Firs is worth not missing in the future

 

Because I am a terrible, incurable scatterbrain, my intention to go check out the promising local electro-ambient combo Firs last night at Silverlake Lounge was thwarted for a variety of reasons (this being L.A., let's blame it on "traffic" and everyone goes home happy). This was a shame, because the band's new 10-inch single, "New Hope in Soft Light," suggests that someone needs to get the band's principal, Jonathan D. Haskell, some film soundtrack work really soon.

Dntel is an obvious reference point from the mix of organic instruments and programmed swirls, but the seasick strings and sad little Rhodes piano lurking about hint at Sigur Rós. The dub-step-ish remix by Larvae on the B-side is even better, inverting the payoff to something noirish and hard-bitten. I've heard they're playing out with two drummers, so the next time Firs is on the town (no new shows yet on its  MySpace), it should be a pretty noisy turn.

-- August Brown

Photo: Firs' Jonathan D. Haskell. Credit: Barry Wayne

A singer's fragility is one of the trickier things for a band to make interesting. The Brit-rock canon is full of excellent sad-sack mopers, but just underneath Morrissey or Robert Smith's misery is usually a touch of camp, cocky snarl or starry romanticism that suggests they're going to make it out of the bar OK at the end of the night. You have to find different shades within your black moods and make something new from them.

Finn Andrews, the striking frontman of the Veils, has a streak of lovelorn bleakness as deep as the night is long. At Spaceland on Wednesday night, the U.K.-via-New Zealand quartet did something I'm not sure I'll see again in rock music today -- they really, truly frightened me. 

Their set was on a constant knife's edge between Andrews' vibrato-for-days vocals and relentlessly creative guitar playing, and the sense that when he sings a line like "There's a bulls'-blooded fountain in the pit of a moan" (from the fantastic noise blast "Jesus for the Jugular"), he might actually have seen such a thing on the walk from the club parking lot. His Flannery O'Connor-style creepy preacher hat, and an unshaven, alabaster complexion that suggests he lives off a varied diet of scotches, only accented the band's sense of gnawing doom -- though it was leavened with melodic sweetness and a lovely ear for arrangement detail.

I'd be remiss to let the day go by without acknowledging that Mr. Hudson, the platinum-tressed soul singer wingman of Kanye West, is an absolute trouper of a performer. At his Troubadour showcase last night, the British vocalist admitted during the brief show to practically coughing up a lung and feeling like death incarnate from an illness.

But he nonetheless managed to pull a winning array of au courant influences into a very zeitgeisty package -- a bit of humid dub reggae augmented by a steel drummer, some sassy electro-pop, danceteria funk and what I swear was a bluegrass banjo sample in one song.

Throughout the set he nursed a piping cup of tea, which I really and truly hope becomes the new onstage beverage of choice for singers.

His turns in the awesome West cut "Paranoid" and on his own "Supernova" are apt signs of what he's up to -- Anglicizing today's bespoke, electrified modern R&B set. Can we get an Estelle duet someday soon, please?

-- August Brown

Photo by Matt Hartman

During his headlining set at KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night, Maine-based singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne used his yearning, raspy voice and barely there folk strumming to induce maximum snuggling among the assembled couples.

But just as the wine and warm night air made all seem tender and amorous, LaMontagne would drop a lyric like this from "Winter Birds": "The kettle sings its tortured songs / A many petaled kiss I place upon her brow / Oh my lady, lady I am loving you now."

The pairing of LaMontagne and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with Jenny Lewis -- the saucy siren whose 2008 album, "Acid Tongue," was one of the year's most barbed records -- only affirmed how he's something of an R. Kelly for bearded indie-folkers.

LaMontagne's not without his talents. He's quite a nimble vocalist, especially when he dips into New Orleans jazz and scruffy blue-eyed soul. But as a document of today's crossover folk music, his set proved that abject sincerity is the new Auto-Tune, a device used to such a great degree that it's lost all novelty and impact.

Any video that shouts out "Go Ask Alice," working in a pizza parlor and New Order's "Confusion" is alright by me, but when it's in service of a disco cut as lithe and NYC-noirish as Holy Ghost!'s "I Will Come Back," it's enough to make one forget that Friday is still a few hours away. 

