My holiday weekend heavy-rotation handful: "The Ortolan" by the Deadly Syndrome; "Astronomy for Dogs" by the Aliens; "A New Hope" by Minipop; "Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John" by Peter Case; and "The Brit Box," the four-disc box set coming in October from Rhino.
And, by the way, the Deadly Syndrome turned its song "Eucalyptus" into an arena-rocker last night at the Roxy.
People (and some of them may be your friends) are all atwitter over the new Britney Spears "Gimme More," which is all glitch and heavy breathing and so disposable I'm tired of it after streaming it once here.
It'll be almost like getting of town for the weekend -- Brian Jonestown Massacre, Saturday and Sunday, at the Echoplex.
No explanation, but the Little Ones have cancelled their West Coast tour dates with Voxtrot, including Sept. 23 at the Fonda.
PJ Harvey has scheduled a show Oct. 15 at the Orpheum.
Imagine that, the Cold War Kids, headlining the Wiltern, on Nov. 23.
There's one of those nifty art space shows tonight with a pretty strong lineup of locals; details here.
Stores like Urban Outfitters make me break out in a sweat, but I'll be stopping by to drop $14 on the two-disc charity compilation "Give.Listen.Help #4," which features tracks from the likes of Patti Smith, Coldplay, Mew, Silversun Pickups, The Go! Team, Travis, Rilo Kiley, Band of Horses, Interpol, Cold War Kids, Air and Blonde Redhead.
[Colleague Frank Farrar catches up with local favorites the Like:]
Fans showing up to hear old favorites from the Like at Spaceland on Wednesday were out of luck. But there didn’t seem to be too many disappointed faces after the still-young group’s energetic set cast entirely of new material. It’s been a couple of years since the Like’s debut album, “Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking,” came out -- and that CD recast songs on earlier EPs. No surprise, then, that the trio reveled in playing some new stuff.
At one point during the typically casual, amiable show, singer-guitarist Z Berg responded to an inquiring mind by promising that a new album “will come out after we make it.” However, after the set, she said she expects Geffen will release it next year, and the Spaceland set was just the second of two shows the band wanted to do before going to Europe in October to record with producer Youth (the Verve, Crowded House).
Some of the new songs may have felt a little underdeveloped, and the first ones were marred by a sound mix that came off like Rock Night in an underwater grotto. But once that got cleared up, the band’s strengths came through: the Blondie-fied ’60s girl group allure of “Release Me”; Charlotte Froom’s confident bass playing, especially on the evening’s closer; Tennessee Thomas’ increasingly vital drumming (she sure likes those toms); and Z’s upper-register vocals, which can give the music a particularly memorable signature touch as it cascades from throbbing garage psychedelia and mid-’60s pop to visions of prog and even a lilting, tamed-down ska line here or there.
“We’ve got a thousand new songs,” Z joked after the show. OK, narrow it down to the 500 best and you’ll have something.
Songwriter Scott Masson is not the first art-schooler to turn to pop music as a means of self-expression. Indeed, the 28-year-old frontman of the Chicago quintet Office credits the year he spent at Goldsmiths College in London, segueing from struggling painter to installation artist, for changing his point of view.
“It taught me how to look at the world with a more critical eye and be more focused,” the singer-guitarist says, remembering that as he emerged from undergrad school in Michigan he was “kind of lost.” Speaking of his early musical excursions, he says, “I was really only talking to myself rather than bringing in the world.”
With the Sept. 25 release of Office’s debut “A Night at the Ritz,” Masson and bandmates Tom Smith, Alissa Noonan, Erica Corniel and Jessica Gonyea will be bringing themselves to the world, dance beats and cheeky humor intact. Office’s glammy histrionics (think Pop Levi) and stuttery synths (think the Cars in stop-and-go traffic) put a hip-shaking twist on boy-girl vocal pop. The album was almost five years in the works. “Our greatest hits that no one’s ever heard,” Masson says with a laugh.
Office caught the attention of James Iha, who signed the band to his New Line-affiliated Scratchie Records. Masson jumped at the chance to work with the ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist “rather than some business-type A&R man,” he says. “Plus, I just like the idea of a small label.”
||| Office performs Thursday night at the Roxy with standout local bands the Deadly Syndrome, Let’s Go Sailing and the Western States Motel as part of Filter’s Revenge of the Sunset Strip program. In late September, Office will tour with Earlimart, including Oct. 24 at the Troubadour. (no L.A. dates listed, but Oct. 23 at the Casbah in San Diego). [Thanks to commenter Jenn, who pointed out the Troub date that was not on Office's original schedule.]
Downtown L.A.'s newest block party will get a visit from Bloc Party on Oct. 6.
The British quartet will be one of the headliners for the second annual LA Weekly Detour Music Festival, held within boogieing distance from Los Angeles City Hall. Tickets, which go on sale at noon Thursday, are $30.50, Attendees get you four stages of music, plus DJs and displays of art. This just in: Presale tickets are $30.50, but that price expires at 10 tonight; regular tickets will be $35.50.
There's a strong local contingent in the lineup -- Moving Units, Autolux, the Aggrolites, the Deadly Syndrome and Nico Vega are on the bill. And plenty of others: Justice, Satellite Party, Kinky, Comedians of Comedy, Turbonegro, Teddybears, the Raveonettes, Shout Out Louds, Celebrity Skin, the Aliens, Busy P, Noisettes, Scissors for Lefty, Johnossi and Augie March. Among the DJs: Franki Chan, Travis Keller and Bruce Perdew.
Makes you want to start a band called the Street Closures.
