 8300 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 6:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Fri. Free. Info on Twitter at @standardhwood.

It takes a special kind of singer-songwriter to find pathos in a party-punk song titled "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked." The raven-haired, kohl-eyed Norwegian singer-songwriter Ida Maria and her three-piece band left Tuesday's crowd of adoring indie boys at her Viper Room show ready to go home and bite holes in their turntables, true.

For the Viper Room's new owner, Harry Morton, the path to the future at the Sunset Strip club runs through the past. No, onetime co-owner Johnny Depp is not coming back, but an act Depp brought to the club in the 1990s via his friend Christina Applegate will: the Pussycat Dolls. The burlesque-inspired troupe, not to be confused with the pop group of the same name, is effectively taking over the recently remodeled club every Friday and Saturday night for a year starting this weekend.

Everything about electro-pop trio Hearts of Palm U.K. seems a little coy, except the music. The group hails from Echo Park, not England (keeping the "U.K." appellation draped in mystery), and isn't even a band but more a project of songwriter Erica Elektra -- whose surname, of course, is merely something she adopted after almost being electrocuted while playing bass in the basement of her New York City apartment. Friends Frankie Rose and Billy Kaye (ahem . . . not their real names; they're to Elektra's right in the photo)

For those who worship at the altar of rock 'n' roll, Saturday night's performance by Courtney Love was a religious experience. Love christened the newly refurbished Viper Room with an acoustic set, joined by Hole bandmates Eric Erlandson, Melissa Auf Der Mauer and new drummer Patty Schemel.