A new Jealous Sound record drops from the sky

Blair Shehan, the voice behind old-guard L.A. indie rockers the Jealous Sound and Knapsack, has somehow missed out on three generations of emo revivals. This, by consensus of people who care about such things, is a total injustice. His off-kilter chord changes and raspy howl straddle the line between brainy guitar pop and wantonly earnest '90s-throwback emo, adding up to a sound that should theoretically be paying his bills into infinity by now. The Jealous Sound's 2000 self-titled EP and 2003's full-length "Kill Them With Kindness" were worthy confections, but somehow the band never grew out of the small club circuit, and prognostications for a follow-up record grew dimmer every year.

My hubby Eric and I got into an argument about T.I. driving back from the Neil Diamond concert the other night. (I know, it's not typical to mix the Jewish Elvis and Atlanta's illest, but that's the poptimist life we lead.) "Paper Trail," Tip's sixth album, was in the car stereo, and we were admiring the shiny-sharp production from Drumma Boy, Toomp, Just Blaze and others, which sets up the rapper's coolly commanding flow on hit after soon-to-be hit -- the album's already produced three Billboard Top 100 winners, and it's been out only a week.

Foremost among T.I.'s current successes is "Whatever You Like," pop-rap's latest ode to throwing money around. The sing-song rap was produced by Jim Jonsin, who also coproduced Lil' Wayne's smash "Lollipop"; like that song, it's a rough guy's come-on, deceptively light in tone but with an undertow that represents its hero's driving need for conquest. With five nonconsecutive weeks topping the charts, it's T.I.'s most successful single ever.

It also just might be the perfect soundtrack for a nation in an economic tailspin.

Did you know Beck had a half-sister? Neither did we. 

And no, her name is not Debra. 

Well guess what? She is also a musician. Alyssa Suede, who shares a father with Beck, dropped her debut EP,  "Black & White in Color," this week (although technically it came out last month, according to her MySpace blog, where she previously posted that the disc was on sale at "this dope men's clothing store called Traffic" inside the Beverly Center). 

Make no mistake: Suede did not get Beck's innovative songwriting gene. Tracks like "Ferris Wheel" are far too conventional and certainly won't win over serious fans of her brother's work.  Still, Suede got a nice assist from her (and Beck's) dad, noted composer-arranger David Campbell, who produced and co-wrote songs on "Back & White in Color," making the EP worth a listen. 

"Fallout" in particular shows potential; with impossibly understated minor-key string arrangements and Suede's measured vocals. But the rest of the offering reveals that Suede, who was once a competitive figure skater, may have spent more of her formative years listening to the Cranberries and Sarah McLachlan instead of her brother's work (not that there is anything wrong with Sarah McLachlan or the Cranberries, mind you). Regardless, Suede has chops that show promise in the future -- if paired with the right song, that is. 

--Charlie Amter

Photo: Maelstrom Music

This morning, a little bird (actually, a burly contractor in the front seat of a pickup truck) told us that all the construction happening next door to the Echo will yield some new and savvily target-marketed delights for eastside show-goers. The block will soon host a future-themed pizza parlor and an ice cream shop (which our epicurean colleagues over at the Daily Dish have more on). But a UPS package notice at the in-progress adjacent space at 1816 Sunset Blvd. had been left for an intriguing-sounding "Origami Music." The construction team working on the space told us that it would indeed be a record store, but we wonder if this has anything to do with the Echo Park-based record label Origami, which has local stalwarts Army Navy and Wait.Think.Fast. on its roster. We'll have more details after we put our bloodhounds on the trail, but for those kids still pouring one out for Sea Level Records, start holding out hope for a new income-sucker in the neighborhood.

(UPDATE: Looks like we guessed right! Neil from Origami confirms below.)

(SECOND UPDATE: Add to that stretch of Sunset Blvd. a forthcoming new/used bookstore and cafe, STORIES, in the old Sea Level Records space. STORIES is co-owned by Spaceland's Liz Garo, and they expect to open in late Oct.)

