Mezzanine Owls might have the most passive-aggressive sound around.
Front man Jack Burnside sings woundedly, tossing around snippets of imagery that could have come from a dog-eared journal, while trading twitchy, fuzzed-out guitar lines with Jonathan Zeitlin. Atop the churning rhythms laid out by bassist Dan Horne and drummer Pauline Mu, the results can be otherworldly. “It’s not like you make a conscious choice — you sing it the way it feels to you,” Burnside says. “Sometimes it becomes its own reality.”
That concept plays out in the song/metaphor “Snow Globe,” an insular three minutes of fury off the L.A. quartet’s new EP. The release, a vinyl 7-inch with a four-song digital download (on a new imprint, Jaxart, spun off the local Rock Insider blog), follows last year’s Owls debut, “Slingshot Echoes.” Both were recorded in Athens, Ga., with Andy LeMaster (the man behind Now It’s Overhead who also has collaborated with Bright Eyes and Azure Ray, among others). “We tried to be true to what we sound like live,” Burnside says. "
The Owls' local shows have proven enough of a hoot to win them won fans among the shoegaze-pop followers of bands such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and Ride, as well as a fan or two closer to home. Burnside’s mother weighed in after a recent show: “She said we sounded apocalyptic,” he says. “How cool is that?”
The Walkmen and the Delta Spirit perform as part of the indie rock series at the Orange County Performing Artscenter's Samueli Theatre. ... Taken by Trees (ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman) plays the Roxy. ... British Sea Power winds up its two-night L.A. stand with a show at Spaceland. ... The Vacation finishes up its residency at the Viper Room, with Run Run Run also playing .. And Tulsa, along with What Made Milwaukee Famous, plays the Silverlake Lounge.
It's not a secret show, but it is kinda stealth. The Little Death NYC plays at El Cid on Friday night. That's a quartet featuring Moby on guitar/bass. Tickets are $15 at the door.
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Color me on vacation a few days. Back sometime next week.
||| For myriad things musical, check in with The Times' Soundboard blog.
You don’t just hear a lot of the 1990s in the music of L.A. quartet Hazelden, you hear a lot of singer Mary Jane Snow’s ambition. As one of the few kids from her self-described “white-trash Minnesota neighborhood” to attend college, she lived in Chicago, London and San Francisco before taking up songwriting in earnest, inspired by this decade’s rock revival, informed by heroes such as Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and maybe even channeling a little “Celebrity Skin”-era Hole.
“It was about the time you started to hear the Strokes or the Vines on the radio,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is what I want to do.’”
She came to L.A. to do it, first playing open mike nights before falling in with bassist Joshua Wayne, guitarist Travis Garrecht and drummer Pete Vasquez, who on Hazelden’s debut EP “Deadstock Rock” help give Snow’s sometimes-foreboding anthems and given them a snarling, soaring edge — as evidenced on the track “To Live and Die in L.A.”
“I was nervous about putting [her first batch of songs] out, because I knew people would say, ‘Oh, this is Hole,’” Snow says. “But the guys have taken what I wrote and made it this new thing. ... This is an imposing town to play in, because there’s a million bands, but I think we have something unique. I’m not Jimi Hendrix, I’m not Janis Joplin, but I have confidence in my ability as a singer-songwriter.”
||| Live: Hazelden plays its EP release show on Friday at Bordello in downtown L.A. (scheduled to be the late set).
Presidential candidate John Edwards wasn't the only person moved by the story of Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17-year-old from Northridge who died in December of complications from leukemia and whose family's battles with its insurance carrier became headline news. Two local musicians, producer/beatmaker/lyricist ailment (Tony Barkodarian) and rapper/lyricist eye2eye (Mike Chakrian), were touched too.
"We didn't know Nataline personally, but I grew up in the same area and the whole story hit very close to home," says Barkodarian, a Northridge native who now lives in Glendale. "The best catchphrase I heard was 'murder by spreadsheet' -- that's exactly what it was."
After Sarkisyan's death, Chakrian posted some lyrics on MySpace, and upon seeing them Barkodarian was inspired to write a beat. The pair got together and recorded a song, "Nataline," and have made it available for download. Proceeds from the download ($1.99) go to the Sarkisyan family.
Shane Alexander's album release show goes off tonight at the Troubadour. ... Halestorm rocks the Viper Room. ... And the Minor Canon and the Snow perform at Club NME at Spaceland.
A Cursive Memory are four kids from the San Pedro area who are having a boatload of fun. That's the best way to describe "Changes," their album that was released today on Vagrant. Reminds me of the O.C. band Hellogoodbye. The band's album release show is tonight at Chain Reaction. Their video for "Everything" shows what happens when they mix it up in Tinseltown:
My immediate impression of "Alone Feels Like a Hotel Room," new from the Kris Special, is that the L.A. trio has a tank full of Americana and the pedal to the metal. Anne Pointer's vocals sound like a slightly less syrupy Jenny Lewis, and this record (which has producer Raymond Richards' fingerprints on it) has some killer lap and pedal steel. Cool stuff. The record release show is tonight at the Echo (with the Harpeth Trace also playing) .... Everest leads a nice trio of local bands for Radio Free Silver Lake's show at boardner's in Hollywood. ... In the bigger rooms, the Hives and the Donnas rock the Wiltern; and Keren Ann, Dean & Britta and Sara Lov are at the El Rey.
||| More music coverage on The Times' new staff blog SOUNDBOARD.
