Joey Arias & Basil Twist Bring the Show to LA

One thing I love about Los Angeles is that everyone comes here, and I don't have to go anywhere -- they come to me. Case in point: Joey Arias, the drag diva who first made a splash in New York's underground drag scene and then went on to infamy at Cirque du Soleil's sexytime Zumanity in Las Vegas, is here in town. I can go see him without jumping on a 3,000-mile (or 250-mile) flight for the next few weeks, in "Arias with a Twist." The name stems from the collaboration with Basil Twist, a puppeteer who conjured the fantastical set that Mr. Arias performs on.

If you don’t know Mr. Arias, he looks like a twisted version of Betty Page (he’s got the bangs down pat) and sounds like a darker version of Billie Holiday. He is not your mother’s drag queen—there will be no cotton candy-colored outfits, no lip-synching to Whitney Houston songs, no bad banter. To call Arias a drag queen is something of a misnomer and a disservice; he’s a performance artist. He’s playing from now till December 13 at the Redcat Theatre.

Back in the day when I was a wee baby raver, I was obsessed, and I mean obsessed with drum ’n’ bass. I began DJing and spent every last dime of my very meager earnings on 12-inch records which now sit in my room and have no value except for a very small sector of the population. A portion of that population will be out at Respect tonight at Dragonfly, a drum ’n’ bass party that has managed to not be extinguished in the face of marginalization. They’ve been going strong since 1999, when drum ’n’ bass was on top of the electronic music world, and tonight they are bringing two DJs from that era who are apparently also still going strong—Optical and Trace. (Also, according to Myspace, Optical is living in L.A..) Old lady raver here might have to go to that.

Another old standard is spreading its wings again: the Beauty Bar, which has been an LA outpost (it was opened after the NYC original) is expanding its mini-hipster empire to another city. Chicago is the lucky recipient of the only indie rock bar chain in the country—and certainly, the only one worth a damn. If the Chicago Beauty Bar is like the others, expect a high quotient of tattooed hot girls and indie rock on the speakers.

Email tips to .