Henceforward, therefore, I am currently hosting a dance party of one in the features department if anyone wants to stop by 2nd and Spring streets right now and join in.

-- August Brown

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Live Review: The Veils at Spaceland

A singer's fragility is one of the trickier things for a band to make interesting. The Brit-rock canon is full of excellent sad-sack mopers, but just underneath Morrissey or Robert Smith's misery is usually a touch of camp, cocky snarl or starry romanticism that suggests they're going to make it out of the bar OK at the end of the night. You have to find different shades within your black moods and make something new from them.

Finn Andrews, the striking frontman of the Veils, has a streak of lovelorn bleakness as deep as the night is long. At Spaceland on Wednesday night, the U.K.-via-New Zealand quartet did something I'm not sure I'll see again in rock music today -- they really, truly frightened me. 

Their set was on a constant knife's edge between Andrews' vibrato-for-days vocals and relentlessly creative guitar playing, and the sense that when he sings a line like "There's a bulls'-blooded fountain in the pit of a moan" (from the fantastic noise blast "Jesus for the Jugular"), he might actually have seen such a thing on the walk from the club parking lot. His Flannery O'Connor-style creepy preacher hat, and an unshaven, alabaster complexion that suggests he lives off a varied diet of scotches, only accented the band's sense of gnawing doom -- though it was leavened with melodic sweetness and a lovely ear for arrangement detail.

I'd be remiss to let the day go by without acknowledging that Mr. Hudson, the platinum-tressed soul singer wingman of Kanye West, is an absolute trouper of a performer. At his Troubadour showcase last night, the British vocalist admitted during the brief show to practically coughing up a lung and feeling like death incarnate from an illness.

But he nonetheless managed to pull a winning array of au courant influences into a very zeitgeisty package -- a bit of humid dub reggae augmented by a steel drummer, some sassy electro-pop, danceteria funk and what I swear was a bluegrass banjo sample in one song.

Throughout the set he nursed a piping cup of tea, which I really and truly hope becomes the new onstage beverage of choice for singers.

His turns in the awesome West cut "Paranoid" and on his own "Supernova" are apt signs of what he's up to -- Anglicizing today's bespoke, electrified modern R&B set. Can we get an Estelle duet someday soon, please?

-- August Brown

Photo by Matt Hartman

During his headlining set at KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night, Maine-based singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne used his yearning, raspy voice and barely there folk strumming to induce maximum snuggling among the assembled couples.

But just as the wine and warm night air made all seem tender and amorous, LaMontagne would drop a lyric like this from "Winter Birds": "The kettle sings its tortured songs / A many petaled kiss I place upon her brow / Oh my lady, lady I am loving you now."

The pairing of LaMontagne and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with Jenny Lewis -- the saucy siren whose 2008 album, "Acid Tongue," was one of the year's most barbed records -- only affirmed how he's something of an R. Kelly for bearded indie-folkers.

LaMontagne's not without his talents. He's quite a nimble vocalist, especially when he dips into New Orleans jazz and scruffy blue-eyed soul. But as a document of today's crossover folk music, his set proved that abject sincerity is the new Auto-Tune, a device used to such a great degree that it's lost all novelty and impact.

Any video that shouts out "Go Ask Alice," working in a pizza parlor and New Order's "Confusion" is alright by me, but when it's in service of a disco cut as lithe and NYC-noirish as Holy Ghost!'s "I Will Come Back," it's enough to make one forget that Friday is still a few hours away. 

Henceforward, therefore, I am currently hosting a dance party of one in the features department if anyone wants to stop by 2nd and Spring streets right now and join in.

-- August Brown

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Mr. Hudson is a virtuoso tea drinker

I'd be remiss to let the day go by without acknowledging that Mr. Hudson, the platinum-tressed soul singer wingman of Kanye West, is an absolute trouper of a performer. At his Troubadour showcase last night, the British vocalist admitted during the brief show to practically coughing up a lung and feeling like death incarnate from an illness.

