If Andre 3000 came out right now, they'd call him hipster rap.
-Bronx, NY rapper Mickey Factz in an Allhiphop.com interview.
Kid Cudi adorns himself in the quintessential hipster uniform of skinny jeans, silver BapSta sneakers and a colorful hoodie. Some call him a bipster (black hipster), a lazy blogger's term for hipster-friendly rap acts such as the Cool Kids, Kidz in the Hall, Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco; in other words, anyone who raps in colorful, form-fitting clothing.
Whatever you do, don't refer to Kid Cudi as that.
"Black hipster? I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I don't know nothing about a hipster," he said after getting a bevy of love from the audience during his half-hour set at Cinespace Tuesday night. He was especially popular when he poured shots from a Grey Goose bottle into the mouths of female fans near the stage during his performance of "Super Boo."
Scott Mescudi, 23, from the Shaker Heights suburb of Cleveland and now a 4-year resident of Brooklyn, was brought to the attention of Plain Pat, Kanye West's former Def Jam A&R guy, who calls Cudi's sound "progressive" and special for not "following what's hot."
In just a few years Cudi has gone from Abercrombie & Fitch stockroom worker to having a single in rotation on Power 106, the cosmic ode to stoner loneliness, "Day N Nite." Fools Gold Records, home to Kid Sister, will release his debut Man on the Moon.
His first mixtape, "A Kid Named Cudi," hits the Web next month. "I'm going to rap about having fun and I'm going to rap about me as a person. I'm the epitome of the new breed of realness," said Cudi.
Summer camp is officially over.Rock 'n' roll summer camp courtesy of Camp Freddy, that is.The supergroup of Los Angeles-area rockers, consisting of Dave Navarro, Billy Morrison, Matt Sorum, Donovan Leitch and Chris Chaney, ended its monthlong residency at the Roxy last night with a bang — landing Billy Idol as closing guest.
“This one’s for you, Jonesy,” a smiling Idol said before he launched into “Dancing With Myself” from the stage to a sold-out, rapturous audience obviously clued in to the evening’s special guest (fashion selections among the aging Idol groupies were verging on tragic).But despite the title of the tune, Idol was not dancing with himself Thursday evening — he brought with him a few special guests.
Idol was joined onstage with longtime guitarist Steve Stevens and the Doors’ Robby Krieger, both of whom helped give the three-song final act a precious feel in spirit of the May celebration of all things rock at the Roxy.
The sneering '80s icon began the last set of the evening with an extended, metal-tinged version of “L.A. Woman,” which took on obvious significance given the location of the gig on the Strip and Krieger’s presence onstage. The former Generation X singer seemed to be having the time of his life onstage, even doling out a few trademark Idol sneers with a wink as if it were 1984.
For Idol fans, the true highlight of the night was a song that broke big that very year, “Rebel Yell.” Without the slick synths the track is known for, “Rebel Yell” with Camp Freddy was a monster. Stevens’ guitar work was searing and Idol was in full-on icon mode, pumping his fist into the air, seemingly genuinely into the moment, despite presumably loathing the tune after how popular it was in the 1980s (it was one of his signature hits).
Other highlights of the final installment of Camp Freddy’s Roxy residency included Juliette Lewis’ reverential takes on X’s “Los Angeles,” Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ 'Bout Love” and AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds.” Earlier in the evening, 311’s Nick Hexum actually pulled off a convincing but perhaps too-karaoke-perfect version of the Clash’s “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” but the crowd response was tepid at best.These were rock fans with a capital R, hell-bent on seeing guests like Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell tear it up with Freddy onstage, and no one here was copping to even knowing who Hexum was.
Regardless, most everyone was happy just to be inside the venerable Sunset Boulevard venue late Thursday night, if only to say goodbye (for now, anyway) to the best house band on the Strip for a while.
Here is the complete set list from the final installment of Camp Freddy at the Roxy:
Cheap Trick, "Hello There" Blur, "Song # 2" Black Sabbath, "Paranoid" w/Wayne Static on vocals (Static X) The Clash, “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” w/Nick Hexum on vocals X, "Los Angeles" w/Juliette Lewis + Donovan duet Van Halen, "Ain’t Talkin' 'Bout Love" w/John 5 (Rob Zombie), Lewis AC/DC, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" w/Lewis, Chris Vrenna (Marilyn Manson, NIN) Oasis, "Rock 'n' Roll Star" w/Billy Duffy (The Cult) The Cult, "Lil' Devil" w/McGrath on vocals, Duffy KISS, "Rock and Roll All Nite" w/McGrath, Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) Alice in Chains, "Man in the Box" w/Leah Duors (McQueen), Cantrell Sex Pistols, "EMI" w/McGrath on vocals, Naveen Andrews on guitar (actor, “Lost”) Led Zeppelin, "Whole Lotta Love" w/Pat Monahan on vocals (Train), Robby Krieger The Doors, "L.A. Woman" w/Billy Idol, Steve Stevens & Brian Tichy (Billy Idol), Kreiger Billy Idol, "Dancing With Myself" w/Idol, Stevens, Tichy Billy Idol, "Rebel Yell" w/Idol, Stevens, Tichy The Stooges, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" w/McGrath, Cantrell, Stevens and others.
It’s only fitting that a garage band from Chicago – one of the nation’s foremost pizza towns – should possess such an all-consuming fondness for the cheesy open-faced baked pie that it releases a one-sided 7-inch devoted entirely to singing the praises of its gooey joys.
