Soundboard's moving -- update your bookmarks

These guys are moving drums to the National Stadium to prepare for the opening ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games. Soundboard says piffle to that. We are involved in a much more glorious export: transferring more than a thousand blog posts to our new home on TypePad. Behold our new spiffy design! Our Digg buttons! Our category cloud to the right and so forth! It'll take us a few days to iron out some kinks (yes, we know some posts are missing) but in the meantime, please update your bookmarks and let us know what you think, but only in a nice way because our back hurts from all this heavy lifting.

We are now at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/soundboard

Those who get us by RSS Feed, use this: http://feeds.latimes.com/Soundboard

--Margaret Wappler

Photo of drums on the go by Deigo Azubel / EPA

Friendly Fires gaze at their shoes, find them dancing

On Tuesday night, I showed up a little early at the Mayan for Bloc Party, whose intricately austere set confirmed they are rapidly becoming contemporary post-punk's ELO, which is needed and awesome. Opener Does It Offend You, Yeah? (whom I've covered before, and liked) surprised me yet again,  because, judging by the audience squeals of hormonal delight at the "Let's Make Out" intro, they seem to have fully crossed over into L.A.'s idiosyncratic sorority-punk mainstream.

But the big surprise of the night was the first opener Friendly Fires, who pulled off a trick I've been waiting for a band to fully realize -- that cowbell-heavy Liquid Liquid dance beats would sound fantastic with gigantic shoegaze-ambient guitars and the shimmering house synths that too many peers, such as M83, can't seem to use right. 

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Magnanimous Collector: Figures of Light reunite and reignite

Armed with a catalog of stripped-down two-chord songs inspired by the likes of the Stooges, the Who, Blue Cheer and the Pretty Things, New Brunswick, N.J.'s Figures of Light -- a frenzied four-piece that embodied punk rock before the phrase existed -- played its inaugural concert in the summer of 1970. Vocalist Wheeler Winston Dixon describes the ensuing chaos in the liner notes of the band’s debut album on Norton Records: “Our first concert was a wild one, in which we destroyed 15 television sets on the stage in Scott Hall at Rutgers University with pick axes and sledge hammers, along with some mannequins and some large mirrors. We started the performance by driving a motorcycle down the hallway on the stage and smashed a record player playing Gershwin’s ‘An American in Paris.’ ”

Huey Lewis records theme for ‘Pineapple Express,’ complete with toking sound courtesy of Seth Rogen

Ask ’80s pop-rock superstar Huey Lewis how he wound up recording the title song for the highly anticipated stoner action-comedy “Pineapple Express,” due in theaters Aug. 6, and he’ll basically shrug.

“They e-mailed, ‘Would I write a song for a Seth Rogen movie?’ I said, ‘Why not?’ ” Lewis, 58, recalled in a telephone interview from his Montana vacation home. “I don’t consider career moves. I just answer the phone. I’m flattered at my ripe old age to even be considered. It was all about fun.”

Billy Corgan discusses Pumpkins song in ‘Watchmen’ trailer

One of the most talked about trailers to emerge from last weekend's Comic-Con convention in San Diego was the teaser for "Watchmen." Now all over YouTube (and playing nationwide in theaters before blockbusters such as "The Dark Knight"), the trailer features a melancholy, semi-obscure Smashing Pumpkins song titled "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" (not to be confused with the more upbeat "rock" version, "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" that appeared over the closing credits of "Batman & Robin").

Confused yet?

So are thousands of fans of the storied graphic novel. According to Zack Snyder, who directed "Watchmen" (and "300"), the song will not appear in the film. The director says he chose the song for the mood.

Regardless, the response toward the trailer has been massive online -- earning accolades (and a huge iTunes sales spike for the Pumpkins) for how the dark lyrical content and feel of the song meshes with the stunning visuals from the forthcoming film.

We were curious what Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan thought of the attention from both old and new fans (many of whom have been unable to identify Corgan's signature growl in the tune from just watching the trailer) regarding the resurrection of "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning."

According to Corgan, who responded to questions by e-mail, he has already asked if the band can release the song as a video. More thoughts on the song from the Pumpkins ringleader after the jump.

Detour and F Yeah Fest lineups announced

Ready, set, go!

LA Weekly Detour Music Festival:
Oct. 4
Tickets on sale Friday at noon, $40.50

Lineup:
The Mars Volta
Gogol Bordello
Shiny Toy Guns
The Presets
Cut Copy
Matt Costa
Black Lips
Hercules and Love Affair

Cold War Kids get sweaty at R Bar

We have good news for anybody wondering what the Long Beach blues-punk Cold War Kids have been up to since releasing "Robbers & Cowards" in 2006. If their sort-of secret Friday show at R Bar in L.A.'s Koreatown was any indication, "Getting Awesomer" appeared to be pretty high on their '08 to-do list.

The relaunch of Makeoutclub.com

Before MySpace and its low-level stalking possibilities or Facebook and its gazillion time-sucking applications, there was Makeoutclub, a meeting site for hard-core, punk, goth and emo kids. Launched in 2000 by Gibby Miller, the website was bare bones -- click on "girls" or "boys" and read hundreds of profiles, which consisted of little more than a picture and a blank space ready made for a poem, a list of your favorite bands or maybe just a cribbed lyric representative of your sad little scotch-taped heart.

Scars on Broadway catch the 9:25 at Union Station

If you don't listen to KROQ (and we know many of you don't), you might not know about tonight's KROQ-sponsored Scars on Broadway show at Union Station downtown. Scars principals Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan (from System of a Down) will surely scare the bejesus out of late arriving or departing commuters caught unawares this evening via performing such loud and politically charged tracks as "They Say" inside the historic building's impossibly ornate lobby beginning at 9:25 p.m.

Critic’s Notebook: Katy Perry never ‘Kissed a Girl’

You know what bothers me about Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” -- now officially the song of the summer, after spending five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100? Not the auto-erotic tease of the lyrics, which keeps Perry inside her head rather than beneath the waistband of some lovely’s Victoria’s Secret finery. Not her groaning, quintessentially brunet vocal delivery, which is actually kind of sexy, built around a neo-burlesque bump of a track and the luscious word hook “cherry Chapstick.”