-- August Brown

Photo of the block by neighborhood n'er-do-well Jessica Gelt/Los Angeles Times

For those who grew up on hip-hop music in the late 1980s, Heavy D is a familiar name. The "money earnin'" Mount Vernon-raised rapper was a fixture on BET and urban radio stations nationwide, and scored crossover R&B hits with songs such as "Somebody for Me," "Now That We Found Love"
and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

Now, the onetime self-professed overweight lover (who has slimmed down considerably since topping the scales at 250 pounds back in the '80s) is tackling a new genre, reggae, with a full-length release, "Vibes," out Tuesday via iTunes. A physical release will follow in early 2009.

“If you go back and follow my career, you’ll see that I’ve always had reggae influences,” the rapper said earlier this month from his house in Beverly Hills. "I’ve always toyed with the idea of doing a full reggae album, but I wasn’t feeling I could live up to the standard."

With “Vibes,” Heavy D, born Dwight Errington Myers, has arguably lived up to the standard his fellow countrymen (Myers was born in Jamaica) demand from their top musicians. Tracks such as "Love You Like This" (stream a sample here of his collaboration with Barrington Levy) pulse with infectious rhythms that could fill a dance floor in a Kingston minute. 

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

T.I.'s 'Whatever You Like': The anthem of the bailout

My hubby Eric and I got into an argument about T.I. driving back from the Neil Diamond concert the other night. (I know, it's not typical to mix the Jewish Elvis and Atlanta's illest, but that's the poptimist life we lead.) "Paper Trail," Tip's sixth album, was in the car stereo, and we were admiring the shiny-sharp production from Drumma Boy, Toomp, Just Blaze and others, which sets up the rapper's coolly commanding flow on hit after soon-to-be hit -- the album's already produced three Billboard Top 100 winners, and it's been out only a week.

Foremost among T.I.'s current successes is "Whatever You Like," pop-rap's latest ode to throwing money around. The sing-song rap was produced by Jim Jonsin, who also coproduced Lil' Wayne's smash "Lollipop"; like that song, it's a rough guy's come-on, deceptively light in tone but with an undertow that represents its hero's driving need for conquest. With five nonconsecutive weeks topping the charts, it's T.I.'s most successful single ever.

It also just might be the perfect soundtrack for a nation in an economic tailspin.

Did you know Beck had a half-sister? Neither did we. 

And no, her name is not Debra. 

Well guess what? She is also a musician. Alyssa Suede, who shares a father with Beck, dropped her debut EP,  "Black & White in Color," this week (although technically it came out last month, according to her MySpace blog, where she previously posted that the disc was on sale at "this dope men's clothing store called Traffic" inside the Beverly Center). 

Make no mistake: Suede did not get Beck's innovative songwriting gene. Tracks like "Ferris Wheel" are far too conventional and certainly won't win over serious fans of her brother's work.  Still, Suede got a nice assist from her (and Beck's) dad, noted composer-arranger David Campbell, who produced and co-wrote songs on "Back & White in Color," making the EP worth a listen. 

"Fallout" in particular shows potential; with impossibly understated minor-key string arrangements and Suede's measured vocals. But the rest of the offering reveals that Suede, who was once a competitive figure skater, may have spent more of her formative years listening to the Cranberries and Sarah McLachlan instead of her brother's work (not that there is anything wrong with Sarah McLachlan or the Cranberries, mind you). Regardless, Suede has chops that show promise in the future -- if paired with the right song, that is. 

--Charlie Amter

Photo: Maelstrom Music

This morning, a little bird (actually, a burly contractor in the front seat of a pickup truck) told us that all the construction happening next door to the Echo will yield some new and savvily target-marketed delights for eastside show-goers. The block will soon host a future-themed pizza parlor and an ice cream shop (which our epicurean colleagues over at the Daily Dish have more on). But a UPS package notice at the in-progress adjacent space at 1816 Sunset Blvd. had been left for an intriguing-sounding "Origami Music." The construction team working on the space told us that it would indeed be a record store, but we wonder if this has anything to do with the Echo Park-based record label Origami, which has local stalwarts Army Navy and Wait.Think.Fast. on its roster. We'll have more details after we put our bloodhounds on the trail, but for those kids still pouring one out for Sea Level Records, start holding out hope for a new income-sucker in the neighborhood.

(UPDATE: Looks like we guessed right! Neil from Origami confirms below.)