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By the way, if your tastes run a little more neighborhood-y, the Eagle Rock Music Festival is again scheduled opposite the Detour. Mia Doi Todd, the Pity Party, Chuchito Valdes, Bodies of Water, the Front and the Mormons are among the acts playing the evening affair along Colorado Boulevard.
When I first saw and heard Driveblind, I was pretty sure the sextet from Aberdeen, Scotland, could be the next big thing. Of course, it was after midnight at a smarmy club on the Sunset Strip and I had not yet learned it's best to check your critical thought processes with one of the uppity doormen. I was seduced by Driveblind's leviathan anthems and Scottish accents -- not to mention that they named themselves after a Ride song.
That was four years ago. The short story is: Driveblind signed to A&M, which folded into Geffen, which never quite seemed happy with the album the fellows were making, which delayed it seemingly interminably. Which happens. "Driveblind" came out last October, a solid if overpolished effort, and whether it was the product or the dearth of promotion, the album failed to gain the band any momentum.
Now Driveblind and Geffen are parting ways. "A mutual thing," guitarist Nick Tyler says. "We're not happy; they're not happy."
And the band (a quintet with the departure of rhythm guitarist Cameron Taylor) is striking out on its own. Driveblind headlines the Troubadour tonight, ready to test-drive some new material that Tyler describes as "more upbeat." He adds, "We're trying to shake the cobwebs off."
||| Stream four new demos on Driveblind's MySpace page. And Rehearsals.com has some Driveblind stuff here.
||| Driveblind plays the headline slot at the Troubadour tonight; up-and-coming blues band Back Door Slam performs at 9:30.
Happy Tuesday. You might be jazzed about the Boss' announcements -- Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band are playing Oct. 28 in Los Angeles (venue TBA) and the very rocking new single "Radio Nowhere" is available for free here -- but the fact that P.J. Harvey has new music on the way is great too.
Harvey's new album, due Sept. 25, is titled "White Chalk." No U.S. tour dates have been announced yet.
Are they really charging $30 for a ticket ($40 at the door) for the Summer Strummer festival in Santa Monica on Sunday? I mean, Brett Dennen and Mat Kearney are nice singer-songwriters and all, but the lineup is filled with acts who play around town a lot, draining a lot of the cachet from their appearances there. Maybe people will be excited to see Duane Peters both play and skate. Or maybe they'll just show up to ogle the emcee.
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Touts for Tuesday, Aug. 28
Crowded House and the Greek and Gogol Bordello and the Fonda are the big shows, but there are plenty of club choices: The Watson Twins and Everest play a benefit for the Circle X Theater at Spaceland. ... No Age celebrates the release of "Weirdo Rippers" with a 7 p.m. in-store at Amoeba. ... The Finches finish up a run of Tuesdays at Bordello. ... The Amateurs and the Lonely Years play the Let's Independent night at Boardner's. ... I See Hawks in LA headline at the Echo. ... And Map comes in from the Inland Empire to play the Silverlake Lounge.
[It's good to have colleagues -- especially guys like August Brown who will tell me what I missed at Sunday's second night of the F-Yeah Fest without sticking his tongue out and going "nyah-nyah!"]
The latter night of F-Yeah Fest begged one big question -- what constitutes punk rock in 2007? Is it the shirtless, Iggy-aping sex-god sneer of Pissed Jeans' Matt Korvette? The icy noise blasts of local chin-strokers No Age? Deerhunter's Bradford Cox picking a fight via e-mail with freelance writer (and occasional Buzz Bands contributor) Jeff Weiss for comparing his band to Wyld Stallyns?
Yes and no on all counts. The violent, physical sounds of the F-Yeah fest were on their own terms invigorating, especially since the Eastside rock scene has gone belly-up into tedious psych-folk and bizarre attempts at torch songs for underfed (and undersexed) white kids.
But to coalesce it all into one loose scene, with its own designated weekend-long showcase replete with a Dewars sponsorship, seems further proof that any danger in underground music gets swallowed whole by omnivorous, consumptive hipsterdom before kids can get anxious for the revolution.
What's the real cost of the special packages to see Morrissey for all 10 nights of his run at the Palladium? Well, it's $391.50, as publicized. Plus $96 in Ticketmaster convenience fees. And plus $20 for UPS delivery.
This apparently constitutes the promised "savings of over $50" over the surcharges incurred by buying individual tickets. Makes my head spin. But it'll make Moz fans' wallets open.
[One Illinois-born fiftysomething attends a show given by another Illinois-born fiftysomething, and lives to blog about it:]
Given the way John Doe's music can inhabit your brain -- I've been humming "Golden State" for almost two days straight now -- it's no surprise how the X Man's presence carried the room Saturday night at Safari Sam's. Playing in a steamy room to an appreciative crowd that spanned at least a couple of generations, Doe and his parade of talented collaborators gave you a 90-minute warm-and-fuzzy.
There was original material -- including a healthy dose of stuff from the album many are calling his career-best, this year's "A Year in the Wilderness" -- there were covers, there were rockers and folk songs, and there was even a moment of reflection: "Having been taken for granted a couple times in Los Angeles," he told the crowd, "this is nice to see."
Doe, sweating through his dress shirt and justifiably magnanimous with his praise of his side players, gave back as much as he soaked up. I chuckled at one point when he seemed to get ahead of himself -- for some reason I thought of the jokey T-shirt that a local rock band gave me last fall for my 50th birthday. It said: "Middle age is all the rage."
