Samples from four tracks of the new Spank Rock EP are streaming at the duo's MySpace page. You can get a a taste of that -- the Philadelphia duo's [Naeem Juwan, pictured] "Bangers & Cash" EP is due out this fall on Downtown, with a new album planned for early next year -- to warm up for the electro-party-dudes' set Saturday at the Neighborhood Festival. Or you can just load Nocturnal's website and trance out.
They're a couple of the bazillion music offerings this weekend. I will leave bunches out, but here goes:
Touts for Friday, Sept. 28
Critical faves the National, whose album "Boxer" will get mounds of attention on the best-of-2007 lists, headline the Wiltern. ... Comeback kids Imperial Teen play Spaceland. ... Big night at the Hotel Cafe: Sylvie Lewis has a release show for her new album ""Translations" at 8; Rob Dickinson (ex-Catherine Wheel) has a solo outing at 9; and Jim Bianco continues his string of Friday night parties at 10. ... Low starts a two-night stand at the Troubadour. ... Girl Talk parties at the Echoplex. ... Dirty Harry celebrates the release of her album "Songs From the Edge" with a show at the Knitting Factory. ... And El Ten Eleven celebrates the release of "Every Direction Is North" at El Cid.
Touts for Saturday, Sept. 29
Big doings: Bright Eyes with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl; the indie dance-oriented Neighborhood Festival at Exposition Park; the electronica rave Nocturnal Festival in downtown L.A.; and the music/art/film collision called the Swerve Festival headquartered at Barnsdall Art Park.
The highlights: People will swoon over Bright Eyes at the Bowl; the dance crowd will be nuts for the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Paul Van Dyk and Carl Cox at Nocturnal; and the Faint, Spank Rock and Crystal Castles will offset some of the, ahem, other acts at Neighborhood. On the lawn at Barnsdall in the afternoon, Foreign Born and the Black Angels will play at Swerve; Bonde Do Role leads the Swerve dance party at night at the Echoplex.
If you're still standing after Saturday, DeVotchka leads the afternoon lineup at Swerve, and We Are Scientists play the festival's closing party at the Echoplex.
Tucked away near the bottom of the bill for Saturday's Neighborhood Festival -- the indie dance party at Exposition Park mounted by DJ Steve Aoki and his Dim Mak label -- is Brother Reade, an L.A. duo that makes old-school hip-hop which, at a glance, might seem out of place at an event featuring such electro hotshots as the Faint, Spank Rock and Chromeo.
"We're thrilled that we're attached to the L.A. club scene," says rapper Jamz (born James Joliff), who, with DJ Bobby Evans (born Erin Garcia), released their Brother Reade debut, "Rap Music," this summer. "It's one community that's latched on to our music in a wonderful way. Then again, in the beginning hip-hop was four-on-the-floor disco songs with guys rapping over it."
Jamz and Evans are boyhood pals from Winston-Salem, N.C., who reconnected in L.A. after moving west. Originally drawn to rock, Jamz expanded his diet quickly. "Kids in small towns are kinda music omnivores," he says. "We were into anything that wasn't being sold to us."
In Los Angeles, the pair's skills became quite the attraction at loft parties, and they signed a deal with Record Collection. Unlike a lot of modern hip-hop, the album was made without any guest turns. It's a throwback "to an era when things weren't as industrialized," Jamz says. "Our intention is to take a classicist approach to rap, but not to ignore the last 20 years of the movement."
L.A.'s Dangerbird Records, its thumbs in its suspenders after being nominated for alternative label of the year by trade 'zine Radio and Records, is offering a slew of free downloads. Click here to download Darker My Love's 2006 debut album in its entirety, as well as four tracks from Dappled Cities (a three-song EP and a Loving Hands remix of "Fire Fire Fire.")
Speaking of Darker My Love, the psych-rock quartet is in the studio with producer Dave Cooley working on a follow-up (targeted for release next summer) to that 2006 disc. A tour with the Warlocks is planned -- and maybe a couple dates on a big tour. Stay tuned.
The Mint is marking is 70th year with a special series of shows over the next couple of months. The mid-city venue has had an up-and-down history, with its fortunes (and music bookings) looking brighter since it re-opened in 2005 after a facelift orchestrated by new owner Todd Christensen. It has especially been a haven for the L.A. alt-country scene.
The shows include tonight's performance by Beausoleil featuring Michael Doucet; an Oct. 4 appearance by Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin; the Hacienda Brothers on Oct. 12; Tim Reynolds on on Nov. 9, Pancho Sanchez on Nov. 23; and two dates by the Charlie Hunter Trio in early December. So here's to the Mint ...
Sam Sparro is a child of the '80s who's lived on three continents, who's partied hearty on each of them and who, musically, had never made it out of his bedroom. Until now.