Johnny and the Limelites' debut record is a jaw-dropping, lo-fi epic that refuses to nest comfortably in any pigeonholes. If Shaggy and Scooby were allowed to record and release a song, this is probably what it would sound like. Unabashedly silly and sloppy, the record nonetheless has ambitions that supersede the band’s abilities. Clocking in at 3 minutes, 50 seconds, it builds to a crescendo, then breaks down and ambles into a long, spectacular finish. To be sure, it’s a joke song of sorts, but it also sounds pretty good. With music like this, it’s the beat and the energy that count, not the lyrics. “Extra cheese/ If you please / On my knees/ Anchovies” is a sample highlight, but what makes this record really stand out is singer Johnny Agatucci’s phlegm-laden vocals and the near-soulful conclusion of the song in a cacophony of tamborines, rough harmonizing and Agatucci’s final list of his favorite influences, “Pizza Hut, Domino's, yeah, I love ’em all.”
It’s the “Gone With the Wind” of budget garage-rock releases – and an interesting point in the ever-evolving world of this scrappy genre. In the mid-'90s, lo-fi was the garage punk cause du jour.After influential bands like the Brentwoods and Supercharger popularized the lo-fi aesthetic, the scene eventually shifted toward a smoother, better-produced sound. It’s nice to see a new crop of younger garage acts – such as Tucson’s Okmoniks, Oakland’s Nobunny and Johnny and the Limelites – returning to this soil with a fresh approach and a new energy.
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler checked himself into an unidentified rehab facility earlier this month to recover from recent foot surgery. A spokeswoman for Tyler said the surgery was done "to correct longtime foot injuries resulting from his ... athletic stage performances."
Tyler checked himself, but his spokeswoman said, "I have no further information available" on the nature of the rehabilitation. No further word on whether it is for physical treatment for the foot itself or substance-related due to medications used in the course of the surgery and post-surgery.
“The doctors told me the pain in my feet could be corrected but it would require a few surgeries over time,” Tyler said in a statement issued today. “The ‘foot repair’ pain was intense, greater than I'd anticipated. The months of rehabilitative care and the painful strain of physical therapy were traumatic.
"I really needed a safe environment to recuperate where I could shut off my phone and get back on my feet," Tyler's statement continued. "Make no mistake, Aerosmith has no plans to stop rocking. There’s a new album to record, then another tour.”
Everything is coming up Miles Davis these days: two film projects, remixes, box sets, books galore and "Miles From India," a new release of interpretations of some Miles classics by Indian musicians aided by Miles sidemen. This Sunday, a concert -- one of only three planned nationwide -- seeks to bring that recording project to the stage here in L.A. It's the kick-off show for the Grand Performances series at the California Plaza downtown.
I talked with the man who brought "Miles From India" to life, the irrepressible Bob Belden, but first an anecdote on how I personally became involved in the music of the black magus.
Something momentous happened to me at age 15 in my prep school dorm in 1969. I was in the habit of listening to the "underground" New York area radio stations and there was one African American DJ whose very blackness was so deep, so African, so revolutionary that I used to get a kick out of his monologues, happy that he wasn't being kicked off the airwaves.
One day he played a very lengthy cut (not that unusual in the psychedelic late '60s). It was jazz, but not really. It wasn't the free jazz of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor. It wasn't the pervasive hard bop of Lee Morgan or Cannonball Adderley and it certainly wasn't anyone doing standards. It was more like ambient (a word not used then) funk, a bold trumpet with dueling keyboards, a nod toward Sly and James Brown in the rhythm section and a guitarist noodling on minimal, spooky modal lines.
I called the station and asked what the track was and who the guitarist might be (one of my various identities in school was Guitar Hero; the dorm levitated from the sound of my Gibson). It was Davis' "It's About That Time" from his album "In a Silent Way," and the guitarist was John McLaughlin.
This was not the Davis I remembered from my early childhood -- the post-bop cool; the natty, slim English suits; the polished obsidian complexion. This was a funky thing, more in touch with Harlem than Carnegie Hall.
Several months later, I found myself in Greenwich Village's Village Gate in either late December 1969 or early January 1970. We were there to see Miles and what is now known as "The Lost Quintet" -- his gigging band during the recording of "Bitches Brew" but never recorded "as is": Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano sax, Dave Holland on bass, Chick Corea on electric piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums. I seem to remember Airto Moreira sitting in on percussion.
It was loud, enveloping, confusing, exhilarating. Sheer, beautiful insanity. I left the Village Gate around midnight feeling purple.
The news that Justin Timberlake has offered to write a song for the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi got me thinking about the music we choose to mark crucial moments in our lives. Everybody loves to talk wedding songs, graduation songs, even summer songs. Funeral songs, not so much. (My morbid/controlling streak -- what's more controlling than dictating what happens after you've kicked? -- has led me to contemplate the subject. The only choice I'm sure about so far is "Days" by the Kinks.)
Pop is a life force, and it's natural that its fans would prefer talk of love to meditations on death. But sometimes a song comes along that perfectly captures the vagaries of grief. Greg Laswell's "High and Low" is one such song.
First released on "Through Toledo," the San Diego-based singer-songwriter's seductively morose meditation on being violently dumped, "High and Low" isn't necessarily about someone who's literally shuffled off this mortal coil. Yet this gentle torch song builds and diminishes the same way sorrow does after a death.
Laswell's deliberate piano lines push along, like a depressive's step through another gray day. His almost lackadaisical vocals relay a lyric half made of casual observation, half syruped in melancholy. The song goes on and on, soothing at first, then slightly irritating, like a haunting memory. Strings kick in to convey a new mood, but the revelations stay small. Healing, this song says, comes slowly, and just when you think you're better that old ache returns.
An expanded version of "High and Low" appears on Laswell's EP "How the Day Sounds," released by Vanguard Records as an amuse-bouche leading up to his next full-length, "Three Flights From Alto Nido," out July 8. He's also part of this summer's annual Hotel Cafe tour, along with Sara Bareilles, Cary Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson.
Thanks to Alan and Filter magazine for the tip on Greg.
Bands naming themselves after the songs of their musical predecessors is a time-honored tradition, from Eric’s Trip (a Sonic Youth reference) to Radiohead (Talking Heads). But L.A. duo Uh Huh Her has gone one better, naming themselves after both an obscure PJ Harvey song and her 2004 album. “I don’t think we thought it through,” admits singer Leisha Hailey. “We love PJ Harvey but we never thought we’d have a tribute band.”
