The Henry Clay People: Coming at you, quickly

The spasmodic sagacity of the Henry Clay People can be a little like watching somebody karaoke the encyclopedia, and the L.A. quartet's spate of shows in late 2007 seemed to augur their rise to bigger stages. The prolific foursome is getting ready for a February residency at the Echo (batten down the fixtures) by putting the finishing touches on a new EP.

With last year's album "Blacklist the Kid With the Red Moustache" just making it into many local music collections, TCHP will have the five-song "Working Part Time" EP ready for the residency. The title track ought to be the anthem for every indie rocker who juggles a day job with being in a band. And, front man Joey Siara says, the band is writing and recording more new material.

Here's something from the new EP -- "We just made up the song titles last night," Siara confessed on Tuesday -- featuring a rare lead vocal from Joey's brother, guitarist Andy:

||| Download: "Andy Sings!"

||| Live: The Henry Clay People play Jan. 24 at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, and every Monday in February at the Echo.

Photo of Joey Siara getting in the spirit at the Little Radio holiday party by Timothy Norris.

Highlights for Wednesday, Jan. 16

Model K celebrates the release of its new EP with a show tonight at the Hotel Cafe (where Buddy is playing a string of Wednesdays, and Ian Ball [of Gomez] is also playing). ... Fans of good, solid prog and classic rock, take note: Anaheim six-piece Dusty Rhodes and the River Band headline the Echo tonight. ... Army Navy plays Club NME at Spaceland. ... Kim Kline plays the Viper Room (where Switchfoot's Jonathan Foreman was scheduled to play; he has postponed). ... And it's Hello Dragon and the High Wires among the bands rocking the Silverlake Lounge.

Matthew Kelly, Frankie Koroshec and their bandmates in L.A. rock quintet the Autumns have announced plans to release their long-awaited sixth album, "Fake Noise From a Box of Toys," on April 15 in the U.S. When the band played a run of dates last May at Spaceland, its new material proved very challenging -- having moved beyond by-the-playbook dreampop and shoegaze, the Autumns' furious rhythms and interwoven guitars demanded more than casual attention. I haven't heard the whole record, but here's a taste (no live dates scheduled as of now):

||| Download: "Boys."

Here's the video for that song:

◊ ◊ ◊

The Harry Nilsson Tribute goes off tonight at Bordello, with the likes of Frankel, Le Switch, Ferraby Lionheart and Sara Melson (new album coming Feb. 26) among the 15 artists slated to perform the late singer-songwriter's material. Dan Crane of Nous Non Plus will be there too, and word is that Crane's alter ego -- air guitarist supreme Bjorn Turoque -- will also make an appearance.

◊ ◊ ◊

Experiemental electro guru Daedelus has a new album, "Live at Low End Theory," coming on Jan. 22. (An he's playing Low End Theory on Wednesday night). Here's one track:

||| Download: "Now's the Time."

◊ ◊ ◊

With a new album, "Alopecia," on the way March 11, Bay Area indie-hoppers Why? play Tangier tonight. The trio throws a lot of sonic stuff against the wall, and what sticks is pretty fun.

||| Download: "The Hollows."

Other highlights for Tuesday, Jan. 15

Jesca Hoop has had to postpone her show at the Hotel Cafe tonight because of illness. ... Dan Deacon, Health and Abe Vigoda party at the El Rey Theatre, and as of early this afternoon the show was not sold out. ... Death to Anders' album-release show for "Fictitious Business" goes off tonight at Boardner's as part of Radio Free Silver Lake's shindig. ... Jupiter Rising brings the dance to the Viper Room. ... And Shiloe and Nightfur rock the Echo.

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.

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!)

||| See Foreign Born this weekend at the Swerve Festival.

||| Download: "Into Your Dream."

[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.

||| See the Hectors, along with Radars to the Sky and Tigers Can Bite You, as part of the "Let's Independent" one-year anniversary bill tonight at Boardners. It's a free show presented by local blog Radio Free Silver Lake.

||| Download: "Proof of Sale."

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

The Autumns set to release new album April 15

Matthew Kelly, Frankie Koroshec and their bandmates in L.A. rock quintet the Autumns have announced plans to release their long-awaited sixth album, "Fake Noise From a Box of Toys," on April 15 in the U.S. When the band played a run of dates last May at Spaceland, its new material proved very challenging -- having moved beyond by-the-playbook dreampop and shoegaze, the Autumns' furious rhythms and interwoven guitars demanded more than casual attention. I haven't heard the whole record, but here's a taste (no live dates scheduled as of now):

||| Download: "Boys."

Here's the video for that song:

◊ ◊ ◊

The Harry Nilsson Tribute goes off tonight at Bordello, with the likes of Frankel, Le Switch, Ferraby Lionheart and Sara Melson (new album coming Feb. 26) among the 15 artists slated to perform the late singer-songwriter's material. Dan Crane of Nous Non Plus will be there too, and word is that Crane's alter ego -- air guitarist supreme Bjorn Turoque -- will also make an appearance.