Last month, the 24-year-old native of Australia released his debut EP, "Black & Gold," and proceeded to wow a crowd at the downtown club Bordello with vintage crooning -- you didn't doubt for a second that he used to do Curtis Mayfield covers -- over sexed-up electro-beats that couldn't hide the fact that, as he says, "Yeah, I grew up as a club kid."
Sparro's DIY recordings came with the help of producer Jesse Rogg of the Modus Vivendi Music imprint, who signed him (and signed on as DJ) after seeing him perform at the What Club. "Even in the final mixes you can hear the air conditioner," Sparro says, noting that Rogg helped him achieve the place where "classic soul and classic funk . . . combine with the music I listen to now.
"It's kind of somewhere between the church and the club."
With his full-length recording in the works -- "It'll have a more futuristic sound," he promises -- the singer hopes to induce his L.A. club crowds to move their bodies. "People here are really jaded," says Sparro. "They stand around most of the time with their hands in their pockets."
||| See Sparro perform tonight as part of the Hell Ya promotion at the Echo. Also: Up-and-coming Orange County quartet Voxhaul Broadcast, among others.
Downstairs at the Echoplex, it should be a fine homecoming show for the Broken West, who've been touring hard most of the year behind their early-'07 release on Merge, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On." The Parson Redheads and Bodies of Water also join in. ... Hot Hot Heat rock the House of Blues Anaheim ... The Ruse ends its Viper Room residency. ... And Sarabeth Tucek plays at the Hotel Cafe.
Great Northern's blissed-out pop is more appropriate for a sylvan outdoor setting than a shopping mall, but that's where the L.A. quartet will be playing tonight, at the Gap-stained Hollywood & Highland complex. At least it's for a good cause.
The show, which also features Ladytron (alas, they were to be the opening band for Pet Shop Boys at the Hollywood Bowl before PSB canceled), is the second in a series of events called Public Displays of Affection -- designed to encourage use of public transportation. Admission is an incoming subway or bus ticket. It runs from 7 to 10 p.m. and capacity is limited.
[Idle thought, since I just posted on the Monolators' new EP earlier this week -- how about a public transport mix CD? Here's your first track: "You Look Good on the Train."]
Great Northern's "Trading Twilight for Daylight" is one of the loveliest local releases of the year. I don't think I ever got around to posting the video for "Home," so enjoy this while I finish up my list of other great music to see tonight:
The Sex Pistols, marking the 30th anniversary of the release of their only album, "Never Mind the Bollocks ... Here's the Sex Pistols," will play what is being described as a "private club show" on Oct. 25 at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip. The gig comes in advance of five November shows in the band's native England.
Tickets are being given away during on-air promotion on Indie 103.1 (KDLD-FM), where Steve Jones is a DJ.
Originals John Lydon, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Jones last played in L.A. at the Greek in 2003. This reunion comes with the corporate backing of Indie 103.1, the video game Guitar Hero (for whom the band re-recorded "Anarchy in the U.K.") and Helio. Make what you will of that -- they did a tour called "Filthy Lucre," after all -- but this will technically be the Pistols' first club gig in L.A.
Photo of John Lydon at the 2002 KROQ Inland Invasion from Times files.
Don't know about you, but I'll be listening to Indie 103.1 Thursday morning for that big "show announcement" the station has been ballyhooing.
I'm guessing it's a Sex Pistols show in Los Angeles. I have no confirmation, no secret sources, no inside info. But all signs (including the Nov. 8 show that was announced in London) point to a show here.
Obviously, there's Steve Jones' position as DJ and almighty keeper of the jukebox at the station -- not to mention the fact that the word "legends" has been uttered. But also there is this business about the Sex Pistols having reunited to re-record "Anarchy in the U.K." for use in the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The song, originally on the Pistols' one and only album (which came out 30 years ago this fall), will be reissued on vinyl on Oct. 1. The album will be re-released on vinyl on Oct. 29.
The Sex Pistols in a video game?
Here's Jonesy's quote, from the press release: "It was great for Guitar Hero to, in a way, get us back in the studio. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out but it actually turned out great and I think everybody held their own. I like [Guitar Hero] because my friends' kids like it. And I like what kids like."
Today's quandary: Which Mercury Prize nominee to see in Los Angeles tonight?
You can't raise a pint without dripping on an important English band, what with the "nu-rave-is-just -something-we-made-up" Klaxons having sold out the Fonda Theatre, home-recording electro-shoegazers Maps playing Club NME at Spaceland and punk-reggae-rap phenom Jamie T roughing up the Troubadour. Of course, the Klaxons took home the big prize and are coming around for, what, the third time this year? Maybe you saw them at Coachella. Maybe you saw them in the '80s.
So what's an Anglophile to do -- which might be my sort of crowd?