But he nonetheless managed to pull a winning array of au courant influences into a very zeitgeisty package -- a bit of humid dub reggae augmented by a steel drummer, some sassy electro-pop, danceteria funk and what I swear was a bluegrass banjo sample in one song.

Throughout the set he nursed a piping cup of tea, which I really and truly hope becomes the new onstage beverage of choice for singers.

His turns in the awesome West cut "Paranoid" and on his own "Supernova" are apt signs of what he's up to -- Anglicizing today's bespoke, electrified modern R&B set. Can we get an Estelle duet someday soon, please?

-- August Brown

Photo by Matt Hartman

During his headlining set at KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night, Maine-based singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne used his yearning, raspy voice and barely there folk strumming to induce maximum snuggling among the assembled couples.

But just as the wine and warm night air made all seem tender and amorous, LaMontagne would drop a lyric like this from "Winter Birds": "The kettle sings its tortured songs / A many petaled kiss I place upon her brow / Oh my lady, lady I am loving you now."

The pairing of LaMontagne and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with Jenny Lewis -- the saucy siren whose 2008 album, "Acid Tongue," was one of the year's most barbed records -- only affirmed how he's something of an R. Kelly for bearded indie-folkers.

LaMontagne's not without his talents. He's quite a nimble vocalist, especially when he dips into New Orleans jazz and scruffy blue-eyed soul. But as a document of today's crossover folk music, his set proved that abject sincerity is the new Auto-Tune, a device used to such a great degree that it's lost all novelty and impact.

Any video that shouts out "Go Ask Alice," working in a pizza parlor and New Order's "Confusion" is alright by me, but when it's in service of a disco cut as lithe and NYC-noirish as Holy Ghost!'s "I Will Come Back," it's enough to make one forget that Friday is still a few hours away. 

Henceforward, therefore, I am currently hosting a dance party of one in the features department if anyone wants to stop by 2nd and Spring streets right now and join in.

-- August Brown

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Live review: Ray LaMontagne, Jenny Lewis and Blitzen Trapper at the Hollywood Bowl

During his headlining set at KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night, Maine-based singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne used his yearning, raspy voice and barely there folk strumming to induce maximum snuggling among the assembled couples.

But just as the wine and warm night air made all seem tender and amorous, LaMontagne would drop a lyric like this from "Winter Birds": "The kettle sings its tortured songs / A many petaled kiss I place upon her brow / Oh my lady, lady I am loving you now."

The pairing of LaMontagne and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra with Jenny Lewis -- the saucy siren whose 2008 album, "Acid Tongue," was one of the year's most barbed records -- only affirmed how he's something of an R. Kelly for bearded indie-folkers.

LaMontagne's not without his talents. He's quite a nimble vocalist, especially when he dips into New Orleans jazz and scruffy blue-eyed soul. But as a document of today's crossover folk music, his set proved that abject sincerity is the new Auto-Tune, a device used to such a great degree that it's lost all novelty and impact.

Any video that shouts out "Go Ask Alice," working in a pizza parlor and New Order's "Confusion" is alright by me, but when it's in service of a disco cut as lithe and NYC-noirish as Holy Ghost!'s "I Will Come Back," it's enough to make one forget that Friday is still a few hours away. 

Henceforward, therefore, I am currently hosting a dance party of one in the features department if anyone wants to stop by 2nd and Spring streets right now and join in.

-- August Brown

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Holy Ghost! makes the weekend start on Thursday

Any video that shouts out "Go Ask Alice," working in a pizza parlor and New Order's "Confusion" is alright by me, but when it's in service of a disco cut as lithe and NYC-noirish as Holy Ghost!'s "I Will Come Back," it's enough to make one forget that Friday is still a few hours away. 

Henceforward, therefore, I am currently hosting a dance party of one in the features department if anyone wants to stop by 2nd and Spring streets right now and join in.

-- August Brown

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Live review: Dirty Projectors at the Troubadour

In "The Odyssey," the alluring harmonies of the Sirens would seduce passing sailors to their doom. During the Dirty Projectors' deeply strange and often riveting Troubadour set Wednesday night, the band's three female singers had an opposite effect. Just as a song would threaten to go off the rails in a flurry of West African guitar riffs and fidgety drumming, Projectors' vocalists Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle would lock into a chord or a call-and-response that would bring the tune back to a safer place.