I'm sure that Friday and Saturday, when he is fronting X at the House of Blues Anaheim, that'll be even more of a joke. But at Sam's on Saturday, in the genial company of members of Dead Rock West (drummer Bryan Head, bassist David J. Carpenter and vocalist Cindy Wasserman backed him after playing an opening set), Doe's songs were as vital as anything you'll hear from anybody. Kathleen Edwards joined him to duet on "Golden State," and Dave Alvin brought his estimable guitar talents onstage for a few numbers.
And I don't think anybody took one note for granted.
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Postscript: Doe also got a boost from Dead Rock West keyboardist Phil Parlapiano, who filled in for ailing Doe regular Nick Luca. Amazingly, Parlapiano hadn't rehearsed any of the songs he played on.
Luca, by the way, has an album coming out Sept. 25 by the quartet that bears his name. It's titled "Fractions;" he'll play the Knitting Factory on Oct. 23.
||| Stream a nice acoustic version of "Golden State" here.
Photos: Top, John Doe duets with Kathleen Edwards; above, Doe with Cindy Wasserman, Dave Alvin and David J. Carpenter (background). By Kevin Bronson / LAT.
[Colleague Liam Gowing sends me this little narrative from Saturday's opening night of the F-Yeah Fest in Echo Park:]
It was an evening of treble-heavy highs and one deep low at the first night of F-Yeah Fest 2007.
The Echoplex was the spot to be for the “traditional” punk bands: Toys That Kill tore it up with thrashy pop-punk imbued with Bro-down choruses that seem to go hand in hand with a South Bay ZIP Code. Likewise, the Fleshies, who added a glam edge to their gobbing-and-spitting anthems.
The real weirdness, however, was upstairs at the Echo, where Bobby Birdman was doing his thing -- crooning mellifluously over gloppy, canned digitalisms -- with an endlessly oddball approach that evoked Bjork fronting 8-Bit. Love it or hate it, it was, in a word, singular. I for one, was down with it.
Up next at the Echo were the Mae Shi, who were explosive and fun as usual. Powered by the magical, funk-a-licious Omnichord -- yes, the children’s toy -- “Run to Your Grave” was just one of the sing-a-long, clap-your-hands and-stomp-your-feet standouts. The crowd really went nuts for the anarchic closer, “HLLLYH,” however. There was crowd-surfing -- like legitimate, triumphal, festival-style crowd-surfing -- which was a quite a thrill to see at the Echo.
Leaving the Echo behind in a race to see Greg Ashley -- he of the giant pop obfuscation that is “Medicine F* Dream” -- I was waylaid by an iconic act of guerilla rock 'n' roll that goes back as least as far as the Beatles’ “Let It Be”: A sloppy, scrappy little quartet from Garden Grove called AM, which had neither applied for nor been invited to play the festival, set up on the sidewalk two doors down from the Echo and began to play an impromptu set of good-times garage-rock. Explaining the tactic, co-lead singer Fonzie said, “[Heck with] venues, [heck with] shows. We’ve got a portable generator!”
But what should have been a nice little diversion became an ugly little incident when two bouncers from the Echo decided that the foursome posed a clear and present danger to the festival and attempted to shut it down. Taking a cue from Ringo, the kids kept playing despite some unnecessarily aggressive alpha-male posturing. Instead of waiting for the end of the song to issue his decree, however, one of the muscle-bound bouncers actually tackled singer-guitarist Felipe mid-riff, railroading the skinny non-threat against the iron security gates along Sunset, knocking his guitar -- and probably his spine -- right out of tune. That was the end of that.
Shame on you, F-Yeah Fest. Of all fests, you should know better.
You have the fourth annual F-Yeah Fest bringing a great lineup of avant-garde musicians, artists and comedians to Echo Park (read my colleague Pauline O'Connor's story here); you have the Warped Tour wrapping up its wild summer at the Home Depot Center; and you have the legendary John Doe finishing his long tour with a hometown show at Safari Sam's.
The complete F-Yeah Fest schedule can be found on the blog here. [Do not click if the naughty word in the festival's name offends you.]
This might sound like another of those warm-and-fuzzy posts written in the haze of last night's music, but the second installment of Now Blog This on Thursday at the Scene turned out to be, for me, what an ideal club outing is supposed to be. You see a good set or two or three from known quantities, plus you hear something that's completely new and different.
The night (curated by four L.A. bloggers, including this one) delivered the gritty, horn-infused indie rock of Le Switch; the lovingly fractured, ghost-inspired pop of the Deadly Syndrome; and the dense, soaring anthems of Aushua. All were familiar to me beforehand.
But not Phoenix and the Turtle, who arrived seemingly out of nowhere to start the night. Well, not out of nowhere. LA Underground invited the band to make the trip in from Yucaipa, and I don't know what the music scene is like in Yucaipa, but this quartet has got to be the best indie rock band out there. Their proggy compositions stopped and started, swelled and receded, purred and thundered, as if by magic, with Valerie Curtis' work on the violin and keyboards and Cahn Curtis' array of guitar textures giving the music a very cinematic feel. Overall, it was a set that rewarded early arrivals.
Until next time.
Photos: Top, Cahn Curtis, Valerie Curtis and Bill Barrington of Phoenix and the Turtle; inset, Aaron Kyle of Le Switch; above, Nathan Gammill and Phil Neujahr of Aushua; below, the Deadly Syndrome's setlist. By Kevin Bronson / LAT.
Morrissey today announced a 10-night stand at the Hollywood Palladium -- the final shows at the venue before it closes down for renovation. The dates are Oct. 1 through 13 (Moz takes three nights off during the run), and before you crack wise about the number of people (some you may even know) who will attend every show, know that promoters are offering a special deal for fans who want to attend every show.