They don't: Uh Huh Her's sleek, synth-infused sound is closer to "Adore"-era Smashing Pumpkins or Metric than it is to the moody English alt-rocker. The band's debut album, "Common Reaction" (out Aug. 19), is an electro-pop feast characterized by layers of overlapping vocals. "We like the way our voices blend together," says Hailey. She's no stranger to harmonizing: Before taking a music hiatus to play Alice Pieszecki in Showtime’s “The L Word,” she strummed and sang in Lilith Fair pair the Murmurs, who had a 1994 hit with "You Suck." "The sound is really different," she says of the quirky Murmurs. "I was much younger [then]."
Camila Grey, former Mellowdrone bassist and the band’s resident multi-instrumentalist, is happy for the chance to stretch out. “I was always a hired gun, so I was never allowed to be as creative as I wanted to be,” she says.
Now, a few European dates under their belts and a national tour underway, the band is looking forward to making a mark on their home turf. “We’ve played one show [in L.A.], at the Knitting Factory,” says Grey. “I’d love to be a local band.”
||| Also: Brother-sister act the Fiery Furnaces heat up Spaceland with a two-night stand on Friday and Saturday, while ex-Irving members Afternoons kick off the month’s Monday residency… The two-man band Rumspringa starts its Echo residency on Monday… And if that’s not enough partnership for you, lovable folk-parodists-turned-HBO-stars Flight of the Conchords play for the ladies of the world at the Orpheum Theatre on Friday and Sunday.
-- David Greenwald
Photo by Lisa Eisner
[Buzz Bands blogger Kevin Bronson has the week off.]
Veronica, Alison, get thee to the El Rey tonight: Rumor has it that your favorite bespectacled Catholic (lapsed?) will be playing a secret show after his turn tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. We confess we know no more than that but a phone call to the El Rey revealed someone rehearsing in the background, though there is nary a name on the official schedule for tonight.
The Police hit a sweet spot in about the middle of their Tuesday night show at the Hollywood Bowl when they fell into a fierce locomotive reggae jam on the song “Driven to Tears." The island rhythms came way out front and you could feel the change; that’s better than all that “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take” stuff, n’est-ce pas? Andy Summers was losing himself in huge, prog-jazz guitar texturing, Stewart Copeland was beating his kit to pieces in a grimacing tirade of Caribbean drum nerd triumph, and then there was Sting, loving his minimal role as the provider of a bouncing, rising reggae bass line. That "Zenyatta Mondatta"-era meditation was followed by “Hole in My Life” -- jam continuing -- and into Summers fingering a calypso or even Afro-pop opener for “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.” Once the meat of that radio hit kicked in, the spell was broken, but it was there for a sustained moment with this gorgeous, unbeatable band.
Now that Sting looks a little ridiculous singing such paeans to self-obsession as “King of Pain,” maybe that tuff island sound will give the Police a new lease on life. The threesome never wrote anthems, so the big, bold arrangement of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” doesn't make it, no matter how they try, a chance to rekindle a youthful, generational statement. And when the band is too literal -- like the photo-montage of big-eyed Third World children that accompanied “Invisible Sun” -- it’s almost painful, even if Summers, Copeland and Sumners do care a lot about children, having, what, 17 children between them?
The charged reggae flow picked up again when they stretched out the boisterous lament, “So Lonely," the pre-encore show closer. The form seemed to give it more impact. They didn’t have to reach for the point. Sting wasn't even trying to swallow the meaning of the lyrics, which he seemed to be doing with other songs (some of those literary allusions just come back to bite you). He just let them be poignant. If this band plans to record new music in the future, someone please get them back to that studio in Montserrat where they once discovered a new world, just so we can all spend a little more time there.
A lot of big-name acts had a shot at the Will Call title this week.
First, or should I say primero, we had diminutive Latin heartthrob Marc Anthony, who'll be leaving his famous missus at home and appearing solo at the Gibson Amphitheatre on July 26; get tickets for the show Friday.
Standing tall after their confrontation with Maxim Magazine, the Black Crowes will play the Greek Theatre on Sept. 17; tickets for the grits-and-gravy rockers go on sale Saturday.
Indie 103.1's recent obsession, the vaguely Afro-pop indie rock band Vampire Weekend will play the Wiltern the same night (that's Sept. 17 for all you ADHD sufferers out there); tickets go on sale Thursday.
And Brazilian dance-rockers CSS scored double points for announcing two sets of local shows with SSION — Sept. 22-23 at the Mayan and Sept. 24 at the Glass House — both on sale now.
But there's no point in giving any of them the bold ink over uber-celebrity singer Madonna, who announced a Nov. 6 show at Dodger Stadium in support of her recently released and already million-selling album, "Hard Candy." What more can I say? At this point, Madonna's like the Terminator:
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop...
The show goes on sale Sunday so you've got plenty of time to get your redial button unstuck.
--Liam Gowing
Photo of Madonna by Matt Sayles / Associated Press
A few years ago, post-rock was the music of the future. With bands such as Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Icelandic heavyweight Sigur Ros leading the scene, it seemed like lengthy, crescendoing guitar instrumentals would be the soundtrack of choice for catharsis-seeking teens and meditative filmmakers alike well into the new millennium. But with an exception or two -- Explosions in the Sky's score for "Friday Night Lights" and the continued success of Sigur Ros' pro-vocal, pro-glacier epics -- the post-rock bubble has long since burst.
As one of the few bands to ascend beyond the genre's aesthetic and commercial boundaries, it's no surprise that Sigur Ros' latest single breaks new ground. Or rather, old ground. The appropriately titled "Gobbledigook" (Icelandic for "Gobbledigook"), which the band released for free on its website today along with an NSFW video, steps away from the band's usual iciness in favor of an acoustic campfire vibe, all click-clacking, double-time drumming and frantic guitar strums. It's the sort of rough, tribal music that's helped nature-centric bands such as Animal Collective and the Dodos replace post-rock as the outsider sound of choice but Sigur Ros are hardly copycats.