I consulted longtime pal and sometimes-blogger the Riverboat Captain, an English expat now ensconced in the southern hemisphere, to try to get a snapshot of the fans.
What of the Klaxons? Writes RC: "The word 'klaxon' is derived from the Greek verb klazo, meaning 'to shriek.' Expect fin haircuts, glow sticks, low-top sneakers, wheat grass juice and bottled water, entheogens (look it up) and plenty of people still hoping for a Stone Roses reunion."
And Jamie T [left]? "Pete Doherty-style trilby and haircut (dilemma: can't wear large headphones at the same time), quite posh, desperately trying to shed public school associations. Daddy is 'something in the city.' Hobbies: anti-capitalist rallies, using public transport. Drinks: Mummy's gin."
And as for Maps: "Wears anything as long as it has no recognisable colour. Can't imagine Maps fans drinking anything, but they might be enthusiastic -- 'I come from Northampton too! I make music in my bedroom as well, that's why I totally relate to what Jimmy is doing! "We Can Create" -- you see! You do call him Jimmy, don't you ... we all do. It's like ... totally ironic how he checks classical composers but he uses synthesisers, which sound really fresh and exciting.' "
Touts for Wednesday, Sept. 26
You need more choices? You can check your punctuation with !!! at the Avalon, mellow out with Sara Lov (supporting Buddy) at Bordello, check out Gliss at Boardner's or hit the Roxy for Hello Stranger.
Foreign Born got a little tube time Tuesday night, and as television cameos go, this one, on the new NBC show "Chuck," was pretty killer. The L.A. quartet, whose album "On the Wing Now" just came out on Dim Mak, is giving away a free download (for today only) to celebrate. (If I'm reading the storyline correctly, the blonde is a CIA agent charged with protecting her nerdy date. Go nerds!)
Eli and Mary Chartkoff look more like the nice couple who’ve volunteered as museum docents than rockers who thrash out garagey, 3-minute anthems that sound as if they were kicked off the “Nuggets” boxed sets for being over-educated. But therein lies the charm of their band, the Monolators, who, if nothing else, remind you never to judge anybody by his fitted shirt.
Their new EP, “You Look Good on the Train,” advances the good-humored agitation they set to tune on last year’s album “Our Tears Have Wings,” and the addition of bassist Andrew Bollas and guitarist Tom Bogdon has quashed those male-female duo comparisons the Monolators heard while the Chartkoffs performed as a twosome.
“That was really a matter of necessity — we’d had other members but they kept dropping out,” says Eli, who, in fact, does work in the library at Occidental College (his wife teaches at Cal State Northridge).
The new lineup has re-energized the singer-guitarist, perhaps in the same way starting the band did. “I’d been in a series of bands that fell apart in depressing ways, and I’d given up on being in a band,” Eli says. “I met Mary at a party, and my ears perked up when she told somebody she played drums. Our first date was playing music together. Drummers are hard to find — that’s the genius thing about being married to one.”
Crazy good night to take in some music -- if you're not hitting the Arctic Monkeys/Voxtrot show at the Palladium, or sucking your thumb with this guy at the El Rey, or wondering what all the fuss is about over Midlake at the Fonda, you have these nice, cozier opportunities: Ex-Jayhawk Mark Olson [left] brings his luscious twang to the downtown club Bordello. ... The Mulhollands put an exclamation point on their residency at the Key Club. ... And Mystery Jets (who open for the Klaxons on Wednesday) lead the Dim Mak party at Cinespace.
[One in a series designed to keep one finger on the pulse of the local music scene and the other on the "download" button:]
The Hectors have a sense of humor to go along with their pop chops, which is only natural when you consider the L.A. quartet has a boyfriend-girlfriend songwriting team, influences ranging from the syrupy to Fugazi and a drummer who wanted to name the band the Lollipop Guild.
They've done an interview (of sorts) to promote today's release of their second EP, "Sometimes They Collide." Watch it here and take notes.
"It's amazing what we don't have in common," singer-guitarist Corinne Dinner says of the foursome that began in songwriting and recording lessons with beau Jim Saunders (bass) and expanded to include Robert Bonilla (guitar) and Erik Greene (drums). "The EP has a little bit of everything, from hooks to sludge."
It has the poppy "Cold Star" (reminds me of Letters to Cleo), an anxious ditty called "Carol and Sanford" -- "about a really shy Bonnie and Clyde," Dinner says -- and the brooding "I Drove All the Way From Bridgeport to Make It With You," a line lifted from the Woody Allen movie "Stardust Memories." The latter song was also on the Hectors' first EP, which the band isn't sharing anymore, because, well, "none of us were very happy with it."
They're in a better mood now. They will celebrate "Sometimes They Collide" with a show tonight.
