Blink-182, Bush, 311 tapped for KROQ's Acoustic Christmas

Recently reunited acts Blink-182 and Bush are among the initial names unveiled for the annual Almost Acoustic Christmas concert presented by KROQ-FM (106.7). The '90s-era survivors will headline the first night of the two-day event, set for the weekend of Dec. 10-11. 

Artists sharing the bill Dec. 10 include Chevelle, Incubus, New Found Glory, Social Distortion, 311 and Young the Giant, the latter being the only relative new-comers among the initial crop. Pre-sale tickets for Night 1 will be available Wednesday via Ticketmaster for those who are members the KROQ street team.

Late Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh had tweeted death prediction

 

Mikey Welsh, the former bassist of Weezer who was found dead in a Chicago hotel room on Saturday, sent a number of odd Tweets in the weeks leading to his death. In fact, just two weeks ago on Twitter he predicted the exact location and time of his own death.

A post to his Twitter account on Sept. 26 stated: ‘dreamt I died in Chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep). Need to write my will today.’

He then added, "correction-the weekend after next."

This wasn’t the first time Welsh has expressed beforehand knowledge of his death. Aside from the Tweets, the New York musician-turned-artist had also mentioned it on his Facebook page underneath a showcase photo of one art piece. Welsh wrote that it was available for $250 with this caveat:

“if i am still alive at time of purchase, price to increase exponentially if I expire prematurely.’

No cause of death has been determined.

The news of Welsh’s death came from his family via Twitter and Facebook messages Sunday, which read: “We are deeply saddened to announce that Mikey Welsh passed away unexpectedly today. He will forever be remembered as an amazing father, artist and friend. May he rest in peace.’

Welsh joined Weezer in 1998 following the departure of original bassist Matt Sharp. His presence is primarily tied to the band’s 2001 album, known as the “Green Album” and played on such hits as “Island in the Sun” and “Hash Pipe.”

Weezer reacted to news of Welsh’s passing on the band’s official Twitter:

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to hear the awful news, our friend and fellow weez rocker @mikeywelsh71 has passed away. We love you Mikey.”

The year the "Green Album" was released, Welsh reportedly suffered a mental breakdown and later attempted suicide. He was also touring as a bassist for Juliana Hatfield at the time. During his music career, the list of bands Welsh played in included Verbena, Special Goodness and Homie, a short-lived side project of Weezer guitarist and singer Rivers Cuomo.

Welsh talked about the episode in a 2007 interview with website Rock Salt Plum:

“Basically, a lifetime of doing drugs and being undiagnosed as having bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder finally caught up with me when I was 30 years old,” Welsh said.

“At the beginning of a three month tour with Weezer, I started slowly falling apart.”

Following the breakdown, Welsh devoted himself to painting, and moved to Burlington, Vt., with his wife and two daughters. His style centered mostly on large-scale abstracts.

In July of this year, Welsh joined Weezer and the Flaming Lips on stage in New York, where he played guitar on “Undone.”

RELATED:

Fast Track: Weezer ex-bassist Mikey Welsh dies at 40

Live review: Weezer at Gibson Amphitheatre

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on signing to Epitaph, getting wild onstage

--Nate Jackson

Photo: The rock band Weezer in Hollywood on April 6, 2001. From left are Pat Wilson, Brian Bell, Mikey Welsh, Rivers Cuomo.

 

Black Star to play 'Colbert Report,' cancels several U.S. dates

L.A. fans waiting to see Mos Def and Talib Kweli unite onstage as seminal hip-hop duo Black Star will have to settle for setting their DVRs to Wednesday's "Colbert Report." The group also announced that it was canceling a string of dates on its U.S. tour, including stops in New York and the Los Angeles area.

Strangely enough, Black Star will still be performing a (gasp) new track called "Fix Up" on the Comedy Central show.

In all, seven dates have been canceled, including shows in Las Vegas, Anaheim, Charlotte, N.C., Cincinnati and Indianapolis. No details on why were readily available.