Unlike Animal Collective's lo-fi romps, "Gobbledigook" maintains the band's usual pristine production, letting singer Jónsi Birgisson bounce over a bed of high-pitched harmonies. His melody is both catchy and high-flying, avoiding the aforementioned bands' frequent problem of burying their singers. It does the group good to add a little energy to the mix: the song clocks in at a scant three minutes, which is barely enough for an intro in typical Sigur Ros time. Older fans might find it dizzying but for a band once willing to repeat itself ad infinitum (or at least for eight-minute intervals), it's a breath of fresh air. The band's fifth album, "Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust," is due June 23. More of this, please.
--David Greenwald
Photo of lead singer Jon Thor Birgisson by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
Call us naive, but last week's call from Chromeo looking for a female drummer warmed our hearts a bit, as in "Coed rock out, sweet!" Turns out female drummers with cellulite need not apply. Soundboard got more info from Chromeo's representation about its search for a drummer on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and let's just say it's not exactly NOW-endorsed. But then again, what else can be expected from two dudes whose album cover looked like this?
Here's the ad, with strange wording (i.e., "the look of legs") preserved:
"Are you available to come to a casting call on June 3rd? We are casting 6 girls for their talent and the look of legs for this bit. The casting call would be to basically have you play a practice pad and let us take some Polaroid's. We are looking for someone that can play marching drum, as each gal will have a snare (only requirement for the casting call is you wear shorts or a short dress so we can photo your legs.) You would be performing with Chromeo on our outdoor stage on June 17th. We will also want to get your costume specs. It will also be good to have you on file for anything else we do here at Kimmel. My info is here below. Casting will be from 12:00 - 4pm, June 3rd."
So is this a little creepy or just par for the course? With our bellies still full of Mem Day bbq, do we care what Chromeo thinks about legs or anything else?
While U.S. television viewers have been obsessed with "American Idol" over the last few months, European music fans have been transfixed on "Eurovision," their longer-running (since 1956), song-centric version of "Idol."The second semifinals of the multi-country competition (each country sends a representative act and song to compete against other nations) was held yesterday, leaving 20 countries’ entries still standing and ready to proceed to the finals Saturday in Belgrade, where the event is being held, despite a rough year for the Serbian capital.
The nations surviving Thursday's elimination round are Iceland, 2004 winner Ukraine, Albania, Portugal, Croatia, Sweden, Turkey, Georgia, 2003 toppers Latvia and 2001 champs Denmark.
On Saturday, the aforementioned 10 will square off against 10 other countries who won the first semifinal, which took place earlier this week, with their representative acts.
Those countries include early favorite Russia, 2006 champs Finland, 2005 winner Greece, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, Poland, Azerbaijan, Norway, Armenia and Norway. Host country (and last year’s winners) Serbia and the four nations bankrolling the entire contest (Spain, France, Germany and England) get free passes into the finals Saturday.
Among the countries not making the cut for the finals this weekend? Ireland (who offered up a turkey glove puppet named Dustin as its entry), Bulgaria and Switzerland.
Don’t ask us how, exactly, the winner will be crowned at Eurovision. The bizarre selection process for the competition is famously complex, with judges representing various countries often voting in groups. The Baltic states, for example, like to stick together.
And while Russia ("Believe") and Sweden ("Hero") are among those tipped to win this year, we like to think Ukraine has the best shot to take the "Eurovision" crown with Ani Lorak's catchy pop song borne from club music roots ("Shady Lady") .
"Shady Lady" seems to have all the elements of a winning tune: a danceable beat, cheesy lyrics and a "hot" lead singer who knows how to smile for the camera and, more important, the judges.
You can stream the finals live Saturday from several websites, including the official Eurovision site or here.
Is Los Angeles experiencing a rap renaissance? With rappers such as Blu, U-N-I and the group Pacific Division making much noise in the local underground rap scene, we haven't seen this much talent brewing at once in this genre in a while.
Hip-hop's Internet taste-makers have long heralded the bubbling SoCal indie rap world, in the wake of the Bay Area's Hyphy movement. Even Billboard Magazine has recently taken notice.
The Key Club was packed Wednesday night with a crowd that came to see the L.A. New Wave funk-punk outfit J*Davey, but it was the live-wire showcase of PacDiv MCs Mibbs, Like and BeYoung (left to right, above) that lit up the room.
The Palmdale trio's self-released album "Sealed for Freshness" (The Blendtape) made most of the rap world take notice in 2006. Several publications heralded them as the next group to break out of L.A. Their style reaches back to Pharcyde but with an eye on materialism, rapping more about money and sneakers than lost loves.
The songs performed Wednesday, including "Paper" and "Women Problems," poke fun at everyday dilemmas and provide the ego trips familiar to rap fans but there's very little of that gangsta bravado that signifies L.A.'s rap culture.
The throwback-titled F.A.T Boys '08 (standing for Fashionable Artistic Trendsetters, a polite nod to Kanye West, no doubt) defines their image with the hook, "Pocketful of papers, sneakers on my feet/I'm a F.A.T boy."
On a different plane, but still hard to pin down is the club act J*Davey. Led by the mohawked Miss Jack Davey (pictured above), who's backed up by a hype-man, bass player, drummer, drum machine player and an assortment of synthesizers, the funk-punk outfit were clearly favorites of many in attendance.
Davey, whose voice recalls Erykah Badu when she sings and Lauryn Hill when she raps, is also a bit like Lene from the group Aqua when she does the punk-heavy numbers. The convincing front woman left the stage midway through the 50-minute set in what seemed like a Diva move, only to return with a new outfit: a tight spandex ensemble, which no self-respecting lady performer within five feet of a drum machine should be without.