Two American dates by the English quintet the Orange Lights -- including a show Tuesday at the Viper Room -- have been canceled after the band's bassist sustained injuries during a performance last week in London. According to one report, Chris Gittins was attacked by a person wielding a bread knife after an acoustic show. From the band's management:
"The Orange Lights apologize for canceling their North America dates in both L.A. and New York due to a serious injury to the hand of bass player Chris Gittins. An unprovoked incident happened in London which resulted in us also canceling a headline show at London Barfly the following evening."
The Newcastle band is fronted by Jason Hart, former touring guitarist for Spiritualized. Its debut album, "Life Is Still Beautiful," was produced by Ken Nelson (Coldplay) and Chris Potter (the Verve) and mixed in L.A. by Chris Lord-Alge. The band will try to reschedule the shows in Novmeber.
For a guy whose voice resounds as if he's issuing the Ten Commandments instead of singing in a post-punk band, Editors frontman Tom Smith admits to a bit of confusion over reaction to the Birmingham, England, quartet's sophomore album, "An End Has a Start."
"Of course, when you get out of bed in the morning and read something cynical about yourself, yes, it stings. But [the reviews] don't seem to be unified in the things that are wrong with it," he tells me before playing a show in Portland, Ore., part of a tour that brings the band to Los Angeles tonight. "I wouldn't change a single thing about [the album]. And no matter where we are or how small the venue, there is always someone who's been there since Day 1."
And heady days those were; Editors' first two singles -- "Bullets" and "Munich" -- propelled them into the limelight in England, where they were nominated for a Mercury Prize, and the U.S. release last year of "The Back Room" helped them land a spot at Coachella. To some, Editors were just another Joy Division/Echo & the Bunnymen acolyte; that Coachella set made me think they had out-Interpolled Interpol.
I know this sounds kind of dog-ate-my-homework, but I had a fairly substantial end-of-the-week post prepared this afternoon, but it seems to have been lost in a browser crash. Briefly, it suggested very strongly that you see this man at 7:30 tonight at the Greek, buy his album on Tuesday and then went on to recommend a million things you could see and hear this weekend. Well, not a million, but lots, from Cat Power to Boys Noize. Darn.
So here's my dirty little secret: Until last night, I had never attended a show at the Hollywood Bowl. I know, I know, it sounds almost criminal, since I've lived just over the hill for about five years. But owing to a general aversion to large crowds and an often-noncommittal attitude toward the acts that draw them, I'd managed to avoid this singularly Los Angeles experience.
There was no better way to swallow the communal-music-experience happy pill than seeing Arcade Fire on Thursday. It was the sixth time I've seen the band, at six different venues -- the first being a 300-capacity club in Silver Lake where it got so crazy that the group ended up playing percussion on the ventilation shafts above the stage. The virtuosic chaos generated by the 10-strong Montreal collective was too big for that room, to be sure, and on its second trip to the Bowl on Thursday, its set felt almost like performance art. All that pandemonium, dispensed like bread crumbs to hungry little creatures bobbing in and out of the geometrically tidy partitions that make up the Bowl's wedge.
Just beautiful.
LCD Soundstystem provided a second excellent reason to traipse up the hill, with James Murphy and gang delivering a set that matched Arcade Fire's in energy but couldn't have been more different in form. With LCD, it's all about repetition and order. The beats are insistent, and the riffs come at you again and again. If Arcade Fire's exuberance seemed fuel for a wistful optimism, LCD always seemed to me to be the soundtrack to a healthy cynicism. The huge disco ball that was brought in for the occasion was not just a prop; it was a wink.
So your nerdy blogger drank some wine, high-fived some people in the aisles, moved around a little bit to ward off the autumn chill, looked at the ribbons of light in the night sky and vowed to come back sometime. With a better-stocked picnic basket, a better camera and more friends.
Photo: LCD Soundsystem and its disco ball (Kevin Bronson / LAT)
Division Day, the L.A. indie-rock quartet whose album "Beartrap Island" is being re-released (on iTunes today, and in stores on Oct. 2), is offering a free remix or cover song every Tuesday for eight weeks. It's nice of them, considering what they've been through with this album; after the foursome self-released it last year, they was signed to a start-up label that planned to issue "Beartrap" last spring. But the start-up label never quite started up.
Enter L.A. imprint Eenie Meenie, home to Great Northern, Irving and Goldenboy, among others. The label has signed Division Day, and now the remastered album -- with two new tracks -- is on the way.
||| See Division Day perform at the Echo on Oct. 2.
Touts for Thursday, Sept. 20
Imagine Dylan having to fight his way out of an Irish bar: That's Ike Reilly's music. The Chicago-area troubadour hits town with his band the Ike Reilly Assassination for a gig at Spaceland tonight behind its new release, "We Belong to the Staggering Evening." Reilly played solo earlier this summer as support for Tom Morello on the latter's Nightwatchman tour. Recommended if you like barroom poets.