(SECOND UPDATE: Add to that stretch of Sunset Blvd. a forthcoming new/used bookstore and cafe, STORIES, in the old Sea Level Records space. STORIES is co-owned by Spaceland's Liz Garo, and they expect to open in late Oct.)

-- August Brown

Photo of the block by neighborhood n'er-do-well Jessica Gelt/Los Angeles Times

For those who grew up on hip-hop music in the late 1980s, Heavy D is a familiar name. The "money earnin'" Mount Vernon-raised rapper was a fixture on BET and urban radio stations nationwide, and scored crossover R&B hits with songs such as "Somebody for Me," "Now That We Found Love"
and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

Now, the onetime self-professed overweight lover (who has slimmed down considerably since topping the scales at 250 pounds back in the '80s) is tackling a new genre, reggae, with a full-length release, "Vibes," out Tuesday via iTunes. A physical release will follow in early 2009.

“If you go back and follow my career, you’ll see that I’ve always had reggae influences,” the rapper said earlier this month from his house in Beverly Hills. "I’ve always toyed with the idea of doing a full reggae album, but I wasn’t feeling I could live up to the standard."

With “Vibes,” Heavy D, born Dwight Errington Myers, has arguably lived up to the standard his fellow countrymen (Myers was born in Jamaica) demand from their top musicians. Tracks such as "Love You Like This" (stream a sample here of his collaboration with Barrington Levy) pulse with infectious rhythms that could fill a dance floor in a Kingston minute. 

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Sister act: Meet Beck's little sis

Did you know Beck had a half-sister? Neither did we. 

And no, her name is not Debra. 

Well guess what? She is also a musician. Alyssa Suede, who shares a father with Beck, dropped her debut EP,  "Black & White in Color," this week (although technically it came out last month, according to her MySpace blog, where she previously posted that the disc was on sale at "this dope men's clothing store called Traffic" inside the Beverly Center). 

Make no mistake: Suede did not get Beck's innovative songwriting gene. Tracks like "Ferris Wheel" are far too conventional and certainly won't win over serious fans of her brother's work.  Still, Suede got a nice assist from her (and Beck's) dad, noted composer-arranger David Campbell, who produced and co-wrote songs on "Back & White in Color," making the EP worth a listen. 

"Fallout" in particular shows potential; with impossibly understated minor-key string arrangements and Suede's measured vocals. But the rest of the offering reveals that Suede, who was once a competitive figure skater, may have spent more of her formative years listening to the Cranberries and Sarah McLachlan instead of her brother's work (not that there is anything wrong with Sarah McLachlan or the Cranberries, mind you). Regardless, Suede has chops that show promise in the future -- if paired with the right song, that is. 

--Charlie Amter

Photo: Maelstrom Music

This morning, a little bird (actually, a burly contractor in the front seat of a pickup truck) told us that all the construction happening next door to the Echo will yield some new and savvily target-marketed delights for eastside show-goers. The block will soon host a future-themed pizza parlor and an ice cream shop (which our epicurean colleagues over at the Daily Dish have more on). But a UPS package notice at the in-progress adjacent space at 1816 Sunset Blvd. had been left for an intriguing-sounding "Origami Music." The construction team working on the space told us that it would indeed be a record store, but we wonder if this has anything to do with the Echo Park-based record label Origami, which has local stalwarts Army Navy and Wait.Think.Fast. on its roster. We'll have more details after we put our bloodhounds on the trail, but for those kids still pouring one out for Sea Level Records, start holding out hope for a new income-sucker in the neighborhood.

(UPDATE: Looks like we guessed right! Neil from Origami confirms below.)

(SECOND UPDATE: Add to that stretch of Sunset Blvd. a forthcoming new/used bookstore and cafe, STORIES, in the old Sea Level Records space. STORIES is co-owned by Spaceland's Liz Garo, and they expect to open in late Oct.)

-- August Brown

Photo of the block by neighborhood n'er-do-well Jessica Gelt/Los Angeles Times

For those who grew up on hip-hop music in the late 1980s, Heavy D is a familiar name. The "money earnin'" Mount Vernon-raised rapper was a fixture on BET and urban radio stations nationwide, and scored crossover R&B hits with songs such as "Somebody for Me," "Now That We Found Love"
and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

Now, the onetime self-professed overweight lover (who has slimmed down considerably since topping the scales at 250 pounds back in the '80s) is tackling a new genre, reggae, with a full-length release, "Vibes," out Tuesday via iTunes. A physical release will follow in early 2009.