[Be still your indie-rock hearts for a minute -- this local-music installment groups three veterans of the L.A. scene with new albums, hosts of collaborators and upcoming shows:]
Jim Bianco
One of the originals on the Hotel Cafe scene, Jim Bianco comes as close as anybody I've heard to filling the long shadow of Randy Newman. On his third album, "Sing" (March 4, Hotel Cafe Records), Bianco's nifty horn-, accordion- and piano-flavored arrangements and (occasionally) smilingly bawdy vignettes are as fit for smoky dives as swanky lounges. And the singer's vaguely Waits-ian rasp is made for couplets like "To hell with the devil / I'm sellin' my soul to you," not to mention elastic enough to sell piano ballads ("Painkiller") and groovy excursions ("If Your Mama Knew," which sprinkles in "Rhapsody in Blue"). "Sing," the Brooklyn native's third album, is the first release on a new label spun off the Cahuenga Boulevard venue and includes cameos by Gary Jules and Cary Brothers.
||| Live: Bianco plays his album-release show at the Hotel Cafe on March 4, and a free in-store at Amoeba Music at 7 p.m. March 5. He also performs on the Hotel Cafe Tour (March 8 at the House of Blues Anaheim and April 12 at the Music Box @ Fonda).
The frontman of the longtime L.A. band Damone -- before they sold the name to these people -- Shane Alexander has stretched out incrementally on each of three solo albums, and his latest, "The Sky Below" (out today on BuddhaLand Records) muscles up considerably. Alexander, whose vocals might remind you the Gin Blossoms' Robin Wilson (or a couple other '90s radio mainstays), remains an effective acoustic troubadour (especially on the title track), but with the help of backing players Chad Crawford, Charlie Paxson, Billy Mohler and Kim Bullard, he has created a catchy slice of meticulously produced mid-tempo rock.
||| Live: Alexander (co-billed with the bluesy Chris Pierce) plays the Troubadour on Wednesday.
James Combs gets a lot of mileage out choked notes, sprightly orchestration and a sprinkling of synths on his third album, "To Know You Is to Save You." His filmy vocals are best when paired with collaborators Kelly De Martino and Erin Shawn Hawkins, but even alone they are ripe for his wry storytelling, amplified by a host of backing players that includes Nik Freitas (whose own album, "Sun Down," is coming April 8). These are the tunes of vivid, waking dreams, and, every so often, realization.
||| Live: Combs, joined by Wisely and Buddy, plays El Cid on Friday.
I suppose it was inevitable that the Presidents of the United States of America would resurface this year. Could've sworn these guys broke up about 1998, but the bio tells me they've been back it full-time since 2004. Now comes the news that they have a new album "These Are the Good Times People" (what newspapers have they been reading?) due March 11 and they have re-teamed with "Weird Al" Yankovic for the video to its first single "Mixed Up S.O.B.," which you can hear here.
I mention this to note the strange whims of remembering the 1990s. PUSA sold millions of albums (4.5 million of their debut), and yet when the e-mail landed about their upcoming album, I could not remember a single one of their songs. The disposable nature of pop-punk? Possibly. The disposable nature of PUSA's pop-punk? Probably.
On the other hand, the news landed last week about another rock radio mainstay of that era, the newly reformed Filter. Richard Patrick and gang are back after five years ("Anthems for the Damned," due in May), and as soon as I saw the band's name in the subject field, "Hey Man, Nice Shot" lodged itself in my brain and simply would not go away for three days.
The big debuts by PUSA and Filter both came out in 1995, and each remains on my shelf at home. But only one remains in the inventory of my brain. Happens to you too? Please share (and, yes, take potshots at my musical tastes in 1995 all you want ...)
||| Live: PUSA plays March 19 at the House of Blues Anaheim and March 21 at the Roxy.
||| Live: Filter (no new songs on their MySpace yet) has no L.A.-area dates scheduled yet, but they're at the Casbah in San Diego on March 2.
Photo of Richard Patrick by Andrew Pinter
Highlights for Monday, Feb. 18
Dengue Fever headlines the Indie 103.1 night at the Viper Room. ... Film School plays the warm-up slot for the Pity Party's Spaceland residency. ... Robert Francis continues his Silverlake Lounge residency with guests Dawes (members of now-defunct Simon Dawes). ... Casket Salesmen and four other bands bring the rock at a free show at the Troubadour. ... And at the Echo, the Henry Clay People toast producer David Newton (who helmed their "Working Part Time" EP) by welcoming three other Newton-produced local bands onto the bill -- the Happy Hollows, Kissing Tigers and Death to Anders.
