Marilyn Manson, Offspring, Bad Religion to play Sunset Strip Fest

Goth rocker Marilyn Manson and rock acts the Offspring and Bad Religion are set to play the final day of the fifth edition of West Hollywood's Sunset Strip Music Festival, on Aug. 18. Local dance-pop act the Far East Movement, veteran hip-hop act De La Soul and electro-rap cut-ups Das Racist are also on the bill for the street fest. 

Tickets are on sale now for the all-day event. Sunset Strip Festival activities officially launch on Aug. 16, but the name acts and ticketed outdoor concert is on Aug. 18.

Other artists that will appear include the Black Label Society, Dead Sara and Steve Aoki. All told, the three-day Sunset Strip Festival will feature more than 50 acts at West Hollywood venues such as the Roxy Theatre, the Whisky A Go-Go and the Key Club.

This year's Sunset Strip festival will pay tribute to the Doors, with many artists on the bill expected to cover a Doors song or two. Sunset Boulevard will be closed on Aug. 16 between Doheny Drive and San Vicente Boulevard and the fest will feature two outdoor stages. Also planned is a silent disco and a VIP rooftop lounge.

Tickets for the concert start at $75 and are on sale now via TicketWeb. A VIP pass costs $135. A three-day pass that will get concertgoers into every Sunset Strip event is $250 and includes all VIP perks. A portion of the ticket proceeds will benefit the Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in Pasadena.

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-- Todd Martens

Image: Marilyn Manson. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

DJ Nobody releases psych-rock- and prog-rock-filled winter mix

Last month, Pop & Hiss premiered "Do That Trick," the new track from Songodsun (DJ Nobody and 2Mex). The post focused on the creative breadth of Nobody, the Low End Theory resident whose decade-long career has swung from psychedelia to undergroup rap to folk to auto-tuned pop.

In short, Nobody is an artist incapable of being categorized, and the evidence is in his superb winter mix, full of obscure '60s and '70s psychedelia and prog-rock. Some of the artists are known (Vashti Bunyan, King Crimson, the early Bee Gees) and others are more esoteric (Holy Mackerel, Sweet Feeling, The Smoke).

Theoretically, this mix would be ideal for the springtime, as the tracks tend to waft with a sunny smoked-out disposition, but this is Southern California. You can bump this stuff all year round and you should. This is the best kind of mix, culled from rare gems that afford you the ability to dig deeper into each artist's discography. It's very much recommended.

And to presumably ensure that we don't think of him wholly as a connoisseur of old psychedelia, Nobody and 2Mex also recently released their latest cut from the Songodsuns project, full of volcanic bass, auto-tune and rapid-fire tongue twisting raps. It's called "Hear Me Out," and the two of them deserve just that.

Tunes and tracklist below the jump.

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Songodsuns (DJ Nobody + 2Mex) Premiere "Do That Trick"

Premiere: Nobody's "Sleep for Daze"

Premiere: Nocando - "Hurry Up and Wait Remix"

Songodsuns (DJ Nobody + 2Mex) premiere 'Do That Trick'

Good luck trying to label DJ Nobody. There was his first incarnation around the turn of the millennium when he produced moody, murky beats for Freestyle Fellowship, Abstract Rude and the helter-skelter rhymers that revolved around the Project Blowed world.

He flipped styles on 2003's "Pacific Drift," enlisting Chris Gunst of Beachwood Sparks, Paul Larson and Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel to croon over his electronic-glossed beats. Later, he and Gunst formed the psychedelic-skewing Mystic Chords of Memory, which segued nicely into the disorienting lysergic bliss of Blank Blue, who have a full-length slated for release early next year.

Nobody and Nocando become Bomb Zombies, go 'Over the Edge' in exclusive MP3

Zombies are the new vampires. AMC has scored record ratings for "The Walking Dead" and the ghost of Richard Nixon is being summoned to fight zombies.  Zombies are on the march.

But Nocando and Nobody aren't followers. The genesis of their Bomb Zombies collaboration stems from an auspiciously fated trip to Japan, where Nobody warded off insomnia by downloading hours and hours' worth of rap radio hits. After presumably synthesizing everything from "You're a Jerk" to "Lollipop," he proposed that he and Nocando do an entire EP riffing on the sound of modern-day mainstream hip-hop.

The result is "Sincerely Yours," a funhouse with a stripper pole installed, pregnant with minimal Roland 808 handclaps, Auto-Tune and enough bass to melt ice. This is no big surprise -- the DJ born Elvin Estela spent much of the spring making beat kids touch their toes by playing Ludacris' "How Low" on the Low End Theory's marrow-splintering sound system. But he's best known for making glitchy psychedelic headnods for the likes of Busdriver, Freestyle Fellowship and Nocando -- the latest stand-out alumni of the Project Blowed club.

Spinning freaky tales of groupies and random debauchery, Bomb Zombies is the beat scene's version of a 2 Live Crew record. Stripping the intelligent out of the so-called Intelligent Dance Music subgenre of the late '90s, the pair bridge the gap between the contemporary L.A. underground and classic Miami bass -- two scenes mutually bonded by their love of heavy low end.

One of the highlights is "Over the Edge," with its beat that sounds like "Boyz n the Hood," had it been constructed in the era of surplus swag, and with a hook pilfered from Grandmaster Flash's "The Message." An unusually versatile MC, Nocando steers from the more heady abstractions offered on this year's stellar "Jimmy the Lock" mixtape to spin a tale of strippers and getting sauced. Thankfully, his intricate wordplay and charisma stays intact.

Released this week on Nocando's own Hellyfyre Club Records -- an imprint of Alpha Pup -- Pop and Hiss is premiering the track in question.

Download: (Pop & Hiss Premiere)
MP3: Bomb Zombies (Nobody and Nocando) -- "Over the Edge"

-- Jeff Weiss

Photo: Nobody and Nocando. Credit: Bnut

Exclusive Pop & Hiss Premiere: Nobody, 'Sleep For Daze' MP3

Jay-Z's epitaph to auto-tune never made it to Nobody, the venerable local producer, DJ and,  now, singer-songwriter. One can interpret this only as a good thing. Granted, the addiction to artificial vocals endemic in contemporary urban music mostly breeds limp party music, but when properly employed it's capable of conveying a sense of robotic alienation and poignancy.

Thankfully, "Sleep for Daze," the first single from Nobody's "One for All Without Hesitation," channels the darker side of the studio tool, allowing the erstwhile Elvin Esela to project a bombed-out and blunted despondency.

Sounding like an "808s & Heartbreak"-era Kanye West doing a cover of a Free the Robots song, the cumulative effect makes you think of the first line from Craig Mack's "Flava' in Ya Ear": "That ol' robotic futuristic George Jetson, crazy joint."

Over a bedrock of martial drums, Nobody displays a fully formed knack for composition, dividing the song into mini-suites filled with slashing distorted guitars and vocals that sound bathed in battery acid. The refrain, "I don't care how long it takes... as long as you hear me," splits the difference between sad and sinister -- something like an industrial analogue to Darkstar's "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer."