It’s Tuesday, one of the biggest days in Cary Brothers’ life, the day his album “Who You Are” is released, and the singer-songwriter is talking about good fortune. “I hope my karma is saving itself for the record,” he jokes from his home in L.A., where he is laid up. “I cracked my ankle doing the video shoot, then I lost the hard drive on the laptop that does everything for me.”
By the time he hobbles into the Hotel Cafe tonight for his record-release show, Brothers figures to have some stories to tell, beyond those on his lushly orchestrated debut. There, amid ringing guitars, crashing cymbals and tinkling pianos, the Nashville native with the Britpop sensibilities tells his L.A. tales, touching on “a lot of things that have happened to me since I moved here, all the disastrous relationships, everything I’ve learned ... like not to date actresses,” he says.
In Brothers’ case, it’s been as much “where you are” as “Who You Are.”
[Another in a series covering bands playing around L.A.:] The Appearance aren't exactly reinventing the wheel; in fact, they're kind of pushing one downhill, waving to the past 10 years of alt-rock bands as they pass. On the Orange County quartet's debut album, "Lost in Aurora" (released last week by the Adrenaline Music Group), singer-guitarist Alan Oakes marches bandmates Chad Kulengosky, Justin McCarthy and Jason Nelson through early Jimmy Eat World and straight to the precipice of contemporary emo, power chords at full throttle and lovelorn vocals alternately soaring and intertwined. If you like what you hear on commercial radio, the Appearance may be for you -- producer Chris Fudurich keeps things nice and crisp, guitarist Kulengosky has the chops, and Oakes displays a deft enough touch with his wordplay. The Appearance have racked up impressive MySpace numbers, and it'd be no surprise if those virtual "friends" turned into real fans.
||| See the Appearance perform tonight at Red Dragon Studios, 1444 N. Highland (at Sunset). Details on the band's MySpace page, of course. And Rocket is also playing.
It might have been the most productive 10 minutes Eamon Hamilton ever played. The keyboardist of British Sea Power was doing an acoustic guitar set in a Brighton, England, pub when two tipsy patrons approached and offered to play on the songs.
They were Tom and Alex White, the duo behind Brighton luminaries and onetime Mercury Music Prize nominees the Electric Soft Parade. Hamilton was game. "From the first chords, we knew we had something special. They are just sickeningly talented, those two," Hamilton says.
Now they are doing double duty in BrakesBrakesBrakes, the Hamilton project that last week released its second album, "The Beatific Visions." It's a collection of occasionally twangy pop-punk, quick-moving and catchy and built on Hamilton's agitated yelp. (The first album was released as Brakes, before Hamilton renamed the quartet to avoid a conflict with a U.S. band called the Brakes. "We're so good we named ourselves three times," he jokes.)
Like the album, which mixes what Hamilton calls "the great stories and the heartbroken quality" of country music with fun sendups such as the dance number "Spring Chicken," the tour that brings the band to L.A. is all in good fun. Electric Soft Parade is also on the bill, supporting its own new album, "No Need to Be Downhearted."
Says Hamilton: "Tom and Alex will be drinking a lot of coffee."
||| See BrakesBrakesBrakes, the Electric Soft Parade and Pela tonight at Club NME at Spaceland.
[We'll play catch-up this week on album releases and reviews. We think ...]
Amateurs, "Speak Easy" (self-released): L.A. quartet Amateurs can't quite decide what they want to be, except good. Their first album nods to classic rock, folky '70s radio fare, modern indie titans and maybe even prog rock band or two, if they used strings. Whether you hear a lot of Wilco or a little Fleetwood Mac, Fairport Convention or the Band, it's the emotional range that makes Amateurs' an impressive debut. Its melodic bounce, gorgeous wedding of harmonies with Shannon De Jong's strings and smartly spun vignettes by singer-guitarist Keith Waggoner give "Speak Easy" a warm, organic sheen. It's folk-rock that doesn't need to resort to gimmickry or conscious deconstruction.
||| See Amateurs tonight at their album release show at the Scene in Glendale.
Touts for Tuesday, May 29
It's an album release party for ex-Fur singer Holly Ramos tonight too -- an early show at the Hotel Cafe ... Toca celebrates its album release with a show at the Knitting Factory. ... Icelandic blues-country songstress Lay Low performs at the Silverlake Lounge. ... And that's in case you're missing the bigger shows, the Arcade Fire at the Greek and Voxtrot at the El Rey Theatre.
Voxtrot's Ramesh Srivastava won't even read this, if he's true to his word. "I'm sick of reading about it on the Internet already," the singer-songwriter says of his quintet's debut album, released last week. "People blog and things like that, but ..."