If the recognizable names in Year Long Disaster don’t get your attention, the familiarity of the L.A. trio’s riffage will — tight, bluesy metal that sounds as if they swaggered into the middle of a Led Zeppelin-ZZ Top bar fight.
“I like the old stuff,” singer-guitarist Daniel Davies says. “You always want to know where things come from. You hear the Stones talk about Muddy Waters and you say, ‘What is that?’ When I was 12 and Nirvana did a David Bowie cover, I knew I had to check that out.”
There’s plenty of history in the band’s lineage — the frontman is the son of the Kinks’ Dave Davies. Drummer Brad Hargreaves manned the kit for Third Eye Blind, and bassist Rich Mullins toiled for hard rockers Karma to Burn and Speedealer. And Robbie Robertson’s son, Sebastian, manages the band.
“As long as you don’t have a reality show, you’re gonna be all right,” Davies says of carrying his famous name. “And if you have the band to back it up.”
Not that any of this came at the snap of his fingers. Four years ago, Davies and Mullins were battling demons. “We were living in a room dreaming about starting a band, just wasting days. We were drinking and taking drugs,” he says. “I remember I had 76 cents the day my dad left to go back to England. So we went to rehab to try to pull it together.”
So far, so good. Year Long Disaster’s self-titled debut is due Oct. 9 on Volcom Entertainment, home to hard rockers (and notoriously outrageous showmen) such as Valient Thorr and Riverboat Gamblers, with whom YLD is currently on tour.
||| See Year Long Disaster tonight at the Roxy Theatre. Also: Oct. 7 at the Fonda Theatre as the support act for Turbonegro.
Run Run Run seems to be edging slowly away from the shoegazer stylings that put the quartet on the L.A. map a few years ago. Oh, on cue from front man Xander Smith's lyrics, the guitars will still ache and rustle and rumble, but on the band's forthcoming new EP, "Good Company," the approach is more straight-ahead. The new material was conceived in small town upstate New York and marked the first time the band had written songs as a group.
Here's a little taste -- and details on a show tonight where you can catch some of the new stuff:
The Little Ones and the Deadly Syndrome in one club tonight, for 8 bucks? Nice job, Detroit Bar. ... The Vacation headlines the Viper Room, and, yes, they have a song called "Destitute Prostitutes," but the poster promoting the night is pretty tasteless, even if it was intended as some sort of social commentary by its creator, front man Ben Tegel. ... Ian Ball of Gomez joins in at the Buddy residency at Bordello. ... The New Pornographers play the Fonda Theatre. ... There's the West Indian Girl/Softlightes show at Spaceland [see yesterday's post]. ... And Peanut Butter Wolf holds forth with a bunch of cool collaborators at the Roxy.
[Midweek tidbits while you warm up for Thursday night's show at the Hollywood Bowl:]
Your frenzy will have to wait.
An inaugural festival called Girlfrenzy featuring chart-toppers Sheryl Crow, Avril Lavigne, Fiona Apple and Miranda Lambert (as well as up-and-comers Sara Bareilles and Colbie Caillat) has been postponed. Girlfrenzy was scheduled for Oct. 27 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, and only this week organizers had announced the addition of a second stage for even-more-fledgling females. The event will be rescheduled in 2008, a press release from co-promoter LiveNation said. Why was the plug pulled? "No reason was given, unfortunately," a representative says.
-- Pairing: The opening act for the Jesus and Mary Chain on Oct. 23 at the Wiltern Theatre is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, for those who can tell their BRMC from their JAMC.
-- Practice: Warehouse space in downtown was apparently scarce, so Van Halen went ahead and rented the Forum to rehearse for its Nov. 20 show at Staples. Nice room, but those acoustics! Anyway, Blabbermouth blabs about it here. Another (lowercase) blabbermouth tells me that Eddie Van Halen was shreddilicious, playing one long guitar solo with mouth agape as if to say, "I can't believe I'm doing this." His son, Wolfgang, who's playing with the band, came over after the song and tapped him on the shoulder: "Good job, Dad." Then, during "Runnin' With the Devil," David Lee Roth pulled Eddie's fuzzy hat down over his face and announced this solo would be done "Stevie Wonder style." It didn't look rehearsed. And Eddie nailed the solo, note for note.
-- Perfect: Did I mention how right I thought the Bravery was for Tuesday night's Maxim Style Awards bash at the Avalon?
-- Posed: This is a shameless ploy by a publicist to get his band's name out there the week before the group's album is released, but I will fall for it this time: A Maryland girl was suspended from middle school for three days for having a photo [at right] of the pop-punk quartet All Time Low hanging inside her locker, according to the publicist. The band (on L.A. imprint Hopeless Records) will perform in the Southland Oct. 20-22, ostensibly fully clothed.