Since late August, the rappers have been bestowing hip-hop heads nationwide with a show based on their sole full-length, "Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star," released in 1998 as part of the Rock the Bells Presents Club Tour at House of Blues venues nationwide. They also have performed the album at the Rock the Bells Festival Series shows in San Francisco and New York, as well as an abbreviated version in Los Angeles.

Pop & Hiss will report more details on the cancelations as they become available.

ALSO:

Review: Rock the Bells gazes back while looking ahead

Rock the Bells, House of Blues announce concert, theater series

Lauryn Hill, Nas, Cypress Hill, Black Star, Mobb Deep to perform classic albums at Rock the Bells 2011

-- Nate Jackson

Photo composite Mos Def, left. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times. Talib Kweli, right.

In Rotation: Kasey Chambers' 'Little Bird'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

 “You’re like the song stuck in my head that will never go away,” Kasey Chambers sings in the first track from her latest album, which boasts several such songs that quickly burrow their way into the brain.

The singer and songwriter, who grew up in the Australian Outback listening to the vintage American country music favored by her hippie parents, exploits that musical foundation beautifully in songs that often elaborate on the extremes to which love can drive us.

She lays them out in “Beautiful Mess,” deciding “You make it all worth my while.” It’s another story in the title track, in which she recounts all the methods she might use to turn a departed lover around, ultimately concluding “I don’t want you that much.” She captures the anguished essence of unrequited love in “Invisible Girl”: “Every evening I shut my eyes/To wonder why you never noticed/Never knew, all I think about is you.”

Her girlish voice recalls such Americana music stalwarts as Victoria Williams and Iris DeMent, and she seems to have access to a bottomless well of indelible melodic hooks.  And anyone who can come up with a second song about Nullarbor—a region of the South Australian outback she also saluted on her 2002 “Barricades and Brickwalls” album—definitely has some kind of songwriting mojo working.

Kasey Chambers

“Little Bird”

(Sugar Hill)

ALSO:

In Rotation: Wolves in the Throne Room's 'Celestial Lineage'

In Rotation: Bombino's 'Agadez'

In Rotation: Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein, ‘Bienestan’

 

--Randy Lewis

Photo: Kasey Chambers performing at the Channel Nine And Daily Telegraph telethon appeal for Queensland flood victims on January 9, 2011 in Brisbane, Australia.

Credit: Getty Images

Neutral Milk Hotel releases authoritative vinyl box set

A few years after some ponderous "What the heck happened to Jeff Mangum?" magazine pieces, the Neutral Milk Hotel frontman has, at last, made recent, tenative steps back into the public with a few solo shows and booking an installment of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival.

Today he also made fans of his singularly weird and moving folk around $88 poorer with an announcement of a massive vinyl box set that will contain his band's entire recorded output and a slew of unreleased recordings and art. The box set, out in November but available for pre-order now,  includes NMH's two full-lengths (1996's "On Avery Island" and 1997's landmark "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"), the "Everything Is" EP with extra tracks, a disc of unreleased acoustic recordings, two 7-inch singles, a picture disc of the single "Holland, 1945" and two art prints taken from "Aeroplane" and the box set's cover.

Mangum is also selling one-off handmade drawings for $15. If you still feel the waterworks coming on by the time you get to "Two Headed Boy Pt. 2," get on it now -- the band's website has been sporadically crashing with orders all day.

-- August Brown

Photo of Neutral Milk Hotel at Spaceland in 1998 by Daniel McClenaghan

RELATED:

Tonight! Freestyle Fridays fundraiser

72 Hours: Rescheduled Sunset Junction gigs

Damian Lazarus offers Burning Man mix

Rock the Bells, House of Blues announce concert, theater series

With the recent partnership between hip-hop omni-brand Guerilla Union and House of Blues announced this week, fans of marquee rappers of the '90s are being promised a hybrid of big ticket concerts in both festival and concert form. As Guerilla Union’s annual Rock the Bells festival prepares to hit San Bernardino on Aug. 20, the companies Tuesday announced their first joint venture: The Rock the Bells Presents Concert and Theater series.