Starting at 10 a.m. Monday, package deals giving the Moz faithful 10 nights for the price of nine go on sale. The deal also gets attendees a commemorative ticket, the opportunity to go to the head of the queue and, presumably, much better odds of catching the man's shirt when he tosses it into the crowd near the end of the show.
How much are the tickets? This just in: The special packages are $391.50. before the leviathan surcharges Ticketmaster is sure to add. That would put single-night tickets at about $43.No word yet. Hope I don't have wait to click on LiveNation.com or Ticketmaster.com on Monday.
(Updated: Thanks to commenter Torr for pointing out a phrase I missed in the press release -- that buying a 10-show package eliminates individual ticket surcharges.)
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This little online compendium is one of four presenters tonight for the Now Blog This showcase at the Scene in Glendale. See Wednesday's post for details on my nominee, Aushua.
It's a fine bill all around -- with the Deadly Syndrome, Phoenix and the Turtle and Le Switch playing -- and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last time the Deadly Syndrome plays a club this small. The quartet's fine debut album "The Ortolan" comes out next month on Dim Mak, and the band has an album-release show on Sept. 8 at the Echo.
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Amoeba Records (the label) has a couple of nice songs for download here. One is "Lullabies" from Brandi Shearer (pictured), a San Francisco-based singer-songwriter whose album "Close to Home" is getting some attention. The other is "Long Black Limousine," a live recording from a 1969 concert by Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Brothers.
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Elsewhere Thursday, Aug. 23
There's music in the courtyard at Hollywood & Highland tonight, and while I usually steer clear of buildings with Gaps, Run Run Run is playing. ... The always-fun Hell Ya! night has Eastern Conference Champions and Maxeen playing at the Echo. ... No Age and the Mae Shi play the Troubadour -- both will also be playing this weekend's F-Yeah Fest. ... And Carlos Guitarlos is at the Silverlake Lounge.
The Orange County-based quartet Aushua has been around only a year, but the band is building itself to last. "We want to be in a band that matters," singer-guitarist Nathan Gammill says. "Hopefully, we can be pop in a classic sense, making music that's very relevant and that speaks to people we know."
The rough-edged anthems on the foursome's self-released "Hold On!" EP are a good start. Gammill -- with Neujahr brothers Phil (bass), Eric (guitar) and Lee (drums) -- recorded the five songs last October using portable studio equipment in the Good Shepherd Chapel on the campus of Concordia University in Irvine. Both the band and producer Eliot Richardson had to, um, give thanks the session was allowed to go off.
Now, Aushua is getting ready for a follow-up. Although the initial batch of songs came mainly from Gammill and Phil Neujahr, "the songwriting is pretty organic now in that everybody in the band does his own thing," the singer says. "We just kind of know when the song is ripe."
Just last weekend, a new batch came to fruition -- Aushua recorded four new songs, with Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi at the controls. Coming off a handful of gigs in the L.A. area and a residency in July at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, the quartet of early twentysomethings seems to be racing through the learning curve. "We grew from that," says Gammill, "we learned a lot about just playing a club."
As for the band's name, Gammill explains Aushua is a made-up word, and while it has some benefits in the Internet world (the band is the only thing that comes up on Google), nobody quite knows how to spell it when it's spoken. "Word of mouth has been a little tough," he concedes.
Foreign Born's half-time opus "Union Hall" sounds like the kind of song that could change the course of nations, or at least inspire a labor uprising or two. (Never heard it? Go here.) Its big background chant and stomping percussion are the kind of sonic metaphors of which hits are made. And even if "Union Hall" isn't a real place ("It's more symbolic," singer Matt Popieluch told me last week, while crediting guitarist/composer Lewis Pesacov with coming up with the notion to slow the song down), it never took on more shape than it did Tuesday night at the Los Angeles quartet's record-release show at the Echo.
A dozen members of the L.A.-based women's chorus Nevenka -- which performed the set in between shoegazer opener In Waves and the headliners -- joined Foreign Born onstage to lend their voices to that chant, and the song darned near burst at the seams. It was a joyous occasion to begin with, since the performance marked the long-awaited release of Foreign Born's album "On the Wing Now," and friends of the band were already buzzing about one generally positive review the album received Tuesday.
Nevenka's cameo, along with its set of Eastern European folk songs,
gave the evening an irresistible charm, even beyond the oddity that Earlimart was having its record-release downstairs at the Echoplex. Musicians are forced to play over patrons' conversations all the time in rock clubs, but some customers Tuesday empathized with the less-amplified singers plying tunes from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Georgia and elsewhere in the Balkan region: They shushed their fellow audience members.
[Another installment in our locally famous local-music awareness program:]
Don't be deceived by the religious connotations in their band name -- the Stevenson Ranch Davidians aren't cultists. "It's very tongue-in-cheek," singer-guitarist Dwayne Seagraves says, "but people don't always get it. Some people think we're a religious band."
The Davidians -- who are indeed from the Santa Clarita Valley development Stevenson Ranch -- do have their devotions, however. On "Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs," their self-released album from last year, the quartet visits the altar of Britpop as rendered by the likes of Travis, the Verve and Blur, not to mention the pop-psych pioneers of the '60s. The Davidians nurture their version of that sound with songs that are patiently paced, gently couched in reverb and simple in lyrical approach.
Seagraves and band mates Jessica Latiolait, Bryan Showalter and Cary Chafin are already writing songs for a follow-up to "Psalms," which was recorded in Raymond Richards' Red Rockets Glare studio in Rancho Park. The album has been picked up by a European indie label for distribution, so the foursome hopes to tour there later this year.
||| Stevenson Ranch Davidians, with the Black Pine among the supporting acts, perform Wednesday night at the Echo.