With all the funky synths and melodic singing, Davey couldn't exactly find her flow. She blamed the audience for not giving her the energy she wanted and then commanded the crowd to dance at certain points. For "Touch of Fate," she encouraged audience participation but it didn't come off exactly as she instructed. During one of her last songs, she went for broke: "OK, this is the part of the show where you take your clothes off." No one did, but a few members of the crowd did hop on stage to dance.
For a band that counts songs about abusive fathers and interracial relationships in its catalog, one might expect Everclear's Memorial Day gig at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to have more than a twinge of irony. We talked with the band's frontman, Art Alexakis, about the show, its political implications and Jesus Christ's party affiliation.
So, how does a band go about booking a show at Guantanamo Bay, of all places?
We've done a lot of booking for the military, we've played Japan, Korea, Guam and a bunch of bases in the States, and the guy who books that kind of stuff came to us with Guantanamo Bay. Usually, if that day’s open, it’s a no-brainer, but I took a day to think about the implications of this one. Not because of what other people would think, but for me. If you check online, I’ve been pretty vehemently anti this war, have been from the beginning. I marched, did the whole thing. But I've always been pro-troop. I feel for people who’ve made this commitment. That’s their job to do it and I respect and honor that.
Are they going to let you see any other parts of Cuba while you're there?
I asked them if I could go into Cuba, and they told me no. I get to go to the fence that separates it from the base. I would love to go. I want to go to Havana big time. It’s a moment out of time with all these '50s cars driving around. You know that when the Castro brothers die, its going to turn into Disneyland over there. I wanted to see Cuba, but I also wanted to go over there to get a pulse of the soldiers that were there about what happened [in the prison]: What their family’s viewpoint on being at Guantanamo is about, and are they proud to be there? Do they think they’re doing a good thing? Are they ashamed? They’re put there, and there isn’t much you can do about it in the armed forces. I've got a song I'm thinking about playing there for the first time, called "Jesus Was a Democrat."
Wow, really? What kind of ideas led up to that?
It’s actually a pretty flagrant challenge to the conservative view of Jesus. Even if you're not a Christian, if you read Jesus’ words in the Bible, there's nothing conservative about him. He was a full-on liberal. There's a line in it that goes, “Jesus would be locked up in Guantanamo Bay if he were alive today.” I consider myself Christian but not in any traditional sense. I was brought up in a serious evangelical home, and always had problems with Christianity, like there was something great there, but that I wasn’t seeing it. I see why most people, especially young people, are afraid of Christians. There's a line in the song that says, “I wonder if Jesus is as afraid of Christians as I am?” They’re scary!
How do you think it'll go over in Guantanamo Bay, a place you cite in the song as imprisoning Jesus?
What happened in Guantanamo Bay, that was blood-chilling to me. It goes to show you that anyone can get caught up in it, anyone can be the bad guy. Any collection of people from any culture. It was sobering for a lot of people. It was sobering for me. I've got a daughter who’s 16, and I don’t think she’d ever go into the service, and I'd fight her if she did, but if she does, what's my perspective then?
I'm just trying to be compassionate and put myself in the other guy’s shoes. This song is pretty angry. I think we're in better place now than in '88, when I worked on the Dukakis campaign canvassing, but I was so pissed at Republicans, that conservatives co-opted the term "family values"; they made being a liberal a bad word. I’m an ACLU card-carrying liberal. I have no bones about it. I might be conservative on some things, but you're going to tell me that to have family values I have to glom on to your way of thinking? No way!
At least now I'm not alone. The great thing about [Barack] Obama, he’s unabashedly a liberal or a progressive. Isn’t that great? Even in the Clinton administration, no one was using the word "liberal," they were using the "moderate" word. Seems like in the last few elections, the right has pulled the left to the center, and now it seems like the left has pulled right center. [John] McCain started playing ball with the Bush administration, thinking he could ride his coattails if he got the call. Now, it's dragging him down.
You mentioned that you had some reservations about playing the Guantanamo Bay show. What were they?
This has nothing to do with other people's perceptions. It’s about me. My wife said that if you're going over there for the troops, that's the right reason; if you're going to see what it's all about, that's the right reason. I have an opportunity to go to a place that a lot of people don’t go to. There is controversy there, but it’s not like I'm going to go waterboard anybody. I'm going to look. I'm going to see what they're gonna show me. They're going to put a glossy face on it, but my main reason is to go get people's perspectives on what they thought that place was about.
Aside from whole torturing aspect, there's a history there and I love history. Whenever something's on TV about Cuba, I shush people. I'm fascinated by people living technologically out of time, and their perspectives. I think the revolution there got lost, but I'm fascinated by it and want to see how and why it went awry.
Do you think you'll get an accurate picture of the place from your time there?
I'm going to go and be positive. I can piss people off if I try to. I'm really good at it. I don’t want to do that. You get more out of people if they feel safe and secure instead of defensive. I want to ask them, “Were you here when that stuff was going down? Is it still going down?” I'm going to ask questions, and I can ask them good-naturedly. I want to get as much info as possible. I'd love to bring my teenage daughter. Some of these kids there are only two or three years older than my daughter. I meet kids that age every day at shows.
Do you ever wonder if young fans might think differently about Guantanamo Bay if a favorite band played there, that it can't be that bad if Everclear had a show there?
I thought of that, but of the letters I've been getting, I've only gotten four negative ones, and I think it's all from the same guy. He's comparing what we're doing to going to Auschwitz or Dachau, which I have serious issues with. I'm going to provide entertainment, which is seriously important to American kids in a place where, I think it's fair to say, most of them don’t want to be there. Those kids in Iraq, they don’t want to be there. When people ask me questions, I answer honestly. That’s what we're all here for, to hopefully learn from each other. I'm going in with curiosity. Is it a dark, scary place, or a bright, sunny place with big, scary fences and dogs? I don’t know what it is.
