An unlikely tipping point in California's fight on domestic-violence shelters? Moby.

Wednesday, the California Legislature voted to restore $16.3 million in funding to the state's domestic-violence shelters previously cut by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during the latest round of apocalyptic budget crises. To many, those cuts seemed like a particularly callous solution to California's funds dilemma, given the small amount of money involved and the vulnerability of those who use the shelters' services.

The restoration of those emergency funds -- which are allotted for only one year and must be paid back to the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Fund -- still awaits Schwarzenegger's signature. But it is nonetheless cause for celebration. Many of the shelters faced impending closure without that money. But there's an unexpected pop musician whose late support might have been the needed final push to get the money back: Moby.

Two weeks ago, the New York-based electronica artist embarked on a publicity campaign to donate all profits from the California leg of his current tour to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence and embattled shelters, and he became a visible talking head rallying support for the effort to restore the shelters' funds.

"It was such an insignificant amount of money, it felt like somebody was going out of their way to be mean-spirited," he said, from his dressing room before his show Wednesday night at the Wiltern. "The people that use their services are the most disenfranchised of the disenfranchised. If these shelters are open, people's lives improve, and if they close, people die. There's nothing abstract about it."

Paramore's Hollywood Palladium show tonight is postponed

Paramore's fantastic new album of evocative modern punk may be called "Brand New Eyes," but what frontwoman Hayley Williams might really be in the market for right now is some brand new throat lozenges.

Vocal woes have forced the band to postpone their much anticipated show tonight at the Hollywood Palladium. A representative for the group confirmed that the postponement had resulted from vocal difficulties Williams began showing toward the end of their Tuesday night show at Pomona's Fox Theater, which came after a morning set at the Troubadour.

Kanye West needs his own "Sorry, Blame It on Me" single

For a bit of context on how a pop-rapper behaving terribly can recover in the public eye, think back to the halcyon days of 2007. Akon, the singer/producer, was fresh off an incident in a Trinidad 18-and-up club where he engaged in a lascivious bit on onstage grinding with a female fan who, it turns out, was 16 at the time. Trinidad police launched an investigation (that they soon dropped), but Verizon pulled a reported $3 million worth of sponsorship money from his tour with Gwen Stefani in response. In the court of public opinion, "Konvict Music" proved an apt name for his business ventures.

Now, Akon could have chosen to go the R. Kelly route and simply ignore all this while making even more sexually overblown (and brilliant) records. But he didn't. He went full-bore meta and released one of the strangest singles of the year, "Sorry, Blame It on Me," a monument to passive-aggressive R&B wimpsterism. On the track, he self-flagellates in great detail about both his absentee relationships and the Trinidad incident while -- sort of justifiably -- ducking much of that aforementioned blame:

"I'm sorry for Club Zen getting shut down / I hope they manage better next time around / how was I to know she was underage?...Verizon backed out disgracing my name / I'm just a singer trying to entertain / Because I love my fans I'll take that blame."

It was so weird, so contrary to all standard PR-agent instincts to decline comment on anything like this, that "Sorry" left upset fans with nothing to complain about that Akon hadn't already said first in the song. And wouldn't you know, people stopped talking about Akon as creepy-dance-floor-guy and let him get back to producing and writing in peace. Of course, he then promptly bodyslammed a kid at a radio festival and started this all over, but that's another story.

Which brings us to Kanye West, who had a less aggressive but even more public-upsetting run-in with a young girl onstage recently. There might be something for Kanye to learn from in the tale of Akon: It's a lot harder to criticize someone if they said it all first, and loudest (Eminem's character also tried this to great effect at the end of "8 Mile"). And who better to put out a withering self-critique than Kanye West? He's practically already written one, with "Everything I Am" from "Graduation" taking on the topic of his awards-show bad behavior (and, presciently, praising Beyonce).