How happy is L.A. quartet Foreign Born today, now that its long-awaited debut, "On the Wing Now," is released?
"You have no idea," singer-guitarist Matt Popieluch says.
Yes, Popieluch and band mates Lewis Pesacov, Garrett Ray and Ariel Rechtshaid constitute another L.A. group that has found little but frustration on the business side of making music. Foreign Born emerged in 2004, released the promising "In the Remote Woods" EP in 2005 and solidified itself as a band to watch with a residency at Spaceland that summer. The quartet recorded its album that winter, pressed some copies itself, toured and waited.
"Everything on the business side was very elusive," Popieluch says. "But the world is full of arbitrary reasoning. It's a question of how you navigate that.
"Yes, I wish things had happened a little quicker. Every prolific musician wants to keep current with himself, keep a rhythm going. . . . The industry is a distraction, it's a pain, it's a necessary evil, but the creative process happens whether you like it or not."
Now, after months of "being broke the whole time," Popieluch says -- not to mention having written the next album -- Foreign Born emerges on the roster of Steve Aoki's ascendant Dim Mak label, perhaps as the imprint's smartest release.
"On the Wing Now" reveals the band's feel for anthemic '80s rock shaded by complex arrangements and cathartic moments that make the likes of Modest Mouse or Arcade Fire so appealing. Rechtshaid's insistent bass lines pull the band's dense guitars and Popieluch's potent vocals toward big emotional payoffs.
Foreign Born plays tonight at the Echo supported by the women's choir Nevenka, which specializes in Eastern European folk music (and will back the band on "Union Hall"), and dream-rock trio In Waves.
Elsewhere Tuesday, Aug. 21
The second of Earlimart's two release gigs for "Mentor Tormentor" has been moved -- tonight's show will be at the Echoplex (downstairs from Foreign Born's show). The Parson Redheads and the Pity Party open. ... Folk duo the Finches have been charming Tuesday night crowds at Bordello this month, playing songs off their smart (and smartly packaged) album "Human Like a House." There's another installment tonight. ... The Henry Clay People hold forth at the Scene in Glendale. ... Kissing Cousins pucker up at Safari Sam's. ... And pop-punkers In Theory rock the Key Club on its all-ages Tuesday in front of residents After Midnight Project.
What a delightful musical weekend. If you like being body-slammed in a sauna, that is.
Those who staked out a spot early were rewarded at Sunset Junction. My informal poll of "street-fairers" who endured the scene revealed three mind-blowing sets -- Blonde Redhead and Morris Day and the Time on Saturday, the Buzzcocks on Sunday -- several other good ones and various and sundry bruised and sore body parts. Sunset Boulevard seems to have a size problem.
The Buzzcocks, of course, played Friday night at a packed-to-the-gills Spaceland too; one longtime fan told me she thought it was their best show ever. Um, she was the one leaning on the monitor upfront. Still, it's hard to believe these pop-punk originals have been around more than three decades now. Pete Shelley even joined local outfit the Adored onstage for a rendition of "Homosapien."
Meanwhile, I was across town at the decidedly less crowded Santa Monica Women's Club. That's right. It's a 93-year-old building on 4th Street that has an old-fashioned auditorium, a cool balcony and just enough glitchiness that a rock show there seems very DIY. Hey, the club used to throw USO parties for servicemen there during WWII.
Friday's trip to Santa Monica was for Earlimart's record-release show -- the Westside edition. There's another, on Tuesday at the Jensen Rec Center in Echo Park, to celebrate the release of "Mentor Tormentor." But this show came via a promoter who's trying to bring indie music across town, and the Women's Club is a great place to throw an all-ages bash.
So there was Earlimart, playing its new music to the hilt and blowing the power. Front man Aaron Espinoza mingled in the modest crowd while it was restored. It was like playing a gig at a junior high, somebody said, and that assessment was spot on. Those who showed up were happy kids, if not from Earlimart's serenely beautiful new material then from Castledoor's earlier set. The L.A. six-piece, fueled by Nate Cole's soaring vocals and boyish charm, seems ready for substantially bigger stages right now.
As for Sunset Junction, grumbling about the heat and the crowds just about equalled the praise for the music. That's the trade-off. Autolux (which stuck to its old stuff rather than test-drive new material due to monitor problems, I was told) earns such accolades every time they play, but it was New York trio Blonde Redhead that turned in a set to remember.
This from blogger-pal Jeff Weiss: "It sort of reminded me of Love’s set three years ago: a legendary band rising above the cluttered bedlam of the Junction and delivering a set for the ages, a performance unlikely to be topped all weekend."
Monday, Aug. 20
If you're not hitting the Beastie Boys' show at the Greek, tonight is a good opportunity to check out one of the three Eastside residencies. Not only are the residents worthy, but the supporting acts are good too: Low Vs Diamond (with Oliver Future supporting) at Spaceland; the Crash Kings (with the Waking Hours) at the Silverlake Lounge; and Manic (with Minutes Til Midnight) at the Echo. ... The Beautiful and Damned and the Hanks are playing Indie 103.1's "Check ... One Two" night at the Viper Room. ... RX Bandits are back for a second night at the Troubadour.
Rilo Kiley is letting us hear their new album, "Under the Blacklight," nice people that they are. The album comes out Aug. 21. Stream it now through Tuesday at the band's MySpace. The Times' pop music critic, Ann Powers, has an in-depth look at the band and the new album coming in Sunday's newspaper.
