The Long Beach Museum of Art will dive headfirst into the confrontational world of one of SoCal’s most influential countercultural artists with “Robert Williams: Fearless Depictions,” on view Friday, Feb. 6 through Sunday, May 31.
The expansive exhibition offers a survey of Williams’s work from 2001 to the present, bringing together nearly 60 oil paintings, large-scale sculptures, multimedia works, and rare first-edition issues of Zap Comix.
Robert Williams is a cartoonist at heart, even when working on monumental canvases rendered with old-master precision. His compositions explode with color and chaos, blending carnivals, sci-fi, clowns, classic painting, and profane imagery into scenes that feel both absurd and familiar.
Williams’s impact reaches far beyond his own work. In 1994, he founded Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, which became a platform for lowbrow, outsider, and alternative artists at a time when the mainstream art world largely shut them out.
This magazine helped legitimize an entire movement, allowing future generations of artists to find community — something Williams himself lacked early in his career.
Born in Albuquerque in 1943, Williams’s visual language was shaped by car culture. His father owned a drive-in restaurant popular with hot rodders, and Williams received his first car at just twelve years old.
These formative experiences echo throughout his visual work, where automotive imagery collides with underground comics and surreal fantasy.
After relocating to Los Angeles in 1963, Williams absorbed our region’s raw visual energy, drawing inspiration from hot rods, outlaw bikers, psychedelic posters, tattoo culture, and the adult entertainment industry.
As Williams himself has said: “My paintings are not designed to entertain you; they are meant to trap you.”
The exhibition “Fearless Depictions” does exactly that — drawing viewers into dense, confrontational worlds that demand attention, interpretation, and reflection.
The opening reception will get underway at LMBA on Friday, Feb. 6 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Robert Williams himself will be in attendance the very next day, Saturday, Feb. 7, in the afternoon.
For more, go to lbma.org.
M.E.B.
A tribute to one of jazz’s greatest innovators will kick off when M.E.B. (Miles Electric Band) takes the Carpenter stage on Friday, Jan. 30, in celebration of the Miles Davis Centennial.
Formerly known as the Miles Electric Band, this progressive all-star ensemble channels the intensity, experimentation, and forward momentum of the beloved trumpeter and composer’s electric era, revisiting and reimagining the music that shattered boundaries and rewired jazz.
Led by Emmy and Grammy Award–winning producer and drummer Vince Wilburn Jr. — Miles Davis’s nephew and longtime collaborator — M.E.B. is built as a rotating collective of master musicians. The band bridges generations, uniting Davis alumni with today’s most adventurous innovators to offer performances that are immersive and unpredictable.
The lineup features a talented roster of players, including Darryl Jones, Robert Irving III, Munyungo Jackson, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Antoine Roney, Keyon Harrold, and DJ Logic, alongside special guest musicians.
Together, they deliver a powerful fusion of jazz, rock, funk, and electronic textures in tribute to the great Miles Davis.
Davis influenced so many other musicians — everyone from Herbie Hancock and Weather Report to Prince, hip-hop producers, and popular rock artists — that it’s easy to forget how startling and groundbreaking his music was at the time of its release.
With all this in mind, the M.E.B. ensemble brings together two generations of players — Davis alumni alongside today’s next-generation innovators — to revisit electric-era repertoire as a living framework for improvisation, groove, and experimentation.
For more information, head to shorturl.at/gJsS9.
Bamboo Club
Jumpstarted Plowhards will roll into Long Beach for a Sunday night set on Feb. 1 at The Bamboo Club.
Fronted by legendary bassist Mike Watt — best known for his work with Minutemen, Firehose, and countless collaborative projects — the band pairs Watt with Todd Congelliere and Jimmy Felix of Toys That Kill, creating a stripped-down, high-energy sound rooted in Southern California’s punk DNA.
Few musicians are as deeply woven into the fabric of the SoCal music scene as Watt. For over four decades, he’s been a constant presence — touring relentlessly, releasing new music, collaborating across genres, and showing up for DIY spaces big and small.
Jumpstarted Plowhards is very much a continuation of that ethos: Raw, loud, unpretentious.
Sunday night at The Bamboo Club also features sets from Ologist and The Ticks, rounding out a bill that leans into punk’s community-first spirit.
Such a close-up encounter with true practitioners of Southern California punk is very much to be welcomed in our city.
Check out shorturl.at/6oirx for more information.