[In a decade long ago and far, far away, the 1990s, I used to shell out import prices for British bands I'd get excited about. Their releases always predated the U.S. distribution of their albums, and on many occasions I Just Couldn't Wait. Now that I receive music in advance, those mail-order companies don't get as much of my paycheck. But this installment of from-the-hip blurbs about new albums features three bands I'd have opened the wallet for (even at $23.49 on Amazon):]
The Duke Spirit, "Neptune" (April 8, Shangri-La; Feb. 12 in the U.K.): Talk about a voice -- I'll see your Feist and two photogenicMySpace songstresses and raise you Liela Moss. Her foreboding delivery seems to come from down here, imploring you care very deeply about her slightly bent diary entries. Take the pluck from the best couple tracks of quintet's nice debut, "Cuts Across the Land," and imagine that over a full album, and you have a band U.S. audiences ought to heed. The Duke Spirit haven't had much luck in America, but a strong tour and a little support for "Neptune" (which was recorded in Joshua Tree) could change that.
||| Live: The Duke Spirit play the Echo on March 5.
The Raveonettes, "Lust, Lust, Lust" (Feb. 19, Vice; Nov. 12, 2007, in the U.K.): It's as if everything Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo tried to align on their first to albums has suddenly coalesced. Fuzzy, dark, simmering, shimmering and nodding to decades-ago girl groups and surf guitar outfits, "Lust(x3)" is like a churning ocean in the waning light. When they played as a duo last summer at the Little Radio warehouse downtown, I had no inkling some these songs would end up so fully formed.
||| Live: The Raveonettes have dates March 1 at the Glass House, March 2 at the Detroit Bar and March 4 at the El Rey Theatre.
British Sea Power, "Do You Like Rock Music?" (Feb. 12, Rough Trade): You hear the Brighton quartet wrestling with the big issues on this album, and the title's question feels almost like a challenge. Listening is like riding a beast; BSP's unvarnished, delightfully meandering anthems sound larger than life. Bring on foliage and military uniforms, lads, we're prepared to salute.
||| Live: British Sea Power plays Feb. 27 at the Echo and Feb. 28 at Spaceland.
There’s no need to practice partisan politics to endorse Grand Ole Party, especially if you like your rock raw and soulful. The San Diego-based trio, which released its debut album “Humanimals” on Super Tuesday, dispenses its retro blues like indefatigable campaigners, with singing drummer Kristin Gundred belting it out as if Grace Slick and Tina Turner never happened.
“I’m more drawn to things that are really intense; that’s probably why I sing the way I do,” she says. “And in front of this band, that’s certainly the way it comes out.”
Gundred, guitarist John Paul Labno and bassist Mike Krechnyak met at UC Santa Cruz, jammed for a while in San Francisco and settled in San Diego before catching the attention of Rilo Kiley guitarist Blake Sennett, who, to continue the voting theme, also fronts the Elected — and who produced “Humanimals.”
The album was released on DH Records, the imprint launched by 3D Management honcho Dave Holmes (Coldplay, Interpol). (Side note: DH also has released an EP by Magnetic Morning, a collaboration between Interpol's Sam Fogarino and Swervedriver's Adam Franklin.)
“Our approach was that we like records, we like tube amps, we like the older versions of sounds,” Gundred says. Their throwback results more closely approximate GOP’s live shows, which they honed on a tour supporting Rilo Kiley and which will get a true test in April, when the trio plays Coachella. “I’m familiar with it,” Gundred says of the festival experience (she has performed with Rilo Kiley as a backup singer). “But at the same time, it wasn’t my band. I’ll probably write my lyrics on my damn hand I’ll be so nervous."
||| Live: Grand Ole Party performs tonight at Club Underground at the Echo.
Emery plays to a sold-out room tonight at the Troubadour. ... Siouxsie headlines the Music Box @ Fonda. ... At the Echoplex, St. Vincent headlines, and Foreign Born (who will play some material they are working on for their sophomore album) opens. ... Carina Round plays a full-band show at the Hotel Cafe (Emma Burgess and Seneca Hawk are also on the bill). ... The Binges go off at Spaceland (opening for cover band AC/DShe). ... And Paper Thin Walls plays at the Scene in Glendale.
[Emptying the notebook from a busy week of music ...]
Color me disappointed in having missed the Mika spectacular Monday at the Wiltern. Yes, I fall distinctly on the "hater" side of this Europop phenomenon -- his cringe-worthy exuberance reminds me of every girl in my high school who ran for class president. He seems to acknowledge and even play to his detractors too, as Mikael Wood's excellent review of the show pointed out.