For all you wannabe Mo Tuckers, Cindy Blackmans and Susie Ibarras out there, your time has come. The electrofunk duo Chromeo is looking for a lady drummer to perform "Fancy Footwork" with them on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on June 17. What are the requirements? According to the call out sent by a band representative, you need to be in the studio "roughly 2pm to 8pm" and you need to be down for "some costuming and movement + snare drum playing." Oh, and you "don't need to be Sheila E. or anything." Sounds like an easy way to make $308 to me. To be considered, contact Mac Burrus from "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" at jklmusic@gmail.com.
Most high school seniors spend prom night spiking the punch and trying to make nice with their dates. James Pants was too busy convincing Peanut Butter Wolf to come record shopping.
"We met up and I chauffeured him around Austin," says the DJ-musician, who goes by James Singleton when he's not spinning vinyl. A few years and a handful of mix CDs later, Peanut Butter Wolf - he head of Stones Throw Records - asked him to a record a cover of goofball '80s jam "Grandmaster Lover," and a record deal soon followed. For Singleton, a hip-hop aficionado with jazz roots who plays drums, guitar and keyboards as well as manning the turntables, it was a perfect fit.
"They had elements of weirdness that I really liked. It seemed like the label didn’t take itself too seriously," he says. Neither does the humble Singleton, whose DJ name stems from his wife dubbing him "fancy pants," even if his debut album, "Welcome," is too gritty and offbeat to be runway-ready. It's also mostly sample-free, with the instrumentation provided by Singleton himself "out of necessity."
"I live in Spokane, Washington," he says, "There’s really no scene here." Equal parts hip-hop, dance and soul grooves, the album's 16 tracks were hand-picked by Peanut Butter Wolf out of 100 recordings.
"I’m not very good at finishing songs," Singleton says, "but I'm pretty good at starting them."
||| Live: James Pants will open for Jamie Lidell at the El Rey on May 29 and 30, with a "Welcome" release party at Turntable Lab that Friday afternoon.
There are plenty of gasp-worthy moments in the French electronica duo Justice's video for "Stress": when one of its becrucifixed teenage bangers, all notably black, Middle Eastern or North African, gropes a woman in a train station; when another smacks a cafe owner in the face with a bottle; when the whole gang whales on a police officer with his own baton. But the most telling moment is its one instance of levity; the gang steals a car and, supremely annoyed by Justice's hit "D.A.N.C.E." on the radio, kicks the dashboard to pieces.
It's a clever, self-deprecating gag, but entirely symptomatic of the spirit of this horrifically compelling video from director Romain Gavras, which debuted two weeks ago to instant controversy on Kanye West's blog. The clip's merits lie solely in the aesthetic power of its allusions and references. In this case, the video gestures at the 2005 riots that swept through the Parisian suburbs and painfully underscored the deep division of race, class and religion in what many outsiders saw as a model society.
This is a worthy topic for a band whose music is as polyglot as Justice's is to explore in film. The depth and breadth of the video's violence will be familiar to anyone who watched the television reports on the '05 riots in many of Paris' far-flung and ethnically marginalized outer neighborhoods. The problem is deciphering what team Justice, Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay, is actually exploring in its allusions to it.
The most likely explanation is that the video is a meta-commentary on the media's vilifying (or romanticizing) of street realities. These particular bouts of violence are so villainous, so macabrely cartoonish that the "Stress" video can't be expected to create any kind of sympathy or understanding with the stars or the off-screen allegory. So it can only be assumed that Justice is mocking public perceptions of minority youths as thugs.
But to what ends is Justice doing this? We didn't need Justice to remind us that xenophobia begets violence and that violence and racism are both often inscrutable. The video's willful refusal to encourage any understanding of why this is happening only leaves our shock (and rapt attention) to the imagery.
The parting voice snippet where one of the kids asks, in French, "Does filming this get you off, you S.O.B.?" smacks of cheap insight. Yes, Justice, it probably does. But that's all it does. The questions of "Do media desensitize their audience to violence and can they exploit people?" have been pretty thoroughly answered by now; Justice admittedly isn't probing this mess any deeper. Maybe Justice should field that kid's question in regards to its own motivations here.
The decision to dress the kids in Justice-logo jackets is a similarly cryptic gesture parading as terms of debate: Is Justice identifying with the thugs? Admitting its own complicity in the social problems that cause violence? Or, perhaps, simply associating itself with such powerful imagery and passing off its lack of engagement as an open-ended artistic question? Stress indeed.
With such a hugely powerful array of visual ideas here, it'd be a shame if Justice's only goal was to make fun of the nightly news. And even if the point was to sarcastically say, "OK, media, this is what you imagine minority youths to be like, so we'll give you a freakish caricature that you'll probably eat up," is Justice the right band to do that?
The duo admitted in a press release about the clip that "we have neither the intention nor the legitimacy to express ourselves, in any in-depth way, on social issues." If that's truly the case, then Justice has made an irresponsible and intentionally thoughtless video that does nothing to further understanding, empathy or clarity of the issues they gesture at here. That makes "Stress" a powerful but truly failed piece of art. "Opening up debate" is a good start for a piece of art's goals -- it's the height of laziness to call it an end point.
But if it's primarily entertainment and there is no "meaning," or even an admission that Justice can't help us here, then the duo needs to take off the Wayfarers and have a long, dark night of the soul reflecting on their vantage point in referencing these serious and worthy issues. "We always left it up to the public to watch it, or to ignore it, without trying to influence opinions one way or the other," the statement concludes, "in line with the function, as we see it, of art and entertainment."
That makes the wasted opportunity of this video all the more depressing. It's not the violence itself that's the most upsetting quality in the "Stress" video -- it's the pointlessness of it. The public does need artists to make sense of issues and influence opinion for the common good. Artists who claim such potent imagery as their own, but offer nothing in the way of engagement or inquisitiveness with the material, only leave us with numbing rhetorical questions and gentle pan-outs of burning cars.