But it's a double-edged sword. Those same writers who heaped praise on Voxtrot's three EPs and its merry Anglophilic sensibilities — accelerating the buzz that made the Austin, Texas, group a national phenomenon — have reacted quizzically, or critically, to the more thoughtful and textured "Voxtrot." Yes, the nods to Britpop and the likes of the Smiths, and Belle and Sebastian are still there, but what happened to the party?
"I don't know what the album would have had to sound like to live up to the buzz," Srivastava says. "I do feel like there's too much emphasis on the concept that a band is not a band until they put out an album."
Voxtrot has been a band since 2002, when the frontman got together with boyhood friends Mitch Calvert (guitar), Jason Chronis (bass), Jared Van Fleet (keyboards) and Matt Simon (drums). The band's infancy was interrupted by Srivastava's studies, first in Boston, then in Glasgow, Scotland. The three EPs were recorded when he was home on holiday — that's where the party was.
"I finally came back to do the band full force ... and I kind of went insane for a while," Srivastava says of that period, during which he dealt with the death of a grandmother. In the end, though, he is proud of the range displayed on the final product. "Nothing really encapsulated us up until now."
And what's in the capsule? "Voxtrot" roots itself in the heart-on-sleeve territory of Britpop bands big and small; the album's swoon-worthiness will depend entirely on your threshold for sincerity. Voxtrot's fans, rest assured, have already checked their cynicism at the door.
The posters say "The Autumns vs. The Sugarplastic" -- and as those L.A. bands' co-residency ends tonight at the Spaceland, I'd have to say it's a tie. The Autumns' dense guitars have taken on almost a post-rock feel in their new material; the Sugarplastic's tightly wound, eclectic pop still wields plenty of bite. It was an odd pairing for a co-residency, but thte night I attended the crowd did not turn over too much.
LoveLikeFire ends its residency tonight too, at El Cid. The San Francisco quartet has a stage presence that might exceed its interest musically right now, but a hook or two could change that, and the band certainly has attracted devotees to its dark, urgent churn. Certainly, the downloadable "A Million Pieces" is worth a buck, if you visit their MySpace page.
The Topanga Days festival starts a three-day run -- plenty of talent on it diverse lineup, from Veruca Salt
and Minibar on Saturday to to John Doe (with special gust Pamela Des Barres) and the Sin City All Stars on Sunday to the Young Dubliners on Sunday. Lineup here. ... Meanwhile, Saturday, Something for Rockets, Bedtime for Toys and Glacier Hiking make for a strong night at the Scene.
Touts for Sunday, May 27
Tussle headlines the Echo in what promises to promises to be a dancy night. Or you could stay in, pour yourself a drink and watch their video for "Second Guessing."
Touts for Monday, May 28
Phantom Planet, supported by Emma Burgess, plays the Roxy. (Phantom Planet returns for a June 4 engagement there too.) ... At Indie 103.1's night at the Viper Room, Nico Vega, the Gray Kid and the Ringers perform. And the eastside May residencies end on this holiday night -- Gliss at Spaceland, Bodies of Water at the Echo and the all-star lineup doing business as the High Society at the Silverlake Lounge. ... Have a lovely weekend.
Photo of Gliss's Marty Klingman performing at Spaceland.
A deep lineup of music is shaping up for the annual Sunset Junction Street Fair, the carnival/food fair/rock festival that takes over Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake on Aug. 18 and 19.
Some major headliners for Sunday are still to be announced -- watch for a big name to be dropped July 16 -- but the Saturday roster for the rock-oriented Bates Stage is formidable, with the night ending with sets by New York shoegazers Blonde Redhead and the pride of Claremont, Ben Harper.
Blonde Redhead, fresh off an appearance at Coachella and the release of their seventh (and I'll join those who are saying, best) album, "23," has always had a stong L.A. following, owing to the strong presence of bands with similar sensibilities. One of those, Autolux, will precede the New Yorkers on the Bates Stages on Friday night. Is that enough wall-of-sound for you, kids?
By the way, Blonde Redhead is inviting fans to remix "Signs Along the Path" -- you can download the parts here.
||| Download the title track from Blonde Redhead's album, "23."
[One in a series tipping you to bands playing around town:]
Over three EPs for Orange County-based Velvet Blue Music, Kissing Cousins are happily all over the map -- dispensing infectious girl-pop, slightly bent balladry and spiky anthems with schoolgirl enthusiam and postgradute aplomb. It's never too serious, though -- at a recent show at the Echo, they also dispensed cotton candy. Drummer Beth, singer-guitarist Heather, bassist Rhea and keyboardist-flutist Kara all go by their first names only; maybe by the time they make a full-length, we'll get the whole story.
||| See: Kissing Cousins perform tonight (as part of a Tribute to the Doors) at Safari Sam's, Monday at the Detroit Bar and June 1 at Mr. T's Bowl.
