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two of the unsigned acts that populate the sprawling little soundboard we call the
Southland:]
Sky Parade caught the ears of the L.A.
underground with the song "Losing Control," a joyride of dense, churning
guitars that sounds like Primal Scream getting Spiritualized. You figured good things
were in store for the quartet if there were more where that came from. Now, a couple of
drummers, a lot of sweat and a back injury later, Sky Parade is emerging with a new
album. Appropriately, "Love Is Forever" will be self-released on Valentine's
Day.
Simple concept here: "Every song is a modern indie rock-inspired love
song," says front man Tommy Dietrick, who spent much of last year fine-tuning the
record -- when he wasn't laid up with a back injury.
Dietrick, a former member of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, credits new drummer Joel
Patterson, who joined a lineup that includes bassist Bobby Bones and guitarist Mathew
Lindgren, with helping him put the pedal to the metal and get the album finished.
Featuring guest vocals from Miranda Lee Richards and Guylaine Vivarat-Goodich
(Molecules), "Love Is Forever" figures to hit the spot for fans of British
psychedelia, or anybody else who misses the Verve.
||| Exclusive download: "Love Is
Forever"
by Sky Parade.Midnight Movies on Thursday at Spaceland .
Bones, Matthew Lindgren, Tommy Dietrick and Joel Patterson.
shortage of musicians who toot their horns in Silver Lake. Ah, but those who
play horns -- they're noticeable. Take the Minor Canon , a six- or seven-piece
(depending on the night) that have been crowding onto club stages to dispense a brassy
orchestral pop that, while no threat to make the Top 40 charts, ought to find its way
into the hands of an indie filmmaker in need of a soundtrack.
when he was a member of Strictly Ballroom with Chris Gunst (Beachwood Sparks) and Jimmy
Tamborello (the Postal Service, Dntel). In fact, Larson contributes guitar work to the
forthcoming Dntel album "Dumb Luck," due in April.
Deed Goes Unpunished," the Minor Canon's initial foray into the shadows of pop
melancholy, will be self-released on Feb. 20, and even at its birth the debut album has
a history, since it was recorded at the Silver Lake house where the Postal Service's
"Give Up" took shape (and, Larson points out, where the movie
"Heathers" was written). Larson and bandmates Ryan Blake, Ben Eisen, Erik
Soderstrom, Mario Frias and Mike Richardson will play the April residency at
Spaceland.Exclusive download: "It Never Was
..." by the Minor Canon.
Echo; the band also performs a record-release show at Sea Level Records in Echo Park on
Feb. 20.Tonight's touts: Japanese fun bunch Polysics entertain at the Knitting Factory, with
support from L.A.'s the Outline . ... Kaki King brings her distinctive guitar work to the
Hotel Cafe. ... And Helmet begins a two-night
run at the Troubadour.
Time for our weekly trip to the record store. Here are a few of my picks, and one
tout by a friendly neighborhood record-store employee:
Top
shelf
Don't hate these Aussies because they're beautiful ... well, their music, that is. Cut
from the same emotional cloth as contemporary bands such as Snow Patrol, the quartet's
winsome, driving pop sounds as if it could come out of London in 1992 rather than Sydney
this decade. Canny guitar work and singer Toby Martin's uncanny vocal resemblance to Tim
Booth of James give the album a Britpop feel, but Martin's imagery is more intimate and
his delivery less theatrical. Listeners who discovered Youth Group because they heard
its cover of Alphaville's "Forever Young" on "The O.C." won't be
disappointed by the band's own stuff. Other
recommendationsBusdriver,
"RoadKillOvercoat" (Epitaph/Anti-): Project Blowed MC makes good with
a flow all his own, rapping of a wild variety backing tracks.Young
Love, "Too Young to Fight It" (Island): Maybe the 17-year-old in your
household hasn't discovered disco pop. Or maybe your inner 17-year-old still has a sweet
tooth. Hum through the cliches; this is your sugar.The Early
Years, "The Early Years" (Beggars Banquet): Reverb-drenched British
trio make me long for the early days ... of Spiritualized, Spacemen 3.
From behind the counter Today's
recommendation comes from Sylvia Villarreal, known for the past 3-plus years as
"the other person who works there" at Sea Level Records, 1716 W. Sunset Blvd.,
Echo Park:
Lily Allen, "Alright, Still" (Capitol): Dominating the
U.K. in 2006, Allen promises to be the hottest female clogging the airwaves this spring.