For me, middle age officially begins on June 7 of this year. That's when Prince, whose sexy-utopian music defined my college nights, turns 50. And I've just learned that any attempt to hide from my mid-40s reality will be further hindered by the 50th birthday of Jello Biafra, another formative influence, just 10 days after the Purple One.
Jello's contributions to the punk rock canon aren't as lauded as Joey Ramone's or Johnny Rotten's, but he's been a guiding light (well, more like a guiding car alarm) for Bay Area punks since the turn of the '80s. As lead provocateur in the Dead Kennedys, Biafra helped invent the American take on political punk.
When I first heard the band's debut, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," in 1980, I was a Clash-loving high school girl trying to rebel, but not sure how. The name "Dead Kennedys" alone sent a nervous ripple through my Catholic heart. But it was the music, and most of all Jello's yowl, that secured loyalty -- ripping satirical songs like "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kill the Poor" were as absurd as Monty Python, way more confrontational than the anti-nuke rallies then on offer for budding lefties, and (in its own ugly way) as catchy as the Beach Boys. No point in resisting. Soon, I'd discover mosh pits and just how sweaty shirtless hard-core boys got in them.
The band's sound got harder and faster, then more experimental, on subsequent releases. Biafra's thinking grew more complex too, but he never gave up one millimeter of edge. After enduring an obscenity trial for bundling a sexually graphic poster created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger inside 1985's "Frankenchrist" LP, the DKs eventually signed off; subsequent encounters between Biafra and his former bandmates would be marred by conflicts in court.
Biafra evolved into a post-punk amalgam of Allan Kaprow and Lenny Bruce, staging hilarious anarchist interventions wherever he went. In 2000, he contended with Ralph Nader for the Green Party's presidential nomination (he'd also run for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, at age 21), delivering a well-received speech at the party's nominating convention. He's done political reporting and commentary for Indymedia, released a bunch of spoken word albums and helmed Alternative Tentacles, the underground label he and DK's guitarist East Bay Ray co-founded in 1979.
He's also continued to play punk rock. Lately, his band has been the Melvins -- a super-heavy band and the perfect match for Jello's jeremiads.
Alternative Tentacles is throwing a big party at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall to celebrate Jello's half-century of causing trouble, so punks old and young might want to plan a getaway to the Bay for June 16 and 17. The birthday man himself will play with the Melvins, and debut a new band that includes some other semi-legendary old punks. Full info here.
Sure, your garage band is big in Cleveland, but how big?
For decades, tracking the regional success of up-and-coming acts was a spooky art in the music industry (and one with plenty of smoke and mirrors), but that changed with the 1991 advent of the SoundScan era and its stricter science of counting units sold nationwide and in individual markets.
Still, Nielsen SoundScan ain’t cheap, so true indie labels and artists couldn’t always afford its math. Now, TuneCore.com is helping a bit: Starting June 11, the site will offer -- for a flat rate -- something called “daily sales trending reports.” (How punk rock is that?) It’s only for iTunes, but it still sounds useful to bands clawing their way into the national scene. Here’s their pitch, via a press release that will be released later today:
"Through TuneCore, bands can download trending data for how many sales took place each day, by song or by album, by day, and by ZIP Code each week a la carte for $2.99 a week. This is the first time in history independent musicians can download this type of statement. Every Wednesday, the previous week's (Monday-Sunday) worth of daily sales data will be available for a flat fee."
The file will display songs and albums by title, artist and label, how many units they sold in any given ZIP Code and the day they sold. All seven days' worth of data are included for as many albums associated with a customer's account for the a la carte price of $2.99 per week.
Cheap Time’s first seven-inch, released by Vancouver, Canada’s Sweet Rot Records, was a spunky and lovable little slice of punk rock. Although a tad slavish in its devotion to “Born Innocent”-era Redd Kross, it nonetheless hinted at greater things to come with its sheer energy and bratty youthfulness. The Nashville trio fulfills this destiny with interest -- and with a sound that is much more its own -- on its self-titled debut platter from L.A.’s In the Red Records.
Songwriter, singer and guitarist Jeffrey Novak, though barely in his 20s, has already been around the block a time or two, releasing a great screamer with his former band, Rat Traps, on Shattered Records and dishing out a few CDRs and stray import singles with his one-man-band act. But he and his Cheap Time band mates have entered bold new territory with their latest release.
There’s something timeless about this record, something that goes beyond genre boundaries with a fresh, unique approach to punk, new wave and glam influences. The 14 songs rarely stray beyond the two-minute mark, but none of them feels chopped or rushed. Each cut is a polished gem, produced with genuine analog warmth by Mike McHugh at Costa Mesa’s Distillery. There’s a smoking cover of “People Talk” from Jack Oblivian’s pre-Oblivians' new wave band, The End, but the rest are well-wrought, energetically played and precisely written originals. Standouts include the churning “Living in the Past,” the snarling “Ballad of Max Frost,” (an ode to the anti-hero of cult '60s youth revolt movie “Wild in the Streets”) and the triumphant strutter “Ginger Snaps.”
Cheap Time is all about youthful insurrection. At 28 total minutes, this album is insolent, angry and so full of energy that it fairly bursts at the seams. Fans of no-holds-barred rock 'n’ roll will be counting on Novak to stay true to this trajectory as he forages into the future.
Never mind all the secret shows lately. What is it about big-name bands trying to get back to their roots by playing in smaller clubs?
First Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers — with a couple of rhythm section substitutions — played the Troubadour in a reunion of the little-known Heartbreaker precursor band Mudcrutch. Then Hall & Oates booked its imminent two-night stand at the Troubadour as, well, Daryl Hall and John Oates. Now Green Day is heading to the Roxy to perform as its garagier alter ego, Foxboro Hot Tubs, next Tuesday.