The string of live showcases at House of Blues venues around the country will feature artists from the festival performing iconic albums in their entirety. The North American tour kicks off in the middle of August with Wu-Tang Clan members Raekwon and Ghostface Killah reproducing the seminal album “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” alongside fellow East Coast artists Mobb Deep performing their 1995 classic, “The Infamous.”

In September, the reunited duo Black Star (featuring Mos Def and Talib Kweli) begins its month-long run of full-album shows, hitting the road with its critically acclaimed “Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star.” 

Tickets for the August shows are currently on sale, while the September Black Star shows go on sale Friday.

Unfortunately, it seems that most of the concert madness won’t be swinging directly into L.A. In California, both rounds of shows in August and September are only happening at the San Diego House of Blues. Check below for a full list of dates

Andre Ethier, All-Star, Latin rap aficionado, swings to Delinquent Habits

The attendance statistics read 35,249, but Sunday's crowd at Dodger Stadium felt even smaller. It's been that sort of year for the congregation at Chavez Ravine, part of the flop that's occured since their owner decided to turn the team into an ATM and Manny Ramirez admitted to a long-term affinity for estrogen.

But in spite of the Dodgers' slow demise, they slid into the All-Star break on a positive note: a sweep of the Padres and two home runs by All-Star Andre Ethier, their sweet-swinging, yoga-stretching, gourmand of a right fielder. Matt Kemp may garner the headlines for his flashy play and his flashier ex-girlfriend, but Ethier's been equally impressive since the Dodgers stole him several years ago in the Milton Bradley trade.

For a music enthusiast, perhaps the most admirable thing about Ethier has been his at-bat music: Delinquent Habits' oft-forgotten 1996 hit, "Tres Delinquentes." Most big league baseball players gravitate toward jock jams, Top 40 hits du jour and, in the case of Carlos Perez, proof positive of everything Dave Chappelle ever suspected.

But in an unusually subtle way, the half-Mexican Ethier, who drove in a run on his only at-bat in Tuesday's All-Star game, acknowledges both his own and the city's Latin makeup -- while big-upping one of the most unsung local rap groups from the early '90s. While Cypress Hill usually elicits the lion's share of love, Los Angeles experienced an explosion of Latin rappers during the '90s: Kid Frost, Lighter Shade of Brown, Funkdoobiest, Johnny J, Mellow Man Ace. Indeed, the playlists of 92.3 FM (The Beat) and Power 106 swarmed with Spanish-speaking rappers.

Big Audio Dynamite books Nokia and Grove gigs, but nothing at Crossroads of the World

Big Audio Dynamite, the post-Clash band led by Mick Jones, has had its way with Los Angeles architectural icons in the past. But when the band returns to the Southland this August, the concerts will be tucked safely indoors, with an Aug. 10 date set for downtown's Club Nokia and an Aug. 11 gig pegged for the Grove of Anaheim.

The recently reunited group and its myriad of lineup changes never achieved the worldwide acclaim of the Clash, but the band did manage to take its merging of rock 'n' roll with dance and rave culture straight to the Hollywood landmark Crossroads of the World. The cruise-line-shaped mall-turned-offices was the site for 1991 single "The Globe" off the album of the same name. Along with the album's "Rush," "The Globe" would become one of the band's (then called B.A.D. II) better-known songs. 

Careful listeners of "The Globe," however, will hear a nod to Jones' past, as the song is little more than a composition of samples from the Clash hit "Should I Stay or Should I Go," although "The Globe" featured awkward rapping whereas "Should I Stay" showcased Spanish backing vocals. 

"Yeah, there is that on there," Jones said of the "Should I Stay" sample. "There’s some other stuff, but there is a sample of that quite obviously."