Two local artists with new albums highlight tonight's club frolicking.
Nightfur's "She Lives" (out today) is an intense, almost foreboding trip into vintage psychedelia, all stripped down for maximum effect. The music is a collaboration between two visual artists, Jason Brown (a filmmaker) and Matt Groller (a painter). More on these guys [pictured above] later, but tonight should be promising in the cozy confines of Bordello.
Robert Francis' winsome indie-pop offers a dreamy look into the inner workings of the heart. His album "One by One" came out last month on Aeronaut Records. And that's Juliette Commagere of Hello Stranger backing him on vocals on the lovely title track. Francis is playing at Safari Sam's tonight with a bevy of other local artists (Peachfuzz headlines) -- including an old favorite from Orange County, Primitive Painters. How old an old favorite? I still recommend folks seek out "Dirtclods," their album from 1992, and if I find out they played "All Great Things" tonight and I missed it, I will be sad.
Animal Collective plays the Fonda Theatre. ... And my arm is being twisted to give Clap Your Hands Say Yeah another chance. My hands have stayed firmly in my pockets on previous encounters. A fellow very familiar to L.A. audiences, Elvis Perkins, opens as CYHS starts a three-night at the Troubadour. ... Meanwhile, after a week off, the Mulhollands resume their residency at the Key Club's Ruby Tuesday promotion.
[Here's the bit from my print column last week on the new West Indian Girl:]
The area of downtown Los Angeles around 4th and Wall streets is not exactly postcard material, especially after 9 p.m. "It's not that happy a place," bassist Francis Ten says. "At night, it's just rows of homeless people. When you first go down there it's a bit intimidating."
There, working in the wee hours in a loft studio, Ten and his bandmates in West Indian Girl made their sophomore album, "4th & Wall" (due Oct. 23 on Milan Records). But the album owes as much to 4th and Wall as it does to what happened on the road, where a studio project started by Ten and singer-guitarist Robert James grew from a duo to a sextet -- "and became a real band," Ten says.
West Indian Girl's debut came out in 2004 on Astralwerks, but Ten and James struggled to re-create it live. Now, with singer Mariqueen Maandig, keyboardists Nathan Van Hala and Amy White and drummer Mark Lewis on board, it's as if the sextet's artfully layered dream-pop underwent assertiveness training.
"It was a completely different writing process, having the different personalities and emotions come into play," Ten says. "A lot of these songs were fleshed out on the road, so instead of a song just being written and recorded in the studio, it's allowed full gestation."
From the jammy, intrepid glimmer of "4th & Wall," you'd never suspect it was shaped amid the grit and desperation of late-night downtown. "We've always been laced with a certain degree of positivity," Ten says. "The nice thing is that we're doing our own thing; we're not looking over our shoulder thinking, 'Oh, there's another band that sounds like us.' "
||| See West Indian Girl on Wednesday at Club NME at Spaceland. Also playing and highly recommended: the Softlightes. [See below.]
"Have you been to the Gram Rabbit residency at Spaceland?" somebody asked me this weekend. "I've never seen so many people in costumes."
Well, it is Gram Rabbit. The local outfit that claims Joshua Tree as its home is always entertaining, and thanks to some quick work by filmmakers, the music video for the song "American Hookers" -- off the band's forthcoming album, "RadioAngel and the RobotBeat" (due Nov. 13) -- has footage from the first two Mondays of Gram Rabbit's stint in Silver Lake. Enjoy:
Touts for Monday, September 17
There are myriad other worthy shows tonight -- including a chance to see the Donnas in the cozy confines of the Viper Room. The all-female quartet's crunchy new album, "Bitchin'," will be released Tuesday, and they will be joined by the Randies and Girl in a Coma at Indie 103.1's weekly shindig. ... Also, the Happy Hollows (at the Echo) and Satisfaction and the Valley Arena (double-teaming the Silverlake Lounge) continue their residencies. ... Matt and Kim are headlining the Troubadour. ... Evan Slamka of Marjorie Fair is among tonight's players at Bordello. ... And the Sounds are back in town, playing at the Santa Monica Civic.
[I'm sure fantastic photos exist from Friday's very fun activities at the Echo. None, however, turned up on my camera. Instead, here is the video for Calvin Harris' song "Acceptable in the '80s." Compare it to what was acceptable Friday at Club Underground:]
There's a new indie electronic sensation every five minutes these days, many of them dipping into a seemingly bottomless well of Velveeta for bouncy synth lines and wink-wink humor and solemn genuflection at the altar of dance music. Because, everybody tells me every day, people like to dance.