Brother Ali doesn't believe his rising prominence in the hip-hop world represents a victory for the underground over the mainstream. "A lot of people don't feel represented by what's in the mainstream because they feel the mainstream is terrible and it's holding them back," the Minneapolis rapper says. "I don't necessarily feel that way. But maybe people do want voices that are a little closer to where they're coming from."
It's called Everyman appeal, and Brother Ali exudes plenty of it. An albino Muslim who overcame a hardscrabble upbringing, Ali mines his personal experiences on "The Undisputed Truth," his second album for Rhymesayers Entertainment. The breakup of his marriage, being homeless, life as a single dad, his working-class frustration with the government -- all are fodder for his deft flow and wordplay, which got a warm reception during an afternoon set last month at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.
It's a deeper -- and, thanks to the soulful backdrop by producer Ant (Atmosphere), more tuneful -- excursion into a world Ali first shared with listeners in the song "Forest Whitiker," off 2003's "Shadows on the Sun." "I listed a lot of personal stuff, a lot of details, but that's the song people respect," Ali says. "It shows you don't have to have the exact same experience as somebody to relate to what they're doing."
||| See Brother Ali, with DJ BK One, host Toki Wright and Chicago rapper Psalm One, tonight at the Troubadour.
Videos from the Smashing Pumpkins show tonight at the Grand Rex in Paris -- the band's first show since 2000 -- are already all over YouTube. And even if none is of particularly good quality, it's amusing to hear people sing along to "Today" with a French accent.
The show, in front of 2,200, is already the subject of some spirited debate all over the Internet -- and that figures to escalate throughout their European dates -- but most of it boils down to one issue: Do fans accept that Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin and their hired musicians are calling themselves the Pumpkins? Or are the Pumpkins without James and D'Arcy not the Pumpkins at all?
Please discuss. I continue to spend time with "Zeitgeist" and try to decide for myself.
One thing for sure: The Grand Rex crowd got its money's worth. Corgan, Chamberlin, bassist Ginger Reyes, guitarist Jeff Schroeder and keyboardist Lisa Harriton played for three hours.
The setlist, forgoing the quotation marks around song names: United States, Today, Stand Inside Your Love, Orchid, Doomsday Clock, Home, Hummer, Starz, Tarantula, Bullet, Gossamer, God and Country, 33, Rocket, Winterlong, To Sheila, Glass and the Ghost Children, Cherub Rock, 1979, Tonight, Neverlost, That's the Way, Disarm, Zero, Untitled, Shame, Silverf---, Annie Dog, Muzzle.
[This item was published in the Calendar Weekend section last Thursday, but for those of you who never get ink on your fingertips -- and I know you're out there -- here it is again:]
If anybody is amazed by the sleight-of-hand that yielded the music on Pop Levi’s debut, “The Return to Form Black Magick Party,” it’s the artist himself. “I knew a song was finished when I said to myself, ‘I can’t believe it hasn’t already been written,’” the L.A.-based singer-guitarist says. “At times I felt I was watching songs come true.”
The album, a saw-toothed blitz of psych, pop, blues and glam, was recorded in Levi’s native Liverpool, before he and his quartet took up residence on the West Coast. Both the music and the presentation are updates on ’60s mod — “Post-mod,” Levi says humorously, “also known as ‘flunk.’”
It’s a classic cut-and-paste of classic rock influences, from Dylan to Hendrix to Bolan, catchy and more than a little bit audacious. But if the first outing from the ex-Ladytron bassist seems bold, wait till you hear what he has in store for his sophomore effort.
“I want to make the first R&B record by a Caucasian four-piece from Liverpool,” he says, detailing plans to record later this year in Hollywood. “I want to make a crucial dance record that sounds leagues from what any indie rocker would make — I want it to sound like the noise coming from those BMWs cruising down Hollywood Boulevard on a summer night.”
Photo of Pop Levi performing at Coachella by Kevin Bronson / LAT.
And speaking of Mando Diao (I think that translates to "cool garage rock played by cute Swedish boys"), here's their video for "Long Before Rock 'n' Roll":
Hollywood will be raining purple this summer, if current plans hold up.
Prince is expected to announce a seven-week residency at the historic Roosevelt Hotel that will include a heaping helping of music, dining and VIP guests, sources say. The stint is contingent on final approval of the contracts, which could come as early as this week. The string of shows is scheduled to start in mid-June, about a week after the 49th birthday of the man born Prince Rogers Nelson.
What the plans call for: On seven Friday nights starting June 15, the Roosevelt will close off its lobby at 9 p.m. Then, at 11:30 in the Blossom Room in front of 250 seated guests and an undetermined number of standing-room-only patrons, Prince (joined each week by special guests) will give a two-hour performance. At 2 a.m., Prince's private chef will take over the kitchen of the Roosevelt's Dakota restaurant, which will morph into an after-hours dinner club. As part of a jazz ensemble, Prince will entertain diners until 4 a.m.