In an interview before the band's Coachella performance, Jones addressed his past, present and future with a youthful enthusiasm. He didn't deflect any questions about the Clash or the various B.A.D. periods. Yet he did pause when the subject of "The Globe" was brought up.  

Haitian President-elect Michel Martelly sure knows how to make a music video

When the Haitian presidential race began in 2010, those outside the country's political arena might have laughed at the prospect of pop singer Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly throwing his hat in the ring. After all, they wouldn't even take Wyclef Jean. Well, look who’s laughing now.

On Monday, the baldheaded crooner became Haiti’s president-elect, beating out opposition leader and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, capturing 68% of the vote, according to preliminary voting results. In our search to learn more about this famed pop-star-turned-politician, a longtime activist and political animal since the mid-'90s, we inevitably came across a silo of his old music videos.

If nothing else, they illustrate one very simple truth: the Haitian populace like politicians to have a little flair. In most countries, the sight of a Martelly, 50, hypnotizing us with his dance moves in neon summer wear could've been the fuschia-colored torpedo that sunk his career. Then again, maybe this kind of charming charisma, rhythmic aptitude and fondness for pink hats is just what natives in his disaster-torn country are looking for. Culled from the bowels of YouTube, we’ve dusted off a string of videos after the jump the feature Martelly parlaying his unbuttoned, early '90s swagger for all to enjoy.

 Photo: Michel Martelly   Credit: YouTube

--Nate Jackson

Highlights from The Times: Kurt Cobain remembered, 1967-1994

Kurt Cobain, the frontman for 1990s rock band Nirvana and reluctant spokesperson for a generation of anti-establishment, angst-riddled listeners, died in his Seattle-area home 17 years ago today. On this anniversary, we revisit the impact he had on the music industry and its listeners by featuring tributes that ran in the Los Angeles Times after his death:

"To many who weren't touched by his music, he will be dismissed as another rock 'n' roll stereotype ... a guy who was more lucky than talented, more indulgent than tormented," wrote then-Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn, adding, "But he was so much more. In a pop world filled with pretenders and opportunists, Cobain was the real thing -- a unique and invaluable voice."

He continued:

The first time I met Cobain was in the fall of 1992. He hadn't done an interview in months, but was troubled by recurring rumors that identified him and wife Courtney Love, the rock singer and songwriter, as drug addicts.

He said he had run into a teen-ager who was on heroin at a club in Orange County a few nights before and the kid nodded at Cobain as if they were mates because of their drugs.

"We had a lot of young fans and I don't want to have anything to do with inciting drug use," he said in a soft, fragile voice that contrasted with his howling intensity on stage.

He then admitted using heroin in the past, but said he was doing it no longer. Referring to the couple's then 4-week-old daughter, he added, "I don't want people telling her that her parents were junkies."

Bob Guccione Jr., then-editor and publisher of Spin magazine, also shared his appreciation for Cobain in The Times, writing:

"He was the poet of this generation. It will be easy in the coming months, especially for older people, to downplay Kurt's significance and contribution, but that would be wrong. Like Rimbaud, he died too young, lived too unflatteringly and left too little compared with what we hoped for, but it was enough for him to be one of the pillars in the artistic pantheon. The horrible manner of his death and the anger we feel because he destroyed something we loved creates a cultural blood clot ..."

What are your memories of listening to Nirvana? Or, if you are too young, do you listen to the band now? Do you think they still have an impact?  Share in the comments.

RELATED:

Nirvana 'Unplugged': Intimate and revealing

Former Nirvana member Dave Grohl's band Foo Fighters fills up empty movie theaters with 'Foo Fighters: Back and Forth' documentary, 'Wasting Light' live 3-D performance

-- Whitney Friedlander

Photo: Kurt Cobain performs with his group, Nirvana, on "MTV Unplugged" in 1993. Credit: Frank Micelotta / Getty Images