◊ ◊ ◊

Experiemental electro guru Daedelus has a new album, "Live at Low End Theory," coming on Jan. 22. (An he's playing Low End Theory on Wednesday night). Here's one track:

||| Download: "Now's the Time."

◊ ◊ ◊

With a new album, "Alopecia," on the way March 11, Bay Area indie-hoppers Why? play Tangier tonight. The trio throws a lot of sonic stuff against the wall, and what sticks is pretty fun.

||| Download: "The Hollows."

Other highlights for Tuesday, Jan. 15

Jesca Hoop has had to postpone her show at the Hotel Cafe tonight because of illness. ... Dan Deacon, Health and Abe Vigoda party at the El Rey Theatre, and as of early this afternoon the show was not sold out. ... Death to Anders' album-release show for "Fictitious Business" goes off tonight at Boardner's as part of Radio Free Silver Lake's shindig. ... Jupiter Rising brings the dance to the Viper Room. ... And Shiloe and Nightfur rock the Echo.

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.

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!)

||| See Foreign Born this weekend at the Swerve Festival.

||| Download: "Into Your Dream."

[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.

||| See the Hectors, along with Radars to the Sky and Tigers Can Bite You, as part of the "Let's Independent" one-year anniversary bill tonight at Boardners. It's a free show presented by local blog Radio Free Silver Lake.

||| Download: "Proof of Sale."

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Darker My Love album available for free download

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.

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!)

||| See Foreign Born this weekend at the Swerve Festival.

||| Download: "Into Your Dream."

[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.

||| See the Hectors, along with Radars to the Sky and Tigers Can Bite You, as part of the "Let's Independent" one-year anniversary bill tonight at Boardners. It's a free show presented by local blog Radio Free Silver Lake.

||| Download: "Proof of Sale."

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Foreign Born offers up free download to mark TV debut

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!)

||| See Foreign Born this weekend at the Swerve Festival.

||| Download: "Into Your Dream."

[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.

||| See the Hectors, along with Radars to the Sky and Tigers Can Bite You, as part of the "Let's Independent" one-year anniversary bill tonight at Boardners. It's a free show presented by local blog Radio Free Silver Lake.

||| Download: "Proof of Sale."

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Ears Wide Open: The Hectors' smart, edgy pop

[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.

||| See the Hectors, along with Radars to the Sky and Tigers Can Bite You, as part of the "Let's Independent" one-year anniversary bill tonight at Boardners. It's a free show presented by local blog Radio Free Silver Lake.

||| Download: "Proof of Sale."

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Digging the Division Day downloads

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.

||| Download the band's cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Then: the Tandemoro remix of the album track "Ricky." And then: the band's cover of Sunny Day Real Estate's "Every Shining Time You Arrive."

||| 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.

||| Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning."

Also: This little gig at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is apparently the show of the year.

And also: The New Pornographers, with Lavender Diamond opening, play the Fonda Theatre, and it's not sold out. ... The Airborne Toxic Event joins Maxeen for a show at Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar. ... Film School has a free show at Amoeba at 7. ... And Hello Stranger greets the crowd at Filter's Revenge of the Sunset Strip night at the Roxy.

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Ears Wide Open: Following the Stevenson Ranch Davidians

[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.

||| Download: "Beginnings and Ends."

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Film School graduates to an even more dynamic sound

"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.

||| Download "Lectric."

||| 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.

Photo by Marla Aufmuth

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Ears Wide Open: Say hello to Hello Dragon

[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."

||| Get started right here by downloading "Birds of Prey."

Photo of Zerby and Chadwick by Josh Pickering.

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.

Ears Wide Open: The Red Button pops off

[Another installment in our series highlighting local music:]

The Red Button presses all the right buttons for fans of pure pop. Its album, "She's About to Cross My Mind," sounds as if it should be crackling out of an AM radio, the tunes of some youngsters angling to be the next Fab Four. Yes, it's hopelessly retro, right down to its very mod sleeve, but the record's easy psychedelia and friendly Merseybeat go down easily. Even the Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show tabbed "Cruel Girl" as its No. 1 song last week.

It's no surprise that the duo pushing all the buttons here are veteran songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg. Swirsky, a longtime songwriter-for-hire who made his first solo album a couple years ago, is also an artist and well-known collector of sports memorabilia. Ruekberg was the driving force behind the Minneapolis pop band Rex Daisy. Together they explore their love of all things jangly, harmonic and Beatles.

||| The Red Button perform as an acoustic duo tonight at Spaceland as part of the 10th annual International Pop Overthrow festival. Astra Heights and the Prix are among the other bands on the bill.

||| Download: "Cruel Girl."

Photo of Mike Ruekberg, left, and Seth Swirsky courtesy of Luck Media.