Nobody's going to be asking where afterparty is, that's for sure. Ticket information might be available this week -- suffice to say these tickets will not be cheap. A one-off performance given by Prince last year at the Roosevelt attracted a star-studded crowd.
Their relationship with Mute over, the Warlocks -- a slimmer, trimmer version of the band that once numbered eight members -- are back in the studio working on the follow-up to 2005's disappointing "Surgery." There's no music to be shared yet, but frontman Bobby Hecksher is tentatively titling the album (due this fall on Tee Pee Records) "Heavy Deavy Skull Lover."
Rod Cervera is working with Hecksher to produce. The psych-rock band is now a quartet, with Jennifer Fraser on bass and the two-pronged drumming assault of Jason Anchondo and Robert Mustachio.
"Dreamy, layered guitars, far-out and heavy -- hence, the title," Hecksher says through his publicist, adding he took a year off to write and "deal with the hassles of life. ... I only wanted to work with a few people, meaning a smaller band. It's just where I'm at right now."
[Another in an occasional series covering artists playing around Los Angeles:]
"There's so much joie de ... something," a friend said to me during a recent set by L.A.'s Bodies of Water, the Monday night residents this month at the Echo. Indeed, something.
Summoning an energy maybe only a D-cell battery short of the Arcade Fire or Polyphonic Spree, Bodies of Water are certainly not lacking for bodies. The group's core -- the husband-and-wife team of David (guitar) and Meredith (organ) Metcalf, Jessie Conklin (drums) and Kyle Gladden (bass) -- swells to 10 members live, including three horn players, a violist, another guitarist and another drummer.
Sometimes you wonder if there are enough microphones to go around; since almost everybody sings, the exuberant noise on Bodies' debut album, "Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink" (due July 24), escalates into a band sing-along. The sprawling arrangements and intertwined vocals give Bodies' gospel-folk a proggy feel -- not to mention the notion that you're just one tent short of a revival.
More cowbell.
||| See: Bodies of Water plays free shows the next two Mondays at the Echo -- supported tonight by the like-minded Parson Redheads, who, we think, still hold the record for most musicians on the Echo stage.
[Here's an excerpt from Casey Dolan's weekly Downloads column, which you can find here:]
The Sea and Cake, "Crossing Line": An odd piece of musical magic from Chicago’s venerable band, “Crossing Line” is from the new album “Everybody” — the Sea and Cake’s first release in four years. Sam Prekop’s half-asleep, funky white-boy vocals are a perfect juxtaposition with the low-budget distorted guitars, and listen to Eric Claridge’s wonderfully in-the-pocket bass. It’s hard to make out what Prekop is singing about, but the subtle, organic music more than makes up for the obscured lyrics. It’s a casual groove for a summer afternoon. Download.
||| See the Sea and Cake perform Saturday and Sunday at the Troubadour.
Mickey Avalon reminds me of the troubled kid in my 6th-grade class whose profane outbursts drained you of any sympathy you had for the kid's hardscrabble background. You just wanted him to shut up.
These days, if you take those outbursts, color them with an emotional biography, add a few humdrum beats and stir in whatever substances are floating around the Sunset Strip, you have a rap star -- which is what Avalon proved to be Thursday night at the sold-out Key Club. Soldiering through a set the night after he was hospitalized for an undisclosed ailment ("Thank God for pain-killing medication," he said), Avalon thrilled a largely female (and also largely medicated) crowd with his seamy urban tales. It might have been tepid for anybody silly enough to be sober, if not for a clever set design and some onstage dancers/role players. Yes, folks, this song is about streetwalkers -- see the streetwalkers?
The show -- which ended with a bunch of people from the crowd joining Avalon onstage to dance to "Jane Fonda" -- flagged only when Avalon was joined by opening act Andre Legacy and Dirt Nasty. Their own 45-minute set of misogynous, amateurish coke rap ranked somewhere below the lowest common denominator, as they covered vital topics such as oral sex, bestiality and cocaine. A pity our jails are so overcrowded.
Photo by Jason Fisher
◊ ◊ ◊
A bit later, at the Roxy, Whitestarr was holding forth, playing some new stuff that will appear on an album to be released later this summer. Hit the MySpace page to hear a pretty cool classic-rocker, "Beautiful Thing."
Sea Level Records, the independent outlet that in 5 1/2 years had become a locus for Los Angeles' Eastside music scene, will close June 30, owner Todd Clifford said. "It's not so much competition as the fact I want my life back," said Clifford, 32, who runs the store, at 1716 Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park, with the help of just one part-time employee. "Yes, it's been a struggle. But each year has been better than the last. It just got to be too much for me."
