10 am: Festival

Hidden Valley Park in Irvine is the place to be Sunday if you’re into custom vehicles and celebrating Latin culture. Billed as a fiesta on wheels, Salsa 2000 will offer some 500 custom cars and trucks competing in more than 50 categories including car and truck hopping contests. If hydraulic vehicles and spiffy, vintage cars aren’t your bag, the celebration will offer other Latin entertainment and activities. A menudo breakfast will kick off the day. Live mariachi music, folklorico dancing, deejay music, food booths, arts and crafts displays and children’s rides and crafts will also contribute to the fun.

* Salsa 2000, Hidden Valley Park, off the 405 Freeway at 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. $18; ages 6-12, $8; under age 6, free. (949) 595-8930.

7 pm: Jazz

Seattle’s busy music scene is about more than grunge. Two of the city’s most free-thinking musicians, bassist Jeff Johnson and saxophonist Hans Tauber, will travel south to join beyond-category drummer Billy Mintz for an evening of improvisational experiments, electrifying impressions and thoughtful musical discourse. Also on the bill is San Francisco-based pianist-composer Graham Connah and his ambitious Sour Note Seven Ensemble.

* Jeff Johnson and Hans Tauber, Open Gate Theatre Sunday Evening Concerts, Eagle Rock Community Cultural Center, 2225 Colorado Blvd., Eagle Rock. 7 p.m. $10. (626) 795-4989.

noon: Art

A bestiary, or book of beasts--a manuscript made popular in the Middle Ages--describes animals both real and allegorical for moral teaching purposes. “Bestiary,” opening Sunday at the Armory Center for the Arts, takes the idea behind the manuscript and projects it onto this exhibition of paintings, photographs, video and sculpture, creating a bestiary for the eyes. From mud bear sculptures to digital images of monsters, the exhibition will feature animal-inspired works by Katherine Spence, Ulriche Palmbach, Susan Silton and Tom Knechtel, among others.

* “Bestiary,” Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Ends Aug. 27. Wednesday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Thursday-Friday, 6:30-9 p.m. Free. (626) 792-5101.

noon: Pop Music

Alternative rock has been crowded out of the spotlight by the onslaught of hard-rock, hip-hop and teen-pop, but the independent, eclectic spirit that invigorated pop music through the ‘90s takes center stage at the annual This Ain’t No Picnic. Beck--playing a full band set rather than the planned acoustic show--headlines a bill that includes such noteworthy acts as Grandaddy and Modest Mouse.

* This Ain’t No Picnic, Oak Canyon Ranch, 5305 Santiago Canyon Road, Irvine. Noon. $30. (213) 480-3232.

7:30 pm: Music

If it’s Independence Day it must be time for the Hollywood Bowl’s three-performance celebration, the Fireworks Spectacular. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra will be conducted by John Mauceri, and the guest star is singer-songwriter-guitarist Glen Campbell. Of course, fireworks will light up the sky at each of the three shows.

* Hollywood Bowl’s July Fourth Fireworks Spectacular takes place in Hollywood Bowl, 2701 N. Highland Ave., 7:30 p.m. Repeated July 3 and 4. $7 to $50. (213) 365-3500.

11 am: Art

For the first time in 25 years, gold artifacts of the Scythians are traveling to the United States in “Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures From Ancient Ukraine,” opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Featuring more than 170 lavish gold and silver works of art, the objects in the exhibition detail the lives of the once-feared warrior culture that ruled the Eurasian steppes from the 7th to the 3rd centuries BC. Due to the fact that the Scythians left no written records, the detailed works in the exhibition, such as gorytos, scabbards and swords, relay combat scenes and images from daily life.

* “Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures from Ancient Ukraine,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, noon-8 p.m.; Friday, noon-9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. $7; students and seniors, $5; children and younger students, $1; children 5 and under, free. (323) 857-6000.

Freebie

As part of the Silver Lake Rocks/Runs/Eats & Shops festival, local bands play from noon to 5 p.m. at Spaceland, 1717 N. Silverlake Blvd., and restaurants have a food tasting in the club’s parking lot. There will also be a race around Silver Lake Reservoir starting at 8:30 a.m., and an arts and crafts sidewalk sale along Silver Lake Boulevard from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (323) 661-1739.