But more than one faithful Buzz Bands correspondent who attended found it as entertaining for the audience dynamic as the wildly choreographed stage show. Here was the reaction of the pal who sent the above photos:
The crowd would have followed him off a cliff if he asked them to. There were three O.C.-type college girls with homemade "I" "Heart" and "Mika" on their T-shirts, and they always walked around in order, so they would read "I Heart Mika." I was floored by the number of straight guys in the audience -- guys who did not come with girls. Not hipster metro straight, but baggy jeans, sweater, baseball cap and glasses straight. The performance was totally solid, completely charming, with tons of energy -- even with the multiple extended intros to songs while the set changed. There was a puppet, snow, a giant inflatable doll, plush costumes, costume changes, characters, dancers -- if Peaches got a lobotomy, tons of money and was forced to watch children’s programming all day, this show would be the result.
So take that, haters.
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Also missed a moment at the Echoplex on Monday night: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony did a cameo with Rickie Lee Jones. I simply need to be in three places at once.
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Local tidbits: The Front plays its final show tonight at the Prospector in Long Beach. There's a note about the band's breakup here. That brings to three the number of band breakups I've heard about recently -- the nice fellows in the Prix and Simon Dawes, respectively, also have called it quits.
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Happy Valentine's Day: On Tuesday, the Greg Kurstin/Inara George force known as the Bird and the Bee released a digital-only, Feb. 14-themed EP called "One Too Many Hearts." I'm not one for V-Day mush, but the four-song effort is pretty sublime. Did you forget flowers, guys? Head to iTunes.
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Happy Mondays guitarist Kav has been around town DJing, and now he's assembled a full band (including some collaboration with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) to play his own music. The full-band version of Kav debuts Sunday night at the Whisky; he's playing stripped-down on Feb. 25 at the Troubadour.
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Things: Electrelane has remixed the Little One's single "Ordinary Song" and you can download it here. ... Styrofoam has remixed Cassettes Won't Listen's "Paper Float." ... Moby has a downloadable from his new album at RCRD LBL -- right this way. ... Taken by Trees, a.k.a. Victoria Bergsman from the Concretes and a Peter, Bjorn and John collaborator, plays the Roxy on Feb. 28, and here's her song "Lost and Found." ... Rock Insider, via GorillavsBear, has the scoop on Radiohead remixes here -- as well as an item on Wallpaper signing to local imprint Eenie Meenie (complete with download). ... And speaking of V-Day sounds, here's something from Daedelus (from the recent release "Live at Low End Theory" on the AlphaPup imprint): "Now's the Time."
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Spaceland celebrates its 13th year with a March 2 show featuring 13 bands for $13. All the performers will be alumni of the venue's Monday night residencies over the years -- that's a formidable cast. Confirmed so far: The Tyde, the Vacation, Oliver Future, the Blood Arm, Run Run Run, 400 Blows and the Movies. I have a hunch there might be a big-name surprise or two in store, but it's just a hunch ...
Easy as "1 2 3 4" -- Feist, the 31-year-old Canadian torch singer and Grammy nominee for best new artist, will be coming to the Hollywood Bowl for a headlining gig on July 20. The Toronto native's striking chamber pop will be counterposed that evening by the stirring soul stylings of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. There's no on-sale date for tickets yet, and a third artist is likely to be added to the show.
The Bowl's pop/rock offerings are shaping up for the summer. Earlier this morning, a May 27 show featuring the Police and Elvis Costello and the Imposters was announced (tickets on sale Feb. 24). Mary J Blige and Jay-Z have an April 16 show; the Cure are scheduled for May 31; Sgt. Pepper's Revisited with Cheap Trick goes off June 20; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers play on June 25; Gilbert Gil and Devendra Banhart team up on June 29; Gnarls Barkley parties on July 27; and UB40 pays a visit on Aug. 3.
Update: It's not on the Bowl's website yet, but it's on the band's: R.E.M. is playing the Bowl on May 29. And it should be pointed out that the Feist, Gil/Banhart, Barkley and UB40 shows are part of KCRW-FM's World Music series.
Photo of Feist playing KROQ-FM's Almost Acoustic Christmas show by Lawrence K. Ho / LAT
[One in a series on new music by L.A. artists ...]
"Staring at Yourself," the second EP from L.A. seven-piece I Make This Sound, doesn't leave you much time for navel-gazing. Rich with vivid imagery and lush, playful arrangements, Jonathan Price and his piano-man voice lead you through all manner of intrigue and orchestral derring-do; sometimes it feel like the band is packing 10-minute epics into four minutes. Like on "One, Two, Three!" -- one moment you're seduced by a tinkling piano, the next you're bopping to girl-group backing vocals, and the next you're going 100 mph on a guitar riff. A nice ride.
On their "Eat Your Heart Out" EP, L.A. quintet the Breakups go easy on everything -- the jangly guitars, the twinkling keys, the harmonies. Easy-does-it, however, does not equal easy listening. The ebb and flow of the six-song effort and the wry nuances of numbers like "Tissue Sample" and "After the Fact" make this a nifty record that glances back at power pop's '70s heyday but reminds you more of the likes of Fountains of Wayne, Nada Surf and (vocally) Michael Penn.
Meet Kárin Tatoyan. She's the one who started her set Monday night at Spaceland on her knees, not so much launching into song as breaking into an incantation. Who jammed virtually breathlessly for the first 10 minutes, teetering between hysteria and rapture. Who commanded your attention despite the fact the faces of her otherwise nattily attired sidemen were streaked with glitter paint. Who had you believing, straightaway.
Think of Tatoyan as a baroque Bjork. If her haunting vocals don't dazzle you, her odd music will -- counterposing, as it does, weird electronics, sound effects and loops with the very organic tones of a French horn and cello. Seeing her is like watching an Escher come to life. Almost-mathematical repetition gives way to chaos; melodies build and build yet resist payoff, like stairways to nowhere. On Monday, she started one number with an innocent comment that rang fairly large: "I'm gonna make a new sound." (It referred to a noise she was trying to loop.)
Her opening set for the Pity Party's residency was only the 10th live performance for Tatoyan, a 24-year-old of Syrian-Armenian descent who studied experimental music at Mills College. It was as distinctive (and almost improvisational) as anything you'll see in an L.A. club. She has only one DIY release, "The History of Stains" EP (which sounds a bit restrained compared to the stage show), but there are some labels snooping around. Stay tuned.
Low Vs Diamond checks in at the Viper Room. ... She's Your Sister plays the Silverlake Lounge. ... It's Aushua and Moris Tepper at the Echo, and Talkdemonic at Spaceland. ... And in the Alterknit Lounge at the Knitting Factory, Ride on Rides performs.
Gary Folgner, whose Galaxy Concert Theatre will close at the end of the month when the Santa Ana space gives way to renovations for a mega-nightlcub, vows to return. "I think you'll see us pop up with another venue, maybe within a year," says Folgner, who runs the Coach House in southern Orange County but lost the lease on his central-county hub for live music. "We're in a funny market right now, with what's happening to real estate."
Certainly, what happened to the Galaxy's piece of real estate came as a surprise after Folgner's 13 years helming the club. "New guys came in, and they had more money than sin," he says. "It's a blow -- I didn't expect it to come down like that."
Punk rock and heavy metal music may be most affected, especially with the House of Blues Anaheim landlord -- the Walt Disney Co. -- excising certain harder-edged acts from the bills there. In fact, after the British band Gallows was dropped from an opening slot on a punk-rock bill there, the frontman of headlining Social Distortion, Mike Ness, told the crowd how nice it would be if the House of Blues could be picked up and moved to Costa Mesa, "so we could have a real venue." (Social D's brand of punk, apparently, passes muster; or could it be the long string of sold-out shows at HOBA?)
The Galaxy's final punk show promises to be a doozy -- Feb. 21 with TSOL, Agent Orange and D.I.
The weekend seemed to be all about glitz, glamour and Grammy, but not in the middle of the black-clad, dancing throng Saturday night at the Wiltern, or among the bouncing youngsters Friday at the Echo, or among the sweaty, swaying masses who packed the Echoplex on Friday. With so many good bands visiting from across the pond, it made sense to get out -- at least more sense than it made to give a best new artist award to somebody for her sophomore album.
Editors' set on Saturday at the Wiltern was surprising, darned-near transcendant. The bill offered an interesting triage of mid-level bands -- San Diego's Stonesy Louis IV and synth-rocking Canadians Hot Hot Heat joined the Birmingham, England, quartet in packing the theater. If the music wasn't diverse enough, the disparity among the bill's lead vocalists was: Even toned down from the band's early days, Louis XIV's Jason Hill affects a pretty effective Bon Scott; Hot Hot Heat's Steve Bays is nervous and yelpy, though not so much since his quartet became a radio band; and Editors' Tom Smith can fill any room with his stentorian boom.
Smith carried the night, ricocheting around the stage to a nifty light show as his band's songs pogoed between gloom and hope. Ian Curtis, two points ahead in his battle with the demons.
While Hot Hot Heat did little better than fashion a live approximation of its radio hits, Louis XIV offered some surprises of its own. With its sophomore album, "Slick Dogs and Ponies," the quartet has graduated from its glam-garage origins ... I mean, string players? Even with Hill having equipment troubles Saturday, the set approached arena rock-like territory, with more hits (the new track "Guilt by Association" and the band's new take on its radio hit, "Finding Out True Love Is Blind") than misses (the too-close-to-Bowie new song "Air Traffic Control.")
Friday night in Echo Park offered some contrasts as well -- the fresh-faced pop of the Kooks (and the even-fresher-faced openers the Morning Benders) upstairs at the Echo (average crowd age: 25), and the jammy psych-rock of Welsh veterans Super Furry Animals downstairs in the Echoplex (average crowd age: 35).