For several years, power-poppers the 88 were catchy with everyone in Los Angeles except the record industry. Their jaunty songs and dapper stage presence made them club favorites, and it seemed when I first saw them more than three years ago (and then tabbed them in my annual local-music review "Homegrown and Happening" in 2005) that eventually somebody would notice.
Music supervisors did, mining the 88's catalogue more than 30 times over the past several years for music to use in television shows and commercials. "The fact that we've had so many [placements] is amazing," keyboardist Adam Merrin says.
The band's good fortune continued with this week's announcement it has signed to Island Def Jam records, home to Fall Out Boy, the Killers and the Bravery. The 88's third album is planned for early 2008, and the band already has recorded three songs with producer Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds.
"I'm still surprised by the whole thing," Merrin says, "because the type of music we play is not what you hear on the radio ... although we always thought it was accessible enough."
Some say that television shows and commericals are the new radio -- if so, the 88 is doing on the right wavelength. The band's latest coup was having "Coming Home" used in a Sears commercial -- the minute-long spot is almost entirely music, until the end.
And Merrin is understandly enthused about working with Edmonds: "The great thing is, he didn't change us. We're still able to sound like the 88 -- it's just sonically bigger."
Here's the video for "Hide Another Mistake," from 2005's "Over and Over":
After the jump, just for grins, read my take on the 88 in September 2005:
Swedish quintet the Shout Out Louds have landed on independent Merge Records after failing to survive the purge following the Capitol merger. The band's sophomore album, "Our Ill Wills," will land Sept. 11 in the U.S. -- pretty catchy stuff, if the first single, "Tonight I Have to Leave It" is any indication. Here's the video:
[One in an occasional series covering artists playing around Los Angeles:]
Hearts of Palm U.K. aren't from the U.K. at all, of course, and singer-keyboardist-guitarist Erica Elektra guards the the story behind the "U.K." in their name like a state secret. It's no secret what Echo Park-based Elektra and band mate Ambi-D are doing -- twee pop with honeyed vocals, tart lyrics and twitchy beats. It might remind you of the likes of Talulah Gosh, Lali Puna or Look Blue Go Purple. Elektra claims to have once been electrocuted in the basement of her New York City apartment; now that's current.
Fujiya & Miyagi [see yesterday's post], with the CoCo B's opening, play the Echo. ... Ozma rocks the Troubadour. ... The Hectors bring it at the Alterknit Lounge. ... And Mickey Avalon has gone and sold out the Key Club.
Fujiya & Miyagi, three guys from Brighton, England, who make some of the wittiest dance music you'll hear, are coming back to L.A. (this blog reviewed their March show here and their album here). They play the Echo on Thursday night.
I talked to lyricist David Best for this week's Buzz Bands print column, and, noting that his subject matter on the album "Transparent Things" ranged whimsically from body parts to office machines to sneakers, asked what he'll do for an encore.
"I'm trying to find a few new topics," he said with a laugh. "I think on the next album there's songs about an obscure British singer, pterodactyls and ... well, there might be something about body parts too." Should be fun.
Here's the band's new video for "Ankle Injuries":
Touts for Wednesday, May 16
MSTRKRFT rocks BPM magazine's party at the Roxy. ... And Patrick Wolf brings his eclectic pop to the Troubadour.
Nobody who remembers the halcyon days -- like Kennedy, wearing a fur coat and very little underneath, being pushed to the stage in a wheelchair by female hangers-on before a set at Spaceland -- will be surprised that the Silver Lake performer has become something of a darling on YouTube. His video for "Your Mama" -- which, regrettably, did not come to my attention in time for Mother's Day -- has gotten an obscene number of plays the past few days.
The digital-only single is released today on Cordless Recordings, and the full-length "Kennedy for President" is due later this summer. Those who have witnessed his campaigning many times over the years will no doubt want to join his party.
Here's the lightweight but fun "Your Mama":
Touts for Tuesday, May 15
Great Northern headlines the Echo to celebrate the release of its debut album "Trading Twilight for Daylight." ... In Waves headlines at Spaceland. ... The Ruby Tuesday night at the Key Club offers up hotshot youngsters the Shys, the Tender Box and Astra Heights. ... Ex-Helicopter Helicopter principals Chris Zerby and Julie Chadwick have nice new music as Hello Dragon, performing at the Silverlake Lounge. ... The Low Stars begin a residency at the Hotel Cafe. ... The Meat Puppets reconvene at the Troubadour ... Lily Allen's show at the El Rey is sold out.
Drove around Hollywood on Saturday night with the car windows rattling, trying to obey all the speed limits and avoid those rolling stops at intersections. It was hard, what with the Smashing Pumpkins "Zeitgeist" on the stereo.
