A Place to Bury Strangers makes L.A. debut

Bring earplugs: A Place to Bury Strangers plays L.A. for the first time this week, and if the trio’s name or its reputation as “the loudest band in New York” (and now their MySpace page has been changed to read "loudest band in the United States") doesn’t set off alarms, know this: Frontman Oliver Ackermann started a guitar-pedal effects company called Death by Audio six years ago when he came up with a device called Total Sonic Annihilation.

“That about says it all,” Ackermann says with a laugh, remembering how an idea to earn money for a vacation trip blossomed into a career making custom effects for guitars. In the ensuing years, he founded APTBS with bassist Jono Mofo and drummer Jay Space, wrapping his truculence in menacing sheets of distortion that color his songs like thunderheads and appeal to fans of shoegazer and experimental rock alike.

“We’re just writing pop songs, but what we do seems to fit the whole experimental music thing that’s going on,” Ackermann says, noting that the darkness in his music doesn’t necessarily reflect his anger as a person. “It’s just when a feeling brings you to that creative place, it adds fuel to the intensity of the song. I think it’s what keeps me happy, really — it’s my form of therapy.”

It struck a chord too with Boston blogger Jon Whitney (brainwashed.com), who talked the band into letting him release its album on his Killer Pimp imprint, although “I still felt like some of the songs were in the demo stages,” Ackermann says. “Thank goodness for Jon.”

||| Live: A Place to Bury Strangers plays tonight at the Viper Room with In Waves and Eulogies and Tuesday at the Silverlake Lounge with Xu Xu Fang and Mere Mortals.

||| Download: four songs at APTBS's MySpace page.

Elsewhere tonight, Dec. 3

Plenty to choose from: Carbon/Silicon -- the band that Mick Jones has been doing with Generation X's Tony James in recent years when not producing the Libertines or Babyshambles -- plays the Troubadour. Carbon/Silicon's recent Caroline Records release, "The Last Post," is as sharp and energetic as any teenage British band of the moment. ... Speaking of bands of the moment, Vampire Weekend brings its Afro pop-meets-indie rock to the Echo. The New York band's album is due out in February. ... Got soul? Sharon Jones plays a free in-store at Amoeba Music at 7 p.m. ... Venus Infers and the Henry Clay People start a co-residency at the Detroit Bar. ... And the Binges kick off their residency at Spaceland.