Filling a much-needed void left by the likes of the Spice Girls, her witty lyrics and
steady beats are sure to please hipsters and teeny boppers alike. A fine choice to shake
off those winter blues.Tonight's touts: The Nightwatchman , which is Tom
Morello's solo project, continues his residency at the Hotel Cafe , with Chicagoan Ike Reilly among his
guests. ... The Black Pine headline the Echo.
... Kissing Cousins , who just
released "EP3," and Wait Think Fast open for the Spider Problem at Spaceland. ... Get Set Go finishes off its residency at the
Key Club's Ruby Tuesday. ... Earl Greyhound
rocks El Cid, with support from the
Front.
[Quiet, please -- correspondent Margaret Wappler reports on a different kind of
club show:]
Dustin
O’Halloran’s show last Tuesday, you were proverbially smacked down by a vigilant
army of shushers, a strain of music fan usually found at the opera and not the Derby,
Los Feliz’s swing lounge. But O’Halloran’s evocatively stark piano music featured on his
two solo albums inspires a hushed audience savoring his every keyboard flitter. The male
half of the indie-atmospheric act Devics was
pleased: “Wow, who would’ve thought that L.A. would be the quietest crowd?” the native
Angeleno said.
festooned with tiny gold lights, his handiwork was caught by a pen camera hanging above
the keyboard and projected onto a screen. The visuals are a key component to
O’Halloran’s recent work. He contributed two tracks to Sofia Coppola’s lush “Marie
Antoinette” and recently finished his first feature-length score for the upcoming film,
“The Beautiful Ordinary.” He’s also at work on another project, an instrumental layering
of piano, strings and some electronics.
"Piano Solos" Tuesday night at the Derby.
Tonight's touts: Lou
Barlow
headlines at Safari Sam's . ... Eagle and Talon , the Happy Hollows and Twilight Sleep help the Pity Party finish off its January
residency at the Silverlake Lounge . ... All Smiles , the nom de tune of
ex-Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild, opens the final night of the Broken West's residency at
Spaceland. ... The Starlite
Desperation rocks the Viper Room . ... Xu Xu Fang brings its haunted psychedelia to
the Echo for the final night of the Submarines' residency ... Scott
Windsor of Umbrellas performs at the Knitting Factory . ... And recent emigrants to
our fair city To Live and Die in L.A. play
a free show at the Troubadour .
Erickson and a homecoming club show by Bay Area pop-punkers the Donnas highlight the 15h
edition of Noise Pop , the five-day festival that
brings some 100 acts to 10 venues in San Francisco.
The official lineup and schedule for the festival, which begins Feb. 27, are due to
be announced Monday.
Music & Arts Festival has created a minor buzz; the 59-year-old rocker has a long history
of psychological and drug abuse problems but has rallied in recent years. He made an
appearance at the 2005 South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin. Noise Pop also will
feature a screening of "You're Gonna Miss Me," a documentary about
Erickson.
Why Is Everybody Talkin' At Him?)," the premiere of "Sonic Youth: Sleeping
Nights Awake" and "Far Off Town: From Dunedin to Nashville," about
iconic New Zealand songwriter David Kilgour.
opening-night lineup at the Mezzanine, but Cake will close the festival with a show for
badge-holders on Sunday at Bimbos.
will make the trip, including Autolux, Earlimart, the Bird and the Bee, Dios Malos, the
Gray Kid, Lemon Sun, the Oohlas, Sea Wolf, Simon Dawes and the Submarines.
Behind the sheets of guitar and the anguished screams of Orange County hard-core
rockers Thrice lay a folk singer, just waiting to show his roots. Or so Dustin Kensrue has revealed on his solo
debut, "Please Come Home," released this week.
of his exploration of folk and blues. "They were obviously songs that didn't feel
like they would fit in with Thrice."
Some of the material, which sounds as if it could have grown from the same sonic
branches as Uncle Tupelo or Ryan Adams, dates back four years. He'd play the songs at
parties and for friends, and "people kept encouraging me to put a record out,"
he says.
So he and Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi burned the midnight oil after the band's
studio sessions in Orange to record "Please Come Home," leaving the production
comfortably rough-edged. The result is an album that would fit into Kensrue's personal
playlist — the likes of Tom Waits, Yo La Tengo, Ryan Adams and Miles Davis.
"Thrice is known as a heavy band, but none of the guys in Thrice listens to
heavy stuff anymore, at least not much," he says. "I find myself lately
listening to a lot of jazz or alt-country."