Regardless of the anonymity-seeking nom de plume, the nature of which the members of Green Day kept under wraps until fairly recently, it's always endearing when a band that could fill an arena plays a club the size of the Roxy, although the logistics are bound to be a nightmare. You guessed it: Tickets go on sale at the Roxy box office the night of the show.
Doors open at 7 p.m. Enjoy yourself in the inevitable queue.
In other news, there wasn't that much other news. Here's a taste: The legendary Tina Turner added another night at Staples Center, Oct. 16, (tickets already on sale); psychedelic indie-pop duo the Helio Sequence will play the Echoplex on June 12 (tickets on sale now); alt rockers Everclear, Soul Asylum and Camper Van Beethoven will play the House of Blues on June 26 (tickets go on sale Thursday) as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival; and funky singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello will play the Key Club on June 29 (tickets on sale Saturday).
In the hottest news, dance rockers Hot Chip will play a two-night stand at the Wiltern but it's a long way off: Sept. 21-22. Get your tickets Friday for that one.
-- Liam Gowing
Photo of Green Day, a.k.a. Foxboro Hot Tubs, by Reuters / Mario Anzuoni
In the entertainment business, it's always about who you know. For rapper Tyga, his cousin and Gym Class Heroes' frontman Travis McCoy is that dude. But he's also got Pete Wentz and Lil Wayne in his corner. Who can be mad at that? The video for his single "Coconut Juice" features cameos from all three -- and let's not forget the fantastic Harry Nilsson song Tyga uses as a base.
Tyga's brand of pop-rap balances the emo essence of FOB with tracks like "Don't Regret It Now" featuring Patrick Stump on the hook, and "Teenage Crush," which reinterprets a Slick Rick song, against the more typical rapper entries of "Diamond Life" and "Supersize Me."
The Compton-area native, whose name spells out Thank You God Always, is all gangly limbs and fully tattooed from his eyebrows down to his fingers. A huge Young Money Entertainment medallion (Wayne's company) swings from his neck. Tyga already has a name for his own imprint, etched into his face above his eyebrows: "G.E.D" on one side, "Inc." on the other. It stands for either Getting Dollars Everyday, Getting Education Everyday or Grinding Every Day, take your pick.
His debut album "No Introduction," hits stores June 10, the same day as the critical cognoscenti crush-fest that will be Lil Wayne's "Carter III," which includes a Tyga guest spot.
After finishing up a nearby photo shoot in the Hollywood area, the 18-year-old heartthrob -- he's one of CosmoGirls' Hot 100 Celebs -- chatted with us while relaxing outside a Melrose coffee shop.
You have a lot of tattoos. When did you start getting ink?
My first one was when I was in ninth grade. On Halloween. I was 14 and I got my mom's name [Passionaye] on my neck. She was mad. She said,"You can't come in my house with that on your neck." And I did come into her house but it was with her name. Her friends were braggin', "that's so sweet of him."
I have probably like 30 something [tattoos]. I lost count after 30.
So, you're singed to Pete Wentz's Decaydence label, Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes is your cousin and you're part of Lil Wayne's crew.Any pressure in trying to impress such successful co-signers?
I don't put pressure on myself. I'm just doing music for everybody. Nobody's looking for the next Game. Just be yourself.
It’s been a quiet nine years for Q-Tip, the charismatic on-again off-again frontman for the seminal Queens, New York, hip-hop quartet A Tribe Called Quest -- one of the most respected rappers to ever rock a mic.
But that doesn’t mean the Abstract Poetic hasn’t been keeping busy. While largely staying out of the public eye during that time, the hard rhyming, famously adenoidal MC recorded two never-released, widely bootlegged albums (“Kamaal the Abstract” in 2002 and 2005’s “Open”) and bounced between every major hip-hop record label with the exception of Island Def Jam before landing at Universal Motown this year. July will finally greet the arrival of Q-Tip’s long gestating CD, “The Renaissance,” his first album to see a commercial release since 1999’s gold-selling “Amplified.”
It’s a monster of a record, with guest appearances by Norah Jones, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq -- as well as a vocal contribution by Barack Obama in what must certainly qualify as his first hip-hop “collabo.” But more on all that in a future article.
Over an omakase sushi dinner in New York last week, Q-Tip revealed to The Times that he doesn’t intend to keep up his J.D. Salinger act any longer; the rapper is planning to go back into the studio before the end of the year to cut another album. And although Tip self-produced “The Renaissance,” he’s enlisting the help of a heavyweight Grammy-winning producer for its follow up.
If you’re imagining any of the usual rap rainmakers -- Timbaland or the Neptunes, Pete Rock or DJ Premier -- you’d be wrong. Try Nigel Godrich, the British engineer-producer whose densely layered, atmospheric sound has become closely identified with Radiohead. In fact, Godrich is sometimes referred to as the morose Brit rock group’s “sixth member” for producing every album it’s put out since 1997’s “OK Computer.” But he’s also racked up an impressive list of characteristically downbeat, brooding albums for the likes of Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Air and Pavement.
Godrich is hardly the no-brainer choice for Q-Tip -- himself a Zelig-like figure who turns up all over the pop culture grid and has never been confined by a narrow view of what hip-hop is and isn’t supposed to be -- although it remains to be heard how the two’s musical sensibilities will mesh.
“He’s a big fan of rap,” Q-Tip said of the producer. “It’ll be cool working with him. We’re going to make a film out of the project too.”
And the charter member of the Native Tongues rap collective seems untroubled by the notion that Godrich’s dour sonic palette might detract from rap’s abiding party hearty aesthetic.
“He’s just on some real hip-hop [stuff]. It’s gonna be a lot of sampling,” the rapper said, adding an encomium not often associated with Godrich. “He’s really dope!”</
Is Los Angeles experiencing a rap renaissance? With rappers such as Blu, U-N-I and the group Pacific Division making much noise in the local underground rap scene, we haven't seen this much talent brewing at once in this genre in a while.
