Ears Wide Open: Jim Bianco, Shane Alexander, James Combs

[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).

||| Download: "I Got a Thing for You". Check out the video for the song here.

Photo by Bethany Dwyer



Shane Alexander

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.

||| Stream: "Amsterdam" here.

Photo: viakarlo@snapglamstudios.com

James Combs

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.

||| Download: "Oh Me."