Even given the venue's terrible sightlines, the Super Furries' show was satisfactorily sweaty, the quintet jamming long into the night. The Kooks, playing the second of two sold-out club shows (they will likely be at the Wiltern their next time through L.A.), connected quickly with their youthful crowd, and the Morning Benders -- the release of their debut still three months away -- showed that their frisky Fab Four-isms pack a lot of punch.
Bear with me if this is old news to you -- it'll only take a second.
I wasn't aware until now that the Eels had attempted to buy a 1-second television ad during the Super Bowl to hawk its B-sides/rarities release. Super Bowl ads, after all, go for $100,000 per second, and that's about what the band could afford. It didn't quite work out.
Call me overly starched, but I tend to distrust girls who stick their tongues out at me, write things like "Ur So Gay" and have a handbag full of A-list producers for their music. We need another manufactured pop diva like the Hotel Cafe needs another singer-songwriter.
That said, it was impossible to deny the charisma and chops of L.A.-based Katy Perry on Thursday night at a very packed Viper Room. A musical diarist in the vein of January's diva-of-the-month, Kate Nash, Perry infuses her boyfriend-bending pop with plenty of bite and, for her age (22), a healthy dose of self-awareness. The Santa Barbara native will have a lot of appeal among the teen masses -- and maybe among those whose attention spans run longer than your average text message.
She'll be on the Warped Tour this summer (hmm, there goes the "punk") and her debut album is due on Capitol on June 10. Color me curious to have a listen.
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My spies Thursday at the Troubadour have stoked my anticipation for tonight's Kooks show at the Echo. In the first night of their two-show L.A. stand, the British quartet played a set that was about two-thirds material off their catchy debut "Inside In/Inside Out" and about one-third songs off their forthcoming "Konk" (due April 15). Front man Luke Pritchard was happily unhinged, channeling (as he is wont to do) his pop Mick Jagger.
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Earlier Thursday, Ironworks Music -- the label founded by Kiefer Sutherland and Jude Cole -- showcased its artists to a full house at the Roxy. Teenager rockers Billy Boy on Poison started the night with a muscular set, and headliner Rocco Deluca ended the evening with a jammy, incense-laden performance that included a cameo from Daniel Lanois.
The middle set was an eye- (and ear-) opener. It featured new signees Honeyhoney, a collaboration between guitarist Ben Jaffe and singer/fiddler/banjoist Suzanne Santo that expands to a quartet for their live shows. Honeyhoney's set (and its forthcoming debut EP "Loose Boots") featured folk rock with whole spice rack emptied in -- you weren't sure whether it was mountain music or carnival music at some points. But Santo's voice, the fun arrangements and interesting instrumentation (was that banjo/electric guitar/synth on one song?) made it very compelling. More on these folks later.
The Galaxy Concert Theatre,
a staple of the live-music scene in Orange County for 13 years, is
closing at the end of February, and new owners will debut an
uber-nightclub in the Santa Ana space on June 1.
Gary Folgner, the Galaxy owner who also runs the Coach House in San
Juan Capistrano, could not immediately be reached for comment. The
Galaxy's transition will not affect the Coach House.
A spokesperson for the Mor Project,
a new restaurant/nightclub management group helmed by Anton Posniak,
said the new, 25,000-square-foot club called RevolveR would cater to
upscale clubgoers, offering multiple rooms of entertainment, myriad VIP
areas, fireplaces, indoor/outdoor seating and eight full-service bars.
Additionally, plans call for RevolveR's design theme to change every
few months -- sort of a planned makeover.
The Mor Project is the same group behind soon-to-open venues the
Rustic Vine (in the Irvine Spectrum) and the Irezumi Sushi Lounge in
Costa Mesa.
When I last saw the Vacation, front man Ben Tegel was climbing all over the furniture at Safari Sam's, giving one of those boozy, sweaty, unhinged performances for which the L.A. quartet became known. That was over a year ago, when Tegel and bandmates were a bit drunk on the euphoria of having been picked up by Rick Rubin'sAmerican Recordings.
The Vacation's debut album was re-jiggered and re-released in 2006, the band started to write and play songs for a follow-up, and ... poof. Rubin moved from Warner to Columbia, and the Vacation got lost in all the packing tape. The band's relationship with American ended last autumn.
"They kind of strung us along for a while, but I'm not complaining about it because it's the same story a lot of bands have," Tegel says. "We're just glad to have a clean break.
"It's a weird landscape in music right now."
With their characterisitic swagger, the Vacation aims to paint itself back into that landscape. They have a new album recorded, tentatively titled "Dead Time," and will be posting a downloadable track per week on their MySpace site during their residency at the Viper Room, which begins tonight. Up now: "I Can't Dance With You," and on Friday "---- Talker" will be posted.
The new material reaches further thematically than did their original batch of hollers and rants about street life and various L.A. indulgences. "There's a song about the war in Afghanistan, which nobody talks about anymore," Tegel says. "In fact, I don't know if they're war songs as much as occupation songs."
||| Live: The Vacation play tonight (with Katy Perry, among others) and every Thursday in February at the Viper Room.
