POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Steaming Evening of L.A. Funk

The sound of tomorrow? Who knows . . . Primus or Godflesh, maybe, or whatever Tiffany decides to do after she works through her Gloria Estefan thing. The sound of today, though--sweaty Caucasian funk--showed up Thursday on the stage of a jammed and steaming Hollywood Palladium.

And it turned out to be mostly Los Angeles bands--Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mary’s Danish, Thelonious Monster, the Beastie Boys (honorary Angelenos)--that have been around a real long time. The groups gathered in concert to raise money to reconstruct the shattered hip of Chris Wagner, the bassist for Mary’s Danish, which played a magnificent, thrashy set.

Are the Beastie Boys still together? Do they still matter? Have their voices changed yet?

Well, yes, yes and no.

The Beasties got lost a little during “Paul Revere,” MCA seemed to nod off a bit when he wasn’t rapping, but the Beasties were loose and funky and in control of the stage in a way few other rap acts have ever been.

The audience chanted along with every word. Even the Beasties’ estranged producer Rick Rubin was seen head-banging . . . though he skanked harder to the songs he co-wrote for their first album than to the ones that he didn’t for their second.

The Chili Peppers were loose and not really in control, but their grooves slammed and they leaped around like hares, and the roiling throngs roiled very much indeed. Plus, they did a cool cover of N.W.A’s “Boyz N the Hood.”