Has the music (released digitally in December) been a hard sell for Thrice fans?
"It seems to have gotten a good reaction so far," Kensure says. "Even
people who were at first nonplused about it have come around."
Kensrue's two shows tonight at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood are sold out. He
can been seen Feb. 2 on "Late Night With David Letterman."
Tonight's touts: Local rockers the Willowz join the Black Lips at Spaceland. ...
Mezzanine Owls and Lemon Sun open for Robbers on High Street in
an early show at the Echo. ... Later at the Echo, Aloe Blacc hosts this edition of
Soundlessons. ... Gliss and LoveLikeFire play
the Scene Bar in Glendale. ... And I tell myself this is for a good cause: Great White
will perform at the Key Club tonight at an Hal Sparks-hosted event that'll have some
celebrity sizzle. It's a benefit to save the baby
seals.
[News tidbit from the dance world:]
Dance promoter Spundae says goodbye
to L.A.'s Circus Disco this weekend. The group
will now lend its long-standing L.A. reputation to Avaland at Avalon on Saturday nights.
To welcome some of the Spundae/Circus fans anxious about the move (as noted on the
message boards), Avaland director of promotion and booking Garrett Chau says Spundae's
Peter Beckers and Guiv Naimi will host "Localized" in the Honey VIP lounge at
the Vine Street club. "In that room there will be DJs who are programmed by
Spundae," Chau tells Times correspondent Steve Baltin. "The music they’re
hearing will be music they’ll be familiar with and we’ll do that on a continuing
basis." More details as we know them.
[Correspondent August Brown weighs in on some out-of-town visitors:]
The fact that the ever-volatile scuzz-punkers Black Lips recorded their new live album
in Tijuana says all you really need to know about the Atlanta-based four-piece. Known as
much for the R-rated sex and violence of their live performances as for their seething
T. Rex-inspired riffing, the band’s onstage lawlessness finally met its match in the
mythically decadent border town.
craziest shows we’ve ever played,” vocalist and bassist Jared Swilley says. “We hired a
mariachi band to play and they got [angry] by all the people throwing glass bottles. We
had to keep slipping them money to stay onstage.”
The ensuing live album, “Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo,” is their first for their
quite-appropriate new label, Vice Records. Though the band’s average age is around 22,
they’ve been honing their blistering and fever-dreamy brand of psychedelia since they
were young teenagers. Swilley says they “didn’t go to college and don’t like having
jobs,” so instead they became veterans of America’s basement dive circuit.
“We used to get banned from a lot of clubs,” he says. “The management at the Knitting
Factory wanted to jump us. But none of the bannings ever stand the test of time.”
Though tales of the band swapping bodily fluids onstage abound, they’ve lately toned
down their antics to focus on playing their instruments competently. Despite their
live-fast-die-young stage ethos, the band wants to stick around long enough to enjoy
their reputation.
“We played a show with this old soul guy who said he wanted to die onstage,” Swilley
says. “I’m the same way myself. I go crazy if I spend more than two weeks at home.”
||| The Black Lips perform tonight at the Echo
and Saturday at Spaceland .
Photo: the Black Lips by Dan Monick.
◊ ◊ ◊
Those white-clad, up-with-pscyh-pop kids the Parson Redheads , have announced their new
album "King Giraffe," will be released Feb. 6. Their next scheduled show is
Feb. 16 at Spaceland supporting the Autumn Defense. Here's a pretty little something to
tide you over:
Download: "Punctual As
Usual"
(live acoustic for UCLA radio)
◊ ◊ ◊
Tonight's touts: The Cold War
Kids
continue their bicoastal residencies, jetting back from New York City for a
show at Spaceland. ... Rodrigo y Gabriela bring
their flamenco metal -- yeah, listen in -- to the Troubadour , with Marjorie Fair opening. ... Gliss joins LoveLikeFire and the Moderates at
the Scene Bar in Glendale. ... The Shins will
have 'em standing in the aisles at a free in-store (6 p.m.) at Amoeba Music . ... Of
Montreal plays the El Rey Theatre. ... And Veruca Salt is joined by Run Run Run and the
Distants at Safari Sam's .