Photo by Stephen Albanese
More highlights for Thursday, Feb. 7
Songstress alert: Colbie Caillat plays the House of Blues, and Sara Bareilles joins James Blunt at the Wiltern, but look out for Ceci Bastida (Julieta Venegas' keyboardist), who is performing at Bordello. ... the Kooks' show at the Troubadour is sold out. ... The Entrance Band kicks off a residency at the Silverlake Lounge. ... The Lilys play the Echo. ... And John Ralson and Limbeck do a second night at the Alterknit Lounge
[If you're not going to a show tonight, you must be home with that bug that's been going around. There's plenty to choose from:]
Gran Ronde, the L.A. quartet who's been playing its moody, angular rock around town for over a year now, finally has a couple proper releases on the horizon. This week, its debut EP "On and On" is released, and April 8 is the date for the foursome's full-length, "Secret Rooms." The band celebrates the EP release with a show tonight at Bordello.
Elsewhere:
Minipop, the cool-as-a-January-night dreampop quartet from San Francisco, is back in town. They play Club NME at Spaceland, with Norway's Undgomskulen. ... Beduoin Soundclash plays the Knitting Factory behind its very good album, "Street Gospels," and the Toronto reggae specialists are joined by U.K. newcomers Beat Union. ... The Weather Underground kicks off a Wednesday residency at the Silverlake Lounge supported by a host of stellar locals, including Frankel and Le Switch. ... Willoughby, the brainchild of bassist-around-town Guy Seyffert, brings its charmingly warped folk music to Tangier. ... The Donnas lead a big lineup downtown at the Crash Mansion. ... John Ralston and Limbeck spread their feel-good twang at the Alterknit Lounge. ... Rising popsters Biirdie play the Roxy. ... York, Pa., Halestorm starts monthlong run of Wednesdays at the Viper Room. ... Los Amigos Invisibles headline the House of Blues. ... And that's just for you guys who are skipping Velvet Revolver at the Wiltern.
Photo of Gran Ronde's Chris Pearson by Kevin Bronson / LAT
[This blogger is having a not-so-super Tuesday and is a little under the weather. Quickly and randomly:]
Headphones on. Here's the new video from New York trio A Place to Bury Strangers, who will be back in Los Angeles spreading doom and distortion on March 1 at Spaceland:
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Spent some spare change at iTunes today acquiring a new benefit CD titled "New Orleans: You're Not Alone." It's a joint effort of OK Go and the New Orleans brass band Bonerama (so named because of the four trombones in the band). Proceeds from the EP -- which features three OK Go songs reworked and two covers (including a cool version of David Bowie's "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide") -- benefit musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina.
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Highlights for Tuesday, Feb. 5
The Harpeth Trace celebrates the release of its album, "On Disappearing" with a show at Safari Sam's -- Falling James in the LA Weekly captured what they do quite well in his preview here. ... Dance-rock trio Pop Noir kicks off its residency at the Key Club; Ari Shine and Maxeen are playing at the free, all-ages show as well. ... Over at the Troubadour, Black Mountain will play to a sold-out room. ... We Are Wolves rocks the Tuesday Cinespace party. ... And blasts-from-the-past Blue Cheer play the Knitting Factory.
Hot Chip's sold-out show tonight at the El Rey Theatre has been postponed due to illness. The British outfit played a show in New York on Saturday and apparently Felix Martin barely made it through that one, Brooklyn Vegan reported. A Goldenvoice spokesperson said tickets for tonight's show will be honored on the new date.
So serene and meticulous is the indie folk on Robert Francis’ debut album, “One by One,” that it’s hard to picture the clutter in which it was birthed. “I kind of took over my dad’s workroom, and he’s a bit eccentric,” Francis says of the space in his family’s Brentwood home that holds 30,000 vinyl records and stacks of sundry magazines belonging to his father, Robert Commagere, a pianist-composer. “There’s no space to walk, but there is a lot to draw inspiration from.”
It’s but one reason the sepia-toned tunes on “One by One” (nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize) feel wise beyond Francis’ years. His upbringing is another — family friend Ry Cooder gave him his first guitar; John Frusciante gave him lessons; he remembers stealing onstage at age 8 with Harry Dean Stanton and band at the Mint; his sister Juliette Commagere fronts the L.A. band Hello Stranger.
“There was never anything else I saw myself doing but making music,” says Francis, 20. But while he waxes poetic on the likes of John Hiatt and Steve Earle — and can’t wait to hear the new Levon Helm album — Francis’ own creative juices only started to flow after some uneven times. He dropped out of high school “and just stayed at home and partied a lot,” before eventually spending six months sequestered in the room tweaking the album.
“It was tedious,” he says, “but there were times I got that feeling that, yes, this is why I wrote it.”