“If you go back and follow my career, you’ll see that I’ve always had reggae influences,” the rapper said earlier this month from his house in Beverly Hills. "I’ve always toyed with the idea of doing a full reggae album, but I wasn’t feeling I could live up to the standard."

With “Vibes,” Heavy D, born Dwight Errington Myers, has arguably lived up to the standard his fellow countrymen (Myers was born in Jamaica) demand from their top musicians. Tracks such as "Love You Like This" (stream a sample here of his collaboration with Barrington Levy) pulse with infectious rhythms that could fill a dance floor in a Kingston minute. 

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Hey, a new Echo Park record store?

This morning, a little bird (actually, a burly contractor in the front seat of a pickup truck) told us that all the construction happening next door to the Echo will yield some new and savvily target-marketed delights for eastside show-goers. The block will soon host a future-themed pizza parlor and an ice cream shop (which our epicurean colleagues over at the Daily Dish have more on). But a UPS package notice at the in-progress adjacent space at 1816 Sunset Blvd. had been left for an intriguing-sounding "Origami Music." The construction team working on the space told us that it would indeed be a record store, but we wonder if this has anything to do with the Echo Park-based record label Origami, which has local stalwarts Army Navy and Wait.Think.Fast. on its roster. We'll have more details after we put our bloodhounds on the trail, but for those kids still pouring one out for Sea Level Records, start holding out hope for a new income-sucker in the neighborhood.

(UPDATE: Looks like we guessed right! Neil from Origami confirms below.)

(SECOND UPDATE: Add to that stretch of Sunset Blvd. a forthcoming new/used bookstore and cafe, STORIES, in the old Sea Level Records space. STORIES is co-owned by Spaceland's Liz Garo, and they expect to open in late Oct.)

-- August Brown

Photo of the block by neighborhood n'er-do-well Jessica Gelt/Los Angeles Times

For those who grew up on hip-hop music in the late 1980s, Heavy D is a familiar name. The "money earnin'" Mount Vernon-raised rapper was a fixture on BET and urban radio stations nationwide, and scored crossover R&B hits with songs such as "Somebody for Me," "Now That We Found Love"
and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

Now, the onetime self-professed overweight lover (who has slimmed down considerably since topping the scales at 250 pounds back in the '80s) is tackling a new genre, reggae, with a full-length release, "Vibes," out Tuesday via iTunes. A physical release will follow in early 2009.

“If you go back and follow my career, you’ll see that I’ve always had reggae influences,” the rapper said earlier this month from his house in Beverly Hills. "I’ve always toyed with the idea of doing a full reggae album, but I wasn’t feeling I could live up to the standard."

With “Vibes,” Heavy D, born Dwight Errington Myers, has arguably lived up to the standard his fellow countrymen (Myers was born in Jamaica) demand from their top musicians. Tracks such as "Love You Like This" (stream a sample here of his collaboration with Barrington Levy) pulse with infectious rhythms that could fill a dance floor in a Kingston minute. 

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Heavy D: Reggae's new champion

For those who grew up on hip-hop music in the late 1980s, Heavy D is a familiar name. The "money earnin'" Mount Vernon-raised rapper was a fixture on BET and urban radio stations nationwide, and scored crossover R&B hits with songs such as "Somebody for Me," "Now That We Found Love"
and "Gyrlz, They Love Me."

Now, the onetime self-professed overweight lover (who has slimmed down considerably since topping the scales at 250 pounds back in the '80s) is tackling a new genre, reggae, with a full-length release, "Vibes," out Tuesday via iTunes. A physical release will follow in early 2009.

“If you go back and follow my career, you’ll see that I’ve always had reggae influences,” the rapper said earlier this month from his house in Beverly Hills. "I’ve always toyed with the idea of doing a full reggae album, but I wasn’t feeling I could live up to the standard."

With “Vibes,” Heavy D, born Dwight Errington Myers, has arguably lived up to the standard his fellow countrymen (Myers was born in Jamaica) demand from their top musicians. Tracks such as "Love You Like This" (stream a sample here of his collaboration with Barrington Levy) pulse with infectious rhythms that could fill a dance floor in a Kingston minute. 

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Silversun Pickups need a couch to 'Swoon' onto

Speaking of flagship local indie rock bands, local fuzz fiends and inadvertent Lil' Wayne video peers Silversun Pickups have some details on their followup to their debut "Carnavas," which has sold a pretty astounding 350,000 copies so far. The new album, likely titled "Swoon," is due out early next year on Dangerbird with Dave Cooley again handling production duties in L.A. Early hints suggest that it will sport both the obligatory second-album string and horn arrangements, and if such a thing is possible, even more screaming on behalf of frontman Brian Aubert.

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Amanda Palmer: Dead or alive?

Amanda Palmer is best known as the vocalist for the darkly theatrical Dresden Dolls, the duo comprising herself and drummer Brian Viglione, but the Boston-based singer has embarked on a new artistic path with a remarkable solo album, released this week. Produced by Ben Folds, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” (Roadrunner) includes songs penned over the course of the last decade and a haunting cover of “What’s the Use of Wondrin’” from the musical “Carousel,” and it features plenty of the powerhouse vocal work fans have come to expect from the gothic attired performer.

As Palmer was preparing to embark on a European tour -- she’ll visit the Henry Fonda in December -- she took time to chat with us about what it was like to strike out on her own, the cathartic power of art and why having breakfast with Neil Gaiman, with whom she co-authored a book that accompanies the new release, was one of the highlights of her year.

-- Gina McIntyre

I think it’s interesting that you set out to make a solo record and wound up working with such a variety of collaborators on the album –- not just Ben Folds, but East Bay Ray who appears on the record, along with cellist Zoe Keating and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. How did that happen?

The earliest idea was to take this collection of piano ballads that I had kicking around and to just record them very straight. It was going to be a side-project of stray Dresden Dolls ballads, more or less. I thought, maybe I’ll record it in my apartment and keep this really low-fi. It was right around then that Ben Folds got in touch. He dropped a random fan mail to the Dresden Dolls website that someone forwarded to me. I wrote him back, and we got to talking. We met up a couple of months later in Australia, and I mentioned to him that I was going to start working on this solo record sometime soon, and one thing led to another really quickly. I headed down to [his recording studio in] Nashville not knowing what we were going to do but ready to put a lot of faith in Ben and let him lead the discussion. He did and he did a fantastic job.

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Soundtable on Pitchfork's negative review of the Airborne Toxic Event

Pitchfork Media posted a review Wednesday of the debut album from the Airborne Toxic Event, the next big Silver Lake band, according to gathering local legend, that will revive the sputtering indie rock scene. But not everyone's so convinced: Pitchfork's Ian Cohen gave it an abysmal 1.6 rating -- hey, at least it wasn't a monkey peeing into its own mouth, or is that better? -- and the first paragraph launched with a withering critique of the Los Feliz/Silver Lake scene at large.

On Thursday, TATE responded with an open letter on its website, stating, among other defensive moves, that "we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it."

Soundboard loves a good brouhaha so we started an e-mail discussion. Here are some excerpts. Weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments, if so inclined, but no pictures of animals doing anything but looking cute will be allowed.

-- Margaret Wappler

Margaret Wappler: OK, so here's the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review: "I probably couldn't get anyone here in Los Angeles to admit it, but the city lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way -- one both a little fresher than Spin cover stars Beck and Rilo Kiley and with more mainstream potential than the bands from the Smell. The onus would likely fall on the folkier, cuddlier Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene, but over the past three years it feels as if the area's bands have failed to rise to the occasion."

Let's hash this out. Do we think this critique of L.A. is fair? Are we desperate to run any indie band up the flagpole? Is it true that the Silver Lake/Los Feliz scene has failed to rise to the occasion? And finally, is Pitchfork instantly knocking down Airborne for being from L.A.?

Jessica Gelt: OK, I’m from this city and a card-carrying member of its incestuous so-called Silver Lake indie-rock scene and I’ll admit it: L.A. lacks a flagship upstart indie band and wants one in the worst way. 

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Viva Yiddish! Project is a glimpse at vintage L.A. music

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

Kanye West's new focus-grouped 'Love Lockdown'

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?"