Like a lot of folks who spent the '90s immersed in the Pumpkins' cathartic bliss, I've been curious about what this incarnation of the band would offer. The album (due July 10) was made by the only two Pumpkins originals involved in the project, singer-guitarist Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, along with two producers with long resumes, Roy Thomas Baker and Terry Date. Southern Californians Jeff Schroeder (guitar) and Ginger Reyes (bass) are filling out the lineup for the live shows, which begin May 22 in Paris.
My four-song taste included the songs "Tarantula" (the first single), "Doomsday Clock," "Starz" and "That's the Way (My Love Is)." Impressions? It sounded monstrous, like an army of these kid metal-core bands that try to knock you off your feet with bottom-heavy blasts. Corgan's snarl has aged well. Chamberlin sounded like three Chamberlins, if you can imagine that. Yet I never felt during any of the songs that they were trying to be anything but the Smashing Pumpkins. Bring it on, I say.
That's all I'll say, based on one listen.
The Pumpkins did announce two residencies yesterday, a nine-show stint starting June 23 at the Orange Peel in Asheville, N.C., and an eight-show run at the Fillmore in San Francisco starting July 22. Full tour dates here. The Asheville dates follow 13 European shows, a couple of which will indeed feature ex-Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth.
By the way, tickets go on sale May 20 for the Asheville (Orange Peel site or Ticketweb) and San Francisco (Ticketmaster or Live Nation) shows. They will be sold on the web only.
I'm not a huge fan of the Exies' competent but ultimately fairly ordinary hard rock, but you have to tip your cap to them for their stealth-promotion. A bulletin this morning announces that the L.A. band is taking up the case against Paris Hilton, lending the Exies' MySpace site to the "Send Paris to Jail" campaign. Supporters of Hilton, of course, have started an online petition beseeching Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon the heiress, who was sentenced to 45 days in jail for driving with a license that had been suspended due to a previous DUI arrest. The Exies have joined in with the throngs doing a counter-petition.
Exies singer-guitarist Scott Stevens, from the press release:
“Paris is nothing more than a glorified internet-porn star who has gotten a free ride from the media. She has absolutely no discernible talent other than that of self-promotion, and shouldn’t receive privileged treatment in this case, in which she’s quite obviously broken the law and deserves to serve the punishment she’s been sentenced to."
Not to doubt the band's convictions one bit, but, speaking of self-promotion, did we mention that the Exies have a new album out? (Today's press release didn't, by the way.) It's called "A Modern Way of Living With the Truth."
OK, so I fell for it. Here's the band's video for "Different Than You":
"Where you gonna be / when your ship comes in?" Nanda Zipp asks in the opening verse of "Small Boat."
Well, at work, that's where. At least, that's the way it was for Mario Esquivel, Zipp's co-songwriter in the band Folkloriate. The twangy L.A. band's small boat landed, in a manner of speaking, at the Starbucks in Silver Lake, where Esquivel is assistant manager. Esquivel, Folkloriate's bassist, answered the call when the coffee giant invited employees to submit original recordings for a compilation album.
And "Small Boat" landed on "Off the Clock Vol. 1: Music From Up & Coming Starbucks Artists," which was released last month on Starbucks Entertainment's Hear Music imprint.
"It's something we're very proud of," says Esquivel, who with Zipp is working on a full-length album they hope to have finished this summer. "It's very exciting to be on a compilation with that kind of distribution."
No kidding. "Off the Clock," a mocha-worthy mix of largely pop, folk and jazz numbers selected from about 800 submissions, is available at any of the bazillion Starbucks locations.
Also on the compilation is 20-year-old Moorpark College student Carly Escoto, a now-locally-famous barista at a Starbucks in Thousand Oaks who contributed "Stay for Good," a nifty little guitar ballad.
Photo: Esquivel, left, and Zipp of Folkloriate (Starbucks Entertainment)
Another show has been moved from the Greek Theatre to the Gibson Amphitheatre in the aftermath of the Griffith Park fire -- Modest Mouse's date on Sunday with openers Man Man and Love As Laughter. Tickets need to be exchanged at the box office, which opens at 5 p.m., so patrons are advised to arrive early.
[I am severely lagging when it comes to reviews. Here's a taste of what's been filling my ears:]
Top shelf
Lavender Diamond, "Imagine Our Love" (Matador, May 8): You have to be pretty cynical to dislike Becky Stark, who might be as close as we've got to a real-live flower child in 2007. Or maybe she just channels hippiedom so effectively that her musical persona is some form of performance art. Whatever, it works. Her voice -- comparisons to Karen Carpenter and other long-ago pop heroines are appropriate -- teeters between innocence and enlightenment, the siren of a cherub whose directness cuts through all our coarseness and rationalizations. Backed ably by guitarist Jeff Rosenberg, keyboardist Steve Gregoropoulos and drummer Ron Rege, Jr., Stark calls upon us to open our hearts, embrace nature, be honest, have hope and, well, darn it, just love.
||| Hear "Open Your Heart" from the album and "You Broke My Heart" from the "Cavalry of Light" EP here. See Lavender Diamond perform a free in-store at 7 tonight at Amoeba Music.
Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight" (Eenie Meenie, May 15): The brushstrokes are pretty fine on the long-awaited debut from this Silver Lake quartet -- carefully layered guitars, keyboards and strings, entwined boy-girl vocals from Solon Bixler and Rachel Stolte and bold rhythms from drummer Davey Latter and bassist Ashley Dzerigian all adding up to a melancholic majesty that makes you wonder what on earth has them so bummed out. It's pretty, though artfully constructed, and pretty easy to lose yourself in its sweep and swells.
||| Download"The Middle."See Great Northern perform Tuesday at the Echo (free).
Also recommended
Maximo Park, "Our Earthly Pleasures" (Warp, May 8): Like their first album and its single "Apply Some pressure," the latest batch of catchy, angular pop from this English quintet seems to be in a big hurry to get somewhere. Like my CD player.
Patrick Wolf, "The Magic Position" (Low Altitude, May 1): The third album from this 24-year-old Londoner is never boring, a wild ride of fractured pop with kitchen-sink instrumentation in seemingly ADD-addled arrangements.
Midnight Movies, "Lion the Girl" (New Line, April 24): It's all about atmospherics on the Los Angeles band's second album, and first as a quartet. Gena Olivier's soaring vocals fold into her mates' shadowy psychedelia, recalling a droney Curve.
Sea Wolf, "Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low" EP (Dangerbird, May 8): Gorgeous folk-pop and storytelling from L.A.'s Alex Church -- autumn seems too long a wait for his full-length debut.
Because of the Griffith Park fire, concerts scheduled for tonight and Friday at the Greek Theatre have been moved to the Gibson Amphitheatre. Harpist-vocalist Loreena McKennitt was slated to play the Greek tonight, and the British pop band Keane, with locals Rocca DeLuca and the Burden as openers, on Friday. Tickets will need to be exchanged at the Gibson box office, so patrons are advised to arrive early.
No word yet on whether Sunday's show at the Greek featuring Modest Mouse will be moved.
It was home to the stealth antenna used by a certain Internet radio station back in the days it was broadcasting on a pirated FM frequency. It was the trio's de facto dressing room when BRMC headlined the Sunset Junction Street Fair one block away. And it was the scene of a couple crimes -- a car theft, and a burglary that hit singer/bassist/keyboardist Robert Levon Been right where it hurt.
"The place got broken into while we were in the middle of recording; they took my camera, computer, and worst of all my backpack with my lyric books," Been says. "We were supposed to record vocals on [the song] 'American X,' and I went in to sing it empty-handed, feeling like the song was stolen right out from under us.
"So I just turned out the lights and sang a bunch of stream-of-consciousness stuff. A lot of it was awful, but a lot of it was great. It somehow became more of a poem than when I wrote it."
"American X," which clocks in at longer than 9 minutes, represents the epic sprawl on the otherwise tightly wound "Baby 81," BRMC's new album. Released May 1, the album moves the trio back toward its darker, Jesus and Mary Chain-informed roots, this time more crackling and churning than droning. Gone are the strummy meditations and folky ministrations of 2005's "Howl," a detour into Americana that won the band some critical acclaim but prompted BRMC's early fans to wonder: Whatever happened to my rock 'n' roll?
The Little Ones are still one of this city's strongest musical happy pills, but, as a set Friday night showed, it's hard to maintain that peak level of exuberance when you're doing it night after night, tour after tour.
The L.A. quintet -- "Rhymin' Simon on steroids" is how I described them last year, and it still applies -- played an ASCAP- and Filter-sponsored music night on Friday tied to the Silverlake Film Festival. The stuff from their "Sing Song" EP still sounded crisp, and their new songs were upbeat and catchy too. But after having spent the early part of this year doing some rigorous touring, the Little Ones weren't quite as unhinged as they were when their EP was first released and Astralwerks (in the U.S.) and Heavenly (in the U.K.) swooped in to sign the band.
Are the Little Ones still as happy as their music? "That's a good question," frontman Edward Reyes says. "We're excited. ... Remember, we just looked at that EP as our calling card -- we just wanted to get some shows with it."
Their as-yet-untitled debut album is recorded and due in January, Reyes says. "It's turning out great," he adds. "Right now we have a whole track devoted to laughing."
||| Download Little Ones' songs from their Daytrotter session here.
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Passion of the Weiss has a play-by-play of Britney Spears' Houses of Blues appearance (I will not call it a performance). He even has some empathy.
