David Campbell and Beck: father yields to the son*

David Campbell had a unique vantage point for observing the first sprouting of the musical vision of a certain modern rock hero: his son, Beck.

“When he was first starting to get interested in music, I think he was around 11 or 12,” said Campbell, who’ll be conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra on Sunday behind Ray LaMontagne at the Hollywood Bowl, one of four concerts for which he’s created the orchestral arrangements to accompany a variety of pop and rock performers.

“Earlier than that he was mainly writing -- stories and poems -- so I thought he was going to be a writer,” said Campbell, who was busy at that time in the early ‘80s scoring string, horn and full orchestra arrangements for a wide array of recording artists. “He was hanging around the studio a little bit at the time, and one day I thought I’d take some time and show him some stuff about what I was doing.

“Somewhere about five minutes into it, he stopped and says, ‘That’s really cool -- but what if you did it this way?’ I forget what it was, but he said something really cool and it took me by surprise, and I had the thought, ‘Wow,  I should shut up and just ask him what he thinks.’

“That’s kind of set the pattern for our collaborations ever since, because he has such a unique perspective on creating anything, really: music, drawings, conceptual stuff,” said Campbell, who has contributed musically to nearly all of Beck’s albums.

“So that’s basically how it rolls. When we work together, the first thing I want to know is, What does he think? And then I fill in.”

Related: Death Cab, Fogerty and the Phil? David Campbell gets it.

--Randy Lewis

Photo: Stefano Paltera / For The Times

*Update: An earlier version of this story said Campbell would be conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Sunday with Ray Lamontagne.

The three moments you need to know about in the Beck-Tom Waits conversation [UPDATE]

What do you get when two incredibly creative musical minds sit down to simply talk with no agenda and nothing to hawk? Two guys mostly talking about where they grew up, the lost works of Euripides, and performing live without proper amplification.

Silver Lake's own Beck Hansen has just launched a series on his website "featuring conversations between musicians, artists, writers, etc. on various subjects, without promotional pretext or editorial direction."

Beck's fatal move was choosing Tom Waits as his first guest. Not because Waits isn't much of a conversationalist  --  just the opposite. Once you document a free spirit like Waits riffing without a net, how is Beck going to top that?

In Part 1 of their conversation together, Hansen and Waits provide so many good moments that you're doing yourself a disservice by not reading the whole thing. Beck swears in the conversation that people today are obsessed with "Best Of" lists, and we're not going to argue.

After the jump are the three best moments of their exchange.

Beck's show tonight will benefit Scientology-affiliated charity

There's been a touch of Internet controversy today about Beck's somewhat-impromptu show at the Echo tonight, first started by blogger Sketchytown, then picked up by the LA Weekly's West Coast Sound blog. Both blogs raised a flag about a charity cited on the show's promotional material, Educating Children International, which, according to the promo poster, will get the "net proceeds" of the show priced at a cool $35.

Nothing was mentioned about any connections with Scientology, and the website for the charity turns up an error message. So what's the official word from the Church of Scientology? Is Educating Children International a charity working with Beck's known (and controversial) path of spirituality?

It turns out it is.

When Pop & Hiss first contacted Scientology representative Karen Pouw, she did not recognize the charity name, but within 40 minutes or so she called back to say she had done some more investigating. She said it was part of Educating Children, a charity run by Indian Scientologist Mohammad Khalil Ullah, who has built at least three schools in South Asia, according to materials posted at the website www.educatingchildren.cc, a URL that Pouw also cited. Note the picture on the homepage of children celebrating in front of a school with a sign clearly stating "West Bengal Scientology Free School."

Pouw said about the charity, "We have volunteers there working in orphanages and getting children to school." She also stated, "I'm not speaking on behalf of Beck, but I believe his concert is in support of this charity."

When asked if Beck had a statement about the charity or tonight's show, his representative in New York declined to comment. A representative at the Echo did not answer our request for a comment.

The real question, of course, is whether Beck should've been more transparent about the show's beneficiary. If you're planning on going to the show tonight, does this change your mind or otherwise color your feelings about L.A.'s indie son?

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo: Benjamin Reed/Los Angeles Times

Sea change: Beck hopes to sell Malibu digs by lowering price

Malibu is no longer where it's at for Beck. The musician has just lowered the price on his second home (wait, Beck has a second home?) in Malibu to a cool $2,345,000. It was previously on the market for nearly $2.4 million. The Times' Ann Brenoff has more details on the home here.

Beck now has two houses on the market. His Hancock Park abode was listed at $9 million in July, but more recent listings have it reduced to $7,350,000. Is the "Pay No Mind" singer plotting an escape from L.A. or just flipping houses as a reflexive real estate move? 

— Charlie Amter

Photo credit: Adrian Tiemens

Live: Beck and Jenny Lewis at Club Nokia

Many music fans get serious about pop through a love affair with a club. Whether it was a legendary spot or just the dive down the street from the dorm, such a place provides more than just loud sound and overpriced beer.

People get attached to the strangest things in clubs -- memorably awful bathrooms, decorously peeling wallpaper, a particular corner where the guitar feedback hits just right. And because these spaces are usually somewhat makeshift, converted from some other identity, like a movie theater, church or old man's bar, their shortcomings become part of their charm.

Club Nokia is the latest venue to open in AEG's "entertainment campus" L.A. Live; it opened Sunday with a double bill of Beck and Jenny Lewis. It might be the dream club for a new generation, but it doesn't exactly adhere to the old rules. This high-end destination is gleamingly new, with none of the endearing seediness of a historic venue. As part of a conglomerate, it can't have the underdog allure of a hole in the wall. It's also huge in clubland terms, with a capacity of 2,300 people -- more than quadruple what the Troubadour can hold.

The positives at this club don't have to do with aura. They're more basic: The sound is very good (though some patrons later expressed the opinion that it was too loud), the sight-lines superb, the bathrooms and bar space plentiful. Then there's the floor plan, which operates on a kind of optical illusion: The main floor is tiered, allowing for folks in the back to feel closer, and a large, extremely steep balcony puts others in a helicopter position above the stage.

The back of the club doesn't feel so bad when it's floating in the air. And the overhang the balcony creates above the dance floor is less oppressive and sound-muffling than some.