SATURDAY

There’s a lot that is loathsome about Alan Licht: He is a proud guitar god (“A guitar hero is a guitar hero,” he told the Wire magazine, November 1998); a cliche New Yorker, who refers to Patti Smith’s Horses as “the Great American Novel, in case you never noticed”; a tremendous name-dropper (Page 8 of his music-crit-lit-autobiography, An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn, features 26 of ’em); and so full of himself that he put a charcoal rendering of himself on the fourth page of said book. He will tell you that by age 14 he was reading the Village Voice and deciphering V.U. His best-known band, Love Child, made two albums nobody still owns, the first of which Licht says “was kind of like we started with the White Album.” Later, he made some records with the band Run On, which created songs that…you guessed it. Of his role in that band, Licht told Guitar Player: “I see myself in Run On as similar to Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds…” And then, in 1998, he produced something his press calls a “sound environment.” After reading the above, you may be wondering: Why should we like Mr. Licht? It’s a good question. He’ll be here at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, at DCCD, 2423 18th St NW. Free. (202) 588-1810. (Jason Cherkis)