The Revival Tour's scuffed-folk roundtable returns with a much bigger lineup

The Revival Tour was one of the more interesting group outings on the fringes of punk last year. Led by Against Me!'s Tom Gabel, Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan and Avail's Tim Barry, it took a coterie of erudite old-guard punks, had them take turns at the microphone and swap folky backing instruments for a kind of Opry variety hour for the lip-ringed set.

This year, it's coming back and casting an even wider net. Ragan and Barry are on board again, accompanied by Sparta's Jim Ward, the very intriguing and Billy Bragg-evoking recent Epitaph Records signing Frank Turner, Joey Cape of Lagwagon, Stephen Brodsky of Cave In, Jenny Owen Youngs and the local bluesy pop singer Audra Mae, among many others.

It's no stretch for a crusty punk to turn to folk and hardscrabble country as he or she gets older, but the vitality of this tour is in the camaraderie -- everyone takes turns up front and in support of one another, and the group pairings often make for some unexpectedly moving collaborations. It stops at the El Rey Theatre on Nov. 7. Full dates are at the Revival Tour website.

-- August Brown

Photo courtesy MSO PR

Egyptian businessman Hisham Talaat Mustafa sentenced in pop star's murder

Anyone following the sordid, fascinating case of the murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim saw some resolution today when Hisham Talaat Mustafa, one of Egypt's wealthiest businessmen and a former member of that country's Parliament, was sentenced to death paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her in her Dubai apartment.

The Times' Jeffrey Fleishman has much more on this case, which has gripped the Middle East since Tamim's grisly murder last year. 

--August Brown

Photo credits: AFP / Getty Images

Utada, Boa set sights on America with dueling English-language discs

Big in Japan just isn’t big enough for at least two Asian singers in 2009. Hikaru Utada (pictured) and Boa, two of Tokyo’s top-selling artists, are releasing English language CDs this month in an attempt to win over American pop and R&B fans. 

For decades, Japanese music managers and American record labels have tried to crack the lucrative stateside market with top-selling artists, including Seiko Matsuda in the 1980s and Toshi Kubota in the 1990s. Each time, the endeavor invariably fails; last year, Universal didn’t even bother releasing an English-language record from one if its rising R&B stars, Ai, despite the fact that the singer was born in L.A., is fluent in English and can belt like Beyoncé.

While Boa and Utada are certainly not the first artists to dream of “making it” in the West, Utada’s “This Is the One” and Boa’s self-titled “The First Album” represent a potential watershed moment for Asian pop stars in America: Both offerings arguably surpass previous crossover attempts from the land of the rising sun. 

Los Angeles-based record producer Joey Carbone, who has worked in Japan with singers such as Yuki Koyanagi and Crystal Kay, stated in an e-mail that "both records are good...Boa is a great dancer and a good singer. Utada is a very good singer and a great songwriter."

Kun Gao, CEO of San Francisco-based anime-centric website Crunchyroll.com, agrees that both are a cut above the usual Japanese exports.

“Both Boa and Utada are very popular, not only with world-wide audiences but also have extremely loyal and rapidly growing U.S. fans,” he said.

But the performers have their work cut out for them. “When Japanese and Korean singers have tried to have a hit in the U.S.," Carbone said, "they have changed their look and sound to try to appeal to the U.S. market, and it hasn't come across as real."

Boa and Utata are stars in Japan and beyond -- Boa is actually Korean and maintains a good-sized fan base in her native country, although her career is more prosperous in Tokyo, where she currently lives. Utada has sold more than 50 million records in Japan, and it looks as if “This Is the One” is yet another hit; she currently has the second top-selling download in Japan, according to iTunes, for her the first single, "Come Back to Me," off her all-English disc, which debuts here digitally March 24 (and physically May 12).

But winning over hearts in the Heartland won’t be easy for Utada; mainstream U.S. pop fans who listen to Top 40 radio stations such as KIIS-FM (102.7) are typically reluctant to embrace foreign stars they aren't used to seeing on Perezhilton.com or in the pages of Us Weekly, with notable English and Canadian exceptions.

However, Utada sees herself as more American than Japanese.