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Ran into an employee of a recently merged record company who was enthused about having adopted a puppy. Cute thing ... so what did you name him? "Andy Slater."
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"So how was Coachella?" That was the most-asked question last week. I told inquiring minds that it was a three-day weekend of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and even as they were unfolding I knew I was missing others. Wish the festival could have just hesitated a few times each day and let me catch up.
The inconsiderate hipsters at Anthem, who throw their Coachella party during the day while the music is going on, tell me I missed something else too -- a mask-less Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk [face obscured] spinning the LCD Soundsystem track "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House." Not that anybody recognized him. But a cool party nonetheless.
Daft Punk turned up on the turntables a couple nights later at the Echo too. Not that anybody recognized them.
[Nope, just our Kenny Chesney post. That pic is as close as we could get to the guy.]
There's little to add to the Kenny Chesney conversation at this point. Either you're the type of country fan who's down with his mercilessly optimistic brand of rum-soaked Jimmy Buffett-core or you're not. Most folks at Stagecoach seem to be okay with that.
The strains of "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" are currently wafting through the desert night and I think I might have figured him out. Kenny Chesney is country's version of Diddy. Neither have any discernable charisma beyond good-times opulence and the generic tropes of island revelry: booze, good-looking ladies and a sense of exotica bleached clean of any actual sense of local lifestyle or attachment to the roots of one's given terrain. Which is, obviously, totally contrary to the values of country music. But still ...
For the auteur behind "Beer in Mexico," the actual country to our immediate south is a set piece for his maxin' and relaxin' worldview, as opposed to a place where real people live and work. But it's probably asking too much to expect more, because Chesney is, like Diddy, more of an idea than an actual artist, or even a person at this point. They exist solely to embody the spoils of the successful entertainer's life with none of the trappings of actually maintaining a dangerous public persona. All of that would be too messy, and would interfere with the on-message image of oily pecs, frothy Coronas and a respite from the grind whom so many actual Mexican citizens help make so much easier through selfless labor.
Chesney is all that is wrong with modern Nashville, yet also the archetype of the post-9/11 country music mentality. Namely, that fans want to curl up under a palm tree and sip fruity drinks while the busy, ugly world washes by.
Not so fast, buddy. This genre has some explaining to do first.
[Guest blogger August Brown is ready for some pizza deliverance.]
Drive-By Truckers represent everything right about the impulse but bad about the execution behind Stagecoach's mix of alternative and mainstream country. The band is closest thing we have to a modern-day Skynyrd (they wrote a double album, "Southern Rock Opera" about them, after all), and their filthy, witty roughneck tunes should have destroyed the Palomino Stage, even if they were competing with the former Mr. Zellweger on the Mane Stage (and more on him in a bit).
But like Neko Case last night, the Truckers had the dubious honor of being having the most skewed talent-to-audience ratio of the day. We're all about hyperbole here, but there honestly could not have been more than 200 people watching their set. And that is just unacceptable for such a relentlessly awesome rock group that by all rights should have packed the place. The only conclusion is that Stagecoach needs to de-ghettoize the alt-country groups from the Palomino Stage and have more back-and forth across the field between mainstream and underground groups.
But given the attendance atrocity, the Truckers kept their chins up and delivered as best they could. "Shut Up and Get On The Plane" was a worthy travellin' song that swung like a sackful of bricks, and the laid-bare fears on closer "Angels and Fuselage" withstood the boozy affirmations of a dude screaming "Truckers!" after every line, even if he drove guitarist Mike Cooley to gulp from a handle of Jack Daniel's onstage.
I'd like to think that Stagecoach can accommodate bands like the Truckers and win them a new audience of mainstream country fans. But until Stagecoach figures out how to introduce the two, the bad habit of a great band being criminally ignored by a whole festival will probably continue. And that's a shame.
[Guest blogger August Brown is putting on another pot o' tea when he gets back from this.]
Emmylou Harris is the Helen Mirren of country music. Dashing silver fox? Absolutely. Been around forever yet achieved hipster cachet in recent years? Ryan Adams, Conor Oberst and even Mark Knopfler ("A nice country boy") would say so.
Harris' voice is, and has alway been, one of the genre's most visible yet its most adaptable to others' idiosyncrasies. But her set on the Palomino Stage was all about her and the graceful mother-to-the-world she's become late in her career.
With a mostly all-female backing band, Harris staples like the hard-bitten "Red Dirt Girl" and newer, more ethereal cuts like "Orphan Girl" resonated with her wispy vibrato and proved that the best instruments only improve with time.
Though the set was astonishingly under-attended at first (curse you, Brooks & Dunn), the crowd filled out with every tune until the field was rapt. Mothers' Day is next week, and Harris, who turned 60 last month, dedicated a song to her daughter to note the occasion. Should every daughter and mother be so lucky to have that voice, in this valley, do the same.