By the way, Tuesday is a strong day for local releases -- Earlimart, Foreign Born and the Section Quartet are also dropping new albums. Am I forgetting anybody?
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The finals of radio station Star 98.7's Rockstar Search are tonight at the Key Club. The winner gets $25,000 and a deal with Ironworks Music (co-owned by Kiefer Sutherland and singer-songwriter Jude Cole). I am always leery of contests, battles of the bands and any music awards that artists have to pay to enter, but I dutifully run down the finalists here: Venice folkies Zanzibar Lewis, O.C. neo-soul dude Drew Bray, pop quartet Kat'l-ist ("the phonetic spelling of catalyst," the website kindly points out), Garvy J (who I don't know much about but whose music sounds most interesting from MySpace sampling), and piano-tickling Brooke White.
◊ ◊ ◊ Emma Burgess has to cancel some shows (including tonight's at the Viper Room) because of throat ailment. ... On Saturday, the rockers who run the club Kiss or Kill will be having their own little Sunset Junction party -- they've booked a dozen bands to play the room at El Cid (with a couple hours off in the early evening for flamenco dancers). See the link for the lineup. ... And the Submarines and Pop Noir will be playing the Hang the DJs Sunset Junction After Party at the Echo on Saturday night.
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Weekend picks
The Buzzcocks warm up for the Sunset Junction action by playing Spaceland tonight with the Adored. ... Earlimart has the first of its record-release parties, tonight's in Santa Monica (see yesterday's post). ... Los Lonely Boys are at the Greek tonight, and George Clinton and crew hold forth there on Saturday night. And the Beastie Boys are at the Greek on Sunday and Monday (and Sunday isn't sold out yet).
One of the most surprising albums to emerge this year from the nooks and crannies of the Los Angeles music scene is largely the work of two guys you’d be surprised work together at all.
“Dos,” the debut from the Culver City Dub Collective, grew from a love for reggae and bossa nova shared by drummer-songwriter Adam Topol and guitarist-producer Franchot Tone (grandson of the actor). Not that the project came to fruition quickly — the pair and their A-list collaborators assembled the album, a labyrinthine mesh of island sounds, jazz and electronica, over four years.
“I’m definitely an advocate of making sure every detail is just right, and I’m sure that made Franchot a little crazy,” says Topol, who has been Jack Johnson’s drummer since 2000. “But having both those personalities in the same room can be great if they can be kind and polite and make compromises.” Mutual admiration helped too. Says Topol: “I’d bring him my ideas and sketches, and he’d make it sound like a beautiful painting.”
A lineup of heavy-hitting guests ensured the details were right. Among the credits: Johnson, Ben Harper, Matt Costa, Money Mark, Piers Facini, Joey Altruda, Winston Jarrett (Studio One), Jay Malinowski (Bedouin Soundclash), David Ralicke (Beck), Merlo Podlewski (Dan the Automator) and Koool G. Murder (Eels). Now that’s a collective.
What makes “Dos” distinctive is the fusion of modern electronics and classic rhythms. “The sub-bass was one thing that took it from retro into the realm of being a bit modern,” Topol says, “although the drums gave it an organic feel.”
And when the CCDC plays Saturday afternoon at the Sunset Junction Street Fair? “It’ll be a live band playing an electronic record,” Topol says. “It’s gonna breathe more. But it’s gonna be great.”
||| Download "Big Long Gun" at the band's website.
||| CCDC opens for ALO tonight at the Troubadour and plays at 3 p.m. Saturday on the Bates Stage at Sunset Junction.
Photo of Franchot Tone, left, and Adam Topol by J.P. Plunier.
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Check out my colleague August Brown's story on one of Saturday's night headliners, Blonde Redhead, here.
Sunset Junction is not a music festival. It's a street fair, with carnival rides, booths, food vendors, hawkers, crazies, oppressive heat and sweaty throngs of humanity whose alcohol intake is liable to affect not only their manners but the various scents they emit. So your enjoyment of the live acts on Sunset Junction's three stages will vary depending on your tolerance for the hassles of communal music experiences.
The lineup assembled by Spaceland Productions certainly ranks with any from the past five or six years. Again, the afternoon slots on the indie rock-oriented Bates Stage are populated with some of the best ascendant bands in L.A. The Hoover Stage has enough soul to save your soul. World flavors spring from the Sanborn Stage -- if you happen to have a bad Sunday afternoon experience, go take in Rocky Dawuni (left) at 6:30 and see if you don't feel better about the world.
This blog and my weekly column in Calendar Weekend dwells mainly in the indie-rock world, and I could fold myself into a beach chair in front of the Bates Stage (hopefully, in a shady spot) and have a fine two days. Of the 19 acts playing that stage this weekend, 15 have been featured on this blog or in the column. Worth the hassles? You bet, especially if you're among friends.
Drink plenty of water. These folks are playing at 2 p.m. Sunday:
Upcoming post: My quick look at the Culver City Dub Collective, who are playing Saturday afternoon.
Earlimart frontman Aaron Espinoza flinches a bit when you ask about "Mentor Tormentor," the title of the band's fifth album, as if you were going to slap his hand with a ruler for the rhyme and wordplay.
"It refers to a multitude of specific things -- the band, the music, the decision to even be an artist," he says. "To how I can feel completely fortunate that we've done as well as we have, and yet there are days where I think it's the worst thing that's happened to me."