Not an easy place, necessarily. The band's byzantine, inside-out arrangements of guitar, voice and rhythms didn't always translate. But every song had at least one moment when the Projectors' deconstruction of pop, R&B, noise and choral music was a visceral pleasure unlike anything else in recent music.

First, it must be said that whatever kind of a ship David Longstreth runs during those days-long practices, the commitment is plainly, mind-breakingly evident live. I haven't heard arrangements that involved and precisely performed outside of Disney Hall, and it's probably only a matter of time before Longstreth and Nico Muhly team up for an Afro-pop "Ring" cycle or something. But the Projectors' traditions are also wholly contemporary -- it's clear they're as versed in T-Pain and D'Angelo as they are in Thomas Tallis. "Stillness Is the Move," the slinky first single from their newest and best album, "Bitte Orca," comes across as kind of deadpan and glassy on record, but live it felt like a completely earnest (and worthy) hat tip to the slow-jam party pop of Keri Hilson and Mariah Carey, albeit through a fractal of Brooklyn weirdo. The title track of "Rise Above," their wholesale demolition of Black Flag's "Damaged," completely inverted the power dynamic of the seminal hard-core band's angry clarion call; the airy falsettos made one feel like they'd already risen over pretty much everything.

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Levitt Pavilion's unexpectedly rad summer season in MacArthur Park starts Wednesday

If you can't muster the yupster energy to procure the Camembert for a night at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, MacArthur Park's Levitt Pavilion is starting its summer season Wednesday night with a set from the Miami Latin pop singer Gabby Villanueva. There's a lot to like about the series -- it's always free, there are usually five shows a week, and it's a quick jaunt to one of my favorite bars in Los Angeles.

But the lineup this year has a few especially interesting bookings. The rock violinist (and known ripper) Lili Haydn plays Thursday, modern bluegrass bigwig Jim Lauderdale plays on the 18th, I See Hawks in L.A. and the Chapin Sisters do sly California country on Aug. 1, and the freakily inviting San Francisco Brazilian band Bat Makumba rolls in on Aug. 28.  There are also loads of Latin pop acts that I, in a shortcoming as a critic, need to learn much more about, but really, any night is worth taking a chance on and helping yourself to a street cart paleta or a Mama's Hot Tamale.

-- August Brown

Photo: Chapin Sisters, by Theo Allen

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

This week's on-sales: Jay-Z, Franz Ferdinand and more

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Honda Center
Power 106 FM's Powerhouse '09 with Jay-Z, Pitbull, Sean Paul and more, Aug. 8 (Wed.)

Hollywood Palladium
Franz Ferdinand, Aug. 27 (Fri.)

Gibson Ampitheatre
Yuridia y Yahir, Sept. 4 (Fri.)

Avalon Hollywood
N*E*R*D, Aug. 1 (Sat.)

Wiltern
Panda, Aug. 22 (Fri.)

Greek Theatre
Heart, Oct. 23 (Sat.)

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

Snap Judgment: Paramore's 'Ignorance'

I'm already on record as being pretty excited for Paramore's "brand new eyes," the capitalization-challenged new album from the Tennessee quintet. My first pass at hearing a draft of the first single,  "Ignorance," in producer Rob Cavallo's house a few months ago revealed the foundation of a whiplash emo single from a time (the '90s) when the word meant something more than misogynist caterwauling. The finished product, which hit the interwebs today, has hints of Sunny Day Real Estate's washed-out but insistent guitars, the breakneck rhythms of D.C. vets Q and Not U and an ambitiously brooding backing harmony arrangement from singer Hayley Williams.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)

This week's on-sales: Dinosaur Jr., Mutemath, LMFAO and more

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses.

Grove of Anaheim
The Pharcyde, Sept. 11 (Tues.)

Mayan Theater
Bajofondo, Sept. 17 (now)

El Rey Theater
The Dodos, Sept. 27; Mum, Nov. 6 (now); David Garret, Oct. 16 (Wed.)

Club Nokia
Mutemath, Oct. 10 (Fri.)