Dustin' off the acoustic guitar

Behind the sheets of guitar and the anguished screams of Orange County hard-core rockers Thrice lay a folk singer, just waiting to show his roots. Or so Dustin Kensrue has revealed on his solo debut, "Please Come Home," released this week.

"It's a niche I hadn't gone into yet," the 26-year-old singer-guitarist says of his exploration of folk and blues. "They were obviously songs that didn't feel like they would fit in with Thrice."

Some of the material, which sounds as if it could have grown from the same sonic branches as Uncle Tupelo or Ryan Adams, dates back four years. He'd play the songs at parties and for friends, and "people kept encouraging me to put a record out," he says.

So he and Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi burned the midnight oil after the band's studio sessions in Orange to record "Please Come Home," leaving the production comfortably rough-edged. The result is an album that would fit into Kensrue's personal playlist — the likes of Tom Waits, Yo La Tengo, Ryan Adams and Miles Davis.

"Thrice is known as a heavy band, but none of the guys in Thrice listens to heavy stuff anymore, at least not much," he says. "I find myself lately listening to a lot of jazz or alt-country."

Has the music (released digitally in December) been a hard sell for Thrice fans? "It seems to have gotten a good reaction so far," Kensure says. "Even people who were at first nonplused about it have come around."

||| Kensrue's two shows tonight at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood are sold out. He can been seen Feb. 2 on "Late Night With David Letterman."

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Tonight's touts: Local rockers the Willowz join the Black Lips at Spaceland. ... Mezzanine Owls and Lemon Sun open for Robbers on High Street in an early show at the Echo. ... Later at the Echo, Aloe Blacc hosts this edition of Soundlessons. ... Gliss and LoveLikeFire play the Scene Bar in Glendale. ... And I tell myself this is for a good cause: Great White will perform at the Key Club tonight at an Hal Sparks-hosted event that'll have some celebrity sizzle. It's a benefit to save the baby seals.