“I grew up in New York,” she said from Island Records’ Manhattan office earlier this week. “In Japan, I’m seen as a bit of a foreigner, but in America, I get comments like ‘Your English is so good.’ So in both places I’m a bit of an outsider, but I think that comes out in my music, and everyone feels like an outsider on some level. If people can connect with me there, that would be great.”

Although Utada’s been down this road before with another English language release aimed at U.S. listeners (2004’s “Exodus,” which sold fewer than 60,000 copies, according to Soundscan), this time the bilingual multi-instrumentalist seems to have found her true voice with a more focused effort.

Hollywood Bowl announces schedule; changes up jazz leadership

After being first reported last month on our sister blog Culture Monster, the Hollywood Bowl has now dotted the I's and crossed the T's on its 2009 season, which was officially announced this morning. In addition to highlighting previously unannounced shows with the Beastie Boys (Sept. 24) and John Fogerty as part of the Bowl's annual July 4th Fireworks Spectacular, Herbie Hancock was announced as the L.A. Philharmonic Assn.'s new creative chair for jazz, succeeding bassist Christian McBride.

The announcement continues a late-career ascendancy for Hancock that began with his 2007 Grammy win for album of the year with "The Joni Letters." His two-year tenure programming concerts at Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl begins with the Bowl's 2010 season. Hancock will also be performing at his new house of sorts on Aug. 7 and 8 with fellow pianist Lang Lang.

Other notable shows for the summer include Faith Hill (July 17-18), Liza Minnelli (Aug. 28-29) and Grace Jones joined by Of Montreal and Dengue Fever as part of KCRW's summer-long World Festival program (July 26).

More shows and dates available at the Hollywood Bowl website.

-- Chris Barton

Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

K-Pop superstar Rain will take the stand

It's hardly the triumphant return to the U.S. that South Korean pop superstar Rain had hoped for -- an appearance that will do little to further his stated intention of becoming an "Asian fusion" answer to Ricky Martin.

Confirming anxious speculation that has lit up K-Pop chatrooms from here to Seoul, Sunwoo Lee, an attorney representing Rain -- the wildly popular singer-actor dubbed "the Justin Timberlake of Asia" -- said that the performer would appear in court in Hawaii next week to face charges stemming from his abruptly cancelled concert there in 2007.

EXCLUSIVE: Details revealed on Rihanna and Chris Brown's new love song

EXCLUSIVE:

Multi-platinum-selling record producer Polow da Don has exclusively confirmed to The Times that he has been in the studio recently with Rihanna and Chris Brown, recording an as-yet-untitled love song that is scheduled to appear on Brown's new album later this year.

Polow (government name: Polow-Freache Jamal Fincher Jones) -- who has crafted hits for a constellation of hip-hop and R&B stars including Ludacris, the Pussycat Dolls, Rich Boy and Ciara -- issued the following statement to The Times:

Chemical Brothers, the Orb and three more added to Coachella lineup

Coachella festival producers Goldenvoice are beefing up the dance offerings this year with a few notable additions to the 2009 lineup. The Chemical Brothers, Etienne De Crecy and the Orb are all now confirmed as late additions.

Additionally, Devendra Banhart and Murder City Devils will join the three-day annual fete in the desert next month.  The Chemical Brothers appearance is a DJ set only, meaning they will be playing other material besides their own catalog of dance-floor staples in a more casual performance devoid of all the bells and whistles.

Speculation that the Chemical Brothers would return to the festival (they last performed at Coachella in 2005) reached a fever pitch earlier this year when television spots featuring the band's "Block Rockin' Beats" started airing on local cable television. Message boards on the official Coachella site lit up accordingly with rumors that the band would return to Indio, along with, of course, plenty of riffing from fans that the TV spots might imply that ticket sales were slow.

Coachella head Paul Tollett confirmed the additions today to a new magazine that Goldenvoice is sponsoring dubbed coachelladigital.com.

-- Charlie Amter

Ed Simons, left, and Tom Rowlands from the Chemical Brothers. Picture courtesy Astralwerks