Francis has assembled a live band including Graham Lathrop (pedal steel, vocals), Kati O’Toole (keyboards, banjo, vocals), Wylie Gelber (bass), Kevin Crooks (guitar, organ, mandolin) and Paul Hurd drums) for his residency this month at the Silverlake Lounge.
||| Live: Francis plays free shows every Monday in February at the Silverlake Lounge.
A couple of other nice cover-charge-free residencies kick off -- notably, the Pity Party (who've been working on new music) at Spaceland, and the Henry Clay People (with a new EP due soon) at the Echo. ... Rickie Lee Jones begins her run of Monday shows at the Echoplex. ... At the normally local-oriented Indie 103.1 show at the Viper Room, the hard-to-pronounce but easy-on-the-ears Norwegian trio Ungdomskulen will join a bill of L.A. bands that includes the Icarus Line. ... And at the Scene in Glendale, Jim Evens of Helen Stellar will play as his side project Jim, Son of James.
You could balance all of the Bravery's critical mass on a guitar pick, but the New York City quintet's fashion rock is all over the radio, and the band is adept at replicating those hits in a concert setting. They did Saturday night in a manner that set the tone for the whole evening -- tight, energetic and professional.
The occasion was the grand-opening bash for downtown's Crash Mansion, a seemingly nondescript brick box of a building at Grand and Olympic that has been dressed up just enough that it could become a player on the local concert scene. The Bravery, in the middle of a sold-out tour, packed the place, with support from two British up-and-comers, the impressive Your Vegas and the not-so-impressive Switches. Your Vegas (album coming on Universal) makes anthemic rock that rises above the pedestrian thanks to Coyle Girelli's soaring vocals. Switches (album coming on Interscope) never rise above hodge-podge.
As for the venue ... tight, energetic, professional. The main room, its walls decorated by vintage murals, seems to be almost square, but makes for nice space thanks to the booths on its flanks. The sound was almost as good on the fringes of the room as it was in the center (but decidedly murky from the VIP mezzanine or underneath the mezzanine's overhang). A second club in a separate room figures to play host to Silverlake Lounge-sized shows. Overall, it's an easy club to negotiate, and you won't have many complaints if you avoid the expensive parking lots ($15 adjacent to the club, $10 across the street, $3 to $4 lots within two blocks; I found free street parking less than three blocks away) and don't mind a slightly claustrophobic men's room.
The early buzz on the new venue Crash Mansion has been mixed. The downtown venue has been up and running for a while, playing host to some lively club nights and the occasional live show and, recently, trying to overcome the black eye it received when a patron was gunned down in a nearby parking lot in early January.
On Saturday night, the 1,200-capacity club -- the kid sister of the hot NYC venue Crash Mansion -- will put on its best face for its grand opening, featuring the Bravery and U.K. newcomers Switches. The headliner is a known commodity here, having played plenty of L.A. shows since "The Sun and the Moon" invaded the airwaves. Switches' debut "Lay Down the Law" comes out March 18 (Interscope). If you're looking for swagger and energy, it could be your party-starter; if you're looking for originality, move on. Switches borrow heavily from the likes of Queen and ELO (is it just me, or is "Drama Queen" [on their MySpace] just a reworked "Don't Bring Me Down"?) and seem to delight in it. Is there such a thing as background glam?
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Crash Mansion (being booked by ex-Key Club talent buyer Roger LeBlanc) can bring to the table. Judging from the faux-historical murals inside and the doorman who seems to enjoy having a line (even when the music has started and the club is less than a quarter full, as I experienced in December), it could be a slice of Sunset Strip coming downtown. If you like that sort of thing.
Highlights for the weekend, Feb. 1-2-3
For those who remember "Reality Bites" fondly -- and those who rightfully used "Stay (I Missed You)" as an entree to her music -- Lisa Loeb is playing two in-store performances this weekend to support the release of "The Purple Tape," her 1992 recording that is coming out on CD (with expanded packaging) for the first time. She'll play acoustic at 7 tonight at the Barnes and Noble in the Grove and at 7 p.m. Saturday at Borders in Torrance (3700 Torrance Blvd.)
Also tonight: Autolux and Heath bring the noise at the El Rey, while Matt Costa (with the Delta Spirit in tow) plays the first of two sold-out nights at the Troubadour. ... A-Trak and Kid Sister party among the artifacts at the Natural History Museum. ... Indie-poppers Biirdie headline Spaceland. ... Bodies of Water and Castanets perform at Club Underground at the Echo.
Saturday: The Aquabats perform at the benefit for cancer-stricken Tony Carbone of Bikeride. It's at the Glass House. ... Sherwood and the Matches play a MySpace Records show at the Knitting Factory. ... Mere Mortals and the Black Kites play Spaceland, while the Deadly Syndrome (explosive as usual on Thursday at Spaceland) plays the Scene in Glendale.
Sunday: Hungarian rockers the Moog play Safari Sam's, and the Tartans anchor the bill at the Scene.
About the Blogger
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.
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