Two weeks ago I reported that local indie rockers Division Day caught a nice break -- they
were the first signing to upstart label Mercy Records, which planned to re-release their
fine 2006 DIY album "Beartrap Island" in March. Turns out that Mercy never got
off the ground because of funding problems.
square one. "As of now touring will still be going on," guitarist Ryan Wilson
said before the band launched a West Coast jaunt this week. Upcoming: next month's
Monday residency at Spaceland.
and download: "Colorguard." the Dollyrots are recording their next
album, "Because I'm Awesome," for Joan Jett's Blackheart Records . The trio now has Chris Black
from Bang Sugar Bang on the drums. ... Indie-pop ensemble Let's Go Sailing 's lovely self-released
debut "The Changes in Order" recently got nationwide distribution through
Fontana (release date: April 3), and the group has a nationwide tour planned starting
with the South by Southwest Music Festival in March.Future reference: Don't be surprised if KCRW-FM has one more big name up its sleeve for its big
Sounds Eclectic Evening at Gibson Amphitheatre on April 14. The Shins, Lily Allen,
Rodrigo y Gabriela, Cold War Kids and Bitter:Sweet have already been announced for the
show. ... The rumors that swirled about Gwen
Stefani playing this year's Coachella turned out to be baseless. In fact, she's
going head-to-head with the desert festival: "The Sweet Escape Tour" visits
Gibson Amphitheatre on April 27. It ends at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre on June 22-23.
Tickets go on sale Feb. 10. ... And the other big shindig in the desert, the fifth
annual Joshua Tree Music Festival ,
goes off May 18 through 20. Early bird tickets are $60 (for all three days) through
Tuesday. Los Amigos Invisibles, Garaj Mahal, the New Deal, Bret Dennen and the Be Good
Tanyas head a deep lineup.Tonight's touts:
Speaking of touring, psych-rock trio the Clean Prophets are kicking one
off behind their self-released "Praise Is Poison"; first stop is Spaceland
tonight, supporting the Colour . ...
Must-see SoftLightes return for Week
3 of its Silverlake Lounge residency; playing the early set is an interesting techno-pop
outfit called Porsches on the
Autobahn. ... Love this bill: Foreign
Born opens for Los Abandoned at
the Troubadour. ... And Lavender
Diamond holds forth at Safari Sam's.
Much respect to Perry Farrell. But more often than not Wednesday night at Spaceland
during the not-so-secret show by his new band, Satellite Party , you got the feeling
the needle was on "E."
Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., felt more warmed-over than hot during his band's
hourlong set, even allowing for the fact he was far out of his element, playing an
Eastside club known for its patrons' practiced, detached cool (read: folded arms) than
the unbridled Hedonism (read: show me your breasts) of the Sunset Strip that launched
him to stardom. Man, that stage must have seemed small.
But you had to be pretty far into your drinks -- or simply an unconditional admirer,
and there were plenty of those -- to buy into it. The Nineties could indeed be the new
Eighties (look at the Coachella lineup), but the neither the holdovers nor the fresh
crop of revivalists ever try to give you the impression they are selling you new
product.
An early dance number got some bodies moving, and a later by-the-numbers rocker
carried by guitarist Nuno Bettencourt induced the kind of arm-pumping usually only seen
ironically in these parts. Beyond that, however, the proceedings seemed forced, despite
Farrell's efforts. "It feels like the good old days," he said, acknowledging
the spirit of the nascent bands whose stickers he noticed on the bathroom walls. The
band broke out the champagne and shared with the lucky folks upfront, toasting its
christening.does have those,
if you read the environmental missives by Farrell on his various websites -- and bubbly
weren't enough to save anybody from the likes of "Awesome," a mawkish ballad
with a chorus stright out of a teenager's MySpace blog. It felt like a 60 mph fastball
coming from a former Cy Young Award winner.
Satellite Party's album, "Ultra Payloaded," which features a previously
unheard vocal track by Jim Morrison, comes out May 15 on Columbia Records. It will, no
doubt, chart high in the cult of celebrity, which counts for a lot these days, but I
suspect it will end up like a lot of satellites, aspiring to be a star.
Spaceland's calendar for
tonight's Club NME promotion lists the always-entertaining Gram Rabbit along with "the
Solutionists" and some special guests. Turns out the guests are special.Satellite
Party is expected to appear. The ex-Jane's Addiction mastermind and LollapaloozaSatellite Party's MySpace page Tonight's touts: Will
Hoge headlines the Knitting Factory .
... The Valley Arena and Light FM anchor the bill at a Rock Insider -sponsored show at the Silverlake Lounge . ... Deerhoof , with Busdriver and Hella , performs at the El Rey Theatre. ... And the Leviathan Brothers
head the bill at Tangier .
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