Characteristically, the songs on Earlimart's long-awaited collection deftly avoid those extremes. Emotions are seldom bold or stark; instead, like the orchestral nuances that emerged in recording sessions with bandmates Ariana Murray and Joel Graves at the Ship studio in Eagle Rock, they are like colors that run together in the wash. Espinoza's voice carries the weight of his Everyman wisdom effortlessly, and the album's tuneful sheen harbors complexities that beg to be considered.
Highs are forecast in the mid- to upper-80s for this weekend's Sunset Junction Street Fair, where dozens of you -- OK, hundreds -- will be gorging yourself on carnival rides, food and music.
I looked that up just so I could share the new video for the song "Let Me In" by Hot Hot Heat, which plays the Spaceland stage on Sunday evening (more on the lineup in the next day or so). I was at the Echo the night this was filmed, commenting to a friend (before I knew that a shoot was going on) that some of the women outside the club that night looked a little Sunset Strip to be hanging out on the Eastside.
[Colleague Liam Gowing slept in, asked me the last time I'd played "Singles 45's and Under" and wondered if I cared what he thought of last night's Squeeze show. Of course I did.]
After spending the last decade not speaking to one another, Squeeze principals Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook patched things up earlier this year and hit the road for a short reunion tour. At the Greek Theatre on Monday, the amphitheater was, at best, three-quarters full -- a shame because Difford and Tilbrook, plus classic-lineup bassist John Bentley and new recruits Stephen Large and Simon Hanson -- played a tight, exhilarating set.
Yes, the troops were rounded up to support Universal's re-release of the band's catalog. And the setlist was chosen accordingly; Squeeze played every song from the indispensable “Singles 45's and Under,” along with chestnuts like the rockabilly-tinged “Messed Around.”
In many ways, the show was the antithesis of the Police’s self-indulgent and ultimately limp-wristed reunion: Unlike Sting and company, Squeeze played 'em like they wrote 'em, honoring the original arrangements with lock-tight performances, and saving the improvisational impulses for the solos, which -- thanks to Tilbrook’s speed-freak fretwork -- were just jaw-droppingly good.
Here’s hoping that Fountains of Wayne, who played a rather perfunctory opening set, was paying attention.
"Hideout," the new album by Film School, isn't out until Sept. 11, but it's already creating a buzz from those who've heard its buzzing guitars and reverb-heavy dynamics. Its the kind of album that dares you to roll up your car windows, crank it and be swallowed whole. If the band's debut album was a bit hit-and-miss, there are precious few misfires on this one.
Greg Bertens (the artist formerly known as Krayg Burton, at least on the first album) and mates have relocated to Los Angeles from San Francisco. Let's see, that makes tonight's show at Spaceland a hometown gig, then. Brilliant.
||| Brooklyn's Pela is an opening act for that show tonight. It will be drummer Tomislav Zovich's final tour with the band.
Touts for Tuesday, Aug. 14
Oh, what a night: The Magic Numbers and the Little Ones bring their feel-good pop to the El Rey. ... Dengue Fever rocks the Knitting Factory. ... The One AM Radio looses his gauzy bedroom pop on the Echo. ... Buckfast plies its Anglophile rock at the Mint. ... Eulogies, the new trio assembled by singer-songwriter Peter Walker, plays a set at the Troubadour opening for rockers the Wildbirds. ... The Finches and the Coral Sea entertain at Bordello. ... And Aushua plays the early set at the Silverlake Lounge.
Singer-guitarist Josh Malerman is hitting the books again, and it has nothing to do with studying. “I’m sitting outside the library in Carson City right now,” he reports enthusiastically by phone from Nevada. “They’ve got an Alfred Hitchcock festival going on. It’s fantastic.”
It's Monday, and later the library would also host a rock show. Malerman’s hyperkinetic trio, the High Strung, would headline — another stop on the Detroit-based garage-rockers’ improbable National Public Library Tour. For the third consecutive summer, Malerman and band mates Chad Stocker and Derek Berk are turning libraries into places to be rocked, not shushed.
“It’s brilliant; I wish I’d thought of it,” Malerman says of the idea, hatched by a Michigan youth librarian named Bill Harmer. “At first it was horribly awkward, especially since we were told, ‘Play as loud as you normally do.’”
I am not necessarily a fan of the Mormons, but as a baseball guy I just about did a spit take when I saw the tongue-in-cheek poster for the Los Angeles band's current stand at Mr. T's Bowl. [Sorry for the sloppy clean-up job; it's a family blog, you know.]
Luther Russell chuckles knowingly when an interviewer remarks that the songs on his fourth album, "Repair," seem kind of happily mopey. "That's me, smiling at everything that could possibly be sad," he says, pausing and then laughing. "There you have it. End of interview."
Yes, that's the album in a nutshell, but how the 36-year-old arrived at his sage stage is the back story of "Repair," a title you can take to mean "some sort of therapeutic thing, or the double-entendre, like to repair home," he says.
Indeed, Russell's latest songs materialized after he returned to his native Los Angeles in 2002 after eight years in Portland, Ore. "When you play a gig up there, it's not like you're looking out into the audience to see who [from the record industry] might be checking you out," the former Freewheelers frontman says. "I realized, 'Hey, if I'm doing it here, it must be because I like it.' And when I moved back down here, I brought that attitude with me."
But his move back to L.A. was fraught with real-life problems -- his divorce, as well as illnesses in his family -- that slowed his artistic progress yet "probably informed the songs," he says. When "Repair" was finally recorded, virtually live and with producer Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams), it was a quick process.
||| Russell plays Saturday night at the Echo. Among the openers is Sarabeth Tucek, whose album Russell co-produced.
This just in: Rock the Bells, the big shindig on Saturday at Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen featuring Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill, the Roots and Public Enemy, among many others, is sold out. As you were.
Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records and the man who promoted Manchester bands such as Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, has died from complications of kidney cancer at age 57.
Wilson, below, introduced the set by the Happy Mondays at Coachella on April 29.
[This installment of our local music series is brought to you by arts & crafts:]
An EP arrived this week in a colorful, hand-decorated cardboard sleeve (inscribed "#014"), a sure sign that either the music inside is really something special, or that somebody has too much time on her hands. I can't speak to the latter, but the five tunes on "EP 01" by Los Angeles quartet Hello Dragon are stickier than Velcro -- slightly spaced-out pop anthems that reflect the band's stated fascination with "animal rights, quantum mechanics, El Chupacabra, vacuum tubes and cheap-sounding synthesizers." There's even a tuneful nod to "Stephen Hawking."
Hello Dragon -- the music and DIY sleeves -- is the handiwork of Chris Zerby and Julie Chadwick, who were the principals in the edgy Boston power-pop band Helicopter Helicopter. They brought their crunchy guitars and boy-girl vocals to L.A. a couple years ago, but have now started over, having joined forces with fellow Beantown expats Josh Pickering (keyboards) and Sean Burgess (drums).
You can order an EP -- and download some songs -- here. Hello Dragon has only played three shows thus far; a recent one was postponed because Chadwick suffered a hand laceration in a kitchen mishap. But look for a gig in September, Zerby says, along with some more crafty packaging: "We haven't broken out the glitter glue yet, but you never know."
The Australian quintet Augie March is hitting the U.S. again this year, packing a valise full of music awards from its native country and an album full of lush imagery and harmonies. But as Glenn Richards knows, all that and a $20 bill won't gas up the tour van.
"It's very difficult for bands from Australia to come to America and Europe, because it's so expensive," the band's singer-guitarist says. "Unless you've been lucky enough to have a hit song, it's basically pay-to-play. It's a hard slog, but we're up for it. You try to convert as many people to the cause as you can without losing money and a bit of your sanity."
You like Augie March's chances, though. On its earlier ventures to the U.S., the Melbourne band, whose name was nicked from a Saul Bellow novel, was on the now-defunct indie label SpinArt; the new album, "Moo, You Bloody Choir," has the backing of Jive/Zomba. Its keen storytelling betrays none of the troubles Richards and bandmates David Williams, Adam Donovan, Edmondo Ammendola and Kiernan Box were having with their record labels, both at home and abroad.
"Many times, I think songwriters have only two or three themes that they just attack from different angles," says Richards, citing inspiration from one of his heroes, the late Grant McLennan of Aussie luminaries the Go-Betweens. "There's no reason you can't write about anything."
I'm sure there's a punchline to this video about what a band will do for rock; I'll leave it up to you. Gorgeous song, "The Cold Acre":
Touts for Thursday, Aug. 9
The Moon Upstairs plays as part of the free concert series downtown at Pershing Square. ... There's some fun garage rock at Spaceland, courtesy of the Bloody Hollies. ... The esteemed Rock Insider blog is presenting an Indie Schmindie show at the Scene that includes very good up-and-comers Strangers Smile, among others. ... And the Airborne Toxic Event heads up a good bill at the Detroit Bar.
Let's see, it's less than two months away now, but there has not been a peep from organizers about the lineup for the LA Weekly Detour Festival, which made a splashy debut downtown last year by bringing the likes of Beck, Queens of the Stone Age, Basement Jaxx, Blonde Redhead and Of Montreal to the stage near City Hall.
This year's event is scheduled for Oct. 6, and I could nail down only three names so far: Justice, Satellite Party and Turbonegro. I hear that the Mars Volta might be playing, but that's unconfirmed.
The French dance duo Justice has a show at the Fonda Theatre on Oct. 9, but that's already sold out. Turbonegro has a show Oct. 7 at the Fonda.
Photo: Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay of Justice
But if you're one of the Los Angeles quartet's 131,357 MySpace friends, or if you've somehow befriended MySpace Secret Shows on the social networking website, then I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
The all-ages show will be at 8 p.m. Friday at All Star Lanes in Eagle Rock. Raise your hand if you saw Rilo Kiley play there back in the day ... OK, nobody? ... We'll continue anyway. Rilo Kiley (obligatory mention of new album: "Under the Blacklight") will play to a group of fortunate (and probably patient) wristband-holders. Those golden wristbands will be available starting at 4 p.m. (no lineups before 3 p.m., the announcement warns) at the Echo. And to get a wristband, you need to bring a printout of your MySpace profile with both Rilo Kiley and MySpace Secret Shows in your Top 8.
If you don't know what a Top 8 Friend is, you shouldn't be reading this.
And ladies, you get to drink Kool-Aid with the band if you wear your Wilderness Girls uniform.
I made that last part up.
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Pop-punk heavyweights Yellowcard are playing a secret show too, on Monday at a location to be announced, and it might be a cozy affair. To qualify to be one of the 100 fans chosen to attend, send an email here and include: your song request, your email address and your phone number. If you are chosen, apparently, they will be in touch. MySpace will stream the performance live at 5 p.m. Monday.
[Our local music spotlight, for the moment, remains pointed at power pop, because it just seems to go so well with summertime:]
Ari Shine landed with a crunch -- and that's the crunch of a big power chord -- when he released his debut EP "Age/Occupation" in 2006. Quickly he became a songwriter-to-watch in the L.A. power-pop underground, if not somebody who carries enough melodies to wriggle a bunch of his songs onto TV shows, and his energetic stage show hinted that he might become an artist who could transcend the frequent