The Echo was filled with those people at Club Underground on Friday night for the West Coast debut of Calvin Harris, a 6-foot-5 and slightly brash Scotsman who needs work on his stage banter but not on his catchy electro. Infected by songs such as "Acceptable in the '80s" and "Michael Jackson," the youthful Undergrounders couldn't wait to shake their bodies and spill drinks on people.
All in good fun, though. Harris, adorned in a T-shirt given him for appearing on Indie 103.1's "Jonesy's Jukebox Jury" earlier in the day, conducted the proceedings with aplomb -- no matter that the performance was largely smoke-and-mirrors, since much of the backing music was coming not from his players onstage but from computer tracks. Harris explained that his guitarist couldn't get a visa, and his keyboardist moved over to guitar, and some brightly dressed fellow named Captain Zesty was filling in on keys, etc., etc. and etc. The crowd was under the impression everybody was playing, but it was more karaoke than anything.
One thing for sure: It was quite a contrast to the gritty, new wave-flavored set played earlier by NYC trio BM Linx.
||| Listen to plenty of Calvin Harris here. And stream BM Linx's "Understanding Orange" here.
[Apologies for the dearth of material here recently; this blog has been in organizational rehab. It'll be back strong, and soon. Meanwhile, contributor Jeff Weiss sends us this memorandum from Thursday night's show at the El Rey. I love it when he says "leviathan":]
Writing about music means you go to a lot of shows, two or three a week, 52 weeks a year, the wide majority of them decent but unspectacular. Thursday night was not one of them. It was one of those rare evenings that validates a music obsession, a crystalline burst of clarity intimating to you that you’re in the presence of real greatness.
Scoff all you want, last night Wolf Parade proved once again what anyone who has caught them live already knows: They are the real deal. Testing out material from their yet-untitled sophomore Sub Pop effort, Wolf Parade displayed exactly how much they’ve grown since emerging from Montreal a few years ago burdened by seemingly insurmountable levels of hype. And the new songs? Well, let’s just say these aren’t the twitchy yelp-rock that the band blew up on, they’re leviathan prog-rock behemoths, full of arena-rock drums, itchy keyboard riffs and even beefy guitar solos.
The secret to the band’s success is the dynamic between its songwriters Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug. Boeckner stands center-stage, heavily tatted and emaciated in his skinny jeans, veins bulging out of his neck like Springsteen in a post-Modest Mouse world. Spencer Krug sits off to the left, sitting on his knees, pounding away at an old beat-up keyboard, looking like the proverbial boy next door, if the boy next door had a penchant for writing eight minute symphonies about graveyards, snakes and angels. In their solo projects, both Boeckner and Krug showcase exactly how talented they individually are, but in Wolf Parade, their strengths seemingly fill in the other’s weaknesses, Boeckner’s arena-rock sensibilities reining in Krug’s eccentricity, Krug’s avant-garde genius shaping the Boeckner tunes into menacing anthems.
In the course of the 80-minute performance, the band played roughly a half dozen new tunes. They were all woozy, bruising and beautiful. It’s still a bit early, but if these songs are any indication, Wolf Parade will not only going to avoid the sophomore slump, but they seem to be shaping up to be one of the best bands of their generation.
The White Stripes have canceled 18 U.S. concerts through Oct. 10, including a Sept. 19 date at the Forum with local-guys-made-good Cold War Kids opening.
According to a statement from the band:
"The White Stripes announced today that they are canceling their
forthcoming tour due to health issues. Meg White is suffering from
acute anxiety and is unable to travel at this time. The White Stripes sincerely apologize to their fans. We hate to let people down and are very sorry."
The Happy Hollows are almost as fun conceptually as they are sonically. They’ve become the latest indie darlings in Silver Lake thanks to an almost pugilistic mix of stinging guitars, turbulent rhythms and shouted vocals.
But frontwoman Sarah Negahdari’s yelping — is it tortured or is it joyous? And all that racket laid down by bassist Charlie Mahoney and drummer Chris Hernandez: angry or exuberant? Is the trio happy? Or hollow?
“I like it that we straddle the line — there’s the stone, and then you turn over the stone and see what’s underneath,” she says. “I even love it when I occasionally look out and see people in the crowd laughing. It’s not necessarily the thing you’d think a rock ’n’ roller would want.”
The Hollows’ clipped pop -- imagine that somebody rewired the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or squeezed the Pixies into a compact-car parking space -- coalesced quickly. Negahdari had almost given up forming a band in 2005 when she found Washington, D.C., transplants Mahoney and Hernandez on Craigslist. “We got together, played one song, and I said, ‘OK, we’ve got a show in two weeks,’” Negahdari says. “Meeting them catapulted me into a different dimension.”
The band’s initial “Bunnies and Bombs” EP earned blogger raves and magazine praise; now the trio is distributing a four-song sampler during its at the Echo. The songs are from an album's worth of material the trio has recorded with David Newton (the Little Ones, the Blood Arm).
||| See: The Happy Hollows play free shows tonight and the next two Mondays at the Echo. The Western States Motel is among the openers tonight.
You won't be able to swing a hot dog on a stick without hitting some sort of music festival this month.
The biggest conflagration is the weekend of Sept. 28-30, when you can get Grand, Nocturnal, Neighborhood and Swerve. You'll need an event planner to manage these two days -- either that or good seats to the season-ending Dodgers-Giants series.
Most diverse is the new kid on the block, the Swerve Festival, whose stated intention is "to celebrate West Coast creative culture." It's a film/visual arts/music gathering at Barnsdall Art Park and the Echoplex, offering screenings of, among other offerings, the Ian Curtis biopic "Control" and the Paskowitz family documentary "Surfwise."
The full music lineup hasn't been announced yet, but sources say Devotcha and We Are Scientists will join the list of previously revealed indie acts the Black Angels, Bonde Do Role and Foreign Born (among others). There's an impressive roster of visual artists who will be mounting exhibitions over the three-day festival too. I think folks used to drink a lot of Red Stripe at shindigs like this, but that might be out of fashion now.
On Saturday, people will dance. In fact, the footloose crowd will be divided into two camps -- the crooked-haircut indie kids will no doubt favor Dim Mak's Neighborhood Music Festival (use that link only if you aren't really tired of "Glass Danse") and will feature the likes of the Faint, Mickey Avalon, Spank Rock, Crystal Castles and, of course, Steve Aoki. (My sleeper pick on the bill: Brother Reade.) It's a $40 ticket and will be held in Exposition Park. And if you look art-damaged enough you're liable to get your photograph up on one of those spiffy web galleries.
The post-rave traditionalists will convene in downtown L.A. for Nocturnal Wonderland, with Chemical Brothers, Paul Van Dyk and Carl Cox, among a host of others. It's a $55 ticket. And if you stay until the event ends at 4 a.m., you won't want anybody taking photographs of you, let alone posting them on the web.
Are you tired yet? Because there's the Grand Avenue Festival on Sunday. At least it's not the same day as the LA Weekly Detour Festival, like it was last year. The free, daytime event will feature chamber music, the L.A. Philharmonic and some interesting pop flavors, including East L.A.'s Upground, the sultry trip-hop of Bitter:Sweet and the cool dudes from Dublab DJing.
Take the ensuing week off, because Detour and Tarfest follow the first weekend in October.
The mind-bending narrative twists and live-wire musicality on the last album by the Henry Clay People put the L.A. quartet on the must-see list for scenesters who like their pop smart, fast and fun. But to hear singer-guitarist Joey Siara tell it, the band might be evolving backward.
"We grew up listening to a lot of punk rock. A lot of bands start from those punk-rock roots and go from there," Siara says of the new material that he, brother guitarist Andy Siara, drummer Eric Scott and singer-bassist Noah Green are preparing to record. "We're kind of doing the opposite. Even the lyrics aren't as esoteric."
Not that the last album, "Blacklist the Kid With the Red Moustache," didn't have plenty of charm beyond its title. Arriving at an aesthetic that makes them sound like the teenage sons of Built to Spill gone off their Ritalin, the Henry Clay People make song puzzles with smile-while-you-rock titles like "Elly vs. the Eczema Princess" and "The Bandage on the Bloodclot."
Even the band's moniker -- it's named for the 19th century politician and failed presidential candidate -- is liable to raise some eyebrows. "It was either 'the Henry Clay People' or 'the Forgotten Presidency of Chester A. Arthur,' " says Siara, who majored in history at UC Santa Barbara. " 'Henry Clay' got a moderate thumbs-up from the band."
Something of a test-tube act in its early stages (the band made an album without having played live in L.A.), the quartet has racked up some 70 gigs since September. "That's given us a little bit of confidence," Siara says. "Playing shows elicits some kind of response, for better or for worse."
||| Tonight, the Henry Clay People help the Happy Hollows kick off their residency at the Echo. THCP also play Sunday at Alex's Bar in Long Beach.
Kevin Bronson Kevin Bronson has covered emerging and indie music since 2002 in his weekly Buzz Bands column in the Calendar Weekend section of the L.A. Times. He adores caffeine, judicious use of falsetto and the 6-4-3 double play. He abhors exclamation points, modern country and any notion that New York City is the center of the cultural universe. He's older than any music blogger he knows but has been known to pogo. He'll try not to pretend.
Bronson's Buzz Bands show can be heard Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. Pacific time on the Internet radio station LittleRadio.com.
They're a couple of the bazillion music offerings this weekend. I will leave bunches out, but here goes:
The Happy Hollows
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